21 hours ago, tonywob said:

You're quite wrong here. I and many others I know do this as their main source of income. I've just come back from the Cosford flight sim show and there are a lot of other developers and companies there who do this full-time. 

Of course, nobody should buy addons just out of sympathy, but remember that many will suffer and likely won't survive to make addons for the new sim if sales of their products in an already niche community grinds to a halt, and it's quite tiring now to read under any new product announcements quotes such as  "I'm not buying this, I'm waiting for FS2020, you're irrelevant, ha ha ha". For some reason, there is suddenly an awful lot of hate for developers who have kept this hobby alive all these years. It's these same companies that are now for some amazing reason being essentially boycotted and hated upon because they somehow are bad for wanting to be paid for the addons they create. I remember the same hate being thrown at Dovetail when all the flight sim team lost their jobs, and it's a sad state of society and the community today that people are actually behaving like this.

Over the years, a niche industry has arisen around FSX, P3D and X-Plane and it's very possible that in a few years time all that will be left is Microsoft's Flight Simulator and several large companies churning out content for it (Pretty much like DTG's Train Sim or DCS). As a simmer, this makes me pretty sad and I'd probably leave the hobby and find something more approachable (and cheaper) and as a developer, pretty uneasy about depending solely on one company who could pull the plug at any time, and they have done this now, twice). 

I agree it's sad when some folks celebrate or make fun of the fact that payware developers will be hurt by the advent of the new MSFS.

However, I do also see where some folks might harbor a bit of resentment of some FS payware developers, and even payware developers generally.  We've all witnessed some pretty bad behavior by developers over the years, such as: vaporware where the developer promotes a product, takes your money, and then stops supporting it after a short time never to be heard from again, the money grabs like forcing owners of a product to pay full price for it again just to upgrade it to P3D4, the "developers" who release version 0.82.2 of a product and after years of "development" it is still at version 0.91.4 with multiple unresolved issues.  Lastly there are the unreasonably high prices for many addons lately which I discussed in another thread where I showed that those price increases have far, far outpaced inflation.

I have developed a good bit of freeware scenery for FSX over the past several years and spent hundreds of hours doing it, yet I opted not to charge for the work.  I did indeed ask for a small Paypal donation, however, as to be honest making even a little extra money would incentivize me to make more scenery, but have as yet received none from the hundreds of folks who have downloaded the scenery.  I've even received a few e-mails from folks asking questions and requesting a bit of help, which I gladly gave free of charge.  Therefore I take certain regretful behavior and practices of some payware developers who charge for their work a little more personally. 

My point is that although no one should be hating on anyone, criticism where it's due is justified, and payware developers should be held to a very high standard.  As for me, I'll continue to make freeware scenery for FSX and hopefully the new MSFS in the future and I hope others will as well.

Dave

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by dave2013

20 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Thats not what I said.  I said potential customer market increases significantly and thats where more sales can be realized.

You don’t understand the technology and development tools used ... there is no drastic development change for deployment of 3rd party content on XBOX ... very minor changes and all using DX12 and Visual Studio and same 3D modeling tools of choice.  Look at Asobo website lots of console content/experience as well as PC.  Thats why many games are easily ported from XBOX to PC and visa-versa.

When a new console is released they capture a majority market for the next few years and then once the appeal starts to feel old, the PC regains lost momentum ... oscillates over time.  Its the XBOX door that will open up huge sakes potential.

This has nothing to do with hardcore simmers nor is it in anyway a departure from what MS plan to provide. 230,000 PC market active users of flight sim as of today, potential for over 1 Million (hopefully) users for tomorrow including XBOX.

PC = $1500 min spec

XBOX = $600-$1000

PC = higher end user maintenance

XBOX = click and update, click and fly

I personally am not a big XBOX user, but it would be foolish of me or any developer to ignore its potential.

Cheers, Rob.

I agree and I am also not saying there is no potential at all, but I believe that the market on Xbox for higher end add-ons will be limited. In any case, more money flowing into the hobby is always good.

1 hour ago, dave2013 said:

 

Soryy Dave, but I respectfully  disagree with most of what you said. As an user and a very occasional freeware contributor. 

Vaporware is, by definition, never released. I personally do not think savvy to pay in advance for a scenery or aircraft on the Internet. With Early Access, you also take a risk (as a counterpart of paying less). When you take a unreasonable risk  and you lose, why should it reflect on the whole industry ? You did make a poor choice.

