57 minutes ago, ytzpilot said:

FSX came out in 2006....It was not until 2010 that third party development caught up to it.

Therefore if FSW is released in 2017 don't expect the same until around 2020 or so

I bought FSX in 2006 when it first came out and didn't start using it until 2009, I was still happy with FS2004 and its third party development until FSX started to catch up. It wasn't really until 2011 that ORBX PMDG and REX started to turn things around for FSX, being 5 years after its release date.

"For it is the doom of men..... that they forget."

Merlin/Excalibur/1981 

I love Steam. If PMDG's main problem with Steam is that they lose 65% of the price to Steam and DTG, well, simply add 65% to the price on Steam and make it clear you can get it 'cheaper' (regular price) at the PMDG site.  'Cheaper' will even help selling more products!  

BTW Orbx doesn't seem to have any problems with Steam: afaik they are selling things for the previous version of DTG FSW over there and they are supporting Aerofly FS 2 which means those addons will also be available on Steam. This will only open up a new market so... what is there to lose? Money? It is better to sell a product with a loss of 65% than to not sell it imho. 

Anyway, as I said I love Steam. I wish I could buy ALL my software there. You always have the latest versions, no need to look for updates when you reinstall something on a new PC, an absolutely awesome refund policy, for regular games your progress is saved and transferred to a new PC without having to do anything for it, no need for backups, everything in one place, new stuff can be bought instantly... what is there not to love about it? Looking at all the misery I had to go to during my FSX and P3D days when it came to reinstalling the sim I cannot imagine anyone opposing to their sim being on Steam.

Concerning the 'regular Steam user' and the nonsense I read about that: there is no regular Steam user. The idea that a regular Steam user is a 15 year old gamer is so stupid... people who say that have no clue. Seriously. 

On 8-5-2017 at 0:49 PM, Boomer said:

Maybe, but Steam's 30% cut is outrageous.

Well, around 99% of the developers seem to disagree.  If I was a developer I also would rather sell 1000 copies with a loss of 30% via Steam than 10 at full price via my own site. And I am sure 100% of the users couldn't care less about that 30% because they pay regular prices anyway. In fact, the frequent Steam sales offers thousands of games for really ridiculously low prices (another advantage of Steam btw).

And btw that 30% Steam cut isn't outrageous: what actually IS outrageous is the 30% (or was it 35%) DTG cut...! Imagine Microsoft or Lockheed or Laminar or iPacs asking 35% of every addon that has been sold for their sims! Steam isn't the problem here, DTG is. 

1 hour ago, J van E said:

Imagine Microsoft or Lockheed or Laminar or iPacs asking 35% of every addon that has been sold for their sims!

But this is just it. If MS had done something like this (regardless of the specific percentage) then as I say -- we wouldn't be discussing DTG -- we'd be looking forward to MSFS 2018.

As I've said before -- yes, it is good for us to support third party developers so that they continue to create great content for us. But the base sim also needs supporting -- and it makes some sense for those who are profiting by selling add-ons for it to bear some of that cost/responsibility.

The alternative is that we could all pay more (perhaps a lot more -- like P3D $200 sort of money) for FSW. But then you'd just have people complaining about greedy DTG demanding hundreds of pounds for a basic sim platform.

1 hour ago, J van E said:

And btw that 30% Steam cut isn't outrageous: what actually IS outrageous is the 30% (or was it 35%) DTG cut...! Imagine Microsoft or Lockheed or Laminar or iPacs asking 35% of every addon that has been sold for their sims! Steam isn't the problem here, DTG is. 

According to Bill (N4GIX) these are the numbers:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/509612-is-dtg-fs-world-restricted-to-ga/?do=findComment&comment=3619356

28 minutes ago, skelsey said:

But this is just it. If MS had done something like this (regardless of the specific percentage) then as I say -- we wouldn't be discussing DTG -- we'd be looking forward to MSFS 2018.

