27 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

Where does he indicate any such iterations??? I seriously think, you're over-analyzing this!

Perhaps. or Perhaps i remember the issues Flight, FSX-SE and FSW had with developers and the whole deal with Microsoft/DTG going to take a percentage of the earnings.

 

The part i was referring to either way is the one in which he states that Microsoft will raid space in which the customers addons resides (aircraft, airports etc) and later on when he says that Microsoft is a business and is not entering this business sector out of altruism. Is PMDG in this sector because of altruism? Is Randazzo saying what he is saying out of altruism for the customers, for the simmers or because he has a business which will be affected by Microsoft actions?

 

9 minutes ago, TravelRunner404 said:

I won't pretend to have a definitive read on PMDG and their views but I get the feeling they aren't very accommodating to the change.  Current developers do have a bit of a luxury right now in that they can invest and develop a plane using P3D and from my understanding pay $0 in royalties.  I feel if we want stability their has to be a balance.  Studios like MS or whoever else develops a flight sim can't simply invest millions of dollars into something, sell it for $60 and let everyone else come in and profit as they see fit on their work and investment.  A large studio who develops a base sim also can't act like things don't need to go both ways.  If you want to put your PMDG plane in a sim where people will buy it because they can also look out the window and see incredible real-world scenery then you have to pay the person who created that content that helped you make money off that plane.  MS also needs to understand that the scenery doesn't have as much value without a great plane.  Give and take.  Chicken or the egg type stuff.  Again, I don't know PMDG's full story and thinking, but that message seems a little like, give us free reign to profit off your sim however we want because that's how it's done or you will fail.  In the end, the simmer loses if either side takes that stance but it's their business and their bottom line.  I do get that.

Up until this point, without the third party developers MSFS would have been a universal flop.

As I've mentioned before, the success it's enjoyed has been because of the third party developers.

This reminds me of the old story of the man who beat everyone to the top of the ladder only to find out it was leaning against the wrong wall. 

2 minutes ago, eslader said:

You can bet that with this announcement products like Active Sky, Rex, add-on ATC's, and, of course, add-on airplanes and scenery are going to see demand drop off a cliff.

I'm limiting myself to my list of 'must-haves', the stuff I really want to see in my sim.
All the rest of my discretionary spending is on-hold until we see what Microsoft delivers.

That type of action is going to hurt developers, but it's my money and I've supported some of them very well these last couple of years after I switched to P3D.

IF our current stable of developers get in on the action with this new Flight Simulator, then you can bet your bottom dollar they will charge again for very similar products.
That's to be expected and I'll happily support the ones that have the good products and given good support.
 

4 minutes ago, F737NG said:

Why would "most" developers run away?
The majority of them use Simmarket, Aerosoft, PCAviator, FS Pilot Shop, Just Flight, Flight1, etc. and are used to paying a considerable fee for using them as their distribution channels. 
Even the developers with their own store option have to pay a payment handling agent (which won't be cheap either).

I agree, something similar to Steam where I can buy / have for free, download, install and automatically update all in one place will be a massive improvement over what we have now.

There are many reasons developers would run away. One is the percentage of the storefront, especially if it's run through Steam, which is a 30% cut. The number reduces to 25% for over 10 million in sales, which wouldn't apply for most.

Another big reason is lack of control over marketing. Check out the DLC list for DTG's Train Sim on Steam. There are 529 entries, with a small amount of categorizing on the Browse page, and just a flat list on the "See more" page from the main software page.

Who determines what DLC is at the top of the list and more likely to be seen and sold? Who determines what's at the bottom? I guess it's DTG, but do developers enjoy having their product listings completely out of their control like this? Does DTG get payoffs for higher listings? I have no idea, but I've wondered about that.

Of course there are compensating benefits. Much larger exposure to offset the percentage cut, use of Valve's bandwidth for downloads, Valve's credit card processing, and use of Valve's forums for customer-to-customer support. Every developer will have to make their own decisions about whether that's enough to give up control over how their product is presented in the storefront. If it's a Microsoft storefront it might work differently than Steam, but the issues might be similar.

16 minutes ago, skully said:

Up until this point, without the third party developers MSFS would have been a universal flop.

As I've mentioned before, the success it's enjoyed has been because of the third party developers.

The same thing you can say the other way around, without FSX back then, the 3rd parties would develop add-ons for what? They need the base as much the base sim need the add-ons. What he is saying is the 3rd parties need to give something back in exchange too, some contribution to the ongoing development of the base sim.

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by ca_metal

 

Everything is speculation at this point and I am sure we will have endless conversations and differing opinions. This is obviously going to rely on the cloud, I think everyone agrees it is the only way to pull off the world wide satellite based imagery at the resolution and level of detail that we see in the trailer.   As more "copies" are sold, more server resources are needed.  That isn't free.  They will have to rely on DLC to fund these resources and I see third party apps as a way to do that, with MS taking a piece of the pie.  If not, then what is the alternative other than a monthly subscription?

Also, it's time to realize that we will never really "own" this on our computers like we have past editions due to storage limitations and the average users budget. Stop paying the subscription and Boom, no scenery!  Or, if MS goes the DLC route and fails/pulls the plug, we are SOL without the cloud.  Lots of things to think about over the next year and a half.

