8 hours ago, Milviz said:

The 310 will have anti-icing...  among "other" things... 

Well, get it out! Sounds like the ideal airplane for many of us. Take my money!

3 hours ago, Milviz said:

It's not just MS... it's Steam too (which, if you bought MSFS from there... is where the marketplace is set)

And that is wrong, I mean I understand why MS is taking a fee. Marketing, Server, Support "I all hope all dev who subscribed to the marketplace got it".

But about steam, if it's more than 1-2%, then something is really wrong, they don't provide anything, just a transaction system.  

33 minutes ago, bendead said:

But about steam, if it's more than 1-2%, then something is really wrong, they don't provide anything, just a transaction system.  

And a massive user base? It’s like a massive advertising agency. A bit like ebay. 

Just now, Ianrivaldosmith said:

And a massive user base? It’s like a massive advertising agency. A bit like ebay. 

For game sold on steam I agree, marketing, mod workshop, downloading servers, game engine, etc...

But the 3rd party addon on MSFS, they are no where on steam, you don't use steam server to download them, nor you get any support from them if it's broken

That's why I don't understand the high fee

It's 30% if you don't get big numbers... if you do, it can "slide" down to 18... i think that's the lowest but I could be wrong... 

And that's what they take....

 

Apple is the same way...30% off the top.

 

Google store... same.

2 hours ago, bendead said:

But about steam, if it's more than 1-2%, then something is really wrong, they don't provide anything, just a transaction system.  

Not true. Steam offers lots of advantage to sellers. There is a massive user base - 125 million active registered users with somewhere around 21 million concurrent users - which means a product is exposed to all of them, not just people who already own the game and are looking at DLC, and your product is announced when it has a release or special offer. This kind of targeted marketing exposure would cost a media buyer literally millions of pounds in other media outlets such as magazines or TV spots in order to hit those kind of numbers of people. It is exactly why MS included Steam in its distribution plan because even they knew they couldn't ignore those kind of numbers and just go with their own gaming infrastructure.

If you are a seller on Steam, you get access to some of the best analytical metric tools there are in any digital sales market. The detailed demographic and preference data a seller can glean from this stuff allows them to really fine-tune their pricing structure, their product development, release times, development times and so on.

A developer can use the Steam community for its support forum if it wishes, which means Steam is a one-stop shop for distribution, server operations, sales handling and product support. This sort of stuff costs money however you do it, so it would be incorrect to assume that going with Steam means you are paying for stuff you would not otherwise be paying for.

So if you add up the cost of going on an advertising medium, where a developer who nobody has heard of with a new product, can go from there, to potentially up to 125 million people all around the world having heard of you, not forgetting having the advertising of your product translated for you into all those different languages, plus the server support, forum support, analytical data, the idea that Steam just provides a sales outlet and takes a cut for it is completely incorrect. You absolutely do get what you pay for with Steam, which is probably why it has about 5,000 titles sold on it and just keeps on growing.

That's all great if you're making a game, but nothing in the MSFS Marketplace makes a 3rd party aircraft or scenery vendor a "seller on Steam".  Everything is done inside MSFS and the only thing Steam is "selling" is "MSFS Points" that get redeemed instantly inside MSFS.  MSFS addons do not show up at DLC on Steam, they are not advertised on Steam, or found via the discoverability features on Steam or anything.  So there is really no benefit to MSFS 3DP vendors of Steam whatsoever.

So it's honestly pretty tough for me to stomach Steam taking a big portion of MSFS Marketplace sales when all they are "selling" is "MSFS Points".

Had I thought that through ahead of time and understood it maybe I would have bought the Windows Store version of the sim.

7 hours ago, Chock said:

Not true.

Well, not true as well.

Try to search for any 3rd party addons for MSFS on Steam and you won't find anything, no marketing, so the market is not the 125 millions users.

As for the server side, with all the problems that people encountered with an irregular or just slow connection, during the downloading of update and addons, it's on Asobo/MS side.

I agree with marsman2020, the only contribution from steam for the dev is on the transaction side, converting currency to points/tokens. The 1-2% I wrote down is usually what you are paying in some shops, when you use your credit cards, saw it a lot in Africa and South East Asia.

If you are ok with that, fine, but I will ask the question during the next Q&A session, not sure to get a response.

I only use steam if I really am forced to. Generally because a game is not available on any other platform (IL2 Cliffs of Dover for example) .

