I always backup my installers, because some developers have different rules about extended download service.

Incidentally, I see a lot of people here knocking Captain Sim  products , but they do at least keep a record of all your orders, and do not charge for re-downloading.

Ron

"Caveat Emptor"

WotanUK I'm not entirely sure why you think the thread would be locked.

 

Several interesting opinions have been put out, and if you ever run a business you will come to know that sometimes the customers can suggest something that may well improve the processes. Its very easy to get behind the times. Quite possibly, the last time PMDG looked at this, the cloud services were indeed very expensive, and as HansRoman said, in 2003 the situation was very, very different.

 

Subsequently, (and if Ryan is correct in that this is a cost-retrieval method) PMDG may well be interested in looking in alternatives or reviewing their decision as the industry moves on.

 

Any business that refuses to move with the times and adjust their policy (when suitable) won't do very well in the future, and any good business leader knows this I'm sure those who make the business decisions here do not see this as an attack, and hopefully they may well have a chance to look into an alternative method in the future

 

 

WotanUK I'm not entirely sure why you think the thread would be locked.

 

Because it's a group of people who are arguing over the business policies of PMDG.  What will this thread achieve?  

 

Please do you seriously think that one of the biggest and best Flight Sim developers will not have considered everything above?  You seriously think that Ryan is reading this thread and quietly saying to RSR..."wow those cloud services, never heard of that, why don't we use those"?  Of course not; so it boils down to:

 

1. PMDG are being 100% honest and bandwidth costs of customers replacing there 'lost' products costs the business a significant amount of revenue in retaining bandwidth for customer use.

 

2. PMDG are using it as a revenue stream because they release aircraft every two years or so and they need to keep the bandwidth available for new aircraft launches.  

 

Either way the discussion has ended

 

 

 

Any business that refuses to move with the times and adjust their policy (when suitable) won't do very well in the future, and any good business leader knows this I'm sure those who make the business decisions here do not see this as an attack, and hopefully they may well have a chance to look into an alternative method in the future

 

Lol...perhaps we could all refuse to buy anything from PMDG...other than the aircraft they release? 

 

I imagine that everybody in this discussion acting with all this righteous indignation are salivating at the prospect of the 777, we couldn't stop buying from PMDG even if they charged a new license for a lost product.  

It gives them a lot of power, but in my opinion they don't appear to abuse there position, should this change i'll reconsider my stance.

I suspect this discussion is well on the way to being locked.

 

It's PMDG's policy, if you don't like it, vote with your money and patronise other businesses.

 

 

 

Lol - That'll show em'  :rolleyes:

Not sure what the LOL is for as they sell non PMDG produced products in their distribution channel for some commercial benefit so I've basically stated that apart from the aircraft which I basically have no other choice to buy a download version I will be voting with my money on everything else. Am sure no one will loose sleep over that at PMDG but maybe if enough people do the same they will review thier re download policy and be like the rest of the market.

 

Something no one has brought up is that the liveries use bandwidth too and yet it's cost effective to offer these as a loss leader without time limit.

 

 

Not sure what the LOL is for as they sell non PMDG produced products in their distribution channel for some commercial benefit

 

Indeed they do...at or very close to the cost price on other sites.  I can't believe that these are a huge source of income compared to the NGX for example...hence the "lol"

 

 

 

Something no one has brought up is that the liveries use bandwidth too and yet it's cost effective to offer these as a loss leader without time limit.

 

Massive difference between a 20mb download and a 1Gb download

 

In any case i don't see this business policy discussion going anywhere pleasant, so i'll bow out here i think,

Because it's a group of people who are arguing over the business policies of PMDG. What will this thread achieve?

 

Please do you seriously think that one of the biggest and best Flight Sim developers will not have considered everything above? You seriously think that Ryan is reading this thread and quietly saying to RSR..."wow those cloud services, never heard of that, why don't we use those"? Of course not; so it boils down to:

 

1. PMDG are being 100% honest and bandwidth costs of customers replacing there 'lost' products costs the business a significant amount of revenue in retaining bandwidth for customer use.

 

2. PMDG are using it as a revenue stream because they release aircraft every two years or so and they need to keep the bandwidth available for new aircraft launches.

 

Either way the discussion has ended

 

 

 

 

Actually, you are speculating on the point whereas others are just saying their thoughts based on what has been told. For anyone who wants to do some research it is easy to find that $5 give you an awful lot of bandwidth, even for low volume purchasers.

 

So much so that in todays market your original price should have already covered it. Just go and have a look. I made the point and so have others.

