29 minutes ago, AnkH said:

What does absolutely not work with this marketing blabla about empowering and supporting 3rd party addon developers is the simple fact that any of their mandatory updates potentially break any addon. And I highly doubt that they share the content and planned updates with all addon developers, no? Means: as soon as we have study level aircraft and more complex addons in the sim, I wonder how he addresses this issue or if it turns out to be just a blunt, basic excuse for not delivering study level stuff themselves...

He addressed this topic during the interview. TL;DR is tpd's will get updates a week or two in advance.

14 hours ago, WestAir said:

Jorg Neumann: Here’s a general observation and maybe a general thing that was well-intended and I may just have gotten it wrong.

From the get-go we talked to third-parties. Their career and livelihood depend on the things they do, and we wanted to be respectful of that.

We thought that if we overshoot too far, we are actually damaging those people’s businesses. We clearly don’t want that.

That’s why we decided not to take our airliners to study-level. Could we have done it? Sure. It would have taken longer, but it was possible, but then at some point, there is no more third-party ecosystem. We were trying to find the right balance.

This explains everything..

 

Surely if that is your strategy and approach to the development community, then you ensure that you have a ready-to-go and robust toolset for developers at release?  Considering that commercial developers for P3D virtually came to a revenue standstill after MSFS released, I find this commentary somewhat inconsistent.   We are still hearing from developers that the SDK is not quite where it needs to be for certain aspects of development.    Otherwise, it is a commendable approach.

 

 

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

Surely if that is your strategy and approach to the development community, then you ensure that you have a ready-to-go and robust toolset for developers at release?  Considering that commercial developers for P3D virtually came to a revenue standstill after MSFS released, I find this commentary somewhat inconsistent.   We are still hearing from developers that the SDK is not quite where it needs to be for certain aspects of development.    

While I understand, some developers had and some still have a hard time indeed, I do also see some clever people just took their chance. There is plenty of addons available for MSFS now, much more than I expected, and even if you subtract some SimMarket nonsense, there's quite an amount of quality addons available now, at least more than I am able to buy.

Take Umberto from FSDT, Mir from FB, or Emilios from FT. They understood the signs early on and were innovative instead of lamenting on missing SDK features. Take Aerosoft cooperating with Asobo on SDK developments.

For now, that's mostly in the scenery department, but I am convinced aircraft developers are working behind the curtain like hell to be first with deeply-modelled systems. And no doubt, the first ones will meet a hungry market and make good business.

Kind regards, Michael

2 hours ago, pmb said:

While I understand, some developers had and some still have a hard time indeed, I do also see some clever people just took their chance. There is plenty of addons available for MSFS now, much more than I expected, and even if you subtract some SimMarket nonsense, there's quite an amount of quality addons available now, at least more than I am able to buy.

Take Umberto from FSDT, Mir from FB, or Emilios from FT. They understood the signs early on and were innovative instead of lamenting on missing SDK features. Take Aerosoft cooperating with Asobo on SDK developments.

For now, that's mostly in the scenery department, but I am convinced aircraft developers are working behind the curtain like hell to be first with deeply-modelled systems. And no doubt, the first ones will meet a hungry market and make good business.

Kind regards, Michael

The scenery guys have had a leg up from the start which is great.  It's unbelievable how much scenery has become available in such a short window.  

My comment wasn't a criticism, just an observation.  It's all heading in the right direction for sure and the more Asobo and MS give us updates, the more the naysayers get punked.

Edited February 4, 20215 yr by ErichB

It’s an idiom, they’re not literally saying you cut yourself.

I’m going to assume English isn’t your native tongue.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/cut+own+throat

Edited February 4, 20215 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Hidden quoted post removed

What do the mods think about that statement? Hint: I am a MSFS user.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited February 4, 20215 yr by Ray Proudfoot
Hidden quoted post removed

8 hours ago, ErichB said:

Surely if that is your strategy and approach to the development community, then you ensure that you have a ready-to-go and robust toolset for developers at release?  Considering that commercial developers for P3D virtually came to a revenue standstill after MSFS released, I find this commentary somewhat inconsistent.   We are still hearing from developers that the SDK is not quite where it needs to be for certain aspects of development.    Otherwise, it is a commendable approach.

This presumes Asobo had complete control over when the sim would release, which they almost certainly didn't.  The SDK would be a low priority compared to getting the actual software as ready and polished as possible for release day, and potentially a complete non-priority for Microsoft themselves, as they are unlikely to delay their own software for the SDK, simply in order to protect third-party add-on makers.

People are conflating Asobo wanting to leave room for third-parties to enhance the default experience, to Asobo/MS theoretically pulling out all the stops to make sure all third-parties were in the best possible position to monetize the sim from day one, which aren't the same thing.  And as I said, I doubt they realized just how disruptive the announcement of the sim's existence would be to third-party revenue streams tied to other simulators.  If you believe what they've said in interviews, they were just concerned with making sure simmers wouldn't boo them out of the building altogether after MS Flight etc.

14 hours ago, Scottoest said:

This presumes Asobo had complete control over when the sim would release, which they almost certainly didn't.  The SDK would be a low priority compared to getting the actual software as ready and polished as possible for release day, and potentially a complete non-priority for Microsoft themselves, as they are unlikely to delay their own software for the SDK, simply in order to protect third-party add-on makers.

People are conflating Asobo wanting to leave room for third-parties to enhance the default experience, to Asobo/MS theoretically pulling out all the stops to make sure all third-parties were in the best possible position to monetize the sim from day one, which aren't the same thing.  And as I said, I doubt they realized just how disruptive the announcement of the sim's existence would be to third-party revenue streams tied to other simulators.  If you believe what they've said in interviews, they were just concerned with making sure simmers wouldn't boo them out of the building altogether after MS Flight etc.

