Wow what a year for Flight Simmers. Sorry no link, I'm on my phone.

www.dovetailgames.com/news

Here's the link concerning FSX.

http://www.dovetailgames.com/news/2014/jul/9/dovetail-games-licensing-deal-with-microsoft-takes-flight

If these go on steam never expect to pay at good prices EVER again ,In my opinion steam is the biggest ripoff out there

Most of the stuff they have is either stuff you've never heard off or good stuff that rarely or never goes below rrp for example Football manager 2014 Currently on sale in steam is £34.99 down from £39.99

You are able to buy this in many retail shops for £19.99 or less and on line for around the same price.£19.99

So with steam you are going to be looking at £60-70 for Xplane  10 and FSX around £60

Not a good thing in my opinion

Here's more about X-Plane 10 on Steam:

http://forums.x-pilot.com/topic/6994-x-plane-10-coming-to-steam-in-10-days/#entry76166

http://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=201361798

 

 

If these go on steam never expect to pay at good prices EVER again ,In my opinion steam is the biggest ripoff out there

Not true, plenty of good games have big, -50% sales every now and then. During Christmas and Summers pretty much everything is at least -30%. 

 

One can expect maybe £30 or £40 for FSX, definitely not £60. 

 

The reality is most people prefer Steam because of its ease of use, it's great to have all your games in one location, getting automatically updated and through Steam it's easy to install them on other PC's too. FSX / XP10 going to Steam is pretty much the best thing that could happen to this hobby. 

Well, I went P3D finally.  But if it was on Steam, I wouldn't have done it.  I've had-Steam-based software, didn't care for it.  All of my non-sim-based gaming is now done through UbiSoft's UPlay.  Steam runs constantly in the background.  UPlay doesn't.

Not true, plenty of good games have big, -50% sales every now and then. During Christmas and Summers pretty much everything is at least -30%. 

 

One can expect maybe £30 or £40 for FSX, definitely not £60.

 

I really hope your correct but the sale's you quote don't last very long and what I'm saying is that you can purchase a lot of the titles they sell on line from other places sometimes as direct downloads much cheaper 95% of the time ,

Again as an example in the UK there is a company called Game that had lots of shops around and had some games that were on sale both in the shop and a card to buy from steam,the steam version was ALWAYS £5-£10 more expensive.

I do appreciate that when they do have a sale they are generally much cheaper than the normal steam price, but you have to remember, 50% of £35 is £17.50 and outside of steam you can buy at any time for £19.99 plus these shops also have sales at Christmas and other times of the year  (my example was FM14 ) So your not always getting a bargin with them.

I appreciate some people like steam but  I think generally it will push flight sim software up drastically if other companies jump on the wagon and sell their offerings through Steam.

 

rgds

Well, I went P3D finally.  But if it was on Steam, I wouldn't have done it.  I've had-Steam-based software, didn't care for it.  All of my non-sim-based gaming is now done through UbiSoft's UPlay.  Steam runs constantly in the background.  UPlay doesn't.

 

Wow, that's a first as Uplay is generally considered the worst digital distributor of all by there over the top DRM, remember that "constant online" requirement to run a few of their single player games. Steam by all accounts is the savior to PC gaming.

Well, the more I read this latest news, the more I feel satisfied for having got away from both :-( I'm sorry to say...., not to count P3D....

 

I think I'll be fighting air duels for quite a looooong time :-)

Can I ask a dumb question.  What is Steam? and why is it used for gaming rather than traditional download or box product ?   (And yes I know I can look it up but I expect I will get the real deal answers by asking the question here rather than some marketing hype I may find in my Google search).

Wow, that's a first as Uplay is generally considered the worst digital distributor of all by there over the top DRM, remember that "constant online" requirement to run a few of their single player games. Steam by all accounts is the savior to PC gaming.

 

UPlay has its issues.  Steam is an invasive resource hog.  Just what you need running when FSX already needs every bit of the very small memory space it can get.

Can I ask a dumb question.  What is Steam? and why is it used for gaming rather than traditional download or box product ?   (And yes I know I can look it up but I expect I will get the real deal answers by asking the question here rather than some marketing hype I may find in my Google search).

