The 3rd Party Dilemna.......

[honanhal 1,427]

1 hour ago, HiFlyer said:

EDIT: A secondary question might be: what could developers do to nudge purchasers from watch-and-wait to, buy now!

That’s easy: lower prices.

I’ve spent easily thousands of dollars on FSX and P3D addons. But so far I haven’t seen a single MSFS addon that has been tempting enough to buy. Why?

1) Plenty to keep me busy with the base sim. Just exploring the base aircraft and scenery (even aside from airports) will take a while.

2) As you said, the handcrafted airports and aircraft are mostly “good enough,” if not great. The bar is higher for me to even need/want an addon.

3) Still getting used to the new platform and performance. I want to get comfortable with how it runs before I start messing with it by adding stuff.

But all that being said, I would still jump on a high-quality airport that was priced at $10. Mostly I’m seeing stuff priced at about twice that price point — lower than with P3D, but still high enough that my credit card stays in its wallet for now.

Just a bit of candid (potential) customer feedback for whatever it’s worth.

James

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

23 minutes ago, Steve Dra said:

I've hopped into the TBM, heading to KPNS,  I'll text you when I'm on the ground.  I've gotta see this! 🙂 (wakes up and realizes he's still in MSFS) Hehe.

 

Nice!  You know, the Blue Angles have changed their shows twice in the last year, and the one they are doing now is the best I've ever seen - they are flying lower and faster than ever before, more tight turns, it's really something to see.  Now, I love the Blues, and they're always a pleasure to watch, but their show was really missing A LOT compared to past years and now, well, they're back!  And soon they'll be flying the Super Hornet!  They already have most of them in, and the day they got #1 they took to the sky in it with the Hornets flying formation.  That was a site!  I'm planning to shoot video of them over my home next week.

So, while in PNS, look for the Blues!

 

[Steve Dra 7,605]

4 minutes ago, DaveCT2003 said:

And soon they'll be flying the Super Hornet!

Meh, a souped up version of the same airframe. 🙂   I want them to go back to Phantoms.....now THAT was a plane to do an airshow with!

Rota, Spain, 1974.  They did an airshow with the Phantoms, I was there.  12 J79's at full AB.  My ears are still ringing. 🙂

That would have been cool to see the #1 Super along side the others....I know its bigger, but you can't really notice that unless you see them close to each other, and I imagine that in flight...you're never going to see Hornets any closer together than when the Blues fly them 🙂

 

 

[raymar 969]

I think the 3rd party devs have a long term future here, but are going to have to have support from MS/Asobo to complete most of the planes.  There are a lot more holes to fill than the obvious flight dynamics,  All those default GPS units and G1000 and G3000 and G5000 have pages and pages missing.  The mixture leaning is a joke,. AAMoF everywhere you look there are unfinished and dangling problems.

The Earth is better for sure, and the houses and buildings are so so, but the underwater marinas, bridges and chopped shorelines need some serious work.  There are hundreds of scenic bridges still missing.

Where are the thousands and thousands of cell phone and radio towers, all those fat white water tanks on every bump all over town?

Why don’t we have animations for the planes? Basics like windows, doors, etc.

I realize this is a young sim, but, it is not complete enough to support itself  and the 3rd party devs are handicapped with a changing SDK and can’t really help much.  Anything they bring to the party is going to be close to Vanilla for some time.

I wrote a review of the first 3rd party airplane in the Marketplace - in November 2012. Yes, 2012, not a typo. I’m don’t think this new one has gained much, if any, in all those years.

Regards,

Ray

 

[HiFlyer 9,374]

1 hour ago, honanhal said:

That’s easy: lower prices.

Though, to be fair, it's hard to see how some of them might get much lower while still returning profits commensurate with the amount of effort in creating them, especially when you consider the fact that Microsoft and steam are both apparently skimming off 30% of the profits...

