Be careful what you wish for: a cautionary note

[G-RFRY 1,711]

I can`t help thinking that the DTG devs at Rochester airport that put FSX:SE on steam in 2015 did not realise it`s fate was already sealed by MS, and on that Monday morning when they came to work and found the DTG had pulled the plug on FSW and they were cast aside.

MS was laying the groundwork for MSFS 6 years ago 2013, I hope the devs from FSW found work after they were cast aside, remember the future of MSFS is not in hands of Phil Spencer but the guys at the top on which direction MS will go in the future, you will soon have 5 big companies competing in the same streaming platform market, is their room for all. And I have not included Steam (Valve) in this, can it survive.   

 

[ErichB 3,642]

49 minutes ago, domkle said:

May I add that some have slowed their purchases before the MS announcement, waiting for some hints about v5. This market is cyclic, one more cycle.

I did that too.  If an addon product adds value to my simming experience, I will buy it.   There was a time when I bought almost everything going - primarily, because you can't really add enough to your sim experience -  and secondly, I really did think that supporting developers was a good thing.  But that is not always a sustainable model and there are other factors which sometimes require you to take a more prudent approach.

Agree the flightsim world has always been cyclical.  It is a hobby driven by intense passion - which is exactly what will sustain the development community.  Maybe not always with the same people, but the community nonetheless.  There are hugely talented people in this community and new talent comes along every day.  I just hope that the tools are there to make the development of addons more easily accessible from an early stage.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

3 minutes ago, ErichB said:

I just hope that the tools are there to make the development of addons more easily accessible from an early stage.

Hear, hear !

[Cruachan 705]

5 hours ago, Dreamflight767 said:

Respectfully, are you still buying products for versions of sims you long use whether it P3Dv3, or Steam or FS4, etc., etc.?

Hi Aaron,

As time passes and your sim grows in complexity then yes, and perhaps inevitably, there will be a slow down in your purchasing profile as you become more selective. In this, I am no exception. This will always be the case. My concerns centre more around the nascent and less experienced simmers visiting these forums who will be reading posts that seem to be saying don’t buy anything else because at some point in the not too distant future we will have a sim that does it all out-of-the-box. While this is unlikely to be true, Microsoft’s impressive marketing of MSFS2020 only serves to encourage this belief without the provision of actual hard evidence.

Regards,

Mike

[tonywob 4,769]

I think it's foolish to presume this sim will offer everything out of the box on day one. I often seen posts such as "I won't need addons for MSFS2020, so <insert_company_here> can die and won't get a penny from me".

Whilst it's quite a step-up in terms of the base product, we all know customers' demands will increase along with the new sim (e.g. Payware products in FS9 vs a payware product in P3D with PBR, 4k textures etc). What we will complain about in the future MSFS sim will seem trivial and nit-picking by today's standards, but it's going to happen if past trends are anything to go by. Once the honeymoon period has worn off, 3rd parties will have a place.

Also, I don't think we'll see the other sims disappear, and there is a certain arrogance to think this will kill all other sims dead. I'm sure P3D will carry on regardless (with or without PMDG), and X-Plane once the Vulkan port is complete will move forward as well. AF2 has a lot of catching up to do, but is still unbeaten in VR performance.

At least one thing is positive, the posts about MSFS2020 under every new product news on FSElite are finally starting to die out.

 

 

 

 

 

[simbol 5,819]

 

3 minutes ago, zmak said:

So your telling me PMDG had to start from scratch and build a brand new plane with the same effort and development process that went into fsx ? Anything less than that should should have been discounted accordingly..but a 100% lol com on..

YES. The SDK are different for each platform and the method of developing is also different. This will also apply for MS2020.

21 minutes ago, zmak said:

so What ORBX could have charged 10 to 50% more or even 100% but they didnt.  So whats the excuse for fs2crew ?

I don't understand your points to be honest. Each add-on has different cost attached to it, it depends on many factors from how long it takes to be build, the size of the team to build it and the technology that it provides. You cannot compare an airport to an full study aircraft as FSLabs, PMDG, Majestic Q400, etc. they are totally different animals.

And there is also the factor of knowledge, you never heard the history of Tesla and Ford?

Quote

Nikola Tesla visited Henry Ford at his factory, which was having some kind of difficulty. Ford asked Tesla if he could help identify the problem area. Tesla walked up to a wall of boilerplate and made a small X in chalk on one of the plates. Ford was thrilled, and told him to send an invoice.The bill arrived, for $10,000. Ford asked for a breakdown. Tesla sent another invoice, indicating a $1 charge for marking the wall with an X, and $9,999 for knowing where to put it.

