Guys, people forget something here with JustSim. When they first started charging for updates in SimMarket their initial excuse was "its not our fault, SimMarket charges us for the update. When our own website is open you won't be charged for updates." I remember this being said a number of times in their Facebook comments section where I complained a lot when I had to pay again to get an update for dynamic lights for their airports. What I don't like from this developer and I find very unprofessional and a reason to stop buying anything from them, is to lie like that to your customers. Why do I say that they lie? Because they did the same to the X-Plane.org store for their LFMN update for example. So, either all developers pay 6 euro to SimMarket and X-Plane.org for every user downloading an updated file, or they don't. If every developer pays 6 euro for every user downloading an updated file, then I'll publicly and sincerely apologize for what I wrote. But if they don't, then JustSim simply lied, there is no other way around. And this is a practice they should be blamed for intensely from all community in my opinion. 

Edited April 8, 20197 yr by Daedalus

First of all, I'm a P3D flyer, and even though I have X-Plane 11, I just can't get "hooked" on it. P3D is way better looking graphic wise, although Xp is slowly getting there thanks to ie. ORBX. But as far as I know, Xp11 have had PBR built in for a long time, so no need for scenery and aircraft designers to charge extra. And isn't there different shaders for P3D (both payware and freeware) that provides the PBR effect? The ? is because I don't use ANY kind of shaders in P3D, so I'm not sure if they give the same effect as the PBR we're talking about. If that's the case, isn't the fact then that P3D is just getting now, what have been possible to achieve in other ways for a while. And there's no doubt that in the future (P3Dv5?) it will be built into the sim? So it kinda looks like ie Justsim wanna have a piece of the pie now, as long as it's possible, before it's a common thing like ie. HDR. And as also mentioned, QalityWings chose to provide the PBR thing for free, so why can't other developers do the same. Just to finish of my rant, I own the LatinVFR LEBL, and for the one or two times a year I may fly to Barcelona, it's looking pretty good to me, PBR or no PBR 🙂

1 hour ago, simbol said:

Maybe because you don't fully understand the importance of this, specially for our simulators.

And basically every movie special effects you are seeing (CGI) implements PBR to make everything looks as real as possible (in comparison how human eye perceives light reflection on objects), from cartoon movies to  more advanced effects as shown in Stars Wars, games of thrones, etc.

Having Lockheed Martin pushing their platform for PBR is a big important event as it is driving the platform to the next level, and if it wasn't for changes / events like this, we would still have a simulator looking like FS95..

Regards 

Simbol 

 

Thanks for the link Simbol. I already knew it generated better lighting effects such as glass and metal reflections. Water too but that is dependent on the location of the airport.

But once clear of airport buildings and on a dry day it won’t be visible to pilots unless you switch to an outside view of your PBR-enabled aircraft. I assume it cannot be applied to clouds and rain. No rainbows for example.

Good to hear there is no performance penalty. No doubt I will be buying an airport with PBR added at some point. I’ll be able to better judge its impact then.

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

And considering the majority of the 'upgrade' cost goes to SimMarket

I don't know where you get that from. SimMarket charge a percentage commission of the sales. Considering what they do I think it's a fair amount. As well as registration code administration they deal with the VAT side, including dividing the VAT receipts up and sending the monies to the relevant EU country -- the one the purchaser lives in.  All that is hidden. You just see the products listed on the screen.

Pete

 

Pete,

Gerard posted that info in the post linked below. I’m not making it up. It does seem harsh on the developer if true. Perhaps you can clarify the situation assuming you’re not breaking any confidences.

 

SimMarket terms and conditions for vendors are no secret:

https://secure.simmarket.com/authors.php?language=en

I'm not using their installer service, so I can't comment on cost for that. 5€ per sale seems very expensive though. Personaly I don't have any additional cost when I upload updates to my products, "just" the 35% cut, since I sell on other shops too. So from a 20€ sale in Europe, after VAT has been deduced, I get 11€. From that I have to pay income tax, which, as it is thrown together with the income from my real job, is another 40%. So a 20€ sale usually results in 6.50€ net profit. As a small developer, the best you can hope for are between 3000 and 5000 Euro of additional income per year (in my case this is the total of five products in three shops). If I had to pay myself for programming these addons, I would have lost 98% of that investment by now (sales started in fall 2015).

Best regards

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by Lorby_SI

@Lorby_SI, crikey Oliver, that is a real eye-opener. Such a pity that the commercial sellers are so greedy. And you end up with just 30% of the original price.

It would be interesting to know how the numbers work for the big boys like PMDG and FSLabs but there's no hope of knowing.

8 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Lorby_SI, crikey Oliver, that is a real eye-opener. Such a pity that the commercial sellers are so greedy. And you end up with just 30% of the original price.

It would be interesting to know how the numbers work for the big boys like PMDG and FSLabs but there's no hope of knowing.

Indeed, I told you guys the sales figures for small developers were not as big as you guys thought.

So when they charge €6 euros for an update as PBR, it is fairly good for you as a customer.

S.

17 minutes ago, simbol said:

Indeed, I told you guys the sales figures for small developers were not as big as you guys thought.

So when they charge €6 euros for an update as PBR, it is fairly good for you as a customer.

S.

