x-plane marketing opinion

[tkyler 88]

As x-plane begins to grow a bit more mature, there's some behavior going on in the x-plane community that while I'm sure is no different than anywhere else...(because people are people), I'm curious as to how others might view if IF they're affected by it. Is it shrewd business practices? or shady business practices?The issue is simple...x-plane.org is an "organizaton" web site, begun and grown by the community who relied on it to find out all things x-plane. It has become the epicenter of x-plane information. You'll find tons of freeware and news of the best freeware and new payware offerings. What you WON'T find...is much information about payware offerings that are NOT available through the x-plane.org store. Now some of the best developers for x-plane are finding that the terms and services offered by the x-plane.org store are not to their liking and choose to market their products on their own. When this happens, the current trend demonstrates that these products are not welcome on x-plane.org...not even a mention or screenshot of them...under threat of banning. As a "consolation" or an "out" by the org management, they are usually offered a small banner ad....which is supposed to demonstrate fairness to all who would want to market there....but these advertisers do not get premium marketing and exposure as do the vendors who sell through the x-plane.org store.So then...is this shrewd business or a bit shady? My contention is that as a *.org, aligned with x-plane.com to promote x-plane in general, they are not holding to this standard and exhibiting discriminatory behavior for the sake of cornering the market. I must stress here, that as a payware developer, I am NOT trying to gain an upper hand, but am subscribing to free-market economy where only the merits of my product are put forth for consideration by consumers..and that every other competitor get the same opportunity. I don't see that happening and in my opinion, is hampering the growth of x-plane. I put this question to avsim users because I have been in the x-plane world for over 10 years and honestly don't see x-plane in the same perspective as new users. I am passionate about this work though...(sad isn't it) and for the first time in 10 years...feel like I have to take some uneasy pro-active steps to help foster x-plane growth...both as a developer AND as a avid user. So I guess my basic questions are: 1.) If you are a new user to x-plane..and go to x-plane.org to find out what's available...how would you feel if some of the best products for x-plane were NOT there for you to find? ...and when you went to x-plane.org...were you expecting to get impartial information, and if so, why?

[Geofa 108]

As x-plane begins to grow a bit more mature, there's some behavior going on in the x-plane community that while I'm sure is no different than anywhere else...(because people are people), I'm curious as to how others might view if IF they're affected by it. Is it shrewd business practices? or shady business practices?The issue is simple...x-plane.org is an "organizaton" web site, begun and grown by the community who relied on it to find out all things x-plane. It has become the epicenter of x-plane information. You'll find tons of freeware and news of the best freeware and new payware offerings. What you WON'T find...is much information about payware offerings that are NOT available through the x-plane.org store. Now some of the best developers for x-plane are finding that the terms and services offered by the x-plane.org store are not to their liking and choose to market their products on their own. When this happens, the current trend demonstrates that these products are not welcome on x-plane.org...not even a mention or screenshot of them...under threat of banning. As a "consolation" or an "out" by the org management, they are usually offered a small banner ad....which is supposed to demonstrate fairness to all who would want to market there....but these advertisers do not get premium marketing and exposure as do the vendors who sell through the x-plane.org store.So then...is this shrewd business or a bit shady? My contention is that as a *.org, aligned with x-plane.com to promote x-plane in general, they are not holding to this standard and exhibiting discriminatory behavior for the sake of cornering the market. I must stress here, that as a payware developer, I am NOT trying to gain an upper hand, but am subscribing to free-market economy where only the merits of my product are put forth for consideration by consumers..and that every other competitor get the same opportunity. I don't see that happening and in my opinion, is hampering the growth of x-plane. I put this question to avsim users because I have been in the x-plane world for over 10 years and honestly don't see x-plane in the same perspective as new users. I am passionate about this work though...(sad isn't it) and for the first time in 10 years...feel like I have to take some uneasy pro-active steps to help foster x-plane growth...both as a developer AND as a avid user. So I guess my basic questions are: 1.) If you are a new user to x-plane..and go to x-plane.org to find out what's available...how would you feel if some of the best products for x-plane were NOT there for you to find? ...and when you went to x-plane.org...were you expecting to get impartial information, and if so, why?

I gave up on xplane.org for the very reasons you mention and I suspect that many other new users would do the same.

[tkyler 88]

well I feel that there is probably a HUGE contingent of x-plane users who are not active on forums as we are and not aware of other sites, nor will look for them...so then the org is their best chance at finding what they want at this time. For example...some of the best airliner sims reside at xplanefreeware, but you'd be hard pressed to find that out....see these quotes from x-plane.org managment regarding the xplane freeware site"..But I do not want anyone to use .org forums divert the discussion or members to another forum..."or this quote..."..I still do not understand why you need to promote your forum to everyone.." Now that last one is a funny one and basically says it all. "why do you want to promote your forum"...when the org only wants people on theirs...talk about a self-answering question. is the greed that blinding?So the community who built the org can't even go there and tell their fellow x-planer's about other cool stuff they've found without their posts getting deleted. Our (future developers that is) only recourse is to make sure everybody in the community knows about other options, hence my postings here. I apologize for being the crusader here...if you aleady know me and my message, feel free to ignore.