9 minutes ago, eslader said:

"As long as it doesn't happen to me, everything's fine" has never held much sway with me.

Nor with me, and I didn't say that. But with something as complex as an operating system, someone, somewhere is guaranteed to have problems with it. There must be an almost infinite number of possible PC hardware and software permutations and I'm always impressed that upgrades generally work so well for all but a small percentage of users.

11 minutes ago, ca_metal said:

What he is saying is the 3rd parties need to give something back in exchange too, some contribution to the ongoing development of the base sim.

They are, more sales of the base product.

If Aerosoft is indeed working with MS on this project, that further reinforces the point of you can't have the success of one without the other.

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by skully

1 minute ago, CarlHill said:

Everything is speculation at this point and I am sure we will have endless conversations and differing opinions. This is obviously going to rely on the cloud, I think everyone agrees it is the only way to pull off the world wide satellite based imagery at the resolution and level of detail that we see in the trailer.   As more "copies" are sold, more server resources are needed.  That isn't free.  They will have to rely on DLC to fund these resources and I see third party apps as a way to do that, with MS taking a piece of the pie.  If not, then what is the alternative other than a monthly subscription?

If that's the assumed streaming model (scenery only, with a local client), then it's the strongest indication that it might be a monthly subscription.

Constant streaming at a fairly high bandwidth isn't just something we simmers pay for, Microsoft has to pay for it too. And they have to pay for the server farms, the maintenance, and electricity to run them. That doesn't get covered  with a one-time $60 game purchase and occasional DLC.

Blizzard figured this out a long time ago with World of Warcraft, and the Everquest devs before that. Those WoW servers and bandwidth were expensive to operate, and were not running at nearly the bandwidth MS would need for the scenery they're showing.

5 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

There are many reasons developers would run away. One is the percentage of the storefront, especially if it's run through Steam, which is a 30% cut. The number reduces to 25% for over 10 million in sales, which wouldn't apply for most.

Another big reason is lack of control over marketing. Check out the DLC list for DTG's Train Sim on Steam. There are 529 entries, with a small amount of categorizing on the Browse page, and just a flat list on the "See more" page from the main software page.

Who determines what DLC is at the top of the list and more likely to be seen and sold? Who determines what's at the bottom? I guess it's DTG, but do developers enjoy having their product listings completely out of their control like this? Does DTG get payoffs for higher listings? I have no idea, but I've wondered about that.

Of course there are compensating benefits. Much larger exposure to offset the percentage cut, use of Valve's bandwidth for downloads, Valve's credit card processing, and use of Valve's forums for customer-to-customer support. Every developer will have to make their own decisions about whether that's enough to give up control over how their product is presented in the storefront. If it's a Microsoft storefront it might work differently than Steam, but the issues might be similar.

You've just described the exact same issues that affect most flight sim developers currently.

I've heard rumours that Simmarket take a similar distribution fee and that's before they charge another fee for every update. I imagine that Flight1 and Aerosoft take fees for being the publisher and for hosting.

Who determines where on a store's website a developer's product is advertised and marketed?
Same questions.

The smaller and even middle-sized players won't care who they sell through as they have never held any sway.
It's only the very biggest players who have done everything on their own, who (if they're even invited to participate) are going to be concerned about such a store front.
Knocking back DTG's efforts to create a unified store front is one thing, Microsoft would be a whole different proposition.
 

9 minutes ago, CarlHill said:

Also, it's time to realize that we will never really "own" this on our computers like we have past editions due to storage limitations and the average users budget. Stop paying the subscription and Boom, no scenery! 

I was just wondering how this would work. I can understand the whole subscribe-to-use-the-flight sim model, but if you paid separately for DLC, surely that would still technically be yours even if you stopped subscribing to the sim (not that you'd be able to use it, of course)?

21 minutes ago, skully said:

They are, more sales of the base product.

If Aerosoft is indeed working with MS on this project, that further reinforces the point of you can't have the success of one without the other.

Yeah Microsoft must know that also. What I'm criticizing is Randazzo's attitude saying they want it their way or they are out. They aren't open for negotiation. That says a lot to me.

I'm not totally disagreeing with you, both Microsoft and 3rd need parties each other, but it's not good when you start saying you want your way or the highway. They did the "same" with Dovetail back in 2016. If Microsoft needs the partners to be on their store, why not negociate the terms? They don't even know the terms as they were not contacted and he is already demanding a totally open SDK enviroment.

I think Microsoft has the right to choose their partners, the same way PMDG has to choose theirs. 

Edited June 12, 20196 yr by ca_metal

3 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

surely that would still technically be yours

It never is. You are paying for a license to use it. Theoretically indefinitely, but in practice only for the warranty period. If the licensor goes away, that is tough luck.

Owning a piece of software means having the intellectual property rights, the source code and the means to compile the working product.

Best regards

 

The amicable solution is to have your own DLC and 3rd party be it free or paid.  Its not hard to look at other simulator title genres to see the success is from having a central store like on farm simulator , and having all kinds of mods from the community as well as 3rd party plus their own DLC.   Discuss it diplomatically instead of having sour taste in your mouth for so long which seems what PMDG is getting at.   Who knows. This may be a whole different group with a different attitude than what was Flights business model.  Im sure they observe other simulator title business models too and where the success is at.