Spare a thought

[Dominique_K 10,138]

1 minute ago, Cruachan said:

Hi Dominique,

Really?! Very good news.....if true. Can any of those Developers confirm or would they be bound to silence by a NDA? I know of at least one major hitter who is still waiting with baited breath so, at this point, forgive me if I remain a little sceptical.

Regards.

Mike

I've been through a lot of games and FS releases and I have the cautiousness if not the deep scepticism of the old man  that I am but what strike  me with the present team is their enthusiasm, their sincerity when they say they want to make it good. Both Jorg Neumann and the French dev (and I can "read" a French all right, I am French). 

I said "enough said" in the post above. May I add that Lorby's last post is an excellent complement to the interview.

As you do, I've been vocal here to defend 3PD since early  on,  and I find despicable what I call the schadenfreude of some, rejoicing at the possible demise of the  cottage industry. But let's hope for the best and not bet on a doomsday scenario.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

1 hour ago, Cruachan said:

Can any of those Developers confirm or would they be bound to silence by an NDA?

I think that if PMDG can announce their commitment, so could everybody else. Unless there is nothing to tell.

IMO, until there is an official SDK, all "discussions" are just that. I can't imagine that those in charge of managing the MSFS development project will have a lot of leeway built into the project plan for scope creep (=implementing stuff they didn't plan for). I rather think that we will get what we get in terms of SDK and will have to make do for the time being (=until after release). If I were the project manager, I would hear the 3rd parties out, and put their wishes on a backlog list, to be dealt with later. Every development project has its budget pre-assigned by the project owner (Microsoft in this case). You can't go over budget and jeopardize your milestones just because of wishlist type input, that is very hard to justify to the one paying for everything.

Best regards

Edited November 17, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Dominique_K 10,138]

5 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

I think that if PMDG can announce their commitment, so could everybody else. Unless there is nothing to tell.

IMO, until there is an official SDK, all "discussions" are just that.  

If you listen carefully to Neumann speaking of "Robert"'s announcement, he is rather vague.

Is the priority at that time discussing the SDK or negociating commission, fee (whatever you call it) and authorized sale channel ? And this is not something you want to discuss in public.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

13 minutes ago, domkle said:

If you listen carefully to Neumann speaking of "Robert"'s announcement, he is rather vague.

Is the priority at that time discussing the SDK or negociating commission, fee (whatever you call it) and authorized sale channel ? And this is not something you want to discuss in public.

Well, that part of the interview left a funny feeling in my stomach, as if Mr. Neumann was taken by surprise by the PMDG announcement too, and that he thinks it a tad premature. At least that is what I would think if he used that phrasing in German.

From my point of view, the top priority is to know if I can make a product at all. We aren't there yet. Some of the "60" may be motivated freeware devs for all we know.

Best regards

Edited November 17, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Cruachan 705]

1 hour ago, Lorby_SI said:

Some of the "60" may be motivated freeware devs for all we know

Also, some of those “discussions” may simply take the form of an email from the Developer expressing an interest to become involved and a response from ASOBO/Microsoft acknowledging receipt.

Mike

[Cruachan 705]

1 hour ago, Lorby_SI said:

..as if Mr. Neumann was taken by surprise by the PMDG announcement too, and that he thinks it a tad premature.

There is much that is premature about the advance marketing of MSFS2020. Hidden or, conceivably, not-so-hidden agendas?

Mike

[Dominique_K 10,138]

15 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

Also, some of those “discussions” may simply take the form of an email from the Developer expressing an interest to become involved and a response from ASOBO/Microsoft acknowledging receipt.

Mike

Mike you are not sceptic, you are a pessimist  !  The sim was announced 5 months ago only and through all the interviews of the team and the so-called influencers  it is clear that they are still busy building the foundation blocks, including the new flight modeling architecture. Concrete steps to involve 3PD  would be later on, in all logic. Have they hidden things ? Of course : they are pretty shy on the financial modalities of user access, for instance.  

