If I recall correctly, there was a petition couple of years ago when FS2004 simmers were overwhelmed when an influential developer stated they would stop releasing addons for FS2004. The petition itself had (only) 800 votes. Some said it had more than 1000 voters. However, nothing has changed. The developer sticks to its decision. We'll never know if the developer took the petition as a serious potential market to be considered to keep supporting FS2004.

 

And perhaps "800 or 1000voters X $75.00 = " didn't meet their budget expectation. What If there were 2-3000 simmers who signed in, could it change the situation? Maybe yes or maybe it was just wasting of time as they might not care. They are simply doing business however.

 

But I am still curious. There are few developers who are still taking risks in supporting FS2004, there must be something profitable in making such decision.

 

Will now, a more solid, reliable and well organized petition make some changes? But who would participate in the petition? Who will officially propose the result to developers as a sign of the existence of potential FS2004 costumers?

 

How about donation? I started a post in Hangar Chat about donation

 

http://forum.avsim.n...r/#entry2481289

 

The idea is to include FS2004 in their priorities, doesn't have to be number 1 but enough to also produce some of the most requested ones.

 

Can we do something about it? No?

 

 

 

Cheers

Hi.

 

I'm not sure about donations-- a few developers have prematurely terminated projects in the past. I expect prospective customers wouldn't be too happy about paying up-front for something that, at the time, was only an idea. On the other hand, I'm collecting Carenado's FSX to FS9 conversions even though I don't use them much (maybe once in three weeks or so though I have FS9 running most days). I think paying for something you don't use in order to indicate support and to encourage further work may qualify, especially as distribution by download surely doesn't incur much of a cost for the vendor.

 

It's easy to cheat at on-line petitions; a potentially falsified petition containing 800 signatures is unlikely to be taken seriously unless market research has indicated only 800 potential customers. That's an academic comment, don't misinterpret the sentence.

 

The primary purpose of any business is to make a profit-- the product is nothing more than a means to that end. Ten minutes casual searching failed to turn up any current sales figures for a flight-sim platform or for add-ons but second-hand figures from 2005 are here: http://forum.avsim.n...-sales-figures/ so I suppose a lot of developers see 800 as just a drop in the ocean.

 

It would be interesting to see some estimates of development costs and the results of preliminary market research, both for new projects and for conversions. I imagine the market for a conversion could be considerably smaller than that for a new project, and still profitable.

 

Regards,

D

A petition (or intention) doesn't pay the electricity bill of the developers' building.

Only sales does....

 

I'm a dedicated FS2004 user and accept the fact that nowadays most add-ons are released for FSX/P3D only.

Luckily some still are released also for FS2004.

I think it is true the market has shifted to FSX during the last few years (20%-80%)

If you check the active viewing count of the AVSIM FS2004 versus FSX forums, most of the time it also is 20%-80%.

I think devs ultimately move based on THEIR own sales/data, which of course varies according to the particular dev and what they make.

 

And ditto that petitions don't recoup costs (and dual development IS costly), sales do. So I'm firmly in the 'glad to be included if they so choose' camp. If not, so be it, I'd never petition any developer to include fs9 unless THEY asked for feedback from potential customers.

A petition concerning the developers will have no impact

Petitions have only (sometime) impact on politicians ... as their position can be in balance

Absolutely, if they need second opinions, they will ask. No one cares about what we think and what we long for no matter how rich we are. It is not them who have to reverse their priority (supporting fs9), it is us who have to adjust with the current situation, splash your money and build your sim from scratch. Tell me something I dont know

 

Collecting signatures on a petition or letter may not seem like an important act, but when you help to engage hundreds or even thousands of others in signing a petition, each of their voices is amplified oveand you will have helped to send a clear message to a developer about the importance of, well in this case, to persuade developers.

 

In my opinion, it is still one of the best way to make our voices heard.

 

However Mark, I agree with you ... it usually happens in political occasions. And Business is not democracy, democracy itself often FAILS (and forced) while business is more flexible so I keep my hopes.... for the love of God it's 777 we're talkin about LOL

 

Have a nice weekend

I agree that a petition isn't likely by itself to make much difference. But I do think that trying to get some developers to rethink their earlier decisions about abandoning FS9 might be worthwhile. The reality seems to be that FS9 hasn't faded away as it was expected to and with the failure of Flight and the withdrawal of support from MS of FSX it seems to me pretty likely that FS9 will persevere for some time yet.

 

I'm not going to name names, as it was a personal conversation and I don't have permission to divulge it, but a well respected developer told me recently that their ratio of sales of FS9 had increased recently and was significantly higher than FSX.... That may be because there are fewer new offerings for FS9 so less competition, but the point still is that some developers have found that FS9 IS, in spite of predictions, a viable market. The designers don't like it, as there are apparently many advantages to designing for FSX - but when it comes to sales, the FS9 market is far from dead. So maybe some kind of petition might at least get some of the developers to rethink their earlier decisions... One key event will be how well the QW 787 does. If the BAe 146/ARJ had done poorly in FS9 sales they probably would have abandoned the project. It appears they have not, so if it has good sales, that might encourage someone else to try another project for FS9...

I agree that a petition isn't likely by itself to make much difference. But I do think that trying to get some developers to rethink their earlier decisions about abandoning FS9 might be worthwhile. The reality seems to be that FS9 hasn't faded away as it was expected to and with the failure of Flight and the withdrawal of support from MS of FSX it seems to me pretty likely that FS9 will persevere for some time yet.

 

I'm not going to name names, as it was a personal conversation and I don't have permission to divulge it, but a well respected developer told me recently that their ratio of sales of FS9 had increased recently and was significantly higher than FSX.... That may be because there are fewer new offerings for FS9 so less competition, but the point still is that some developers have found that FS9 IS, in spite of predictions, a viable market. The designers don't like it, as there are apparently many advantages to designing for FSX - but when it comes to sales, the FS9 market is far from dead. So maybe some kind of petition might at least get some of the developers to rethink their earlier decisions... One key event will be how well the QW 787 does. If the BAe 146/ARJ had done poorly in FS9 sales they probably would have abandoned the project. It appears they have not, so if it has good sales, that might encourage someone else to try another project for FS9...

 

And Ian, I think it is interesting to see whether or not QW will also release their 787 for fs9, it is an apparent indication how good fs9 market is. In business, it is not always about following the crowd, it is sometimes about taking risks by going off track. I, however, have never run my own business so what do I know although it is my major at university.

 

There were people who were in line when Apple just came out although they could just take the new products right from shelves in the following weeks, still, the ones who have been making them BIG is the vast majority, those who wait for month to minimize risks in buying new products. FS9 is proven to be festive and never fails in selling. Am I wrong?

The QW 787 is many miles away from release, they still haven't finished the 146 series.

The best petition is sales, so vote with your wallet. Some devs like FSDT has said that their FS9 sales are slim compared to their FSX sales which makes FS9 developement not worth the bother from them any longer. If they were getting at least 50/50 sales from each platform they would probably continue to support both products.

 

If I were a dev and had slim sales from one platform compared to another, I wouldn't bother with taking votes or even looking at a petition when one platforms sales have already been much slower than the others.