So in other words,  devs want to capitalize as much as humanly possible from MSFS's existence and from the capital MS invested to create MSFS.   But,  don't want to water that tree,   just harvest the fruit.   

In a way it reminds me off all the corporations in America who pay zero taxes,  and have thousands of trucks utilizing public highways.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by Waldo Pepper

On the subject of updates.   Yes,   3rd party sites do post updates faster than the marketplace.     Which is good for the people who are so into MSFS that they have time to keep their eyes open for every update.

I don't have that kind of time, or desire.   I own a lot of fs20 payware aircraft,    It's much easier to just fire up FS20,  update everything in one shot with the content manager.

I’m eying the product on the marketplace, only because:

1) Way less headache keeping track of what the latest and greatest version numbers are

2) As the user above said, I’m paying my taxes for the system, otherwise MS will see far less incentive to develop the sim (and consequently see the end-of-life of the sim sooner than planned).

3) More marketplace activity means more devs are inclined to post their product on there, it’s literally a win-win for everyone: it’s less headache for users, devs get more visibility and more purchases, likely even way more money than they could have selling independently, Microsoft gets more money, sim gets supported for longer.

 

I’m sure everyone has seen numbers from Aerosoft that the CRJ they developed for MSFS had sales that way outperformed all their other sim sales combined, within the first month.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by amahran

3 hours ago, ca_metal said:

The only thing that bothers me is Steam getting 35% for doing nothing, they just process the payments, the downloads are from Microsoft's servers. 

Not true. Unless you think advertising the availability of a product to somewhere around fifty million people and having all the sale data tracking software Steam provides to anyone selling through their marketplace, is something you could do for free.

There is a reason why Steam is as massively successful as it is, and this above which I pointed out, is that reason.

There are benefits to either route of purchase, as RR points out, one is more revenue for the developer, the other is more data and exposure. So frankly, the best thing you could do to ensure continued MS and TPD development, is spread the love a bit where your purchases are concerned, which is precisely what I do and why I do it.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by Chock

9 minutes ago, Chock said:

Not true. Unless you think advertising the availability of a product to somewhere around fifty million people and having all the sale data tracking software Steam provides to anyone selling through their marketplace, is something you could do for free.

There is a reason why Steam is as massively successful as it is, and this above which I pointed out, is that reason.

There are benefits to either route of purchase, as RR points out, one is more revenue for the developer, the other is more data and exposure. So frankly, the best thing you could do to ensure continued MS and TPD development, is spread the love a bit where your purchases are concerned, which is precisely what I do and why I do it.

Steam doesn’t advertise any of the add-ons on the marketplace. They only advertise the base simulator (MSFS).

Steam doesn’t store the data of any of the add-ons sold through Marketplace. Everything comes from Microsoft servers. What Steam does is process the payment of the MSFS coins.

If read again Randazzo’s statement, he’s also bothered by steam’s share on the sale (which is higher than Microsoft’s).

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

Not true. Unless you think advertising the availability of a product to somewhere around fifty million people and having all the sale data tracking software Steam provides to anyone selling through their marketplace, is something you could do for free.

On top of that, the statement that nothing is downloaded from Steam is wrong.   The "bootstrap" for the game is delivered from their system.   If you go to your Steam library, right click on MSFS, then look at the Local Files tab, the size listed there is how much you have that's not MSFS delivered.   That comes right from Steam's servers.  (I just did an update with TCPView running to confirm that.)

On top of that, they provide the framework for distributing that globally, the licensing servers, the payment infrastructure...   it adds up.

That being said, the size of the cut that Steam takes for what they do is something that has been controversial outside of just this game in the past.    One of the things that the Epic store promoted in its launch advertising was that 88% of the purchase price goes to the developer.

But whether or not they take too much for what they do, they do provide services that aren't inexpensive at the scale they run them.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by kaosfere

There are other issues at play here... First is the fact that some devs (like us) want to include things that are, by choice of MS/Asobo, not allowed in their marketplace.  This would include, but is not limited to, weapons, (working or otherwise), liveries that show kill marks or "other" things... (some sexist, some not) as well as some systems that are not possible without going "around" the sim.  So, in these cases, it pays to buy direct.

There are other reasons, as per the above $$$ being one of the main ones.  30-54% even if you tripled the amount of sales would be barely enough to cover the same numbers direct.