Edited November 17, 2019 by domkle

[Cruachan 705]

9 minutes ago, domkle said:

Mike you are not sceptic, you are a pessimist

Hi Dominique,

Oh, I hope not, although I can understand why you might think so. By now I must be sounding like a broken record, but a lot could happen while we wait and not all of it’s good, assuming some users on these forums succeed in influencing others to follow their example by ceasing support for the 3rd Party community of Developers pending release of the new sim.

Regards,

Mike

[F737MAX 5,592]

33 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

There is much that is premature about the advance marketing of MSFS2020. Hidden or, conceivably, not-so-hidden agendas?

Mike, you seem intent on pushing the agenda that Microsoft are guilty of being "aggressive" and undertaking "sharp practices".

I see them guilty instead of requesting and receiving a ton of free feedback to assist them in creating the best sim possible.

At this moment in the development process, it is easy to implement, remove, or radically change items that the majority of flight simmers want. Later, it becomes much harder to do.
Also, the feedback they are getting identifies our most desired elements - the priority list has already been rearranged based on forum and social media response.

Us end users are finally being asked what we want and how important it is to us, rather than be given whatever a developer thinks we might like. How can that be seen as a bad thing?

If Microsoft really wanted to just "kill off the competition", all they would have to do is undercut the other sim platforms and other high-end developer products on price. No need for developer interviews, feature discovery episodes, tech alphas, just launch it one day to much fanfare and watch the volume sales roll in that the established players could only dream of.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

1 minute ago, Cruachan said:

assuming some users on these forums succeed in influencing others to follow their example by ceasing support for the 3rd Party community of Developers pending release of the new sim.

Current sales are down 95% compared to May by latest count. Of course I don't really know how things are going for the other devs, but all those "Sales" and marketing emails suggest that it is affecting them too.

But to be fair, I don't think that this is about influencers. It is a natural reaction of the consumer that you don't buy the old when there is the new on the horizon. Product cycles have become ever so short in our "modern" economy, there seems to be a new thing every day. 

Best regards

[Cruachan 705]

All perfectly fair points ( @B737NG , Oliver). To me it appears to be more about the timing of the product reveal when third party are at their most vulnerable. That’s what’s making me feel suspicious as to their true intent. However, I’m still happy to maintain an open mind In the hope that, in the end, some good comes from all of this.

Regards,

Mike

[Dominique_K 10,138]

 

1 minute ago, Lorby_SI said:

 

But to be fair, I don't think that this is about influencers. It is a natural reaction of the consumer that you don't buy the old when there is the new on the horizon. Product cycles have become ever so short in our "modern" economy, there seems to be a new thing every day. 

Best regards

Absolutely, let us not overestimate the detestable posts of some (Not speaking here of the homeric PMDG debate but in more general terms of demeaning comments on 3P dev). It is just human to slow the purchases right now .  

Is MS guilty of doing a bad manner to 3PD  in announcing the sim so long in advance. Yes. Is it entirely a bad thing ? Definetely no, as it has generated a extremely interesting  flow of remarks, suggestions, technical insights on modern gaming on this forum. 

 

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Just now, Cruachan said:

To me it appears to be more about the timing of the product reveal when third party are at their most vulnerable. That’s what’s making me feel suspicious as to their true intent. However, I’m still happy to maintain an open mind In the hope that some good comes from all this in the end.

Hello Mike,

they had to announce it at some point. It had to be at a major event and it had to happen in line with the general MS strategy for their gaming platform. Let us not forget that MSFS wasn't the only title that was revealed, just the most relevant for us. There are agendas and strategies at play, but they are not about what we might think. To be honest, I don't think that MS as project owner even cares about the consequences of MSFS on the current ecosystem (beyond the probable sales numbers). Judging by the posts and enthusiasm around the Net and the community, MS did everything right (from their perspective).

