I guess I could have stomped my feet complaining as a customer about this intrusion but I also come from the side of a budding developer (ha!, well some day). So I understand some steps need to be taken to thwart the bad guys. I too took a look at Pirate Bay and I must say out of the 100's of FS addons, I did not see a single on for FSDreamteam. That says something for their protection.

I have to note that if the above comment "says something for their protection", than I don't know what that something is. FSDreamteam products are being actively stolen through TPB. A quick search yielded 14 results. So in this example it would seem that their protection is only keeping the honest people honest. Hopefully none of the illegal downloads work and they're all filled with viruses.

Of course they are luxury, but does it mean that if I buy one I don't need support if it doesn't work? Because I don't need the addon? If the developer doesn't give a flying monkey about custome why the customer should be bothered about developer?Does anybodey from developers community wish to comment on all this EULA nonsense? Any explanations why they are what they are?

Hmm, there may be one or two FS Development houses who've earned their reputation for poor product support or poor business practice.I could name a few who've been hammered in the Avsim Forums for such behaviour so the community seems to regularly take them to task...I think you are saying that if a Development house doesn't care about product support then why not steal from them?If that is a misread then please point me in the correct direction.EULA use has been covered in this thread and is nothing more sinister than a (SOP) Standard Operating Procedure in the software development world.It is a proven legal tool which does offer protections for developers and customers alike. :(

Well here we go again. Another FS developer trying to send a message to pirates aggravating their legitimate customers. Their intentions may be well but the execution was not well thought out.http://fsaddon.eu/wpfsaddon/The Avsim thread discussing it:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=258553Todd

Hello,Another interesting article to read (for customers and devellopers)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_sale_doctrineRegards.Gus.

Well here we go again. Another FS developer trying to send a message to pirates aggravating their legitimate customers. Their intentions may be well but the execution was not well thought out.http://fsaddon.eu/wpfsaddon/The Avsim thread discussing it:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=258553Todd

I don't understand why anyone's aggravated by this. So the folks at FSAddon decided to post an anti-piracy message on there site. Why are any of there legitimate customers so aggravated by this? I suspect the sun will still come up tomorrow.

I don't understand why anyone's aggravated by this. So the folks at FSAddon decided to post an anti-piracy message on there site. Why are any of there legitimate customers so aggravated by this? I suspect the sun will still come up tomorrow.

The point of my post was for information only. I had just read that the OP of that thread was aggravated.Todd

Hello,

I clicked on the link this morning to look at Tongass Fjords FSX anddon. After people raving about it.The only problem is I was not shown the product like I wanted to see instead I was almost dressed down by their comment on software theft which I don't do. I know it must be a problem it just seems that somebody that would take the time to follow a link like I did is not their problem just my 2 cents FSAaddon it really turned me off. It may cost you sales.

Bold edit myself.The prob for the OP was cliking a link to a product and as result be on a page with a statement about piracy.I name this a scam.Regards.Gus.

is this thread a record for avsim? 12 pages...?

Hello,Bold edit myself.The prob for the OP was cliking a link to a product and as result be on a page with a statement about piracy.I name this a scam.Regards.Gus.

I just checked the link. The link takes you to the main page, not the product page. Thus the product wouldn't have been 'visible' anyway. There is a link to the right side of the page to take you to the products.Much ado about nothing.

I really believe it's a non-issue anyway; just something for people to complain about. How could that anti-piracy message adversely affect any legitimate customers?

I really believe it's a non-issue anyway; just something for people to complain about. How could that anti-piracy message adversely affect any legitimate customers?

N400QW: I never said that because there's no support I should be allowaed to download an illegel copy. But let's look at the issue from customer perspective (real story). I bought an addon for 50$. On official website it says it works with 32/64 Xp and Vista, no issues whatsoever. I had Vista 64 and half of the time I used this addon about 15 minutes into the flight I got a message: Wrong authorisation, you obviously didn't buy the product, terminating. That happened to me and numerous other people running Vista 64. I reported this issue on support forum, at the moment this topic is 2 pages long and there's not a single answer from the developer. Nothing to acknowledge the problem, or that it will be fixed. And when I wrote that I think he doesn't care anymore I got a PM from forum moderator asking me not to write it again and that developer is otherwise busy. I also suggested to correct FAQ and inform that the product may not work properly with Vista (which has not been done). Only solution is reinstalling and hoping it will be OK for couple flights. Or swithing to XP or Win7 (it works with no problems on Win7RC).The bottom line is: I paid 50$ and the program terminates and tells me I'm a thief and developers doesn't seem to care. If I pirated it I'd have the same problem (or maybe not, I don't know how well it's cracked), I'd still get a message that I'm a thief but at least it would be true :).So what message does it sent to potential buyer? Give me 50$ and if something goes wrong and you can't use it don't bother me? to me this attitude is just telling people to go and download illegel copy, because what do you get for being legal? Product that doesn't work as advertised and no help from developer.To add more to this story. People who bought it recently complain on the forum for not getting unlock keys for a week or two (apperently he has to send them himself). That's anothe message to potential customer to get illegal copy.Should I be sorry for him? I don't think so.

virtuali: let's say all your points are valid. how do you explain then that in day of premiere a game costs 45.95 and 2-3 weeks later the price starts to go down? If the costs are so high why the price goes down in relativly short time? Because there's still a profit margain? if it can be sold for 35.94 a month after release why it couldn't be sold at this price from the beginnig? Because lots of people buy games just after release to have them right away and developes want to cash on that.