Separate requirements... such a pain.

I do love the reach though.  It's big....

3 minutes ago, kaosfere said:

On top of that, the statement that nothing is downloaded from Steam is wrong.   The "bootstrap" for the game is delivered from their system.   If you go to your Steam library, right click on MSFS, then look at the Local Files tab, the size listed there is how much you have that's not MSFS delivered.   That comes right from Steam's servers.  (I just did an update with TCPView running to confirm that.)

On top of that, they provide the framework for distributing that globally, the licensing servers, the payment infrastructure...   it adds up.

Nothing purchased from the marketplace, all the 3rd party add-ons like PMDG’s DC-6. The only thing they distribute (solely the launcher) is MSFS (the base simulator). 
 

What I meant is, it’s fine they get 35% for selling the base simulator, but not for the add-ons.

At the end of the day, the developers have a choice, they can go their own way or they can sign up for what benefits they might get. It's all very well saying that businesses are having some of their profits taken via these sales platforms, but they are offering a service and Steam and MS are businesses too, so their sales platform is a business proposition, not a charitable service. If you can see the benefit of a service, then it's your choice to go with it. Nobody forces you to do it.

29 minutes ago, Chock said:

At the end of the day, the developers have a choice, they can go their own way or they can sign up for what benefits they might get. It's all very well saying that businesses are having some of their profits taken via these sales platforms, but they are offering a service and Steam and MS are businesses too, so their sales platform is a business proposition, not a charitable service. If you can see the benefit of a service, then it's your choice to go with it. Nobody forces you to do it.

Totally agreed.

I now buy from the Marketplace for the sole reason that I will also use the Xbox version and would like compatible addons to carry across. 

Update from Rob Randazzo:

"Folks-

I received some updated information this afternoon on the various cost structures and I think it is important to update the information to give you guys an idea what is taking place on the back-end of things.

My original numbers were based upon information/conversations that have changed since our last review of this data. Microsoft made changes to the fees they charge developers in order to put less strain on the sale of third party products through the steam channel. That is not an insignificant move, I should point out. When you hear me talking about how Jorg's team has been trying to build a simulation environment that embraces small developers, it is things like this that I am pointing to...

I have also been reminded that Valve has a "reducing scale" that gets triggered after certain revenue tiers are exceeded in sales within the MSFS channel. The initial tiers have been exceeded, so costs are reducing all across the steam channel, which is beneficial for everyone involved.

Net costs to developers like PMDG will have dropped from ~54% to ~36% a bit later in the summer. That is a big deal on our end and it puts costs for distribution within the margin of error for what we product and how we distribute.

Overall, PMDG very much wants to see Marketplace be profitable as this promotes continued growth and investment in the platform. To the extent that Microsoft is working to keep costs in line, I think the future looks quite promising.

Now I need to get back to getting the DC-6 stable so we can push her to Marketplace... "

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by fmloyola

37 minutes ago, fmloyola said:

Update from Rob Randazzo:

"Folks-

I received some updated information this afternoon on the various cost structures and I think it is important to update the information to give you guys an idea what is taking place on the back-end of things.

My original numbers were based upon information/conversations that have changed since our last review of this data. Microsoft made changes to the fees they charge developers in order to put less strain on the sale of third party products through the steam channel. That is not an insignificant move, I should point out. When you hear me talking about how Jorg's team has been trying to build a simulation environment that embraces small developers, it is things like this that I am pointing to...

I have also been reminded that Valve has a "reducing scale" that gets triggered after certain revenue tiers are exceeded in sales within the MSFS channel. The initial tiers have been exceeded, so costs are reducing all across the steam channel, which is beneficial for everyone involved.

Net costs to developers like PMDG will have dropped from ~54% to ~36% a bit later in the summer. That is a big deal on our end and it puts costs for distribution within the margin of error for what we product and how we distribute.

Overall, PMDG very much wants to see Marketplace be profitable as this promotes continued growth and investment in the platform. To the extent that Microsoft is working to keep costs in line, I think the future looks quite promising.

Now I need to get back to getting the DC-6 stable so we can push her to Marketplace... "

Amazing!

I much prefer Steam and Im glad I bought the game from there. If Steam start selling addons then thats where I would want to get them from.

Im in no rush, the default GA planes alone are payware quality and even more so with the excellent mods.