[Murmur 3,941]

So I guess my basic questions are: 1.) If you are a new user to x-plane..and go to x-plane.org to find out what's available...how would you feel if some of the best products for x-plane were NOT there for you to find? ...and when you went to x-plane.org...were you expecting to get impartial information, and if so, why?

Hi Tom,you bring up interesting questions, I for one was not aware of this specific issue with X-Plane.org and payware vendors.I think it's their right to allow "prime time" exposure only to affiliated payware vendors. On the other hand, I find this behaviour somewhat unpleasant if compared to other flight-sim websites (for example AVSIM, where every vendor can have an announcement on the main page).The fact that the X-Plane forum on AVSIM is still so lifeless, IMHO is an indication that X-Plane diffusion is still negligible compared to MSFS. If X-Plane will gain momentum in the near future, it's likely there will be much more "action" on this forum and AVSIM will devote increasing resources (reviews, etc.) to X-Plane.In this case, X-Plane.org will have a strong competition, and in the long run "hiding" valid 3rd party add-ons will certainly be counter-productive for the .org.On a related side-note, as I already said in the past, although X-Plane.org forums are the only place where you can find answers to just about everything related to X-Plane, I find that the attitude of a lot of its members, is driving new users away from X-Plane. AVSIM forums are generally more friendly.Marco

[Guest LCSims]

I was just passing through and though not using XP, I do own it (9.2 something?). When I did have it installed, I visited the site mentioned and found it unwelcoming. I'm not a posting machine, so I found myself locked out of the downloads, as I had yet to reach the magical number (15?) for download access. Posting "That's nice" 15 times wasn't my style.Laminar could well mimic Microsoft by having a links or partners page at their main site, with a standard disclaimer that it does not imply anything. That way new forums and developers could have visibility and the competition could do "The .Org" some good. XP is a complex and unintuitive program to utilize. A lot of new users will be coming from the Microsoft franchise, which is also a Windows based environment. Say what you will about Windows, but once you learn a few of the basic steps they will serve you across many programs. Now here sits XP with a Mac-centric interface and too many people will get lost, confused, frustrated and give up. I'm geeky enough to get into the nitty, gritty minutea of menus and the sorts, but 95% of the world just wants something to work and they don't care how. When it doesn't, they want some place to turn to so that they can ask the same question that's been asked 197 times and counting.There are barriers and hurdles the XP community must overcome. Whether they see them or not is another topic for discussion.

[Aerodynamic 0]

I am a somewhat new user to X-Plane and I feel that there is a bright future for the platform. There are many things that it does better than Microsoft's offerings. (I own X-Plane 9 and all Microsoft Flight Simulators from 98 to FSX.) The main drawback to me for X-Plane is the lack of detailed aircraft. Most aircraft for X-Plane border on FS2000-level quality. There are finally some works in progress that seem to indicate that X-Plane has is "catching up" to the other choices. X-Plane won't notice significant growth unless that happens - but there is a great opportunity now with the flight sim community "below minimums."As for the original question, I view xplane.org as an "Avsim" for X-Plane. I find the site easy to use and quite resourceful, but I don't think it has established itself as the place to go for things that MSFS converts will flock to. Perhaps that will change if the freeware quality improves and if the user base grows.As for payware, I think that developers should just sell the products on their own web site. At this point, the word will spread quickly if someone develops anything in X-Plane that rivals payware offerings for Flight Simulator. Ever since I bought X-plane, I have paid for one aircraft (Jason Chandler's Cirrus) and have been following the development of the XPJets 777 and 757 and a CRJ-200 by J. Rollon. These aircraft all have promise and show that X-Plane is a contender. That said, the development of the XPJets 757 and 777 have literally taken forever (757 previews go back to June of 2007) and are not even close to being done from what I can tell.X-Plane needs more payware aircraft developers so that the development is faster than the current pace! As long as there is a nice product available, I don't really care what site I have to go to pay for it. The point is, it has to be there first! :( My .02,Scott

[Guest Callmecapt]

Just to jump in here and let the x plane users know, if you want to keep up with events in the xpjets camp, they have a forum at www.x-pilot.com.You will also find support for Tom Kylers MU 2, info on the upcoming CRJ 200 as well as other things.Goran

[ryanbatc 12,832]

I also think devs should have their own product pages. Forum managers pay for the forum bandwidth. So I mostly agree that advertisements should be kept to a minimum by developers (in forums)