Probably true

23 hours ago, ErichB said:

 We are still hearing from developers that the SDK is not quite where it needs to be for certain aspects of development.  

Just because developers say this, doesn't make it so. 

MSFS has profoundly shaken up the addon market and put an end to the endless porting of addons into one sim after another. Secondly, MSFS has enabled community addon developers to quickly rise to the top of the food chain. 

The age of 3 or 4 dinosaurs dominating the market is, IMHO, behind us. 

On 2/4/2021 at 10:01 AM, ErichB said:

Considering that commercial developers for P3D virtually came to a revenue standstill after MSFS released, I find this commentary somewhat inconsistent.   We are still hearing from developers that the SDK is not quite where it needs to be for certain aspects of development.    Otherwise, it is a commendable approach

Well this SDK topic is becoming confusing a bit. First we have to know which aspect of the SDK we are talking about here? Is it for scenery, aircraft, cameras, weather .. etc? Well I do agree about the documentation that is laking, access to cameras and weather SDK is not possible yet, however for the aircraft, you defiantly can already build complex systems with WASM and Javascript/HTML. Having said that, we have to know in which context developers are complaining about, for example PMDG it could be something very specific that is not apparent for us. For example in the last dev Q&A, Seb was honest about what was blocking the CRJ, it was some issues related to the engine model and the flaps drag and these should be fixed in the next update, this is an example that is not the SDK related but something very specific in the sim itself. 

However, the other P3D third party developers that are complaining about the SDK, we have know which product they are developing, if the product that they are developing makes no sense in MSFS but made sense in P3D, of course some of these developers will be complaining about SDK and find any excuse to criticize with no facts and unfortunately lead the effort of spreading misinformation in forums instead of trying to adopt with new ideas that MSFS needs from 3PD, just like how ORBX is doing. 

Edited February 5, 20215 yr by omarsmak30

24 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

MSFS has profoundly shaken up the addon market and put an end to the endless porting of addons into one sim after another. Secondly, MSFS has enabled community addon developers to quickly rise to the top of the food chain. 

I do think this is a (largely unspoken) part of the issue when established developers talk about their grievances. The advantages you get by being already-established -- you're familiar with the tools, you have name recognition, you have existing assets you can adapt -- are all reduced dramatically with MSFS. The disruption to the existing addon ecosystem also means that for the first time in about 15 years you're having to compete with a huge volume of high-quality freeware offerings, at least for scenery.

I'm not unsympathetic to the difficult position that puts some developers in. I'd be shocked if some who have managed to keep their business going for a very long time don't end up closing up shop in the next year. The harsh reality, though, is that the main reason some of them were able to stay in business so long without upping their game, or changing with the times, is that the addon ecosystem for the legacy sims evolved over time into such a strange, limited market where you could get away with selling a frankly mediocre product at a high price. In that sense it's not so much that they're unlucky for being faced with the MSFS-driven disruption to the market; it's that they got lucky for many years when they had a golden goose at their disposal. But those times are over.

Basically, MSFS is great news for skilled, established addon developers who now have a bigger market for their high-quality products, and also great news for up-and-coming developers who benefit from the more level playing field. It's probably bad news for established developers who can't, or won't, adapt to a market that actually has typical customers, looking for reasonable value.

James

10 minutes ago, omarsmak30 said:

Well this SDK topic is becoming confusing a bit. First we have to know which aspect of the SDK we are talking about here?

The now-locked thread in the P3D forum brought out one thread I thought was interesting. Pressed on what exactly about the SDK isn't ready, some developers admitted the biggest thing for them is that it lacks tools to copy protect/encrypt their work. Obviously, if you're a developer that's a big deal. If you're an end-user? Not so much.

James

Just now, honanhal said:

The now-locked thread in the P3D forum brought out one thread I thought was interesting. Pressed on what exactly about the SDK isn't ready, some developers admitted the biggest thing for them is that it lacks tools to copy protect/encrypt their work. Obviously, if you're a developer that's a big deal. If you're an end-user? Not so much.

James

Well the now locked P3D thread has a lot of misinformation. Anyway, about copy/encrypt thing, MSFS already can encrypt the packages to protect DRM like the 787 and the packages of the scenery when we buy from Marketplace if not mistaken. Anyway as developer, it is not my reasonability to question this DRM strategy, it is Microsoft and Asobo's responsibility, if they offer this DRM strategy, then they should make sure my products are protected.

2 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

The age of 3 or 4 dinosaurs dominating the market is, IMHO, behind us.

And that's a good thing, but let's not forget that the sims and sim ecosystem at the time forced that issue.  Those 'dinosaurs' kept flightsimming alive - thankfully.   

I do appreciate the opensource ecosystem and the expanse of new developers in what is fast becoming THE mainstream sim.  While the rest of the world doesn't seem to know its a-rse from its elbow at the moment, at least this is one thing that is extremely positive

Edited February 5, 20215 yr by ErichB

1 hour ago, omarsmak30 said:

Anyway as developer, it is not my reasonability to question this DRM strategy, it is Microsoft and Asobo's responsibility, if they offer this DRM strategy, then they should make sure my products are protected.

You are right - it is not your responsibility as a developer to make DRM work, but it certainly is in your interest to have it work.

And if you are not sure that this DRM is pretty much watertight you face the difficult question wether to just go ahead and accept pirating and leaking of proprietary information.

Even if it wasn´t for pirates, having the competition being able to look (and possibly copy) your code is not something any developer looks forward to.