Comments?

Yeah, he's guessing. 30%? There are online stores in flight simulation today that take a bigger cut than that.

30% commission is around the rate that a lot of online FS vendors charge. But reading the post by rsrandazzo (PMDG) it sounds like there was more of an issue with control over their product, including end pricing, marketing and having to license their own product to sell outside of the MS marketplace. Now I can understand the licensing if it is just to make sure MS still get their 30% cut when 3PDs sell their products at brick and mortar stores but I don't understand why they would want control over pricing and marketing.MS seems to think they can waltz in after abandoning the industry and take full control over the market 3PDs have worked hard to establish, bit of an arrogant approach, but then 3PDs might not being completely flexible either (just speculation) and would prefer business as usual when there may be a compromise for both parties somewhere in the middle.

I would happily settle on 20% commission to MS after the first US$25,000 at 30%, which is the deal MS offers to Windows Phone 7 third party developers. After all, there is little to no cost of marketing if Flight gains a global audience under the Xbox Live umbrella.Problem is, nothing like that has been, or was ever offered to developers. Sorry if you think we baulked at commission rates, because discussion never ever got to that point. They mostly sounded out companies like Orbx etc to see how much we would charge to make FTX style regions for them for different parts of the world. They must have gotten a reality check when I quoted them on the costs, because I never head back.I think MS had no idea just how expensive it is to make FTX regions - no clue at all. This is the reason why you have Hawaii only at what appears to be something like FTX landclass style; but I am sure that is all the budget they were given to make for the initial release, because I know damn well how expensive it is to do right.Don't hold your breath for other regions around the world that look like Hawaii for sale in their online store - not unless they re-use all those textures from Hawaii again.Somewhere along the line they lost their way with the big picture once they realised what it would cost to do the whole world FTX style.The whole Flight project is so poorly funded it is laughable. I think what happened is once they sold ESP rights to Lockheed, some VP thought they could monetize the code further, and gave someone a bucket of money to go make something with the FSX source code. Problem is, that bucket is about as much as 1% of the daily interest from cash in MS's bank account, that's how little they thought of the idea.

Don't hold your breath for other regions around the world that look like Hawaii for sale in their online store - not unless they re-use all those textures from Hawaii again.

I am sure you are right on that. Of course MS will release tiny regions only like Cayman islands, South Pole weather station neighborhood etc.. so the interest will cease sooner rather than later.I just hope the gorgeous ORBX will take a bit care also about Europe sceneries for FSX :(

Edited January 7, 201214 yr by Mark II

Of course, we're setting up new EU offices in the UK as we speak. We had to grow our company slowly to expand to that point, but even doubling our regions teams from one to two still does not mean we'll cover the world in a few years. It takes time and money to do it right. MS should have been more transparent about that from the beginning.

Of course, we're setting up new EU offices in the UK as we speak. We had to grow our company slowly to expand to that point, but even doubling our regions teams from one to two still does not mean we'll cover the world in a few years. It takes time and money to do it right. MS should have been more transparent about that from the beginning.

I am really glad to hear that so I wish you all the best !Cheers

Problem is, nothing like that has been, or was ever offered to developers. Sorry if you think we baulked at commission rates, because discussion never ever got to that point.

Thanks for the further insight John, it was just pure speculation on my part.

Microsoft asked FS2Crew how much to make a Voice Control addon for 'Flight'.And I replied...

Never heard back from them after that...