Valve is not a nice company nor do they have the best interest of users at heart, everything they do is purely to increase profits.

 

42 minutes ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Valve is not a nice company nor do they have the best interest of users at heart, everything they do is purely to increase profits.

 

What else is new. Valve is just like any other company. Even your favorite little addon developer (or your big addon developer...) is selling their work to make some (or a LOT of) profit. Otherwise they'd release it as freeware. Anyway, if you don't like to use Steam for this reason you might consider buying nothing at ALL from ANYONE anymore from now on. 😉

Edited February 4, 20215 yr by tup61

1 hour ago, tup61 said:

What else is new. Valve is just like any other company. Even your favorite little addon developer (or your big addon developer...) is selling their work to make some (or a LOT of) profit. Otherwise they'd release it as freeware. Anyway, if you don't like to use Steam for this reason you might consider buying nothing at ALL from ANYONE anymore from now on. 😉

It is actually somewhat unfair to compare a huge muliti-national corporation that manipulates its users into think it is the "Lord's Gift to all Gamer Kind" while meanwhile raking in 30% of all profits of any game sold,  just for the privilege of being on steam - with some small one man dev trying to make a few dollars from the time they have invested.

 

I first used steam way back around 2005 for half life and still use steam if they have got a monopoly on a game - Cliffs of Dover for example. With MSFS though I went MS because lesser of two evils.

However even back in 2005 I was not a fan of the way you had to log in to Steam to play your games (something even Epic who Steam devotees love to attack, does not require as you only need to log in to Epic to update not play). 

Steam was commonly seen as a bad thing back then and blamed for the closure of local bricks and mortar game stores where you could get lots of useful advise from the staff and often bump into other gaming mates and organise a LAN party.  To be fair though, not entirely Steam's fault, as the mum and dad owned real world local game store was sadly already going the way of the video store and local record shop with or without steam.

I have never been a big fan of valve and particularly not a fan of some steam users, though you cannot entirely blame valve for the more arrogant and trolling among their user base ( I purchased No Man Sky on Steam when it first came out and it was nearly impossible to have a conversation with other users about the game in the Steam forums without a dozen trolls coming in to tell us we were idiots for buying such a cr@p game and how the devs had fully promised a complete multiplayer PvP game from day 1 and lied to us, quoting bugs they read about online that were fixed 3 patches ago and telling us that we should all grow a brain and demand our money back ) I realised then there is no point talking to the more fanatical among the steam devotees as they are like religious nutters or Apple users, you must be 100% committed to the Steam way or are not worth the time of day, logic does not enter into it.

Steam has always been that way, here for example is an article about Steam's unscrupulous tactics from 2017, well before all the Epic nonsense blew up:

https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 20215 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

I so completely agree. One reason why I have XP11/12 is because it can be study level right out of the box. It has helped me tremendously with my training. Also, did FSX. I hope that MSFS catches up to that. I have both now and would love to see Study level GA aircraft's as well as the ability to do Master/Slave configuration like in XP and FSX. This would send MSFS over the top especially for Sim Cockpit builders!!! :-)

 

20 hours ago, xviper60 said:

I so completely agree. One reason why I have XP11/12 is because it can be study level right out of the box. It has helped me tremendously with my training. Also, did FSX. I hope that MSFS catches up to that. I have both now and would love to see Study level GA aircraft's as well as the ability to do Master/Slave configuration like in XP and FSX. This would send MSFS over the top especially for Sim Cockpit builders!!! 🙂

 

In case you are unaware, note that you are agreeing with posts that are about two years old, so it's likely some things have changed. For example, I will say that MSFS GA aircraft such as the C414AW, C310, Kodiak 100 and Honda Jet are considered "study level" (depending on what that means) at least by some. And there are probably other GA MSFS aircraft that I'm just not familiar with that might also be considered study level.

Al

Edited January 20, 20233 yr by ark

Black Box King Air stabs a wooden spike into the Necro Thread's heart.

21 hours ago, xviper60 said:

I so completely agree. One reason why I have XP11/12 is because it can be study level right out of the box. It has helped me tremendously with my training. Also, did FSX. I hope that MSFS catches up to that. I have both now and would love to see Study level GA aircraft's as well as the ability to do Master/Slave configuration like in XP and FSX. This would send MSFS over the top especially for Sim Cockpit builders!!! 🙂

 

LOL.