This is the one area that hasn’t been that slick from a pr perspective in my opinion. The massive hint in that update that there would be “no subscription” was undermined by the answer they gave in the Q&A session, where it was more “no (we don’t want a) subscription (, but...”

No doubt maintenance of servers costs money. The point with subscriptions is them stacking up. There is not only the MFS scenery subscription, you MUST have a couple of them for Netflix and friends and Amazon Prime, and the Homebanking and Security Software have to be payed for annually. And of course you need Photoshop and Office 360 (+ expect Windows 360 to be added soon), and maybe there will be MFS weather and online traffic addons requiring a subscription, too (wouldn't this be convenient... you will be charged for all of them at the same time).

And at a point you notice subscriptions add up to more than your income. 

I have to confess I use a couple of subscriptions myself (including one for Real Traffic to be used with PSXSeecontraffic) but I try to minimize them wherever possible. 

Kind regards, Michael

1 minute ago, pmb said:

No doubt maintenance of servers costs money. The point with subscriptions is them stacking up. There is not only the MFS scenery subscription, you MUST have a couple of them for Netflix and friends and Amazon Prime, and the Homebanking and Security Software have to be payed for annually. And of course you need Photoshop and Office 360 (+ expect Windows 360 to be added soon), and maybe there will be MFS weather and online traffic addons requiring a subscription, too (wouldn't this be convenient... you will be charged for all of them at the same time).

And at a point you notice subscriptions add up to more than your income. 

I have to confess I use a couple of subscriptions myself (including one for Real Traffic to be used with PSXSeecontraffic) but I try to minimize them wherever possible. 

Kind regards, Michael

It's not just the servers... it's the staff, who plan to keep this thing alive and breathing, that will want their monthly salary. I know where you are going at here with subscriptions building up and all that, but isn't it hypocritical paying several subscriptions (even Flight Sim related like Navigraph or Real Traffic, etc... which actually in total give you less value in return) but going all "I dare you" on a potential subscription for their online services (the goodies like scenery at the highest level being updates regularly... software updates and hotfixes would still be free)??

I suspect MS will do whatever they need to in order to make it viable and attractive for them to pursue on an ongoing basis (good!)

They know that with how this product is shaping up, people will line up to pay for it however they need too.

Some noisy minority will always complain - I'd just ignore them if I were MS.

Edited October 10, 20196 yr by irrics

6 minutes ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

Subscriptions are about keeping product development going, if you don't want development to continue, don't buy a subscription. 

You certainly know more on development than me, however, I dare to disagree on this general statement. MS Office has been actively developed over many years without a subscription. Actually, development started to become rather incrementally (which I would call the present state of development) around the time when MS launched the 360 subscription model.

Kind regards, Michael

I'm fine with content updates with paid DLC planes and scenery like the way they do Forza.

I'd pay for an exclusive limited time Concorde DLC package

A monthly subscription just access the sim?

No thanks

I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being a 2-tier (or more) model at some point. You can buy the game outright, including the version kept on game pass, and get .x updates, or you can subscribe to a ‘pro‘ version and get all updates and new versions (and special tools and extra goodies) for as long as you subscribe. Adobe has been doing this for a while now and it seems to work well for them. 

A subscription option would be a terrible idea. Witness Adobe's latest fiasco of cutting cloud services to Venezuela "because of an Executive Order". Just do a search and find out all the gory details.

Food for thought.

5 hours ago, speedyTC said:

A subscription option would be a terrible idea. Witness Adobe's latest fiasco of cutting cloud services to Venezuela "because of an Executive Order". Just do a search and find out all the gory details.

Food for thought.

Yes also in case of a nuclear detonation, the nuclear electromagnetic pulse would kill the access to servers

Dunno what the issue is..

Playstation has a monthly subscription of $9.99 with quarterly & annual discounts!

Speculation is like sex! Fun at the time, but, always leaves you wondering what all the fuss was about.😜

15 hours ago, domkle said:

Yes also in case of a nuclear detonation, the nuclear electromagnetic pulse would kill the access to servers

Sarcasm has no place here. Wouldn't you prefer to own the software? As you can see from my signature I'm still on FSX. Had that been a sub service my access to it would be long gone.

But, to humour you..."hahah, so funny".

 

On ‎10‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 6:17 PM, speedyTC said:

Sarcasm has no place here. Wouldn't you prefer to own the software?

No one ever "owns" software; they simply pay for a license to use it.

3 hours ago, n4gix said:

No one ever "owns" software; they simply pay for a license to use it.

Yup, developers have been trying to sell the public on that concept for years, and I never thought anyone brought it.

Didn't they actively make that nonsense illegal in Europe? (First sale doctrine)

I haven't looked into it in a long while, but pretty much thought the concept was so full of legal holes most of the time as to be nearly worthless.

On 10/10/2019 at 7:15 PM, Flamingpie said:

Of course there are. For instance: paying to download a certain region of the high quality stuff and then being able to use it 'forever' without a monthly fee. Just to name one option. I personally think it would be a mistake to limit the real awesome stuff to subscribers.

Like the way navdata providers do for online flying? Or the way Xbox and PSN do for online services? Etc.. Etc..