Orbx recruiting......Xplane developers

[keithb77 305]

See their forum

Cheers
Keith

[steve310002 1,198]

Excellent news! I really hope they create regions like PNW etc. with landmarks and regional autogen etc. Exciting times ahead!

[HiFlyer 9,343]

Yah, I passed this on to Tonywob a day or so ago. Let's see what happens.

[GoranM 3,762]

If I'm understanding their proposal, somehow, I can't see established and experienced X Plane scenery dev's willing to give up a percentage to sell under OrbX, when these same dev's can just make scenery on their own and sell it through an established X-Plane store.  

We'll see.

[tonywob 4,768]

20 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I can't see established and experienced X Plane scenery dev's willing to give up a percentage to sell under OrbX, when these same dev's can just make scenery on their own and sell it through an established X-Plane store

This is really no different than say X-Plane.org, X-Aviation or Aerosoft taking their cut as well. I'm not aware of how much these stores take, but you also have to take into account that a developer would also have to promote their own products, support it and that can be hard work. ORBX are very good at promoting their products, have a large dedicated following, and have dedicated support so that's a good plus for anyone considering making their own airports and who would rather just concentrate on the product rather than the logistics behind it.

The problem I've found with some products on various stores is that the quality can vary a lot, with some developers just disappearing or producing products that are not as good as their FSX/P3D equivalents. We've all been pining for high quality scenery addons in X-Plane, and it looks like we may now finally be getting this wish. We also have Turbulent Design coming along for the ride as well, and I would expect we are going to start seeing many more.

 

[CFIJose 5,485]

9 minutes ago, tonywob said:

This is really no different than say X-Plane.org, X-Aviation or Aerosoft taking their cut as well. I'm not aware of how much these stores take, but you also have to take into account that a developer would also have to promote their own products, support it and that can be hard work. ORBX are very good at promoting their products, have a large dedicated following, and have dedicated support so that's a good plus for anyone considering making their own airports and who would rather just concentrate on the product rather than the logistics behind it.

The problem I've found with some products on various stores is that the quality can vary a lot, with some developers just disappearing or producing products that are not as good as their FSX/P3D equivalents. We've all been pining for high quality scenery addons in X-Plane, and it looks like we may now finally be getting this wish. We also have Turbulent Design coming along for the ride as well, and I would expect we are going to start seeing many more.

 

So you gonna do it?

As soon as I saw the thread I thought about you and one other person.

[GoranM 3,762]

11 minutes ago, tonywob said:

This is really no different than say X-Plane.org, X-Aviation or Aerosoft taking their cut as well. I'm not aware of how much these stores take, but you also have to take into account that a developer would also have to promote their own products, support it and that can be hard work. ORBX are very good at promoting their products, have a large dedicated following, and have dedicated support so that's a good plus for anyone considering making their own airports and who would rather just concentrate on the product rather than the logistics behind it.

The problem I've found with some products on various stores is that the quality can vary a lot, with some developers just disappearing or producing products that are not as good as their FSX/P3D equivalents. We've all been pining for high quality scenery addons in X-Plane, and it looks like we may now finally be getting this wish. We also have Turbulent Design coming along for the ride as well, and I would expect we are going to start seeing many more.

 

OrbX are developers for FSX/P3D.  X-Aviation and X-Plane.org have been dedicated to X-Plane for over a decade.  They have an intimate knowledge of the X-Plane community.  On top of that, both publishers, and many developers, have a close working relationship with Austin and Ben Supnik.  John Venema, himself, has said he and Austin have a mutual disrespect for each other.  If I were a scenery developer, the decision would be a no-brainer.  But that's me.  

[chelmo 42]

2 hours ago, steve310002 said:

Excellent news! I really hope they create regions like PNW etc. with landmarks and regional autogen etc. Exciting times ahead!

Well, that's certainly something I would pass on.

Don't get me wrong, Orbx make excellent scenery and I use it on both FSX and P3D but quite honestly the last thing I would want in X-P is the same identikit views....

 

[tonywob 4,768]

X-Plane doesn't do landclass scenery like FSX and has a very different system for mesh, so they couldn't directly port their older regions over anyway. This is pretty much the same case in AeroflyFS as well. I suspect it's no surprise that their next region (The Netherlands) is a photoreal one, as these will in theory port over to both of these sims.

 

[MadDog 353]

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

John Venema, himself, has said he and Austin have a mutual disrespect for each other.  If I were a scenery developer, the decision would be a no-brainer.  But that's me.  

I don't know about that.

William Shatner and George Takei.  David Duchovny and Jillian Anderson.  Bruce Willis and Cybill Sheperd.  Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  Axl Rose and Slash.  Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle.  C3PO and R2D2.

They all pretty much hated each other; but still managed to be successful.

[signmanbob 592]

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

If I'm understanding their proposal, somehow, I can't see established and experienced X Plane scenery dev's willing to give up a percentage to sell under OrbX, when these same dev's can just make scenery on their own and sell it through an established X-Plane store.  

We'll see.

I believe they are more talking about "porting" existing scenery already created by Orbx. 

It would be great if they can follow through with porting their existing scenery.  I would love to have it in XP11 too.  I'm all for that.