Money grab ?  Nobody forced any PMDG user to move from v3 to v4. You don't want to pay twice. You don't. You stay with v3. Where is the money grab ? Did they steal money from our pocket ?

Unreasonable price ? Compared to what ? I can't buy a Bentley coupé  (I'd love to !) but I don't say that the price  is unreasonable. I say my financial means are insufficient. Not Bentley's fault.  You cant' buy a PMDG or FSlabs ? It is too expensive for you, not unreasonably priced. Why should dev follow the inflation and from which baseline ?

People not making donation to freeware contributors : as I said earlier there is a freeloader mentality in this hobby . Some think that's everything is owed to them. Everything should be free or dirt cheap. That's the way it is. 

 

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by domkle

12 hours ago, toprob said:

At some stage I believe that those who have put any purchases on hold will see that there's a long time to go before they'll have the new sim in their hands, or maybe not -- after all, they may have an alpha build very soon. Once the dust settles I'll have a clearer idea, and there are still options which will help me survive for a while, maybe long enough to figure out if I can develop for the new sim.

Regarding the "Tech Alpha Builds" one major point overlooked is that they will be (a) restricted to a selected group from the universe of Insiders per test, and (b) "time limited". The latter meaning that the testing will last for a limited period of time, and then simply stop working entirely.

Moreover, each such test may or may not be available to the previous group of testers. After all, it would make no sense to select folks to test the hardware interface(s) from a group who don't have the hardware!

So no, until MSFS enters true "Beta" release, no one will get to "enjoy" the sim, and even then it will still be limited to the selected group of "Insiders."

2 hours ago, domkle said:

People not making donation to freeware contributors : as I said earlier there is a freeloader mentality in this hobby . Some think that's everything is owed to them. Everything should be free or dirt cheap. That's the way it is. 

I totally agree that PMDG has had some pretty questionable actions in the past. Besides the FSX/P3D 100% overcharge, I am waiting to this day for an update of their DC-6 to XP11 (yes, the plane was developed for XP10, but came to market just before XP11 was released). PMDG has almost a monopoly on high-quality Boeing add-ons for P3D and I don`t understand the need to defend some actions that are clearly anti-consumer.

 

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by n4gix
Deleted excessive quote. Again!

Just now, GCBraun said:

I totally agree that PMDG has had some pretty questionable actions in the past. Besides the FSX/P3D 100% overcharge, I am waiting to this day for an update of their DC-6 to XP11 (yes, the plane was developed for XP10, but came to market just before XP11 was released). 

 

I should have said that I don't have any PMDG aircraft (I fly GA at WB mostlty), so I don't belong to their "fanbase". If they want to charge you twice, again you don't follow suit. Simple.  I understand they have a good competitor (iFly). 

About the DC6, did they sell it with a promise to port it over the next version ? I don't think so.

PMDG are going to make a killing with 100% mark up for round 3 in 2020 !

1 hour ago, domkle said:

 I understand they have a good competitor (iFly). 

 

No fs2 crew makes it unrealistic who by the way jumped aboard the gravy train as well. I never left fsx se but watched the drama unfold.

Big respect for Jv at orbx!!

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by zmak

2 hours ago, domkle said:

Soryy Dave, but I respectfully  disagree with most of what you said. As an user and a very occasional freeware contributor.

You're right about the term "vaporware"; shouldn't have used that term in my example.  I think folks know what I meant.

You're also right about buyers being responsible for purchasing incomplete products and the possible consequences.

We respectfully disagree on what I, and others, consider to be a money grab by a developer.

We also disagree on what one may consider unreasonable prices - of course this is entirely subjective.  Nevertheless, I have shown that the price increases for many addons have greatly outpaced inflation over the past 10 years.

Despite the fact that buyers always have a choice and bear responsibility for their purchases of incomplete or unproven products, my assertion that developers can gain a poor reputation by engaging in regretful practices and behavior is valid.

Good discussion.  Thanks.

Dave

Edited October 7, 20196 yr by n4gix
Deleted excessive quote. Again!

7 minutes ago, zmak said:

No fs2 crew makes it unrealistic who by the way jumped aboard the gravy train as well. I never left fsx se but watched the drama unfold.

Big respect for Jv at orbx!!