As I've said before -- yes, it is good for us to support third party developers so that they continue to create great content for us. But the base sim also needs supporting -- and it makes some sense for those who are profiting by selling add-ons for it to bear some of that cost/responsibility.

I totally agree. Without the platform no addons. Quite fair the developer of the simulator takes a cut to fund further development.

58 minutes ago, Rimshot said:

According to Bill (N4GIX) these are the numbers:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/509612-is-dtg-fs-world-restricted-to-ga/?do=findComment&comment=3619356

I totally agree. Without the platform no addons. Quite fair the developer of the simulator takes a cut to fund further development.

following your base logic it is right that a mechanic  repair a mercedes will have to pay a fee to the car company that make the actual car for the repairs done ???  force the mechanic to work at car company workshops only ? and only allow certain mechanics to repair their cars ?

Since when mechanics pay for projects to build a new car ??

with this kind of policy the destiny is already sealed.

I understand Steam take its charge; is actually them they sell the addon and use their customers base;  what Dtg is charging - for the rights to sell addons for the sim ??  what is Dtg Charge for? 

Car maker say to the mechanic; if you repair cars made by me - you got to pay for the rights to do so ??

does not sound right to me

 

1 hour ago, Rimshot said:

Quite fair the developer of the simulator takes a cut to fund further development.

I do understand this view but in this case 'quite fair' might be something like 1 to 5% or so. I still don't agree that an addon developer should pay the developer of the sim but well, ok, a few percent I can understand. But around 20% (which it turns out to be, so it seems)? Looking at PMDG prices DTG may earn more with every PDMG plane sold than with selling the sim itself. Sounds a bit greedy to me. Easy cash. I am glad MS, Lockheed, Laminar, iPacs didn't/don't do this because then addons would probably cost (even) more than they do already.

well;

interesting debate but - now you know who is actually pay for the free Fsw copies give away bonanza !  

as they say;  what goes up has to come down !!  

 

3 hours ago, arsenal82 said:

following your base logic it is right that a mechanic  repair a mercedes will have to pay a fee to the car company that make the actual car for the repairs done ???  force the mechanic to work at car company workshops only ? and only allow certain mechanics to repair their cars ?

Since when mechanics pay for projects to build a new car ??

with this kind of policy the destiny is already sealed.

I understand Steam take its charge; is actually them they sell the addon and use their customers base;  what Dtg is charging - for the rights to sell addons for the sim ??  what is Dtg Charge for? 

Car maker say to the mechanic; if you repair cars made by me - you got to pay for the rights to do so ??

does not sound right to me

 

I follow you, but ofcourse a reparation is something different then building an addon. First, If I built the car and it broke down I would come to you for repairs and I would pay you instead of the other way around. But I might definitely ask you to repair the car in the garage where it was built, because I would have all the right tools. DTG has rebuilt FSX code and they want to coöperate with possible addon developers by learning them how to make use of that new code. I can imagine a small fee for that would be fair, may be only a starter fair for the first addon?

Besides the above I doubt you can compare your example with DTG's intentions one on one. But I do understand your point. I would also be annoyed if I had to pay some sort of fee to a developer of a software package that I built an addon for. But the argument I benefit from the fact this developer has built the software at all is an important factor in my opinion.

2 hours ago, J van E said:

I do understand this view but in this case 'quite fair' might be something like 1 to 5% or so. I still don't agree that an addon developer should pay the developer of the sim but well, ok, a few percent I can understand. But around 20% (which it turns out to be, so it seems)? Looking at PMDG prices DTG may earn more with every PDMG plane sold than with selling the sim itself. Sounds a bit greedy to me. Easy cash. I am glad MS, Lockheed, Laminar, iPacs didn't/don't do this because then addons would probably cost (even) more than they do already.

I agree the percentage should be low. I'm very curious how this all works out!

