I'm thankful McPhat provided the 737-NGX liveries and was happy to pass through their webpage to 'Like' it. I also didn't mind at all looking for the code in the YouTube video....no big deal...it gives them more views and helps promote their work. Pretty standard social media marketing for a modern company. I'm surprised so many people either reject their want for exposure or simply don't understand it, or that so many users here don't even participate in social media. Interesting (and certainly fully their prerogative to do as they like- including shunning companies and products trying to promote themselves in social media).

First of all, if this time my response is deleted, I won't be posting anything here again.

 

First about the PMDG - McPhat issue. We have a contract with PMDG (or at least an early green light to work on the project). When we e-mailed the guys at PMDG just to make sure everything was ok to start selling, everything went silent from PMDG side. After that, when people started asking what happened at the PMDG forum, an official statement came in which McPhat Studios was put down as if McPhat was being dishonest. As far as I know this is both breech of agreement and slander...

 

About people not having Facebook:

At the moment we started this, we expected that almost (99.99%) has Facebook. However there are also a lot of people that don't have Facebook. If the guys who are interested in the Delta livery post a message on our forum, we will make sure you get the code.

About people not willing to watch the videos:

It suprises me that you guys can wait to see the download bar progress from 0% to 100%, but are not willing to enjoy a video meanwhile. Remember that on the NGX in particular we spent a lot of money and manhours. Is it really too much to watch a 2 minutes clip then? McPhat Studios is not a big company, but we have a variety of freeware liveries. Those freeware liveries meet the high standards which we also have on our paid projects. A lot of companies don't even do freeware, or bring freeware with a lower quality standard or force you to buy some packages in order for your freeware to be built into something realistic. At McPhat we don't do that, we give you a full bumped and specced livery, with high quality diffuse textures and night textures, all for free. Is it really that much asked to watch a 120 second s clip (also take in mind we worked months on this, sometimes almost working a full 24 hours).

 

Answer on the following question:

Don't these ultra HD paints look shimmery from a normal distance because all the lines are so close together anyway?

No, they don't. Before we started doing HD textures, we investigated this and found ourselves a way to tackle this problem.

 

Ofcourse everybody has his/her own opinion on whether or not these textures look realistic. I am not going to judge about other painters, nor do I know any 'big' painter for FSX. But what I do know is that a lot of people in our team see a lot of different planes, from a lot of different angles, during day, dusk, dawn and night, almost daily. It would really surprise me if these people don't know how the surface of a plane looks and reflects in different light conditions.

 

For the people who are willing to fly the Delta livery and don't have facebook: Drop us a forum post on the McPhat forum, and we will get you a code.

Thanks Al for explaining, I can see your point although I still need to make my own mind up. I have no artistic bone in my body though unless any rare person considers a computer programs code as art :)

 

I do like my ERJs and EJets though and they do look like the real thing to my eye anyway.

 

I haven't had time to get individual paints much because so much other tweaking and learning of planes takes alot of time, the mcphat liveries save me this time being in one package, time being more valuable than money at my age.

 

McPhat thanks for posting. I was very curious about the PMDG issue and even mildly annoyed because I wanted the package.

 

In these situations it's hard to know who to believe. While I do love what PMDG do, and the J41 and NGX that I own, I have noticed their disputes that have held back or disrupted other addon companies. In my short time here I have seen PMDG have disputes with GoFlight, MCE, and McPhat. Sure there may be good reasons, but we don't get visibility of that.

 

I hope they contact McPhat who appears above to say they "went silent".

 

The first two disputes being resolved, I hope they do resolve the final one because it's a small world for FS developers and it's generally not lucrative enough to make a good dollar anyway compared to other lines of business.

 

I'll still buy their 777 and DC-6 though as I expect the same standard they will be excellent addons as usual, no matter how they get on with other kids in the playground :)

First of all, if this time my response is deleted, I won't be posting anything here again.

 

Perhaps is was deleted because you should be posting as a commercial member here?

First of all, if this time my response is deleted, I won't be posting anything here again.

 

First about the PMDG - McPhat issue. We have a contract with PMDG (or at least an early green light to work on the project). When we e-mailed the guys at PMDG just to make sure everything was ok to start selling, everything went silent from PMDG side. After that, when people started asking what happened at the PMDG forum, an official statement came in which McPhat Studios was put down as if McPhat was being dishonest. As far as I know this is both breech of agreement and slander...

