Froogle's take on FSW and possible impact on P3D

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

Having listened to his video again he appears to think it’s a foregone conclusion Dovetail will win their case. That’s a little presumptuous.

Their product is $15 cheaper than LM’s so it could be reasonably argued people just prefer the LM one because there are many 3rd party developers supporting it whereas with FSW there appears to only be missions to purchase. That’s hardly going to get serious simmer’s attention.

Surely this is just the market and how it works. It’s called competition. What could go against Dovetail in any lawsuit is their extortionate markup on 3rd party development. They’re effectively shooting themselves in the foot and if I was a LM barrister it’s that point I would attack them with.

I will give serious consideration to the pro licence simply because it is relatively small fry when you consider the cost of computers used to run the sim plus how much we spend on 3rd party stuff.

[WarpD 824]

Their 'product' is a hamstrung attempt to push a half-baked sim to the masses.  They cut functionality.  They cut developer support (I know there was an SDK finally released, but it killed most of the FSX SDK capability).

They tried to nickel and dime the crap out of what they had purchased from Microsoft... apparently assuming we would have absolutely no choice but to buy whatever they offered.  It was clear from the start that Dovetail intended to make FSW a product that was marketed and controlled exactly like TSW.

Rumors of having to pay 60% of the asking price for a developer's addon to Dovetail/Steam didn't get any developers to embrace FSW.  Rumors that the devleopment license EULA would claim any third-party development would become property of Dovetail didn't get any developers to embrace FSW.  Dovetail did absolutely nothing to address those items.

In short, Dovetail has only Dovetail to blame for their failure.

Edited April 30, 2018 by WarpD

[shivers9 1,174]

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I will give serious consideration to the pro licence simply because it is relatively small fry when you consider the cost of computers used to run the sim plus how much we spend on 3rd party stuff.

Very true. I just want to pull my few remaining hairs out when I hear these dumb petty whinners carring on about the cost of Prepar3d. There seems to be no end to it. From the begining I have just given LM about $10.00 a month and I always have the option to upgrade to the next release. That is about the cost of a burger and a shake at the Big Mac House. Do the add ons add to the cost? Sure, but I all the time see people talking about all their planes in their hanger. I have never met anyone yet who flies 50..60....or 70 different aircraft. The cost of 2 or 3 of those Carenado planes will easily pay for one good release of a quality add on.  If you spend any time at all in this hobby you develope things that go to make the system work. That kind of in a simple way makes us all developers. Get it....come on think about it. Why waste your time and degrade the experience and money with the likes of DTG. Most of the complainers would actual save a lot of money by using x-plain or P3d and would sure have more fun.

[n4gix 4,947]

37 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Their product is $15 cheaper than LM’s so it could be reasonably argued people just prefer the LM one because there are many 3rd party developers supporting it whereas with FSW there appears to only be missions to purchase. That’s hardly going to get serious simmer’s attention

Well, in utter fairness, there were (and still are) several third-party aircraft available from their Steam Store, as well as at least one custom airport.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

4 minutes ago, n4gix said:

Well, in utter fairness, there were (and still are) several third-party aircraft available from their Steam Store, as well as at least one custom airport.

I hold my hand up and admit I only did a brief search. This link is interesting. Over 1,000 reviews and the verdict is “Mixed”.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/389280/Flight_Sim_World/

[mabe54 17]

The big elephant in the room will not allow it to go to that extreme.  They got their fair chance and they blew it. FSW is dead now. Case closed. Let's move on.

Let's wait for the next incarnation of MSFS, please.

Cheers,

 

[Luis_KMIA 242]

DTG dug its own grave the way it treated 3rd party developers.  I really wish the FSX rights would have gone to dedicated people like PMDG. What I hope to see down the road is continued solid comperition between P3D and XP.  And I really look forward to PMDG’s announcement in June!

[RichieFly 712]

9 hours ago, officercrockey said:

I really can't see that happening. I saw it as an attempt to push X-Plane.

This.

All respect due to Fruggle, but I think he either pulled this out of his hat or he said this for motives only known by himself.

Personally, I found it uncomfortable for this youtuber to be dipping his toes into conspiracy-land.

[flhx_ridr 28]

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Having listened to his video again he appears to think it’s a foregone conclusion Dovetail will win their case. That’s a little presumptuous.

Their product is $15 cheaper than LM’s so it could be reasonably argued people just prefer the LM one because there are many 3rd party developers supporting it whereas with FSW there appears to only be missions to purchase. That’s hardly going to get serious simmer’s attention.

Surely this is just the market and how it works. It’s called competition. What could go against Dovetail in any lawsuit is their extortionate markup on 3rd party development. They’re effectively shooting themselves in the foot and if I was a LM barrister it’s that point I would attack them with.

I will give serious consideration to the pro licence simply because it is relatively small fry when you consider the cost of computers used to run the sim plus how much we spend on 3rd party stuff.

I found it interesting how Froogle made it a point to say he hasn't touched P3D in over a month and that he's only used X-Plane and some war bird sims. The he went on to suggest X-Plane is the best thing and only stable platform for the future of flight sims. It came off to me as a knee-jerk reaction intended to cause panic among P3D users. How convenient would it be to have such a powerful voice in the FS community suggest that your product (X-Plane) is going to be the only one left sitting in a chair when the music stops? It certainly would benefit Laminar Research to have a mass exodus of P3D users switch to X-Plane all because some talking head sitting in his living room suggested P3D is going away.

