7 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

Is there data showing how much larger the MSFS Marketplace audience is comparable to other sources provided to 3rd party developers?  What if a developer placed his product at $20 on the Marketplace (more for the advertising... getting the word out), and sell it for $10 at their own site or the typical known FS sellers?  Does MSFS have a clause stating a developer cannot sell at a lower price than the Marketplace?  Doesn't Amazon have some sort of grip like that on a seller? 

Here I shared an insight by Mathjs Kok:

 

1 hour ago, Bobsk8 said:

The biggest negative for me in the Market Place is the encryption issue and the delay in getting updates and fixes. I got the JD Arrow 3 and already it has had many updates and fixes. I doubt if that will ever be seen with Market Place purchases, 

 

Exactly, and (to me) Asobo has ignored the late update issue....it was a question heavily voted on and not addressed in their livestream.

 

54 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

From my understanding, I think Asobo will do some testing with new updates from 3rd party devs.  I am going to guess that one thing they test for is to make sure new updates from 3rd party devs don't CTD the sim, or cause other players to CTD in multiplayer.  Unfortunately, this takes time and lengthens the approval process in the MSFS marketplace. 

Having said that, waiting several weeks for an update is too long.  Microsoft/Asobo need to shorten the update process in the MSFS marketplace.

This is a huge issue, the Iris-Jabiru update was delayed for months on the marketplace, and it suffered from the flaps error that needed the update to correct. So much so, that one user stated that he purchased a second copy from the Devs store just to get the fixed version.

Up until about 2 months ago, I only purchased from the Marketplace, even patiently waiting for products (like Vegas scenery) to arrive on the Marketplace. But the update issue (more so Asobo's silence about it) really struck a nerve with me.

I am all for supporting the Dev...but I refuse to sit around frustrated about delayed updates when another store has it available. My money has to work for me first and foremost.

With that said, i still purchase some product from the Marketplace, but major product Devs like Orbx, I now go directly to their store.

 

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by FlyBaby

59 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Again, you have to understand the concept of larger market size and economy of scale.  It's not just the cut that Microsoft takes, it's also the number of products that the 3rd party dev sells.

The home flight simulator market is much smaller without MSFS and a 3rd party dev sells 10 products at $10 but takes 100% on each product sold. This 3rd party dev makes a revenue of 10 x $10 = $100 USD.

The home flight simulator market is much larger because of MSFS and a 3rd party dev sells 20 products at $10 but takes 70% on each product sold. This 3rd party dev makes a revenue of 20 x $7 = $140 USD.

$140 USD is greater than $100 USD, get it?  And it is $140 USD because MSFS has enlarged the total market size for the home consumer flight simulator market. 

you take from granted that marketplace sell more than others ?

how do you know that ?

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

MSFS in effect has enlarged the total home consumer flight sim market, such that 3rd party developers are selling more widgets than before, so they have a higher revenue than before.

Seriously?  In now what, 10 months, I have purchased three products. The Drzew Washington, DC. scenery, the REX WF addin, and the Carenado Mooney.  Total revenue spent?  Less than $100 American.  That  is incredibly lower than my flight simulation purchases in other years spanning now almost 40 years!

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by fppilot

10 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Seriously?  In now what, 10 months, I have purchased three products. The Drzew Washington, DC. scenery, the REX WF addin, and the Carenado Mooney.  Total revenue spent?  Less than $100 American.  That  is incredibly lower than my flight simulation purchases in other years spanning now almost 40 years!

Perfeclty right

in-fact might well be for some they are going backwards rather than up after msfs release

i am absolute sure some of the biggest devs lost quite bit of revenues

20 minutes ago, arsenal82 said:

you take from granted that marketplace sell more than others ?

how do you know that ?

MSFS has enlarged the entire home consumer flight sim market!  Don't you know this?

14 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Seriously?  In now what, 10 months, I have purchased three products. The Drzew Washington, DC. scenery, the REX WF addin, and the Carenado Mooney.  Total revenue spent?  Less than $100 American.  That  is incredibly lower than my flight simulation purchases in other years spanning now almost 40 years!

Because you alone represent the entire home consumer flight sim market.  LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

1 hour ago, Maxis said:

Economy of scale. Look it up. That answers your questions

Or: no platform —> no add-on to sell for. Win-win

16 minutes ago, fppilot said:

Seriously?  In now what, 10 months, I have purchased three products. The Drzew Washington, DC. scenery, the REX WF addin, and the Carenado Mooney.  Total revenue spent?  Less than $100 American.  That  is incredibly lower than my flight simulation purchases in other years spanning now almost 40 years!

