You have signed in 4 times in the last year and a half and this is your first message?

 

Just like Mike Breen use to say.. "Tom Allen, for three.. BANG!" 

 

PMDG not the only show in town.

 

The question implies “flight sim community” = PMDG owners.

I won’t buy PMDG because I don’t have the time, the money or the pc to get the best out of it, but I will still be doing my low and slow GA flights that I enjoy.

 

When you PMDG 777 folk have finished wetting your selves perhaps the rest of us can get online to read the rest of the site that appeals to us.

 

Why would someone not interested in PMDG products or long range airliners come to the PMDG 777 forum?

 

apart from the obvious "troll".

 

It's not like the PMDG 777 forum elicits gravity that your mouse cursor falls into.

 

At best they might be looking for DC6 information, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the "777 Forum" may actually be a forum about the 777.

 

If you don't want to get the PMDG 777, then maybe go to other forums more relevant to the products you do want.

 

You have signed in 4 times in the last year and a half and this is your first message?

Hi, Tom,

 

He hasn't realized that the other forums are available to read at all times. I think he hotlinked his bookmark to the PMDG forum instead of AVSIM's homepage and feels that he can't "get out" while the rest of us are on the PMDG forum...

 

"We cannot get out. We cannot get out. They have taken the bridge and Second Hall. Frár and Lóni and Náli fell there bravely while the rest retreated to Mazarbul. We still hold the chamber but hope is fading now. Óin's party went five days ago but today only four returned. The pool is up to the wall at West-gate. The Watcher in the Water took Óin...we cannot get out. The end comes soon. We hear drums, drums in the deep."

 

"They are coming."

 

Why would someone not interested in PMDG products or long range airliners come to the PMDG 777 forum?

 

apart from the obvious "troll".

 

It's not like the PMDG 777 forum elicits gravity that your mouse cursor falls into.

 

At best they might be looking for DC6 information, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the "777 Forum" may actually be a forum about the 777.

 

If you don't want to get the PMDG 777, then maybe go to other forums more relevant to the products you do want.

 

Ah, yes, the infamous PMDG forum gravity well..

 

I kinda wondered the same thing here. His post implied that while we are surfing the PMDG forums nobody else can use the AVSIM site. We're blocking access to the other discussion groups.

 

I'm all for it. I love being a non-conformist!

 

 

I'm all for it. I love being a non-conformist!

 

Yeah, and you just made my head hurt. :lol:

 

Yeah, and you just made my head hurt. :lol:

 

I'm sorry, Tom, I didn't mean to step on that one good nerve you have left! :lol:

But the error circle around the release date is beginning to hurt.  But maybe I've forgotten the International Date Line and I'm a day ahead!

 

 

It's a reality, but not an all-present reality.

 

True, but it has been successful - many Steam titles have done well with it (but not all Steam titles use it) and Activision/Blizzard titles have done extremely well with it.  For smaller developers it's been very useful as a DRM tool also.

 

Part of the misconception around "always-on" is it's not technically accurate or even necessary, validation only needs occasional checks to able to implement a good DRM policy and prevent theft.  For games that are effectively "multiplayer" where connectivity is required, the always on DRM is transparent to a valid end user.  There are different implementations of "always on".

 

For example a dynamic weather system for FSX that uses real world weather could easily adopt an "always-on" DRM policy because of the nature of needing a internet connect to get weather updates.  Or a real world AI Traffic based on real world aircraft schedules where an internet connection is required to get the schedules.  These types of products certainly could enforce an "always-on" DRM without any negative concerns.  I know FSDT titles that use the Add-On manager do regular internet checks for product updates and I assume in doing so uses some form of license validation, however these products do NOT prevent usage if no internet connection is found (they do have some strange side affects, but that's a topic for another day).

 

Diablo III, StarCraft II have all required a user account and login to play and those titles have been hugely successful (Activision/Blizzard).  The DRM policy doesn't appear to be a problem even though there were significant complaints that a user account and login is required to play.  The bottom line is a quality product can successfully implement Always-On DRM, valid users may complain (and complain loudly) but they apparently still buy - 4.8 Billion revenue for Activision/Blizzard in 2012 making it the 2nd largest gaming company.

 

I have plenty of friends that don't think piracy is theft and they'll provide a long list of excuses I've heard over and over and over again trying justify it -- but it boils down to the same concept, would they walk into a Electronics store and take a TV without paying?  NO, these are basically good people that understand it takes resource, time, effort to produce a TV ... but what DRM does is educate people to the fact they are actually stealing a product and some will and do think twice and go "oh I should buy this".  DRM can also be an "educational" tool of wrong doing -- some have no clue that they copy of XYZ software they got from MNO source is an illegal copy or hack ... at least not until they get the DRM block.  And then there is the population of folks that thought they bought a legitimate copy for $10 and what they really got was a hacked version (or worse yet a hack and a malware/virus).

