P3D Longevity

[Wink207 78]

Just remember, LH is in the military hardware and support business. Emphasis on hardware. P3D will continue so long as the folks behind P3D can continue to justify their R&D expenses through synergy with the company's main product lines. Selling licenses to people like us is simply a way to offset their R&D costs. For example, a year of an engineer's time at LH probably runs around $250k. How many such folks work on P3D. 10 heads maybe? That's $2.5 million + ODC. Say a round $3M. So how many $200 licenses does that add up to? 15000, yes 15000. The key in keeping P3D alive for us, an ancillary market, is for the P3D team to continue to be relevant to the LH main product lines.

[stephenbgs 169]

I watched a video on youtube last week about the LM S-97 Raider and im prettt sure the use P3D in some of the video, around mark 1:05. So P3D is to enhance and streamline hardware development

We ( And i'm Happy to admit ) and 3rd party developers for that matter are an ongoing BETA team for LM to a certain extent, for hardware projects. The Public money LM get from P3D is just a tiny bonus compare to In-house savings, private sector sales , Commercial sales, and defense contracts 

I don't think its the $200 fees that are keeping P3D going 

  

[jimcarrel 688]

I think I will let LM remember what only they know about their business and intentions.

[sillyflyer 11]

You might need to realign the numbers, just a tad. As someone who came from such environments I can say that 250K would be exclusively reserved for the primary division lead (in that location, not corporate), if its even close to that. The individual leads and development engineers are not making anywhere near that sum. I would put it at between per year the 50-125K range depending on +/-10 years experience,.. and if they are right out of school like Full Sail University (clue for why its a great place to develop such a platform  LOL!!! ) then its 'beans and franks' for quite a few years. Its Florida, certainly isn't Palmdale, California, Ft. Worth, Bethesda, MD or a list of other locations where the 'real show' players get paid.

 

The real world and the sim world collide, as usual.

 

May the 4th be with you! 

[Jazzfan 57]

I would bet that LM sold well over 15000 copies of P3Dv4 on the first day release.

[davecessna 9]

I was going to say, if LM paid their engineers an average of $250k/year I'd be banging down the door. LOL

The P3D Facebook groups alone have over 10000 members so it isn't a stretch to imagine they are getting a return on their investment. 

[snapshot21 254]

The Scenery Devs' announcement that they are dropping FSX and focusing on P3D 64-bit provides us with some sort of reassurance for the future of P3D. Making a commitment and dropping a long time platform is not an easy decision. Im sure they are in contact with LM and have an idea regarding the future plans for the flightsim.

[sillyflyer 11]

2 hours ago, davecessna said:

I was going to say, if LM paid their engineers an average of $250k/year I'd be banging down the door. LOL

The P3D Facebook groups alone have over 10000 members so it isn't a stretch to imagine they are getting a return on their investment. 

Facebook followers can be a combination of kids with parent permission in grade school to granddad/grandma who wouldn't know 'Flight Simulator X' from 'Financial Services Exchange'. P3D can be Plans, Policy, and Programs Division, or Phase 3 Sat D. Then there are the followers who just like real stuff that blows up.  If the site is directly sim related, 1-10 million followers is a market, 10K is a good survey response.

Back in the day on the cape if the 14-25K per year directors found leads who had time to go home to their families on the weekends, standing directive was to give them more work because they had too much time on their hands.

I think this movie clip says it all about the real world...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcyfDRYKDJM

Seriously, real world isn't that far off. The creative staff that makes it all happen is usually lowest paid and hardest worked.

As a frame of reference....   administrators of NASA  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Administrators_and_Deputy_Administrators_of_NASA

The admins for NASA are hardly breaking 200K a year. Of course they are not the lobbyist

I would say the average salary around that place is in the 30-50K range + benefits for full timers, double for the 7-10 year old school traffic advisors and 100, perhaps a touch more for one or two lucky players where that division could go away tomorrow and it wouldn't have any bottom line effect on Lm or SkunkW.

Lets hope the future is brighter. I think now that the 64bit barrier is broken, its going to slow down again for a while. Milking is where the action is today.

 

 

Jazzfan

"I would bet that LM sold well over 15000 copies of P3Dv4 on the first day release"

Seriously doubt that, perhaps over a month, yes I agree that is possible.

 

[fluffyflops 1,858]

3 hours ago, Jazzfan said:

I would bet that LM sold well over 15000 copies of P3Dv4 on the first day release.

Depends if they sold it to the Saudi or Aussie military.

Theres no way they sold 15000 on day one no.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

In Germany, a senior developer in a large company like that usually gets 80-100K €, and that is before taxes.

But let us assume for a moment that 50.000 people buy a professional license every year, then LM would make good on 10 million $ right? That is 0,02% of the total income of Lockheed as a company if my calculator serves me right. Noone in the top echelons would care or even notice if this project was there or not, financially speaking. Their printer paper probably costs more than that. Plus, that number is way over the top IMHO, considering all the academics and the total number of active simmers who even consider paying money like that. 