[Ident 199]

I was an Aplha/Beta tester and still havent pulled the trigger on MSFS because of two reasons. I'm waiting on VR support (which is coming) and in waiting I am letting the updates and patches mature the sim. Know what it is from the eariler testing, I cant wait to get it in a way that I use it and part of that is from addon software. Its exciting to know most major 3PD have gotten a head start in developing for it while some others are waiting and helping create the needed SDK to make products for it.

For planes its an easy sell. Most hardcore simmers know the companies they like and will support them. For scenery the bar has been upped and will need to bring something to the table that pushes the user to buy. I plan to buy a whole lot of my addon collection from P3D for this sim over time as they are released but for me, my priority has shifted to if that airport is controlled in PilotEdge, do I use it (fly there) in FSEconomy and lastly does it have character. 

It seems for the first time, VFR flying has a real following which goes hand in hand with small GA. So A2A and Orbx have a real good chance to be successful on both their own merits and for additionally their product line. If SimCoders comes to MSFS, Carenado will also stand to do way better to seasoned simmers. PMDG and the big airport makers like FSDT, FlyTampa and FlightBeam will for sure go hand in hand. One of the big factors is that default airports are so detailed in many ways already, switching it out with an addon doesnt mean taking a frames hit like the past if any. 

Priced right, I think the 3PD will keep on doing well and in return we will stay active in supporting with our wallet. Just not right out of the gate of released but instead over time. 

[scotchegg 4,240]

I get the impression devs are still waiting on sdk evolutions for a lot of stuff. Also initial dissatisfaction with some lazy ports might have given them some incentive to take more time.

For the globetrotting bush / GA pilots there’s a potentially very nice niche for local airports with surrounding custom POIs.

[langly 129]

It would be great if, for this "revolutionary" simulator, we got more than a 33% completed and what looks like an SDK from 2002.

Redirect all of your concerns about lack of quality add-ons to Asobo and Microsoft because they dropped the ball big time.

[RustyFlyer 182]

1 hour ago, scotchegg said:

"... Also initial dissatisfaction with some lazy ports..."

This is why I have been holding off on pulling the trigger on 3PD scenery. I am (also) very much looking forward to (re-)building my hangar. Looking forward to a D18S, etc.............................

[UAL4life 242]

Time will tell when and if Asobo will open up the API enough and expand the SDK enough to get the quality addons people are used to. Until then 3rd parties are in a holding pattern for anything serious. 

[desbean 357]

ORBX could do a lot of work on Alaska much of which is pretty bad in default.

[pjs37 319]

45 minutes ago, desbean said:

ORBX could do a lot of work on Alaska much of which is pretty bad in default.

What areas?  I found at least the Juneau area to be the most accurate of any Sim release so far and haven't really desired an add on

[bosflo 53]

I made a rule for myself to only buy airport scenery for any airports that are not covered in the premium deluxe version. Let's see how long I can hold out. I would rather fill up my sim with addon ai planes when they finally come out.

[ShawnG 1,823]

10 minutes ago, pjs37 said:

What areas?  I found at least the Juneau area to be the most accurate of any Sim release so far and haven't really desired an add on

most of it, unfortunately, with the caveat that where it's good, it's really good.  Juneau, and the southeast, as you mentioned is fantastic.  most everything in the arctic is plagued by the same terrain mesh problems that the rest of the northern areas are,  theres quite a few patches of non ortho terrain scattered around, and some pretty important airports by Alaskan standards are missing (Valdez, Seward, Unalakleet, etc...  around the Wasilla area north of Anchorage theres a big patch where one ortho image slowly crawls across another ortho image... etc.

On the other hand, ORBX had been throwing various teasers out about doing "all of Alaska" since 2010 or so, and it hasn't happened, so I'm not sure they are going to do anything now.  It's still the best all around Alaska scenery ever, but not really "there" yet, hopefully at least Asobo can get better ortho, and fix the lake plateaus and roller coaster rivers at some point

[RobJC 2,073]

Okay I purchased KDEN for $10 and it is a lot better than the upgraded version. But this is my home airport so I think I will try to minimize the number of airports I purchase...for now.