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.

 

You are right about my presumtions. They are based on the assumtion that if the store was very profitable it would be strange to shut it. And, as the biggest flightsim website in the world it is hard to believe that it wouldn't be profitable unless the hobby is in decline. Why do I care? I just think that the more accessible addons and peripherals are the better it is for the hobby, so it is sad to see it go. Regardless of you caring or not, I take your word for it when you say it ain't so - End of presumtions from my side.

Back in 2011 Avsim provided a list of members and it was possible to run filtered searches on them with the following result:

 

AVSIM's Forums have about 75,560 (3778 pages each with 20 members). Of those 54,640 have never posted and could be regarded as inactive members. That leaves only 20,920 members who have actually posted at least once. This suggests only 27% of members are active. It seems possible that Orbx's figures are in the correct ball-park

.

 

Post #388 http://forum.avsim.net/topic/347293-flight-project-cancelledon-hold/page__st__375

End of presumptions regarding the addon market, it is little changed since 2007 when the market was split between FS9 & FSX.

The number of unit sales of a given release has not been declining nor growing to any extent , its stable with roughly the same number of addon buyers active at a given time with the FS9 buyer moving to FSX .

 

The Dreemfleet Dakota for FSX was the first Payware release i was involved with, there are dozens since with a consistent pattern in numbers and what affects them, Quality , fantastic addons sell well and crap don't .. What’s new?

Just thought I would throw another number into the mix... We log the MAC address of every machine that connects to our system and is a registered user (if they don't register, we don't log them as it would be millions over the years). As I write this, there have been 155,944 unique machines log into and register with AVSIM.

As I write this, there have been 155,944 unique machines log into and register with AVSIM.

 

Over what period, and do you have the annual number of new logons?

So how many Angry Birds downloads were there??

It is no longer about the app but how many eyes you can get to view the ads

 

Yea Flight Sim is and always will be a niche market.

 

Cheers

jja

The 40,000 Orbx number is ridiculous. If there were really only this number of enthusiasts then do you really think there would be so many online stores worldwide supporting the hobby?

 

300,000 unique IP addresses accessing Avsim per month is an interesting start. Think of one of the multi-million selling titles that always get quoted on these threads, like COD. Go to their forums. Is there 5 million users posting there?

 

The number of FSX users who actually post or visit forums will be a minority.

 

To my eyes, flight simulation has maybe the most vibrant and active freeware and payware development community of any game, anywhere.

 

What is missing at the moment is a major studio developing the core platform.

 

Angry birds was mentioned. Flight sim is not as accessible and will never have the mass of casual gamers that this type of app will have. But go to the app store and type in fsx, and see how many addons for iOS are available. And then look at the flight sims available for iOS - I have three 'serious' ones on my iPad.

 

Flightsim is not dead!

 

My guess is pretty small, especially compared to popular video games. But I live in Guadalajara, Mexico, a place that you would expect not to be much of a hotbed of flight simmers. Yet the Best Buy here has a constant supply Saitek Yokes (both the Pro Flight and X52) and Rudder Pedals. So small, but neither tiny nor insignificant.

I think they even had flight sim fans on the ISS.

So small, but neither tiny nor insignificant.

That's the spirit! :smile:

Over what period, and do you have the annual number of new logons?

Since forever. We average 63 new registrations a day. I will let you do the math.

Since forever. We average 63 new registrations a day. I will let you do the math.

 

Based on your daily figure, the annual number of new members is 23,000. That’s 23,000 annual sales of a flight simulator assuming they’re all newcomers. It’s also 15% of your figure of 155,944.

 

Do you know if your figure for unique MAC addresses includes any duplication resulting from members’ changing systems? I obtained a membership figure of 76,000 in October 2011 when the forums used to list members. That increases to 105,000 by adding 15 month’s worth of new members to update it from than to now. This is less than your figure but the figures may be on different bases - yours are “since forever”: mine were after the hack?

 

The 23,000 is gross and doesn’t take account of members who have lost interest in flight simulation but haven ‘t bothered to cancel their memberships. If those members represented more Than 15% then there’d be no net increase in membership.

 

In October 2001 analysing and filtering the membership list shown that only 27% of members had ever posted – or at least since the hack 2 years earlier. 27% of 155,944 gives 43,000 individuals enthusiastic enough to post at least once.

 

Allowing for the fact that AVSIM doesn’t represent the entire flight simulation world suggest that the total number of enthusiasts is probably in the low hundreds of thousands.

.

Allowing for the fact that AVSIM doesn’t represent the entire flight simulation world suggest that the total number of enthusiasts is probably in the low hundreds of thousands.

 

In the period from 2006 to the introduction of FLIGHT, somewhere between 1.9 and 2.2 million copies of FSX were sold, depending on how you factor in resellers, bulk buys and the like. I tend to believe the actual number is in the higher part of that band and maybe even slightly larger. And don't forget... FSX is still being sold, so that actual number could be much higher.

 

Here we go with Marketing 101 again... The "market", even today, is far larger than a couple of hundred thousand. The "addressable market" is dependent upon how you sell, your distribution methods, your advertising, and a host of other variables that always come into play and govern "sales". If you limit your business model to the Internet only, then the variables and likely negative impact on sales become larger. When asking a vendor how good their sales are and listening to their view of the market, the first thing you must do is define what they believe to be their "addressable" market. The entire world of Flight Simming is NOT an addressable market.

The entire world of Flight Simming is NOT an addressable market.

What does that mean Tom? Cheers jja

What does that mean Tom? Cheers jja

 

The best way to explain that is to give an example. If I were a developer / publisher and I came up with the greatest model of a Cessna 172 since sliced bread, my "addressable" market is going to consist of:

 

Those that know I have the product available

Those that like single engine GA aircraft

Those that like the Cessna brand

Those that can get access to my product (whether it be boxed, downloads or both)

Those that can afford it

Those that "like" my company

Those that think of my product support positively...

 

Etc. etc. Once you start applying filters to a "market", you start to identify what the addressable market is. Not everyone in the galaxy of flight simmers enjoy single engine, Cessna GA aircraft, like my company or my support. And so on. The addressable market consists of those that remain. But... addressable market does not imply 100% market share either. There is always a competitor who wants to pursue your addressable market too. The more competitors that do the same, the lower your market share will be unless you really hit all the right buttons of your "addressable market".

OK I get it. Thanks

 

jja