From the Wiki -

 

"Steam is an internet-based digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer, and social networking platform developed by Valve Corporation. It is used to distribute games and related media from small, independent developers and larger software houses online. In October 2012, Valve expanded its service to include non-gaming software. Steam provides the user with installation and automatic management of software on multiple computers, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and in-game voice and chat functionality. The software provides a freely available application programming interface (API) called Steamworks, which developers can use to integrate many of Steam's functions, including copy protection, networking and matchmaking, in-game achievements, micro-transactions, and support for user-created content through Steam Workshop, into their products.

 

Though initially developed for use on Microsoft Windows, versions for OS X and Linux operating systems, and a limited-function version for the PlayStation 3 console, have also been developed. Chatting and shopping applications for iOS and Android mobile devices have also been written. The success has lead to the development of a line of Steam Machine microconsoles and personal computers meeting minimum specifications, and SteamOS, a Linux-based operating system built around the Steam client.

As of January 2014, over 3,000 games are available through Steam, which has 75 million active users."

and why is it used for gaming rather than traditional download or box product ?  

 

Mainly because it's so easy. With boxed / traditional download products every time you need to reinstall something / install stuff on a second PC you need to find the installer / CD, run it, wait for it to finish... 

 

With Steam you can just launch the program, start downloading the game with a couple of clicks and that's it. No need to store boxes or installers anywhere, all you need is Steam installed on your PC. 

 

Also many games support Steam's multiplayer functions, basically you can easily join servers where your friends are playing, communicate them through Steam chat any time.

 

Steam store makes it easy for supply and demand to meet. Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, Papers, Please... All of these great games very much benefit from being available through Steam. 

 

 

 

Just what you need running when FSX already needs every bit of the very small memory space it can get.

 

Meh, with 8GB of RAM I've never found running steam on background while flying in FSX to cause any memory issues. 

Long time user of Steam here. It's easy to use, has a huge catalogue of games available, runs frequent sales with up to 90% off, automatically patches or updates my games for me.

 

Oh yeah, and it has 75 million active users. I'm sure XP10 and FSX would benefit a great deal from that kind of exposure.

 

 

Steam is an invasive resource hog.

 

Just checked my task manager and Steam is currently using 50MB, or 0.4% of my 12GB RAM, and 0% of my processor cycles.

The rebirth of FSX on Steam doesn't really do much to advance the hobby, except to maybe tempt a few FPS players to give it a go in a $9.99 Xmas sale.

 

The new product that Dovetail intends to release in 2015 I predict will be a kind of MS Flight Rebooted. The main reason being to sell DLC, in other words picturesque regions with nice looking but non-complex aircraft to fly. Think Train Simulator 2014 in the sky.

 

So this is really a bit of a non-event for seasoned simmers (GTA V on PS4 announcement got me excited but not this) and I look forward to X-Plane 10.35 with the visibility "bug" fixed, and SkyMaxx Pro 2.

If these go on steam never expect to pay at good prices EVER again ,In my opinion steam is the biggest ripoff out there

 

Developers set the prices, not Steam. Why are you blaming them? 

Well, I went P3D finally.  But if it was on Steam, I wouldn't have done it.  I've had-Steam-based software, didn't care for it.  All of my non-sim-based gaming is now done through UbiSoft's UPlay.  Steam runs constantly in the background.  UPlay doesn't.

That's interesting. Many people (myself included) consider Uplay to be the worst gaming platform out there. 

 

Wow, that's a first as Uplay is generally considered the worst digital distributor of all by there over the top DRM, remember that "constant online" requirement to run a few of their single player games. Steam by all accounts is the savior to PC gaming.

Exactly.

 

UPlay has its issues.  Steam is an invasive resource hog.  Just what you need running when FSX already needs every bit of the very small memory space it can get.

You're implying that Uplay isn't a resource hog? LOL.

 

I have Steam open right now (idle) and it's using around 40MB of my 16GB. Not very resource heavy, in my opinion.