I am buying roughly twice as much as before for other sims. Corresponding to spending twice the time simming than before.

Single personal statements say nothing. Only representative surveys or data from vendors do.

Kind regards, Michael

2 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

The biggest negative for me in the Market Place is the encryption issue

Especially if MS mid-term decides to change that encryption process with SU4, rendering the CRJ useless:

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/164658-crash-after-update/&do=findComment&comment=1046955

Looks to me that some took a gamble with the Sim's minimum specs and lost. Objectively you cant blame MS for that.

43 minutes ago, Maxis said:

Looks to me that some took a gamble with the Sim's minimum specs and lost. Objectively you cant blame MS for that.

You can. If the sim would not run or even install on my below minimum specs. Fine. Would have requested a refund and all fine. Not stressing semantics but minimum is not mandatory. Forza Horizon had that on my system, refusing to run.  And with just minimum requirements I don’t expect no 4k resolution at 40 FPS on ultra
 

If the sim runs below min specs with 20 FPS on mixed medium/high settings in the FBW AND the CRJ release version as well then a sudden change in the marketplace encryption rendering the DLC useless then I would be willing to accept it if and only if MS finally granted my refund. To then buy the CRJ from AS directly…

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by DAD

I think its a good strategy by PMDG. Those who know the name and product will buy direct so they collect 100% then you sell in the marketplace later to those that don't know much about PMDG and collect the 70% - which they would not likely have sold to.

Sounds like good business to me.

I don't think we need to worry too much about marketplace purchases. Considering the money MS made from the "best selling MS game on PC ever" I am sure they have done well out of this considering the price of the game.

How long they continue working on MSFS will be decided by marketplace purchases 5 years from now - not the next year or two. What is clear though is that they won't just switch off the servers until a long time after that. Big brand developers behave differently to indie developers who don't have a reputation to maintain.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by sanh

The top and bottom of it is this; there are two reasons why MSFS marketplace selling (and/or Steam) is of benefit to a developer.

The first one is simply exposure: With the promotional exposure you get from your product being advertised as available on a platform with literally millions of people exposed to it; this is far and away better exposure than most developers could ever hope to achieve through their own website and via their own resources if they were to pay for advertising.

The second, less obvious but very beneficial reason is the analytics; there are is a massive suite of analytical statistical data available to sellers through Steam and or MSFS. This allows developers to fine tune what, for their catalogue, sells well and to whom.

Now on the face of it, this would not really seem to be of any actual benefit to the buyer, but if it helps the developers, then it actually is to at least some extent. But, buying from the dev's website helps them cash-wise too of course, so do which you think helps them out the best; either way you are helping them.

However, try this yourself. Make a website and see how many visits it gets with no money spent on promoting it at all; now imagine how many people would visit it if it was known about through Steam, with fifty million people aware of it. So, make ten quid off the ten people who chance upon your site with no advertising budget, or make fifty million quid off the fifty million who find it via a Steam advert. Now tell me that them taking a cut from the sales would not worth it, as you drive around in your new Lamborghini courtesy of that massive exposure and the revenue it helped to generate. I bet you PMDG have never seen as many sales of their DC-6 through the MSFS exposure as they ever had with just selling it via their old methods.

It's as well to be aware that what stopped MS from continuing the FS franchise a few years back, was that they did all the work in building a sim platform to enable TPDs to sell, but once they themselves had sold a copy, for years thereafter, they were not profiting from that effort. So they wanted a piece of the selling action; can't blame 'em for that, and of course if they continue to make revenue from the platform, it encourages them to keep it going and develop it further, so this is your own, as a buyer, reason to purchase via that method.

Edited June 23, 20214 yr by Chock

3 minutes ago, Chock said:

It's as well to be aware that what stopped MS from continuing the FS franchise a few years back, was that they did all the work in building a sim platform to enable TPDs to sell, but once they themselves had sold a copy, for years thereafter, they were not profiting from that effort. so they wanted a piece of the selling action; can't blame 'em for that, and of course if they continue to make revenue from the platform, it encourages them to keep it going and develop it further, so this is your own, as a buyer, reason to purchase via that method.

Pretty much this.  I want Microsoft/Asobo to keep developing MSFS, to make it better.  And I want them to keep as many developers as they can on it.  Obviously, if the revenue drops for MSFS, Microsoft will scale back the number of developers working on it.  But if we can keep the revenue high for MSFS, primarily via the MSFS marketplace, the execs at Microsoft will consider keeping on more developers to work on MSFS.