I can certainly appreciate PMDG and other developers concern. After all they really are what drive the market forward. Where would FSX/P3D be without these devs as being the cornerstone of the simming platform. 

However its rather hard to say definitively what route this will take. Pretty sure DTG should've learned by now why Flight failed and its 3rd party relationship or lack thereof. 7 pages of this thread, yet I have not heard or seen a comment from DTG reps in direct response to RSRs concerns. If they are really serious about making it a mainstream platform, then one of the best known premium developers should be of primary concern to accommodate them as best as possible. As some of said, without PMDG and others around supporting it, its as good as dead in the water. I really hope DTG succeeds and we all want a strong simming community and competition. Also seems a no brainer to just charge the extra commission steam and DTG want to add to the price and sell at normal on your own store, but I take it this is against some policy of theirs. If DTG is reading this thread, they better tread carefully, as the decision regarding this point will clearly make or break it. 

As for beta testing, Im against it for addons, as I tried it a few times, and it seems to take forever to get things corrected and have any kind of progress. But as a core simulation, I think its a different scenario.  Have early access beta stage, should hopefully give alot of feedback what all the users like and dislike and thus correct it while its in development. Think of a clay potter that molds the pot as he or she goes along while still wet. Once it hardens though, making any changes proves to be alot more difficult. We know this with FSX as alot of the stupid things we deal with are hard coded in there or very difficult to remedy. So deal with it as its being developed makes more sense. 

 

21 minutes ago, HighTowers said:

7 pages of this thread, yet I have not heard or seen a comment from DTG reps in direct response to RSRs concerns.

You probably will not see any counter arguments from DTG about that, here at AVSIM.  From a business perspective, it would be unprofessional to do so.  If there has been any discussions between PMDG and DTG about their business relationship, having discussions of any kind between them, could introduce issues.  I am sure they are well aware of people's opinions and loyalties to sim platforms and add-on products, and I am sure they are taking notes too.

19 hours ago, barrel_owl said:

DTG is not locking anything: neither freeware nor payware. I have lost the count of all the times that Aimée and other DTG representatives made this crystal clear in other threads.
Which part of "Developers can sell their products through their own sales channels, as long as they also sell through Steam" is not clear? It is already happening with DCS titles, it is already happening with a long list of FSX Steam titles from a long list of flight sim developers, it is already happening with thousands of gaming titles.

If I want to buy the King Air 350i directly from Milviz or the PMDG 777 directly from PMDG, nothing and nobody is going to stop me from doing that. Except that Milviz and PMDG will decide not to develop for FSW at all, which is obviously their own business decision.

Filippo Nesi

 

That's not it. You do realise that selling through steam or some other channel will mean the host gets to charge a percentage which will affect PMDG margins. For example, selling for dovetail through steam will mean giving about 30% to steam (last I heard) and another amount to DTG. That means PMDG may have to charge a higher price which a lot of people will moan about. The other option would be to charge higher through steam and the normal price at the website but I doubt will work for long as it would mean almost nobody buys from DTG which I don't think they will tolerate. I think it would have been better if Microsoft had sold the license to PMDG, ORBx and the other developers. Imagine how happy we would have all been

57 minutes ago, Jimm said:

You probably will not see any counter arguments from DTG about that, here at AVSIM.  From a business perspective, it would be unprofessional to do so.

Actually, you wont see such public counter arguments because DTG knows they wont win nor garner goodwill from such around here...besides, we are not their intended market:  DTG's target audience is the lowest common denominator.

Perhaps the difference is that rather than the quality of the sim itself being the primary motive in the case of DTG it's profit. They look at the existing captive market in terms of Steam account holders and no doubt rub their hands in anticipation.

15 minutes ago, uncle_adolph said:

 

Perhaps the difference is that rather than the quality of the sim itself being the primary motive in the case of DTG it's profit.

 

Err... no, Microsoft certainly never considered profit for a moment when they bought MSFS off Bruce Artwick, did they? Bill Gates just thought he'd give it to the FS community out of the goodness of his heart.

It's all business. DTG have to turn a profit just like MS, PMDG, LM or any other developer.

8 minutes ago, skelsey said:

It's all business. DTG have to turn a profit just like MS, PMDG, LM or any other developer.

I doubt LM makes any profit from P3D.

Just now, Boomer said:

I doubt LM makes any profit from P3D.

I'm most certain they do, but not from the likes of us: they make their money from selling multi-million pound contracts to commercial providers (I understand, for instance, the RAF is going to be using P3D in some form going forward for some of their simulation needs).