 

What that means is that PMDG can improve if the reason they stated they charge is in fact the reason, not another as you speculate. I would suspect your second speculation is incorrect as when someone buys a new product they are paying for the bandwidth as well.

 

It baffles me also why a company that can code a FMC for a boeing cannot automate a process to download some software.

 

BTW, all the manual process is only there because they dont let you redownload. Catch 22 when it is probably cheaper to just let people download.

 

 

Because it's a group of people who are arguing over the business policies of PMDG.  What will this thread achieve?

Because when businesses listen to customers, things change. Case and Point is EA who have just gone back on their Online Pass idea (which bought them in extra money), because their customers didn't like it and they could do it another way. 

Please do you seriously think that one of the biggest and best Flight Sim developers will not have considered everything above?  You seriously think that Ryan is reading this thread and quietly saying to RSR..."wow those cloud services, never heard of that, why don't we use those"?  Of course not; so it boils down to:

I have no doubt that when PMDG put in this service it was due to the fact that it bandwidth cost a lot. However, years down the line I can imagine Ryan may be sitting there thinking that there may be a few cheaper alternatives they might be able to investigate in the future. I've already stated that you could download the ngx about 100 times for less than $5 of bandwidth nowadays. Similarly, others have posted cheaper alternatives. 

 

1. PMDG are being 100% honest and bandwidth costs of customers replacing there 'lost' products costs the business a significant amount of revenue in retaining bandwidth for customer use.

Already demonstrated that this is not the case. If it is really costing this much, they are doing it wrong. 

 

2. PMDG are using it as a revenue stream because they release aircraft every two years or so and they need to keep the bandwidth available for new aircraft launches.  

They have not said this at any point

 

Lol...perhaps we could all refuse to buy anything from PMDG...other than the aircraft they release? 
 
I imagine that everybody in this discussion acting with all this righteous indignation are salivating at the prospect of the 777, we couldn't stop buying from PMDG even if they charged a new license for a lost product.  
It gives them a lot of power, but in my opinion they don't appear to abuse there position, should this change i'll reconsider my stance.

Do you think people were going to stop buying EA products because of the online pass? No. They did it because they have a customer following and want to maintain a good relationship with them, this leads to long term sales benefits.

 

Is anyone not going to buy PMDG software because of it? No. Of course not. I'll be first in line to buy the 777 when it comes out. But that doesn't mean we can't petition for an arguably oudated process to be changed.  


 

 

 

   Actually, you are speculating on the point whereas others are just saying their thoughts based on what has been told.   For anyone who wants to do some research it is easy to find that $5 give you an awful lot of bandwidth, even for low volume purchasers.

 

Sigh...OK i kind of want my 500 post...  We are talking about commercial bandwidth, it's not like buying a DSL line at your home address.  I can't even guess at the amount of downloads PMDG have during a month period.  Commercial connections are relatively expensive at the high end, my organisation has multiple 1Gb DWDM links between sites, they don't really compare to my FTTC DSL at home in terms of cost.

 

Perhaps PMDG pay per mb used rather than outlay the cost upfront on multi gb / mb connections.

 

 

 

So much so that in todays market your original price should have already covered it.  Just go and have a look.  I made the point and so have others.

 

Awesome assumption...you have just implied you know the cost of the NGX development...completely ignore the bandwidth issue, how do you know what the development costs were?  You kind of need to know that information before you start calculating the bandwidth costs per customer and claiming that your payment has covered you for multiple downloads.

 

 

It baffles me also why a company that can code a FMC for a boeing cannot automate a process to download some software.

 

Good point, i suspect it's DRM / piracy related.

 

In any case i won't speculate any further on PMDG's business policies, if i had an issue with them (which i don't) i simply wouldn't buy again from them.

Indeed they do...at or very close to the cost price on other sites.  I can't believe that these are a huge source of income compared to the NGX for example...hence the "lol"

Apart from o one will be selling at cost am sure these products are not a major reveniew stream however the bernefit would be greater than zero, someone set those lines up expecting a profit.

 

 

Massive difference between a 20mb download and a 1Gb download

 

Last time I looked all the liveries didn`t add up to just 20MB. However even at the lowest ecnomy of scale that 1GB would cost $.12 in bandwidth using S3. Put a $1 on the retail and people could download 8 times over their lifetime and PMDG would still be covering thier costs as long as there was no human intervention. It works for practically every other retailer.