 

Bob

[Desaix 235]

Agree, I think they need to begin porting existing material with little development costs and let the Xplane audience to increase before doing anything revolutionary. And this not only applyes to Orbx but to any developers coming to XP from competitive sims. You cannot invest large amount of money if you cannot rely on a probable return on investment and right now this is not the case with XP although the tide is turning.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, GoranM said:

I can't see established and experienced X Plane scenery dev's willing to give up a percentage to sell under OrbX

So if your scenery sold 300% more thanks to Orbx marketing, reputation, support, and ability to unify and make installs and uninstalls and updates super simple without you having to deal with installers and the like (saving you time), you'd still rather go it alone?

I doubt Austin or Ben have any issues with JV ... if they do, then they need to look into the mirror and get them resolved quickly.

I don't get "some" of this negativity (fortunately most are positive of the Orbx entry).  XPlane NEEDS more developers, central location for assets/resources and sharing across developers (to provide products more quickly), and more polished products that don't require end users to read a bunch to text files on how to install something because there is no installer, or how to go to web site XYZ to download this, then copy that, then and then ... come on.  One assumes that having a simple unified environment similar to Orbx FTX Central is a good thing for XPlane ... it will raise the bar.

There are a lot of new products coming out for Xplane and their quality and ease of install is all over the place, from simple and easy to "you've got to be kidding me".  I welcome the Orbx way, I welcome the Turbulent way, I'll welcome any way that makes it easier for me to do more flying and less reading and file manipulation and provides consistent level of quality and support.

Cheers, Rob.

[Susu986 76]

33 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

So if your scenery sold 300% more thanks to Orbx marketing

Your scenery won't sell more. You won't be making your scenery. You'll be making ORBX's scenery, and you either get a cut of the sales, or you get paid a fix amount.

33 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I doubt Austin or Ben have any issues with JV ... if they do, then they need to look into the mirror and get them resolved quickly.

As far as I know, JV had said some negative things about X-plane years ago, and when Austin heard that ORBX is coming to X-plane is December, he bought it up. Since then their relationship is not 'cordial', however ORBX will still do some stuff for X-plane (they won't need Austin's permission to do that anyway, however it could be helpful for them, because maybe they could influence certain parts of the development).

33 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

... sharing across developers (to provide products more quickly)...

This is not how it works. Sometimes studios collaborate, but no one will give up their assets and their techniques, just so that they can do stuff quickly. Microsoft will not collaborate with other companies to make Windows better for the common good, while giving up their secrets. And collaboration is already present between today's developers in X-plane, that does not depend on ORBX, or more developers coming to X-plane. However, I agree, that more studios will likely raise the bar in the quality of payware addons.

 

33 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

and more polished products that don't require end users to read a bunch to text files on how to install something because there is no installer, or how to go to web site XYZ to download this, then copy that, then and then ... come on.  One assumes that having a simple unified environment similar to Orbx FTX Central is a good thing for XPlane ... it will raise the bar.

Most of the stuff you are referring to are FREEWARE airports which requires libraries. I highly doubt than any PAYWARE product (let it be scenery or aircraft) require you to install any additional stuff. Dumbing down X-plane even more (where the users won't even need to copy files from one location to the other, which is an absolutely basic level of computer usage, you cannot really get more basic than that) just invites more people who should be using Aerofly FS2 or FSW instead. X-plane is a serious simulator, and people should be expected to be able to use their computer at a minimum level (and don't complain if they need to read 3 lines of instructions every now and then), if they want to use it. Heck, this thing is an FAA certifiable simulator, yet many people who use it many times won't even grasp utterly basic concepts... ridiculous. There are simulators out there designed for those who want a one-click solution, X-plane is different (and thank God for that). Simple, unified environments more likely lower the bar instead of raising it, and we would get even more panicky people who have zero clue about how to use X-plane, but unwilling to sit down and learn. Nothing in the current day X-plane is rocket science, nor it's addons, it's easy to figure out everything, if you know how to use your PC or Mac. There are tons of people making freeware airports using WED, which is also relatively easy to learn. Even Ortho4Xp and World Traffic 3 are laughingly easy to use, if someone understand the basic concepts about computer usage. And people who are unwilling to do that, should choose a simulator which is more suited for the level of readiness.

[Paraffin 2,197]

37 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I don't get "some" of this negativity (fortunately most are positive of the Orbx entry).  XPlane NEEDS more developers, central location for assets/resources and sharing across developers (to provide products more quickly), and more polished products that don't require end users to read a bunch to text files on how to install something because there is no installer, or how to go to web site XYZ to download this, then copy that, then and then ... come on.  One assumes that having a simple unified environment similar to Orbx FTX Central is a good thing for XPlane ... it will raise the bar.

It's not that simple. What you call "no installer, copy that, then and then..." is a result of X-Plane's open file structure for scenery. That's a plus, not a minus for the sim in my view.

When I bought a new computer earlier this year, it was a snap to transfer my old X-Plane installation and all the scenery files. Just copy it over to the new computer. Only a few payware planes needed to be re-authorized with plugins using DRM. Scenery files are just scenery files with no DRM attached.

So the question here is twofold, I think. First, is Orbx ready and willing to support X-Plane's open file system, maybe using DRM only for the initial unpacking of files? Or are they planning something more DRM-intensive to protect their products, like the way FSX/P3D works?

I'm not sure that's even possible without a wrapper around the entire XP executable, but who knows. I don't see Austin writing DRM protection into the actual scenery code, but again... who knows. And more importantly, how much DRM are we willing to put up with, in order to have access to certain payware scenery packages? Especially when so much is already available free of cost, and free of DRM.