46 minutes ago, Boomer said:

I doubt LM makes any profit from P3D.

Companies don't just slap their name on products for nothing, especially one as big as Lockheed Martin.

1 hour ago, Boomer said:

I doubt LM makes any profit from P3D.

P3D forms part of the SciosLive product line, as a wider part of their Scios training and development services. If you dont think that activity earns LM many hundreds of millions of dollars you are living in cloud cuckoo land! :)

http://lockheedmartin.com/us/what-we-do/aerospace-defense/training-logistics.html

Edited May 8, 20179 yr by kevinfirth

6 hours ago, captainsazzman said:

That's not it. You do realise that selling through steam or some other channel will mean the host gets to charge a percentage which will affect PMDG margins. For example, selling for dovetail through steam will mean giving about 30% to steam (last I heard) and another amount to DTG. That means PMDG may have to charge a higher price which a lot of people will moan about. The other option would be to charge higher through steam and the normal price at the website but I doubt will work for long as it would mean almost nobody buys from DTG which I don't think they will tolerate. I think it would have been better if Microsoft had sold the license to PMDG, ORBx and the other developers. Imagine how happy we would have all been

Indeed!   And let's face it - if a price tag is already 90 USD and you have to add the 65% margin, you are looking at another 58.50 USD, ramping it up to a whopping 148.50 USD.   Now let us put that into perspective, I live in the not so sunny RSA.   The Rand to USD now trades at a nice R 13.60.   So to me, what would have cost R 1 224-00, now costs a whopping R 2 019-00!   To put that into perspective, that is about 20 percent of your just below average salary here in RSA.   Sorry, cannot afford it - now let us look at the impact on P3D products shall we?

The concern is exactly what you mention - you may have the option but if you could buy something for 10,2 percent of your salary, why buy it for more than 20%?   DTG will get rowdy, the deal will be cancelled and all of a sudden, BOOM!   No PMDG in FSW.   It is a little oversimplified I know, but there you have it.   It cannot work and it is not sustainable.

Regards

 

This is what I posted for DTG to read in their forum here:

Based on Robert from PMDG's op-ed on the main page I shall be going nowhere near this if they force developers to co-locate their products on DTG's Steam channel. I forsee many following my lead. If this in fact bears out as true, I should think LM's v 4 64bit will be the main hub for most in here. DTG would be well served in knowing many are long time loyal customers of these products and will not take lightly a company whose aim is to siphon off hard earned profits from companies that support our hobby now for many years. The scale is never going to be able to to support those companies giving up profit margins to DTG/Steam that they never had to in the past or currently with Lockheed Martin. Therefore I will never support DTG. 

17 minutes ago, B777ER said:

This is what I posted for DTG to read in their forum here:

Based on Robert from PMDG's op-ed on the main page I shall be going nowhere near this if they force developers to co-locate their products on DTG's Steam channel. I forsee many following my lead. If this in fact bears out as true, I should think LM's v 4 64bit will be the main hub for most in here. DTG would be well served in knowing many are long time loyal customers of these products and will not take lightly a company whose aim is to siphon off hard earned profits from companies that support our hobby now for many years. The scale is never going to be able to to support those companies giving up profit margins to DTG/Steam that they never had to in the past or currently with Lockheed Martin. Therefore I will never support DTG. 

Water off a ducks back comes mind here.

Ray Fry.

Again I ask the question: what stops a developer from releasing an addon on their own? Is it just that they can't label it an "official" addon?  What stops a developer from releasing freeware that can be unlocked to a higher fidelity payware model or payware that doesn't time out after a few minutes use?

I completely understand PMDGs position, but without knowing more, it seems like there wouls be ways around the onerousness of selling on Steam at a loss.

Of course, I'd draw parallels to Dungeons and Dragons - 3rd edition sold like hotcakes because of the OGL license but 4th edition tanked because of the onerous GSL license (with terms like not allowing you to continue using the OGL and publishing for 3rd edition if you were publishing the same product for 4th edition under the GSL...)

Seems like DTG wants to profit off of the backs of other developers. Had they actually developed FSX themselves I'd say they had that right. But they are profiting off of ACES hard work as well rather than the sweat of their own labor.

 

John Powers

if you can remember ms flight try the same time, now no more flight. other that will kill fsw is no fsuipc support. pmdg sure not go steam. will be buy pmdg that money go toward new aircraft. we still have p3d and xplane 11 not steam