I agree that Venema's policy was more user friendly  😁 but they are not exactly in the same kind of market !

 

9 hours ago, rjfry said:

Flight sim is a niche product not main stream always has been and always will be, 

This is true in the past 15 years or so (i.e. since FSX came out) but I’m sure I’m not the only one here old enough to remember the 90s. Young folk might not believe it, but I promise you that flight sims were genuinely, 100 percent mainstream games for that entire decade. Actually, I’d say it was consistently one of the biggest, most prestigious genres for development.

Those days are long gone, you say? Maybe. But I suspect MS is wondering whether they can get some of that magic back. And I’d add that some of the reactions by “laypeople” (laygamers?) around the internet to what they’ve seen of MSFS so far make that not a totally far-fetched idea...

James

I have not fired up my sim since Hurricane Maria stole my PC in 2017. Spent all that money to upgrade to P3Dv4 and a few months later... ALL GONE. Moved to Mexico after the hurricane for an amazing job and because of that job I was unable to sim. Worked and lived on a dive boat. 

Back on solid ground for the past few months now and honestly, I really don't feel like building a new PC. Kind of tired of FSX and P3D and all the headaches that come with it. Don't get me wrong, they are great sims, but a fresh new start sounds pretty good to me. Until I know more about the new Microsoft sim and what kind of support it will receive from 3rd party developers I am happy to wait. The new sim does look promising... just the thought of not spending a ton of money on land classes sounds great to me. It would be great to load up a default sim that has a far more improved rendering of my home region... the Caribbean. 

I am also more than happy to pay full price for my library of add-on if they were available in the new sim. Well most of them anyway. Sadly this will hurt some developers. I can't imagine buying an add-on like Active Sky if the sim's default weather engine is as good as they say it will be. Nor can I imagine buying certain products from ORBX if the new sim's default scenery will actually work as promised. 

On the other hand, if developers like FlyTampa, FSDreamTeam, Orbx, FlightBeam Studios, and many others who offer airport add-ons bring improved, enhanced versions of their current catalog of airports to the new platform, I will gladly support them. Same can be said for the aircraft developers. I currently own large commercial aircraft (and one turbo prop)from PMDG and Aerosoft but I will gladly explore this new sim while staying much closer to the ground if it performs as promised at launch. So because of the new sim's scenery capabilities, it is very likely I will support developers I would not have on the older generation of flight sims. I like good looking visuals and let's be honest...the current sims are kinda ugly up close. 

So...I will not likely buy any more add-ons for my current sim unless I suddenly decide to build a new PC. I can't deny how promising this new sim is for me. From what I know so far, the possibilities are VERY, VERY exciting. I only hope Microsoft stays true to their word and actually wants to work closely with the 3rd party dev community. It's only fair that they benefit from this new and exciting future in flight simulation.

36 minutes ago, honanhal said:

This is true in the past 15 years or so (i.e. since FSX came out) but I’m sure I’m not the only one here old enough to remember the 90s. Young folk might not believe it, but I promise you that flight sims were genuinely, 100 percent mainstream games for that entire decade. Actually, I’d say it was consistently one of the biggest, most prestigious genres for development.

Those days are long gone, you say? Maybe. But I suspect MS is wondering whether they can get some of that magic back. And I’d add that some of the reactions by “laypeople” (laygamers?) around the internet to what they’ve seen of MSFS so far make that not a totally far-fetched idea...

James

I don't think so streaming and smart mobile devices will dominate in the future, one of the reasons PC chips are in short supply is the fabs have higher and higher demanded from Google and apple for mobile devises  over 50% never gets to a PC. Mobile gaming will be big and the big studios will want in.  

At first I was thinking "All addons on hold," but now I'd probably still buy some

But there's not much out there....  Scenery packages here and there and MAYBE a small airplane or Carenado once in a while.  I need something fresh and with high systems fidelity and great looks.  I know there is a nice Flysimware C414 coming, the A2A Cub (meh too slow for me but others are waiting I'm sure), Maybe the A2A Aerostar.

XP11 has the Aerobask Falcon 8x and Hotstart Challenger 650, and Skunkcrafts Lancair Legacy at some point.... there's also a Cirrus shaping up well for XP11....

Still nothing out that tickles my fancy.

Complete moratorium on any further P3D purchases. In fact I've barely simmed with it lately as I wait and drool over those videos of the new MS flight sim.