 

Dhierin

 

Your version of the facts is...well... awfully one-sided. It will probably not surprise you to learn that our version is factually significantly different. If your version was given to you by someone else, then you may want to mention to them that they are incorrect.

 

We were more than happy to work with you all and even absorbed the cost of having a commercial vendors contract drafted for you, since McPhat did not have legal counsel upon which to rely. I forwarded this contract to you all for comment and feedback, then followed up with it numerous times without reply.

 

When we finally did hear from you all, it was an abusive communication that was partnered with some public pronouncements by McPhat assailing the quality of our products. Since we were on the verge of helping to bring a significant stream of revenue into McPhat's coffers- this seemed like an unlikely way to treat a partner in the business relationship and we retracted our offer.

 

It is an interesting window into the true mindset and nature McPhat that you guys feel it is acceptable to violate the EULA of a fellow developer while simultaneously demanding respect in the community. If you stop and consider for a moment that we developers are a TINY community- and you guys are essentially declaring open-season on the intellectual property rights of a peer- that is a pretty scary proposition. PMDG (and I dare say, the vast majority of the rest of the developers in our community) would go to the wall to protect your intellectual property- but somehow McPhat feels it is okay that the method you are currently using to distribute your liveries for the NGX *VIOLATES THE EULA FOR THE PMDG 737NGX, our paintkit and our livery installer....

 

Makes it kind of hard to take you guys seriously, now, doesn't it?

 

Edit After Posting: Dhierin, I don't mean to beat up on you personally- as I recognize this isn't *your* battle- but we work extremely hard to open our products up to as many users and vendors as we can- and it rubs the wrong way to see misinformation put out. We are open to working with *all* vendors, *including* McPhat- but at the very foundation of any working relationship there has to be trust, respect, integrity and decency. I tried and tried and tried to make it work with you guys- and I'd be happy to try again- but without trust, respect, integrity and decency- it just won't work...

C'mon kiss and makeup guys :)

 

I wasn't aware there were contracts needed for repaints but I guess if that's the case it's probably not going to be sorted any time soon.

 

Thanks for putting it out in the open though, it clears the mystery up.

 

 

C'mon kiss and makeup guys :)

 

This is unfortunate. This has happened a bit lately, if anyone else catches my drift.

what Robert said

 

Oh dear, snap :LMAO:

Thanks Al for explaining, I can see your point although I still need to make my own mind up.

 

Yes absolutely, make your own mind up about it, and if you happen think I'm talking utter nonsense and you or anyone else loves their repaints, as indeed many do, then that's great, all opinions on the matter are valid as far as I'm concerned. It's a case of 'whatever floats your boat'.

 

With regard to the other matter brought up here - the more business related one - I wasn't going to bring that one up myself, as I'm not involved with them from a business standpoint, although being on the Avsim Team (which is another reason why I was inclined to tread carefully), I'm certainly aware of such rumblings and have been for years. But if that hasn't exactly put me off, then it has certainly not helped in endearing McPhat to me. One can only hope it can be resolved, but there are a few egos involved from what I have surmised; we've seen how destructive that can be, and the negative impact it can have on flight sim endeavours before.

 

Al

I'm surprised so many people either reject their want for exposure

 

We aren't rejecting their need for exposure. Every commercial business wants exposure.

Some of us are rejecting the method they're using to get exposure.

 

If the product is good, it will speak for itself. A FB "like" button push doesn't need to be attached with strings in order to get the repaint.

 

At the moment we started this, we expected that almost (99.99%) has Facebook.

 

Sorry but that is a horrible assumption. That's like assuming that 99% of people have a gym membership.

Personally I would open up my marketing strategy beyond Facebook.

 

Remember that on the NGX in particular we spent a lot of money and manhours...McPhat Studios is not a big company, but we have a variety of freeware liveries. Those freeware liveries meet the high standards which we also have on our paid projects. A lot of companies don't even do freeware, or bring freeware with a lower quality standard or force you to buy some packages in order for your freeware to be built into something realistic. At McPhat we don't do that, we give you a full bumped and specced livery, with high quality diffuse textures and night textures, all for free. Is it really that much asked to watch a 120 second s clip

 

BMW probably spends more then you do on their car designs and production, but does that mean I'm obligated to watch their commercials?