 

 

Sigh...OK i kind of want my 500 post...  We are talking about commercial bandwidth, it's not like buying a DSL line at your home address.  I can't even guess at the amount of downloads PMDG have during a month period.  Commercial connections are relatively expensive at the high end, my organisation has multiple 1Gb DWDM links between sites, they don't really compare to my FTTC DSL at home in terms of cost.
 
Perhaps PMDG pay per mb used rather than outlay the cost upfront on multi gb / mb connections.

I think you may be looking at things from the wrong direction. If an organisation is large enough that it has set up its own hardware systems to run it all, of course its going to be expensive. This is why companies such as Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Google ... & countless others are providing substantially cheaper solutions by offering space by mb for smaller companies, such opportunities that companies like PMDG can take advantage of. There have now been countless posts that dispel the claims that its too expensive. 

 

 

Sigh...OK i kind of want my 500 post...  We are talking about commercial bandwidth, it's not like buying a DSL line at your home address.  I can't even guess at the amount of downloads PMDG have during a month period.  Commercial connections are relatively expensive at the high end, my organisation has multiple 1Gb DWDM links between sites, they don't really compare to my FTTC DSL at home in terms of cost.
 
Perhaps PMDG pay per mb used rather than outlay the cost upfront on multi gb / mb connections.

 

   If you check where I got my bandwidth from it was using amazons cloud service.   About as reliable as you want.  I also said you can get 3TB for $3 on a cheaper side of things but for our discussion using EMC is more appropriate and as I said.  $5 more than covers it, at least 40 times.

 

 

 

 

Awesome assumption...you have just implied you know the cost of the NGX development...completely ignore the bandwidth issue, how do you know what the development costs were?  You kind of need to know that information before you start calculating the bandwidth costs per customer and claiming that your payment has covered you for multiple downloads.

 

    No, What I said is when you buy a new product, the purchase price will cover the bandwidth you use to download it.   They dont need to charge you in advance.  You are making it up.  They never said that.

OK...my absolute final post on this, it's not my position to defend or dam PMDG but seriously you chaps are beating a dead horse with this...

 

 

 

  No, What I said is when you buy a new product, the purchase price will cover the bandwidth you use to download it.   They dont need to charge you in advance.  You are making it up.  They never said that.

 

No they (as in PMDG) didn't say anything.  You (as in Jason Harris) have stipulated that "the purchase price WILL cover the bandwidth you use to download it"  {emphasis mine}

 

How do you know that?  How many times will the purchase price cover you once after purchase, three times, twenty?

 

 

 

There have now been countless posts that dispel the claims that its too expensive

 

What by PMDG, or by people who have little or no idea about commercial costs for software houses?

 

Honestly they all appear to be:

 

Stick it on Bittorrent.  

Not a terrible idea so long as your DRM is strong and invasive.  I don't even like the existing DRM, not sure how i would feel about something along the lines of Starforce.

 

Use {insert name of cloud supplier}.  I would guess that PMDG have looked at that, perhaps the ongoing revenue cost is to high to justify.

 

In any case it's pretty irrelevant, the only people who can explain their decisions are PMDG, Ryan has already done this far more eloquently than myself.

No they (as in PMDG) didn't say anything. You (as in Jason Harris) have stipulated that "the purchase price WILL cover the bandwidth you use to download it" {emphasis mine}

 

How do you know that? How many times will the purchase price cover you once after purchase, three times, twenty?

 

Are you serious? You said that the $5 might be additional revenue to offset download costs of future products. I said when you purchase the future product, what ever you pay will include the price for distributing your purchase. Thats how it is now right?

What by PMDG, or by people who have little or no idea about commercial costs for software houses?

 

Honestly they all appear to be:

 

Stick it on Bittorrent.

Not a terrible idea so long as your DRM is strong and invasive. I don't even like the existing DRM, not sure how i would feel about something along the lines of Starforce.

 

Use {insert name of cloud supplier}. I would guess that PMDG have looked at that, perhaps the ongoing revenue cost is to high to justify.

 

In any case it's pretty irrelevant, the only people who can explain their decisions are PMDG, Ryan has already done this far more eloquently than myself.

 

Wrong, you dont have people speculating on the costs of software development. You have people speculating on the costs of software distribution via the internet. Some of the leading companies in this space have had their prices quoted as a known fact. They are companies that will provide the same or better level of service than what pmdg uses currently and obviously at far less cost. The cost of the service to deliver the download is the only relevant thing here, not how much it costs to run a software company.

Why repay for extended download service? You need to send a support ticket if you have purchased an extended download. They last for a year..

 

You've misunderstood;   I paid for extended download service for 3 different products, not the same product 3 times.  :smile: