Just how big is the FSX community worldwide?

[Ourgas2 3]

Hi all,

Would just be very curious to know just how big the worldwide flight sim communtiy is.

 

Are there any rough numbers about how many FSX were sold?

Which countries are the "strongest" in this regard?

 

I understand that there are the core simmers (myself included) using it a lot and as a way of life and those who just bought it...

 

Christos

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

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[HighTowers 1,434]

Hi all,

Would just be very curious to know just how big the worldwide flight sim communtiy is.

 

Are there any rough numbers about how many FSX were sold?

Which countries are the "strongest" in this regard?

 

I understand that there are the core simmers (myself included) using it a lot and as a way of life and those who just bought it...

 

Christos

 

This thread might help you out. I asked a similar question.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/394317-how-big-or-small-is-the-flight-simming-community-worldwide/

[mgh 89]

A quote from John Venema of Orbx

 

We estimate less than 40,000 active FS enthusiasts worldwide, across both the tube liner and VFR disciplines. We know this purely from tracking our sales data and also being aware of other developer's sales data which they share with us.

 

Post #88 http://forum.avsim.n...de#entry2101534

 

I suggest Orbx is much better informed than the rest of us.

[superglide17 11]

Hmm, 40,000. No wonder MS doesn't take the hardcore FS enthusiasts seriously. Their allowance for error, in the world wide market, is probably larger than 40,000!

[Chuck_Jodry-VJPL 663]

The 40,000 would represent "Clients", there is something on the order of 10% of Simmers who buy Addons, and the remainder do not and never will in most cases. There are those who are devoted to freeware but curiously a great many more who are totally unaware of the community built up around FS.

 

Figures recently published by Tom have some 360,000+ unique ip addresses who visit Avsim monthly, this number represents well the realm of Active Simmers, most of whom visit multiple websites.

 

There is something more than 5 X that number who have a copy of FSX but no longer have any great interest in it, one could include the producer of the platform in the latter group as they will never release another.

[Dillon 2,197]

Why does this have to be isolated to FSX only users? If you take the whole of the Flightsim community (XPlane, FS9, FSX, Combat Sims, etc) the number is much larger. I for one have never bought a FSX add-on so going by what a developer says who specializes in FSX only add-ons is crazy. When a developer and their immediate counterparts isolate themselves to all but one platform, yes there's only 40,000 simmers world wide. Get outside of FSX and the number get's quite larger.

[superglide17 11]

Get outside of FSX and the number get's quite larger.

So, what is the number?

Just curious.

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

A quote from John Venema of Orbx

 

 

 

Post #88 http://forum.avsim.n...de#entry2101534

 

I suggest Orbx is much better informed than the rest of us.

 

I would suggest that Orbx doesn't know their market or the width / breadth of the community.

[Dillon 2,197]

 

So, what is the number?

Just curious.

 

The Avsim marker referenced above is our best reference for the actual number at this point.

[simmerhead 885]

- Not big enough for a major publisher to be interested in entering the market with a new sim;

- Not big enough for Microsoft to continue developing FLIGHT;

- Not big enough for AVSIM - the largest flightsim website - to justify running an addon shop;

- Not big enough to keep Computer Pilot Magazine in circulation;

 

But still big enough to keep PMDG, ORBX, Flight1 and Aerosoft in business selling addons for a game published in 2006.

 

I've heard that ca 2 million total copies of FSX were sold (including Acceleration and Gold) from a good source, and although he is a person that very well might know these numbers, he provided no documentation to backed up the claim and I was not allowed to quote him. A lot of people fear the Microsoft whip, and we will most likely never know. I've tried getting numbers for both FS2002 and 2004 through official channels, but even these 10+ year old figuers are guarded like Aera 51 secrets...

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

- Not big enough for AVSIM - the largest flightsim website - tojustify running an addon shop;

 

Time to set the record straight again, before this becomes a "fact"... The size of the market had nothing to do with our decision to shut down the AVSIM store.

[simmerhead 885]

Time to set the record straight again, before this becomes a "fact"... The size of the market had nothing to do with our decision to shut down the AVSIM store.

 

It is hard to believe that it had NOTHING to do with it, but if you say so I'll have to take your word for it.

[jostytosty 1]

I don't know where i got the figure, but I always thought that the worldwide FS community was about 10 miljon. Which isn't very much given a worldwide population of a couple of Biljons. Seeing the figures in this post 40,000 to 360,000 makes me wonder what is the correct number. It seems to me that, while people in the Asia and South America are joining in more and more [look at the uploads of S.American sceneries] quite some people in Europe and the US have stopped. The 10 miljon, if correct, will probably have been in the FS9 days. Still I think ,millions is probably more correct than hundreds of thousands. Some people- about 450,000 are member of Flightsim.com someone stated in another post. But there are communities in France, Germany and Spain that go their own way completely. Aerosoft once stated the German community is bigger then the whole US community [how do they know?] While writing this down is stil think less then 1 miljon is to little, 10 miljon will probably not be correct either [or not anymore]

 

ooh yeah and this: if 500,000 was a correct number, then it would be impossible for a company like Aerosoft to survive. Because that would mean they would sell to few copies of their products.

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

It is hard to believe that it had NOTHING to do with it, but if you say so I'll have to take your word for it.

 

Why is that so hard to believe? You are making presumptions using other models (i.e., profit) apparently to guide those presumptions. Truth is, the size of the "market" has / had nothing to do with our decision to shut the store. And I could care less whether you believe me or not.