Btw, don't think of P3D as a flightsim alone. The "training" that LM has in mind is going beyond flight. Even the professional customers don't only use it to simply teach pilots to fly - they use it to teach people to do things that are expensive or dangerous to do in real life, and that, in case of a pilot, are impossible in a LD sim because it lacks the depiction capabilites.

Best regards

[sillyflyer 11]

38 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

 Noone in the top echelons would care or even notice if this project was there or not, financially speaking. Their printer paper probably costs more than that.

 

Nice to see someone has a calculator that really works. I would say its less but between the two estimates the bottom line is, they could close Orlando tomorrow and that line item could go away in place of something far more profitable.

Learning to drive or fly behind a keyboard/monitor could potentially spark a new generation of workforce be it military or otherwise. Could move to the private sector as well. Could it be what this '3D Simulation' program development is exploring?  perhaps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgO_y57_078   it's-a-budget saver! Imagine, those drone pilots and eventually real vehicle pilots as they perform their tasks remotely a computer learns from their input and eventually takes over.

As for LM and the future, I do believe this is more in line with the current end game:

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/05/08/lockheed-martin-shows-tech-toys-drone-convention-arrives-dallas

https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/11/u-s-air-force-and-lockheed-demonstrate-autonomous-f-16-strike-capabilities/

http://news.lockheedmartin.com/2017-04-10-U-S-Air-Force-Lockheed-Martin-Demonstrate-Manned-Unmanned-Teaming

  that's a real market $$$$$$ and story.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QblkQ-J6zio

[mdata 46]

Quote

For example, a year of an engineer's time at LH probably runs around $250k.

 

Quote

I would say the average salary around that place is in the 30-50K range + benefits for full timers, double for the 7-10 year old school traffic advisors and 100, perhaps a touch more for one or two lucky players where that division could go away tomorrow and it wouldn't have any bottom line effect on Lm or SkunkW.

 

Quote

In Germany, a senior developer in a large company like that usually gets 80-100K €, and that is before taxes.

 

Just to get numbers a bit closer. An employee's salary (whatever the country or the business) does not mean this is the total cost for the company for this employee. You need to add cost for the environment he works in, building and equipment rental, healthcare and social security contributions, pension funds (yes there is companies paying this), etc. etc. So, depending on the environment the guy works in the true cost per employee can easily be the double amount of his income ...

Making money with software development in a niche business is not that easy. The devs need to eat and drink and survive each day. But software licenses can be sold only once (per major release. This is why subscription models come if favor by more and more companies). The future of P3D obviously cannot depend solely of the income from the sold licenses...

Best Regards

Frank

[Bobsk8 12,728]

7 hours ago, sillyflyer said:

Facebook followers can be a combination of kids with parent permission in grade school to granddad/grandma who wouldn't know 'Flight Simulator X' from 'Financial Services Exchange'. P3D can be Plans, Policy, and Programs Division, or Phase 3 Sat D. Then there are the followers who just like real stuff that blows up.  If the site is directly sim related, 1-10 million followers is a market, 10K is a good survey response.

 

What a ridiculous and unfounded statement to make. I belong to 3 different Facebook groups for P3D and for the most part, they are very active and knowledgeable users of P3D and many times if I have a question or problem , those groups are the first place I turn to for a very quick and accurate answer. 

[Jazzfan 57]

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

I belong to 3 different Facebook groups for P3D and for the most part, they are very active and knowledgeable users of P3D...

  I agree Bobsk8. I also know that a good number of simmers do not bother with the Avsim, Flightsim forums. As I was told by a good friend of mine recently as to why he prefers the FB community, "Too many shills running them places..."

 

[Wink207 78]

11 hours ago, mdata said:

 

 

 

Just to get numbers a bit closer. An employee's salary (whatever the country or the business) does not mean this is the total cost for the company for this employee. You need to add cost for the environment he works in, building and equipment rental, healthcare and social security contributions, pension funds (yes there is companies paying this), etc. etc. So, depending on the environment the guy works in the true cost per employee can easily be the double amount of his income ...

Making money with software development in a niche business is not that easy. The devs need to eat and drink and survive each day. But software licenses can be sold only once (per major release. This is why subscription models come if favor by more and more companies). The future of P3D obviously cannot depend solely of the income from the sold licenses...

Best Regards

Frank

Well spoken. The direct labor multiplier in aerospace certainly can exceed 2 in a company like LM. I put these ideas forward just to remind folks that LM has a much broader base of business than PD3. Not totally unlike MS when they decided to exit the flight simulator business. Good idea to remain flexible and diverse. Same for add on developers. Might want to consider in their business strategic planning to maintain support for FSX, XP, and so forth.