The concept of how much something is worth is very personal from both sides of the coin, so if you are really uncomfortable with their pricing policy just don't buy from them and do so from other developers you are comfortable using. Simple as that, wishing them to do badly -specially now on hard times- is not positive and to be honest it makes you look as you hate them, think about the ripple effects:

• All staff that work at PMDG, FSwcrew and other firms in your argument will be affected, not the company owners. They already got their profits and will move on into the sunset while wives, husbands and children's from former employees will pay the consequences of current circumstances.
   
• News letters magazines, websites, etc. will also be affected by this. And the ripple effect continues inside these companies.
   
• When these publishers get affected, it will also affect the market around the other firms that you are comfortable with as now they can't get their products reviews, publicity, etc. diminishing their own sales.
   
• When sales overall drop as they are dropping now, market places like SimMarket, etc. will get heavily affected and might disappear eventually. This will affect you as a user and all developers too. This is happening already, a couple or market places are now out and others are not honouring payments to developers.. this is happening as we speak research.. this of course is affecting the entire development ecosystem but mostly the small guys you want to support, large firms as ORBX, PMDG, etc. have the resources to continue without such market places.
   
• The ripple effects will continue towards people that works on such market places.
   
• The ripple effect will close the circle at you.. which could find yourself with a hobby that might be abandoned by many 3rd party developers and other users. It is what perhaps the OP wanted to express.

And as I said a couple of time, I don't blame anybody for their decisions and I intent to stay around and be strong while the storm passes. But as people is expecting 3rd party developers to do so and take the hit (as they say it), it would be nice if we all help each other during such times.

So let me finish with this, and this is targeted to the entire flight sim community. I am not asking you guys to BUY TO HELP US. Why I am asking really is for moral support:
 

• Stop comments like we are not buying anymore, screw you, etc.If you wish to stop buying add-on's, that is fine we understand. but stop rubbing it everywhere as it is something everyone should be doing produly, more over some people are doing these comments with very harmful words, why? there is no need to send hate or harfulm comments to us. 
   
• Stop comments like P3D, XP11, AF2, is dead.. some people new to the flight sim world might want to start with these sims and seeing such comments just put them off and all you are doing is discouraging them and making the hobby smaller in the meantime.
   
• Stop wishing hate overall towards anything in this hobby. New and current developers (freeware or payware) see these comments very negatively, it is really discouraging for us to read such comments everywhere and makes us wonder if our time is being wasted here. On the other side of the coin, how you think other flight sim users might feel? they will stop coming to these forums and participate. They come to this and other forums to share their experiences, connect to other people that share their interest or to ask for help. Finding a 60 page long topic full or arguments will not encourage them to come back, much less to grow or enjoy this hobby.
  
  As an example, I stopped visiting all MS2020 forums entirely. I felt really depressed at times after reading so many hate and harmful comments towards developers. It made me feel like I was some sort a bad guy for trying to create content -which is crazy-.. and eventually I just decided to stop going there anymore as it has nothing to offer to me. How is this beneficial for you guys as users? it is good for developers to engage positively with users as we get ideas of things you might need and create them if the base platform is unable to provide it. But if you drive us away, this will never happen, so again part of ripple effects..
  
  This is going to happen to AVSIM overall if such comments and behaviours replicate all over the place, and I think moderators will need to start imposing rules to avoid flame wars regarding simulators if they wish the future of AVSIM to remain positive.

These 3 basic rules will really help 3rd party developers that you wish to support to stay positive, remain strong and find a way to be there for you in the future. It will also encourage this hobby to stay also strong and help other users to enjoy their current simulator until they are ready for the next experience they wish to have. Otherwise, not only many developers will move elsewhere / stop developing current projects but also many people will abandon the hobby. 

Kind Regards,
Simbol

 

 

 

 

[Dominique_K 10,138]

19 minutes ago, simbol said:

•  
  
  As an example, I stopped visiting all MS2020 forums entirely. I felt really depressed at times after reading so many hate and harmful comments towards developers. It made me feel like I was some sort a bad guy for trying to create content -which is crazy-.. and eventually I just decided to stop going there anymore as it has nothing to offer to me 
   

Two things :

as a long time simmer, I find some of these comments and sometimes insults despicable and when I see one I call it out... or I just put the guy, if he is a multiple offender, on my ignore list. It makes reading a forum a more enjoyable experience. A suggestion to Avsim, put the verb "milk" as a "word not allowed" . 

Also, from my experience of having seen many releases, I find the FS20 forum here and now relatively well behaved with a lot of interesting posts,so you should come back   !

[ErichB 3,642]

1 hour ago, simbol said:

These 3 basic rules will really help 3rd party developers that you wish to support to stay positive, remain strong and find a way to be there for you in the future. It will also encourage this hobby to stay also strong and help other users to enjoy their current simulator until they are ready for the next experience they wish to have. Otherwise, not only many developers will move elsewhere / stop developing current projects but also many people will abandon the hobby. 

My take on the situation after a good few months have passed,  is that only users are seemingly excited and upbeat about MFS.  I haven't yet seen many developers exuding the same enthusiasm about it.  