It's nice that you guys go to the lengths you describe to give quality work to the flightsim community, but this "we worked so hard...all for FREE!" mentality and tooting your own horn is a bit unprofessional.

 

Again, if your work is as good as you claim, then it will speak for itself and you will get the recognition all by itself. You don't need to force marketing on people or complain when they aren't interested in watching a video.

Is it really too much to watch a 2 minutes clip then?

 

With all respect, I don't find the request to watch a video a bad one, but how you request it - you force use to watch it. That is wrong.

You could have put a link with a video stating something like watch our latest promotional video or something. A link would have sufficed - I would probably then watch it through, as I like FSX videos in general. This way, I was just annoyed by it, skipping through it to find the code and then closed it.

 

Even from reading Robert's reply, you guys really make nice liveries, but what you need to learn is people skills and business management skills, not that I'm going to be telling you how to run your company.

 

At McPhat we don't do that, we give you a full bumped and specced livery, with high quality diffuse textures and night textures, all for free.

 

It is your choice, and your choice only. But when you do that, don't make us go through hoops to get a key - that reminds me of some old suspicious software out there on the net, or some fake rar files containing a link to a website, supposedly with a code. Come on, man.

 

As for facebook assumption, man, lol... that is so wrong.

With regard to the assumption that almost everyone has, and uses Facebook, that is probably true for those under the age of perhaps, at a guess, 26 (and you don't have to guess, there is demographic marketing information available on this subject if you look for it).

 

But older people are quite often set in their ways, and it'll be nowhere near 99 percent for the vast majority of simmers, many of whom are actually pretty old - look at some of the Avsim avatar pics and observe the general level of chatter in the Avsim forums - it's not all twelve year-olds obsessed with texting one another by any stretch of the imagination, we have houses, cars, careers, aeroplanes, husbands and wives, kids, pets, etc.

 

I'm not saying don't use Facebook, anything which is a business tool that might gain some custom is worth at least looking at, but don't rely on it or make it the only way you do business, use it to supplement other means of contact, because for one thing, you'll find that older people have more disposable income a lot of the time, and excluding them is therefore not a smart business move.

 

Al

I've got Facebook, and use it quite actively, but I will not use it for this. What does my family, my friends, my co-workers and everyone else that I sort of once used to know or half-know have to do with me wanting an FSX repaint?

 

This hobby is so narrow it feels weird shouting it to them from the rooftop. This is an extremely marginal hobby, marketing should be aimed straight at the target group and not wildly around facebook just because you've "seen it such things have been done by other companies". Dog owners can like a leash company or whatnot, but that's at least something that concerns around 10% of people around. Simmers probably make up less than 1% of the Facebook mass, and add to that their average age seems to be quite high and tech interests are not mainstream so I'd think there are less facebookers here than in other online communities.

 

BTW I haven't read any demographic surveys even though I think Avsim have done a few.

 

Well I for one am not jumping through that hoop, sorry. Watching a video isn't half as bad though, only mildly irritating until someone reveals the code in the comments field or some forum so the next guy doesn't have to watch it.

 

Giving us this paint is an extremely nice gesture but poorly planned.

I've got Facebook, and use it quite actively, but I will not use it for this. What does my family, my friends, my co-workers and everyone else that I sort of once used to know or half-know have to do with me wanting an FSX repaint?

 

This hobby is so narrow it feels weird shouting it to them from the rooftop. This is an extremely marginal hobby, marketing should be aimed straight at the target group and not wildly around facebook just because you've "seen it such things have been done by other companies". Dog owners can like a leash company or whatnot, but that's at least something that concerns around 10% of people around. Simmers probably make up less than 1% of the Facebook mass, and add to that their average age seems to be quite high and tech interests are not mainstream so I'd think there are less facebookers here than in other online communities.

+1. I'm pretty sure nobody on my "Friends" list would want to know I just downloaded a repaint for FSX, its just unnecessary information, and from the viewpoint most my friends have, a little weird. That's why I never let anything Sim related even go near my "Wall". This McPhat paint was the first and probably last time I let something have access to FB, mostly because I knew I could delete/hide the post from people. My final opinion is that the McPhat team should stick to just direct downloads, but I don't mind their videos at all.

What turned me adamantly against Fb or any social websites was the excellent and most revealing 4-parter BBC documentary called The Digital Revolution. What was exposed there was enough to make one stop and think in one's tracks.