 

Anyway, got a weee bit off topic.  But I really just wanted to suggest that "Sales" isn't necessarily an indicator of popularity/usage ... there is a larger illicit world of usage that can and probably does double actual usage count over the registered/valid paying users. So suppose PMDG sold 1,000,000 copies of 777 there are probably about 2,000,000+ users of the product ... now how many of the illegal users would get converted over to paying users with an "always on" DRM enforcement?  If you believe IDC findings http://www.vilabs.com/webinar/idc-analyst-amy-konary-on-license-compliance-piracy-and-software-intelligence-to-recover-revenue/ the we're looking at 10-25% recovery.  Take the low estimate at 10%, that's 100,000 copies at $70 each, so $7M US? 

 

The reason I bring this up is because I'm a software engineer and my company (not a gaming/simulations company) needs to understand the revenue loss/potential from piracy/theft and how we can effectively combat it in a positive manner for both own interests and ultimately for our valid clients/users interests.  The more revenue we can generate from our efforts the more revenue we re-invest into future developments.

 

Sorry for the side track.

 

Rob

How big is the community? We now have over 115,000 members. Here are some stats from the last month as of five minutes ago.

 

 

 

The rumors of the death of flight simulation are greatly exaggerated.

 

Let me add that FSX did about $100 million in sales for MS. If you assume a wholesale value of $25 per copy (allowing for bulk buys, discount schemes and so on) that's, give or take, 4 million copies or more. I will let you take it from there. BTW... FLIGHT did about $10 million in the short period before it was shut down. It didn't do as well, or as fast, as MS management apparently expected.

Wow, those are NEW registrations?

Wow, those are NEW registrations?

 

Yep.

 

Yep.

 

I understand that FSX and related subjects are not all of the content at AVSIM. However, having said that, it's data like this that makes me wonder why Microsoft has such a severe case of cranial-rectal inversion regarding development of the next-gen FSX. There's money to be made! Ka-ching!

They don't need to check every minute, could be once an hour, or once a day, once a week, whatever the developers/PMs decide.  Put it this way, since you're posting here, you obviously have enough internet "reliability" for this process to work.

 

It's not the case. I do my forum browsing at work (currently in overtime, programming servo controllers at 2-3 minutes each- enough of a window to type a couple of lines but not to get on with any other work...), or at the local library. Internet connection at home? Nope: my PC is standalone. In any case, I imagine there are plenty of us still here who prefer hard copies or a download we can carry around with us to an installation that obliges the purchaser to provide the developer with unlimited access.

 

Also, internet access isn't free all around the world. I expect that would hinder sales in many places if a connection was required simply to fly a plane, unless of course the vendor carried the cost without passing it on to the customer.

 

 

Yep.

 

That explains your concern over forum storage space. It's really quite busy here isn't it?

 

D

 

 

That explains your concern over forum storage space.

 

Dave, am getting old... What does that refer to? I don't remember being concerned about space as much as about loads and responsiveness.

How big is the community? We now have over 115,000 members. Here are some stats from the last month as of five minutes ago.

 

ScreenHunter_11 Sep. 01 21.08.jpg

 

ScreenHunter_11 Sep. 01 21.09.jpg

 

The rumors of the death of flight simulation are greatly exaggerated.

 

Let me add that FSX did about $100 million in sales for MS. If you assume a wholesale value of $25 per copy (allowing for bulk buys, discount schemes and so on) that's, give or take, 4 million copies or more. I will let you take it from there. BTW... FLIGHT did about $10 million in the short period before it was shut down. It didn't do as well, or as fast, as MS management apparently expected.

 

 

Great post Tom. Enter it into the hall of fame.......

 

I think PMDG will sell conservatively 10000 units and the other end of the scale, about 300,000 to 500,000 units. Only they know from their portal how much they have sold. For example the NGX.

 

I have been waiting for a 777 since I changed to FSX but I still have my FS9 computer with PSS777 with sounds I downloaded for it. I'm sure the PMDG sounds are much better. A cockpit that doesn't sound like like one isn't a cockpit..... I love the wind noise on the 737 NGX it is so real!

 

 

The rumors of the death of flight simulation are greatly exaggerated.

 

I would even dare suggest a re-vitalization of FSX.  I believe an Aces team member indicated a 1 Million + sales party many many years ago (back when it was $50+ a copy), and I still see it on store shelves which is amazing (that means people are still buying new copies even today).  P3D registrations are well over 1 Million so I can see 3-4 Million sales mark at this point in time ... so about 8 Million "usage" copies.

 

I think part of the re-vitalization comes from several influences:

 

1.  Improved hardware

2.  Improved 3rd party products

3.  YouTube videos of FSX

 

For example, I have a YouTube video on my channel from one of my Lotus Cup Races in Fontana CA (way back in May 2011) and it was a very close and entertaining race, yet it got 1008 views.  Compared with an FSX video I made showing DX10 New York (back in Jan 2013) and it has 1555 views already (IMHO my FSX video is pretty basic).  Point being, FSX is very popular on YouTube ... often see 100,000 - 700,000+ views for any particular FSX video.

 

Sure, some of the videos have been "enhanced" but interest is peaked, sadly many of the comments on FSX YouTube videos are "is it free", "can I get it from Torrents", "can you give me a copy", etc.