There's always an explanation and, as usual, reality is far more complex than it looks.You don't have any idea about how brutal the videogaming retail market is: publishers have to PAY to take shelf space. Also, publishers do things like co-marketing initiatives, which means giving promotional material, syncronize release date to mount the hype, and even releasing on specific date, to cripple the competitor's releases (like, for example, Zelda for the Wii that was released the same day as the PS3 launch in the US)Sometimes, instead of asking actual money to the developer for putting the product on the shelves, the retailer will ask something like "Ok, we'll sell it at 60 EUR the first 2 week. If it doesn't sell well, we'll put it at 50 and if still doesn't sell, we'll put it at 30", which also mean, the publisher will need to credit back the difference, or take the software back. The alternative would be not being put on store shelves, which means total commercial failure.Also, there's the big quarrel of the used games. Retailers like Gamestop are making FAR more money selling used games than new ones. Reason is quite simple: they sell you a brand new game on release date at, let's say, 60 EUR. You play for 2 week, finish it and give it back to exchange it with a new one, getting something like 35 EUR of credit if you buy *another* brand new 60 EUR game. Your game will be put on sale as used game for 50 EUR. So, they made the first profit by selling you the first game at full price, they are making another profit selling you another game at full price, because they value games more if you don't want cash, and they make a third profit, be reselling your used game with a very high markup.So, having made so much money with a single customer, they can obviously afford to discount a game some time after release BECAUSE, it's obvious that, as soon as they start discounting, they'll start to offer 10 EUR instead of 35 when buying that one to be resold so, the whole thing it's just a matter of smart stock rotation and efficent handling of second hand against new.In fact, this business has become so big in the last years, that many developers are now questioning about the legality of sell used games. There are countries, like Japan (which has a strong tradition in videogaming), were selling second hand games is *forbidden* by law...And, if the price drop is decided by the publisher, the retailer will always be credited back so, he will never have to sell at loss.

He also said that if sales are good all further games will be sold at higher starting price. Isn't that greed?

No, it's the oldest market rule that exists: the price of a good is NOT related to its production cost, but what the market is prepared to pay for it. These are not necessity items like bread or water, you can't complain about price, you simply don't buy it, if you are not prepared to pay for it, and the price will go down, eventually.

What about EULAs? You have to agree to it before you install but you can't read it before purchase. What if you don't agree with some parts of it? Can you get it back to the store? Not in UK I'm afraid. Games are sold AS IS in UK. If it doesn't work: tough luck, if it crashes your system: tough luck and so on. In any other industry something like that would mean an end to the producer. Not in software industry. It's not only the price that drives people to piracy. Buggy games, short games ( and I mean really short, 2-3 hours to finish recent NFS), no support, it all comes together.

This is an issue which is mostly relevant to PC games. The crashing problems are ALWAYS due to the multiple hardware configurations, which are not a problem on consoles, and bugged product sold unfinished, are *mostly* a problem of PC games because, since console games need to be approved, there's a stronger quality control. And, of course, BECAUSE they are both more expensive AND targeted to a mass market audience, there's IS more budget to do much serious testing, which is something that developers of PC-only games are not able to afford anymore.That's why the videogaming market, at least the big names (INCLUDING Microsoft) IS moving towards console games. More money, more customers, less problems.

Would you buy anything which was sold like that? So why do we buy software? It's a miracle people still buy games with terms like that. I know nobody actually read that, but if something happens to your system you're just hanged dry be the developer.

That's why we firmly believe in Trial version, which are the only way for an user to be sure the software WILL match his expectations.

I have to note that if the above comment "says something for their protection", than I don't know what that something is. FSDreamteam products are being actively stolen through TPB. A quick search yielded 14 results. So in this example it would seem that their protection is only keeping the honest people honest.

It has been already said that, we know at a certain point, any software will be cracked.However, this is not a problem because, as you can clearly see, the cracked versions are only the oldest product, that took from 9 to 12 months to be cracked. It makes an HUGE difference being cracked 0-day, like with most of the other addons out there, and being cracked 9 months after release. Most of the sales are happening during the first 3 months anyway...This because the protection is designed to not to work anymore, as soon as something like even a small update is released and, of course, when new products are released.So, people that tried to download those cracks (those that works, because lots are fakes), wil soon realize they are forever cut out from updates and new products. You should have also mentioned, that you CAN'T find cracks for our recent products like KFLL and KLAS.Maybe they'll appear in a few months, who knows. But the issue is, we just don't care because, by that time, we'll have released new products and new updates for the old ones, that would make those cracks useless anyway.People now know that, that's why, in our case, we can safely say that, those downloading pirate copies are REALLY not "lost sales" because, if one is really prepared to use the product with such heavy limitations (can't update the existing products, can't install the new ones), he wasn't really interested in the scenery in the first place.