3rd Party Devs and Flight.

[ErnieAlston 33]

I guess all should be revealed after the 29th when the NDA's expire. All we know is the two devs that have come out and said no.Eveyone else is still on the cards. Until they come out and say they won't develop for Flight, they could be in. It's a guessing game till the 29th.

The two that said no may be saying no now, but that doesn't mean they won't get involved later on if the DLC market takes off.Regards.Ernie.

[alainneedle1 97]

The two that said no may be saying no now, but that doesn't mean they won't get involved later on if the DLC market takes off.Regards.Ernie.

If you were MS and after reading what was said about you (breaking the NDA at the same time) would you think twice about selling his or their products in your store....just saying.... Edited February 7, 2012 by alainneedle1

[Barnstormer1 0]

Seems the DLC market has been and always will be the key to Flights overall success. What came first, the egg or the chicken scenerio. As far as MS shutting out anybody. I do not know how true that is? I do know some have chosen not to participate "at this time". I respect Ernies opinions. He's didn't just fall off the turnip truck :)

Edited February 7, 2012 by Barnstormer1

[dighost 25]

Why would MS want to allow any third party content?? They obviously want to keep it all in-house. Plus then they won't have the hassle of management and tracking sales, paying the third parties, dealing with updates and patches, etc.

[Barnstormer1 0]

Why would MS want to allow any third party content?? They obviously want to keep it all in-house. Plus then they won't have the hassle of management and tracking sales, paying the third parties, dealing with updates and patches, etc.

Still more questions that answers. The secracy is what I find the oddest aspect of it all. I know its MS.

[anthony31 63]

Why would MS want to allow any third party content?? They obviously want to keep it all in-house. Plus then they won't have the hassle of management and tracking sales, paying the third parties, dealing with updates and patches, etc.

Let's see, 3rd party developer has to employ someone/some people for 6 months to make an addon and receive 70% of the sales as well as run the risk of the addon not selling enough to recoup labour and other costs (or even worse, the addon not passing MS certification and not being sold at all and after all that work!).On the other hand, MS has to handle tracking sales and payments (which they already have the systems in place for and are quite capable of doing) and take a nice fat 30% of the sales all for less than 30 minutes of work a month. No risk, no costs.

[Rush1169 0]

Let's see, 3rd party developer has to employ someone/some people for 6 months to make an addon and receive 70% of the sales as well as run the risk of the addon not selling enough to recoup labour and other costs (or even worse, the addon not passing MS certification and not being sold at all and after all that work!).On the other hand, MS has to handle tracking sales and payments (which they already have the systems in place for and are quite capable of doing) and take a nice fat 30% of the sales all for less than 30 minutes of work a month. No risk, no costs.

The 'risk of the addon not selling enough [to make a profit]' is true with or without Microsoft and having MS look over your code to make sure you're not going to mess up 1M installations is not a bad thing.'Fat 30% of sales' is actually pretty cheap - not only do you get the commerce solution, but the most important thing is you get incredibly, enviously targeted marketing of your product with 99% viewing and one-click purchasing and installation ease. It makes WAY more sense to forgo 30% so your business can make planes and NOT have to hire marketing, distribution, collections, and other personel just to make only some people aware of your product and hope that a fraction of that fraction actually go out of their way to buy it and then hope you've hired enough support people to help with installation and to moderate your support forum. . .Really, 30% is a bargain for 3PDs.

[anthony31 63]

I think you missed my point Mr Rush.I was responding to dighost who was stating that Microsoft wouldn't want any 3rd party developers.I am stating that MS would like 3rd party devs because:a) the investment in development costs is borne by the 3rd party dev;b ) the risk of not getting a return on investment is borne by the 3rd party dev andc) MS get a nice fat 30% for doing not very much work on they're end.There is a good reason Apple have the same business model with their app store and that is why Apple makes a shed load of money. It's also why MS will be setting up their own app store with Windows 8.

Edited February 7, 2012 by anthony31

[frankla 44]

I think you missed my point Mr Rush.I was responding to dighost who was stating that Microsoft wouldn't want any 3rd party developers.I am stating that MS would like 3rd party devs because:a) the investment in development costs is borne by the 3rd party dev;b ) the risk of not getting a return on investment is borne by the 3rd party dev andc) MS get a nice fat 30% for doing not very much work on they're end.There is a good reason Apple have the same business model with their app store and that is why Apple makes a shed load of money. It's also why MS will be setting up their own app store with Windows 8.

d) MS can't do it all itself

[dtrjones 356]

You've evidently never heard of, or believed in, consumer rights.Cheers,- jahman.

Awesome!! So what you going to do, drag MS and PMDG in a room together point a turbo prop at there faces and demand they make sweet music, uh maybe I've just read your statement wrong, but that aint going to work :( ! Edited February 7, 2012 by dtrjones

[Rush1169 0]

I think you missed my point Mr Rush.

Oops. Yes I did. Sorry. I think we agree.

[Guest russellbdavis]

I seriously doubt there will be any 3rd party developers. I'm on the beta, MS is completely behind ALL DLC.

[drumsonly2002 3]

So much for a quality Helicopter. What are they thinking? Glad it's free.

[ViperPilot 81]

The 'risk of the addon not selling enough [to make a profit]' is true with or without Microsoft and having MS look over your code to make sure you're not going to mess up 1M installations is not a bad thing.'Fat 30% of sales' is actually pretty cheap - not only do you get the commerce solution, but the most important thing is you get incredibly, enviously targeted marketing of your product with 99% viewing and one-click purchasing and installation ease. It makes WAY more sense to forgo 30% so your business can make planes and NOT have to hire marketing, distribution, collections, and other personel just to make only some people aware of your product and hope that a fraction of that fraction actually go out of their way to buy it and then hope you've hired enough support people to help with installation and to moderate your support forum. . .Really, 30% is a bargain for 3PDs.

If I'm not mistaken, there were other factors for 3rd party developers not to get involved with MS and Flight; the biggest one having to do with the 3rd party developer having to surrender their software code and IP to MS in order to provide add ons. As i recall that was something that many of the 3rd party developers had a very hard time accepting, and led to many of them pulling out of developing for Flight.It's my very humble opinion that unless MS releases an SDK for Flight there will be no way for 3rd party developers to create add on software for the Base Package. Of course, it's in Microsoft's best interest to keep everything in house in order to maximize profits and a continual influx of cash.In essence, it will be left up to Microsoft to pick up the slack, and produce DLC that is on par with what 3rd party developers have created. The question is... can they do it?

[OzWhitey 3,353]

I seriously doubt there will be any 3rd party developers. I'm on the beta, MS is completely behind ALL DLC.

Russell, i'm not expecting independent developers to sell their products directly, but am wondering if any of the DLC that MS is planning will come from the more famous names in the world of FSX. We know MS was initially planning to work with outside developers from what PMDG and Orbx have said. I can understand those at the real cutting edge - eg PMDG - being very reluctant to let go of their proprietary IP. But if you're a mid-tier developer who is basically just using MS's SDK to build your product, I can imagine it would be pretty tempting to get on board. Particularly if Flight proves popular. FSX addons is a vibrant but fairly small niche market, if Flight goes 'mainstream gamer' (not saying that it will btw), then there'd be serious money to be made.