One needs to only look at SCS software, and how the sales of their products have reached a wide audience. Even now, the SCS Steam sale, you can purchase the whole product line for about 8USD Includes Euro Truck sim 2 + DLC and American Truck Sim as well. What a deal!! That is why I like Steam.

Remember buying a new computer and spending time (days) looking for CDs and reinstalling your favorites?
Steam eliminates that.

Same as Google or iTunes and your smartphone. You get a new one and your apps are linked and came be reinstalled with no fuss.

When Steam goes out of business we will all make a mad dash to download and burn all our software before the expiration date.

(The internet will explode)

17 hours ago, J van E said:

I am glad MS, Lockheed, Laminar, iPacs didn't/don't do this

MS funded as BG's pet project, LM are in it for a much larger and more lucrative market...dont know about XP

 

Im not going to be too harsh on DTG yet, they always sai it wouldnt be what everyone wanted from day1, and it isnt.

 

Progress of sorts has clearly been made (LM take note of those windshield rain droplets please ;) ) but they've sunk a lot of cash into the rights for the base code and the economic model has to reflect that.  You cant expect otherwise for a £20 base sim.

I agree with Kevin. I may be a bit disappointed with FSW using ORBx FTX Global as the scenery base, but then I have never really been a fan of textured generic landclass scenery (ever since the abysmal terrain graphics in FS5). Nevertheless, other aspects of FSW look quite interesting, including those really impressive raindrops on the windscreen (let's face it, no version of FS has come close to matching the raindrops seen in the Flight Unlimited series until now).

It will be interesting to see how FSW develops over the coming months, and into 2018. I will not be giving up on P3D any time soon (since it is able to deliver the type of simulated environment that I currently enjoy), but I will be keeping an eye on FSW....

Putting your product on steam means your one click away from several million customers, and new simmers will not know about flight sim online stores unless they go looking, that's wear the community comes in pointing them in the right direction, the more that take it up for whatever reason the more funds will flow back for future development which we will all benefit from.

Ray Fry.

On 5/11/2017 at 2:33 AM, J van E said:

Anyway, as I said I love Steam. I wish I could buy ALL my software there. You always have the latest versions, no need to look for updates when you reinstall something on a new PC, an absolutely awesome refund policy, for regular games your progress is saved and transferred to a new PC without having to do anything for it, no need for backups, everything in one place, new stuff can be bought instantly... what is there not to love about it? Looking at all the misery I had to go to during my FSX and P3D days when it came to reinstalling the sim I cannot imagine anyone opposing to their sim being on Steam.

I'm not opposed in principle to Steam. I've used it for years, with 107 games purchased and 12 games currently active. Obviously I'm a fan. But I still think it's not an ideal platform for a major flight sim.

The main reason is that it's not designed for the massive volume of DLC and free user-generated content that we've enjoyed with FSX, P3D, and X-Plane.

Steam is designed for games that have a limited amount of DLC, using just a basic flat list for presentation. It works for Aerofly FS2 because there are currently only 16 DLC items available. It's not even too bad for games with a fairly large amount of DLC like the Total War series. 

Now take a look at DTG's Train Sim 2017 page and its DLC list.

There are 290 products there, as a flat list with no search function and no categorization for type of add-on. It's a pain to scroll through, and that number is bupkis compared to what a major flight sim can eventually generate as payware.

The free add-on situation isn't much better. The Steam Workshop at least has categorization and search, but it's easy for good items to be obscured. The automatic version updating and deprecation of incompatible Workshop content is a great feature, but just trying to find something you're looking for isn't easy with the current format.

It doesn't matter as much, if there are other outlets people can go to for payware and freeware add-ons. But if you're making the point that everything in a major flight sim can easily be handled by Steam alone, that just isn't true. Not until they do a major redesign of how they handle DLC and the Workshop content. 

As we all know, flight sims live or die based on the available add-on environment. So if FSW is a success in the flight sim marketplace, I think it will be in spite of Steam's flaws, and not because it's such a great distribution platform.