That can only mean one, or all of a few things (1) although MS have constantly been telling everyone that third party development is core to MFS, the developers are still pretty much in the dark about what that means.  (2) Microsoft is probably not sharing any specific information about an SDK or given any specific details about when one will be available or (3) developers do know something, but are gagged by NDA. 

However, reading the post above, it does not seem like it is the latter option and from a developers point of view, I can see that this is hugely disconcerting.   That is slightly concerning.   Although I am sure that over time things will develop for the benefit of all, I would have hoped that developers would have been more significantly engaged at this stage.

As for the PMDG announcement that they are fully committed to MFS only, I can now see with hindsight, that they may not have been privy to any specific information about MFS, but just used tactical marketing to keep the revenue stream flowing for P3D.  Oh well, such is life....

Edited November 14, 2019 by ErichB

[JoeFackel 760]

42 minutes ago, ErichB said:

As for the PMDG announcement that they are fully committed to MFS only

Nope. Read again, they ceased developement for XP and P3Dv3(!), not for P3Dv4.

[BobFS88 635]

@Simbol

Well said and a great post.

It should be post over at the org. We have been seeing a lot of those types of comments over there was well. 

I am glad that Chruachan raise this issue, not because he's being pessimistic of cynical but to have an over all concern of this hobby.

Some of us has see this before when folks making comments, favoring one choice over all others or about one platform destroying the other etc. Anyone being around long enough should remember what the software world use to look like where you have many different choices prior to the os wars of the 90's. 

Today those choices are struggling to stay relevant or are gone and you're left with what you have, not necessary for the better or what you would like. Or you're forces to use because you have no choice.

This could happen here as well irregardless of what may happen in the future. You may find fewer choice to picks from  which may or may not enhance the experience you come to enjoy because of lack of competition. Those years of programming skills sets can't grow over night. Sure they can learn new skills but learning and knowing vs experience is two different things which would be lost.

So I commending Chruachan and Simbol for raising this concern because its really needed and hopefully others will consider their points was well.

Bob

 

[ideoplastic 86]

I think it is important to point out that those beautiful vistas on the videos full of realism and real life scenery will require very powerful computers and that those who don't have one will end up with a much simpler scenery display. The best scenery will be for VFR flyers with PCs that can cope with all the detail as seen on the promo videos. Most pilots flying jets won't get the same result until they come to lower altitudes to land or take off.  Currently here in the UK the latest Flightsim PCs are within the £2600 to £3900 price range and I wonder how many people will be able to afford them. Not knocking Microsoft in any sense but some users may find themselves a bit disappointed if their rigs cannot come up to expectations.

[G-RFRY 1,711]

35 minutes ago, ideoplastic said:

I think it is important to point out that those beautiful vistas on the videos full of realism and real life scenery will require very powerful computers and that those who don't have one will end up with a much simpler scenery display. The best scenery will be for VFR flyers with PCs that can cope with all the detail as seen on the promo videos. Most pilots flying jets won't get the same result until they come to lower altitudes to land or take off.  Currently here in the UK the latest Flightsim PCs are within the £2600 to £3900 price range and I wonder how many people will be able to afford them. Not knocking Microsoft in any sense but some users may find themselves a bit disappointed if their rigs cannot come up to expectations.

That is something Microsoft is avoiding at the moment how it will be delivered some think the full streaming version will be free once you purchase MSFS and the specs req`d unknown.

[Cruachan 705]

Hi,

It is so sad and dispiriting to be reading posts from some users who are only able to see stuff like this in terms that are both uncompromising and hard heartedly unsympathetic.

Where is all the appreciation for the dedication, the passion and the meticulous hard work invested into producing all those carefully crafted products; products designed specifically to enhance our flight simming experience? Where is the acknowledgement that, barring a few exceptions, much of this talented work attracts little in the way of appreciation or financial reward? In short, where is the love and respect for an industry to which we owe so much and deserving of our support through difficult times such as now?

Regards,

Mike

[Kilo60 660]

Well I’m not purchasing AeroSoft’s New Luna X not because I’m currently abandoning 3party Devs for P3d but because they themselves have decided not to redo their Twotter for P3D and will only update it for MSFS2020.

 

This was the biggest reason why I wanted this airport and Aerosoft would have gotten my money twice!

 

Shame on them as they could have done what PMDG just did with the NGXu...!!!

[pgde 571]

19 hours ago, SierraHotel said:

Microsoft are the lifeblood of flight simulation, FS1 to FSX, FSX Steam edition and the basis for P3D. Over the years they have generated millions of dollars for third party developers. Without MS we would not be conversing on Avsim! Because it (probably) would not exist. How about having a little faith in the company that has brought us this far? And is now ready to take the next leap forward. How about showing a little respect for the company that championed flight simming for thirty odd years and are now about to make everyone's dreams come true.

MSFlight is why.