[untoweechja 35]

3 hours ago, tjstreak said:

Also, Dovetail was selling an incomplete and unfinished product.  T;hey have no intention of finishing the product.  They made a lot of promises, which have all proven to be lies and propaganda.  It's sort of hard for them to complain that they were not able to cheat more people.

Exactly.  Dovetail has no grounds for an encroachment claim:  You can't poach customers away from a product that, by any reasonable standard including their own admission, has yet to exist.  

I was willing to show Dovetail my money when they showed me a complete simulation platform.  They couldn't do it because the 'sell them a bare-boned product, then milk 'em dry with DLC available only through our sales channels' model does not work in this niche.  Their business model killed them, nothing else.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

@HDUltraClassic, you would hope he would remain totally impartial when making these videos given the number of people subscribed to his channel. He's certainly no lover of Dovetail. I lost count of the number of times he lambasted them for their DLC policy.

He doesn't appear to be a jet pilot preferring GA (X-plane) and military (DCS World). No wonder he hasn't flown P3D in over a month. Strange when he's paid all that money for a pro licence. 🙄

I hope he has a rethink about his broadcast. He must realise healthy competition is not illegal and Dovetail have not helped their own cause with their DLC decision. They've gone off at a tangent that no-one else in flight sim has and it's cost them dear. It's a simple case of misreading the market and coming to a flawed decision.

[fs4fun 366]

I also think the notion of a lawsuit is quite silly. One the one hand there is no doubt there are people buy P3D Academic who don't actually qualify and then they use it for entertainment purposes. You'd need to have your head totally buried in the dirt to think otherwise. On the other hand DTG would need to prove that actually impinged on their sales. This I strongly doubt since DTG committed so many unforced errors themselves and those errors were likely by far the larger limiting factor in sales of FSW. If all other flight sims were pulled off the market I doubt that would have helped FSW sales that much. Not enough people would be interested in a sim with only piston props, a half baked weather system and SDK, few addons, dated looking scenery, and bad performance. I'm one who thought FSW could have potential, but only if DTG had stuck to it long term. After they exited EA they lost focus and their development roadmap turned into an incomprehensible mess of half done features.

I am curious about what they will do with that license from MS, whether they can sell the rights and if anyone would be interested at this point. I guess I'd be surprised if anyone picked it up to have another go with FSX, but I think the license includes MS Flight, which is a considerably cleaned up and modularized code base. My understanding from Stonelance is it would be fairly easy to port to DX12 or Vulkan and would be easier to add features to it than the FSX code.

[flyforever 267]

With other "academic" software, a user must show proof of being either a student at some academic institution or show employment with an academic institution. It's possible that LM is working with a loop hole regarding this definition, but Microsoft any no trouble selling both versions of FSX as "professional development" and as "entertainment". To look the other way is like a drug dealer leaving the drugs in a corner and looking the other way while the buyer takes the goods and leaves the money.

It's clear that DTG knew this before they purchased FSX. The fact that some other party was interested in purchasing FSX, before DTG outbid them, shows that there is , indeed, a third party interested. What is new and costly are all the licenses that FSW is based on:

Orbx, A2A, True Sky, etc.  The new buyer would have to establish new conditions with these parties in order to go forward.

Also, as with the civil aircraft business, the question I ask, "is there room for 4 sims? In 30 years of flight simming development, truly new ones like Flight unlimited and Fly failed. Xplane is the love child of one individual, and P3d is an extended version of FSX.

This tells me that the return on investment on a new, revolutionary flight sim platform is elusive, especially now that many users expect the best of the best for hardly any money.

 

As with any failure, new opportunities arise. It's possible that FSW will be sold for a fraction to a new buyer, thus giving it a new lease.

 

Lastly, Steve Hood was a smart and visionary individual. Who told him that they could put out a complete , award winning best seller in less than on year? Someone failed to tell him that 5 years in the red before breaking even is most likely a better scenario in a sim.

 

 

[shivers9 1,174]

Surely everone knows that the X-Plain folks are not above discounts and payoffs to push their product. After all they are in this market to make a buck. Next time P3d does an upgrade just watch the forums for trolls with 3 or 4 post and all that they see wrong with the stuff that the "Defense Contractor" puts out. There is nothing that X-Plain would like more than a Forum battle about LM and it's size and developements. It's just business. I use to look forward to the Froogle updates but based on the past 5 or 6 months they have become more like the Frugal updates. Me do thinks Mr. Froogle has been drinking from the X-Plain and DCS trough. Like the others before him....he will pass with time. It saves me 10 or 15 min on Sunday eve. LOL

Edited April 30, 2018 by shivers9

[Groovy_Kincaid 71]

Wow!

So, I really don’t think a lawsuit will be in the works.

I am no lawyer, but I am an accountant and I have prepped for cases like this in the past.

I would assume that DTG would need to quantify the actual damage done to them by LM. In this case, what are the exact sales figures that DTG lost to LM? Could DTG prove that? I doubt it because both LM and DTG are catering to different users, technically. DTG were after the entry level or casual user, not the full fledged simmer. DTG did not offer as an immersive simulator to people to cause serious simmers to switch. I don’t think academic licenses are going away any time soon. Again, onus is on DTG to prove lost revenue to the offered academic license.

As others here have pointed out, DTG offered a completely different business model. It is like Chevy suing Toyota for lost Corvette sales because of the Prius. Completely different model.