Not always the case Matt openly said he made £120,000:00 from PTA (cost him 10,000) and that was not counting the sales since then. (last year.)

But Gross figures don't show the "bottom line" 

The average item you buy in a shop, let's say cost £120, £20 goes in VAT, out of the £100, the maker more likely only get £50 and out of that £50 he also has to pay the VAT, so £40 then out of that the cost to make it properly around £20. So for the manufacturer out of a shop sale of £120 he will make £20. 

Before you think the shop is being greedy a high street shop in a city centre here in Nottingham can have rents of around £60k-90k per year, then add £5k in rates, lighting and staff on top etc then that's how much they have to MAKE, that's MAKE not take.   

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by Nyxx

14 minutes ago, simbol said:

Indeed, I told you guys the sales figures for small developers were not as big as you guys thought.

So when they charge €6 euros for an update as PBR, it is fairly good for you as a customer.

S.

I never thought small developers were going to get rich selling their hard work. More of a top-up to a full-time job as Oliver suggests.

So out of that €6 how much goes to the developer? Peanuts or just a peanut?

29 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

It would be interesting to know how the numbers work for the big boys like PMDG and FSLabs but there's no hope of knowing.

There are only rules of thumb. PMDG as a company has about 10 employees (says the Internet). To turn a profit as an IT company at that size you need minimum about one million $ per year. Other companies, like Aerosoft or ORBX, have only limited development assets in house, most of their products are produced by small third party contractors (who have about my income from what I hear). Simmarket itself consists of the owner and two (part-time?) sidekicks, plus one (I think) operator for their hardware storage. Since they were able to build a full motion 737 sim on the side, profit should be pretty good (albeit probably not getting rich either).

Also, consider how the market has changed. Gut feeling says that in the past 10 years we went from more than 5 million simmers on the MSFS platform alone to less than 1 million total across 5 patforms; a mere 100.000 of whom on P3D - maybe less. No wonder that prices are going up when people built their business in the old world and try to hang on to it.

FlightSimWorld, RealAir, FlightSimShop, Earth Simulations - all gone, and not because they ran out of coffee.

Best regards 

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by Lorby_SI

This why developers outwith the flight sim realm like Steam, because they only take 30% versus other publishers who take substantially more. It's also why a lot of flight sim developers like to self publish for download releases, most famously PMDG.

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by ckyliu

7 minutes ago, Nyxx said:

Not always the case Matt openly said he made £120,000:00 from PTA (cost him 10,000) and that was not counting the sales since then. (last year.)

You consider Matt D. a small developer? really? 

You have now several developers telling you how things works.. an airport will sell between 1000 to 2000 copies a year if it is really good, sometimes even less than that, airports are not must have add-on's like weather add-on's, PTA, etc.that you use constantly on a daily basis and therefore they get much lower level of sales.

S.

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by simbol

1 hour ago, simbol said:

You consider Matt D. a small developer? really? 

You have now several developers telling you how things works.. an airport will sell between 1000 to 2000 copies a year if it is really good, sometimes even less than that, airports are not must have add-on's like weather add-on's, PTA, etc.that you use constantly on a daily basis and therefore they get much lower level of sales.

S.

Yer I get that and that's why I also pointed out that from a retail sale to the amount the producer gets is a far cry but you decided to selectively quote? Really?

I own my own Retail outlet no one needs to explain how all this works to me but I still don't like Justsim 25% cost per airport Regardless of who gets what. End of the day people will vote with there wallets.

Like you have done with your free lights for ATC that I use and thanked you for on these forums for, I also find a bit of goodwill goes a long way. Or a sprat to catch a mackerel. Charging for everything sometimes just does not work.

Why did you not charge for the ATC lights? All the talk and publicity on here and probably many other placers is good for advertising/marketing, good for business and all people said was how good it was and people remember you and your company name for it. All good when you hope/need to sell something to the very same people and they already hold you in good light, all because of that free bit. 

Never underestimate the power of goodwill. 

I had a couple that came in for the first time with some work they needed doing as fast as possible and explained why I told them to come back in 1 hour, I repaired all their broken things at very little cost to me, they were very grateful and when they asked how much was the bill, I sad it was free and happy to help (I was) They were even more grateful, 3 weeks later they came back and spent £1200. Reminding me again how grateful they were. If I had charged them £95 for the repairs do you think it would have gone the say way? A few weeks later another new couple came in with work because of what they had heard from the couple I had helped. "Word of mouth" the best advertising in the world. Its keep me going for 28 years now. Do I charge for every last thing I could justify charging for? No, and for very good reasons.

Edited April 9, 20197 yr by Nyxx

11 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Gerard posted that info in the post linked below. I’m not making it up. It does seem harsh on the developer if true.

I'm surprised it's "per sale". I'm sure a one off fee could be negotiated. But the money to to pay for the cost of doing the work. I'm sure the developers could make their own installers, as I do, but SimMarket's one is very industry-standard (unlike mine) and deals with the registration in what seems a very secure way. 

The amount must of course have been applied to the previous version, in which case is this on top of that, or instead? If it's "per sale forever" then it it would be cumulative as each new version is released, whether with an upgrade fee or not.

I think not. I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere. A bit of the "send three and fourpence I'm going to a dance" type of translation.

Pete