Plus, what difference does it make if they did it earlier than later? Had they kept quiet about it, announced it at the E3 next year, with a release target 4-odd months later, sales of the current sims and addons would have gone down to 0 instantly too. Developers wouldn't have stood a chance of creating and releasing anything at all, or even adapting to the new market situation in time. And we all would have missed the opportunity to contribute at a time when it mattered.

Best regards

[RALF9636 1,951]

42 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

oHello Mike,

they had to announce it at some point. It had to be at a major event and it had to happen in line with the general MS strategy for their gaming platform. Let us not forget that MSFS wasn't the only title that was revealed, just the most relevant for us. There are agendas and strategies at play, but they are not about what we might think. To be honest, I don't think that MS as project owner even cares about the consequences of MSFS on the current ecosystem (beyond the probable sales numbers). Judging by the posts and enthusiasm around the Net and the community, MS did everything right (from their perspective).

Plus, what difference does it make if they did it earlier than later? Had they kept quiet about it, announced it at the E3 next year, with a release target 4-odd months later, sales of the current sims and addons would have gone down to 0 instantly too. Developers wouldn't have stood a chance of creating and releasing anything at all, or even adapting to the new market situation in time. And we all would have missed the opportunity to contribute at a time when it mattered.

Best regards

Exactly. It would probably be worse for addon developers if MSFS would be published out of the blue. Imagine being in the middle of a massive project for P3D with a lot of investments being made and then all of a sudden that sim gets meaningless from one day to the other.

I don't really see any unfair or aggressive behaviour by MS / Asobo here. Why should they have any interest to "kill off" addon developers? Addon developers are no competitors for the developer of the base sim. In contrary any addon that makes the sim more appealing is a win for MS / Asobo as well.

 

I do understand that it is a hard time for the addon devs but they have time now to plan for and adjust to the new market situation. And MS / Asobo seem to be quite open and cooperative towards third party addon developers.

 

Of course the cut in sales of addons will in big parts be due to the announcement of the new sim, but I would guess even without that there would have been some kind of market saturation these days. There have been so much addons lately that I really have the feeling I don't need any more. For example I thought about getting LatinVFRs KMIA V5. But then again I currently use their V4 together with Drzwiecki's Miami and its looking pretty fine. Do I really need KMIA V5? I do not, and that has nothing to do with the announcement of MSFS.

The more addons we have the less value we get from another addon. The first addons we buy greatly enhance the sim, but after having enhanced the sim for years, any new addon just adds a little more. I guess that is what is called "diminishing marginal utility" in economics, and I think we see that right now in the flightsimming addon market. There has been such an exponential increase in addon offerings over the last years that there has to be some point where the market is saturated. I remember the old days when I bought each and every addon airport that was published, those days are long gone.

So after all I think the new sim will be a very good thing for addon developers because it will probably largely expand the market because of an increase of the number of simmers.

So let's be happy that flightsimming is still evolving. 

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2019 by RALF9636

[Ted Striker 338]

I still use FSX, P3Dv3, and P3Dv4 due to addons made for them that are not available for succeeding sims. I expect to continue using them after MSFS2020 is released. A couple things I have learned over the decades in this hobby:

1) The new product never lives up to the expectations from the marketing. Closer sometime than others.

2) Unless a fairly complete SDK is released long in advance of the release of the new sim, it will be awhile before you will see your favorite addons converted after the new sim  is released, if at all.

3) Enjoy what you got now. Compared to where we started in this hobby, My P3Dv4.5 looks and performs pretty darn good and I am very pleased with it.

If an addon I like is released for P3Dv4, I will buy it.

Oh one other thing that I have noticed in the past. It is usually those that say I will never buy for that sim or from that developer again that usually purchase the latest and greatest at release from either and then complain the most about it, vowing never again.   Not pointing any fingers, just mentioning the humor it has provided me over the years.

Ted