6 hours ago, mSparks said:

bug free state

What bugs? I've just reinstalled it and it seems rock solid? I'd gladly trade an extremely rare CTD for some extra FPS though. 

9 minutes ago, GoranM said:

X-Aviation does not extort money from developers.  I know publishers who charge upwards of 60% commission.  THAT is extortion.  XA doesn't even come close to that.  X-plane.org charges slightly more than XA, but still nowhere near 60%.  Even OrbX charge lower than most.

LR would be better off focusing on X-Plane, instead of adding 3rd party add ons to the mix in some market place.  They don't have the expenses that Microsoft now have (7+ years worth of Asobo salary, promotional expenses, server downloads for scenery as well as extra overheads).  Also, an in game market place is no guarantee that add ons will continue to work.  As soon as 3rd party plugins come into the mix, that's when things go awry, and it would be a logistical nightmare for LR to ensure 3rd party code remains compatible with X-Plane.  

LR have been profitable for 20+ years without having a marketplace.  It's a formula that has worked, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

Seems bizarre to me? I'm mean in terms of revenue from X-Plane LR have had £60 and the Org have had, what, £300 in commission? What sense is there in that? 

Edited June 29, 20214 yr by jarmstro

11 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

I'm mean in terms of revenue from X-Plane LR have had £60 and the Org have had, what, £300 in commission?

I'm not sure what you mean.  Where did you get these figures?

 

10 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I'm not sure what you mean.  Where did you get these figures?

 

Well X-Plane cost £60 and I've spent around £700 in the Org store. The £300 in commission is a rough guess just to illustrate my point. But whatever the commission rate is the Org has had multiple times the revenue over LR. (And that's without the money I've spent at X-Aviation, OrbX and Simmarket.)

 

Edited June 29, 20214 yr by jarmstro

It doesn't quite work that way.  Far more copies of X-Plane are sold than payware.  For every 3rd party add on sold, it could be as high as 10 or 20 copies of X-Plane are sold. Some people have no intention of buying any payware at all.  

8 minutes ago, GoranM said:

It doesn't quite work that way.  Far more copies of X-Plane are sold than payware.  For every 3rd party add on sold, it could be as high as 10 or 20 copies of X-Plane are sold. Some people have no intention of buying any payware at all.  

Yes I accept that. But I don't think I am particularly unique. All I am saying is that LR have missed out on a substantial source of additional revenue which could have been used to invest in accelerated development.

The in-game/OS  marketplace business model is pretty universal now.  Not just for flight sims but for just about everything. 

Edited June 29, 20214 yr by jarmstro

2 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

LR have missed out on a substantial source of additional revenue which could have been used to invest in accelerated development.

I mean, I guess they might have.  But the same could be said of any business.  They could tap into something else and make more money.  It's the return on investment that is taken into consideration.  And knowing Austin, his only interest is X-Plane.  He would rather leave the add on market to the publishers.  Operating an online store is a lot of hard work.  It's not uncommon for a 3rd party store to get several hundred support emails per day.  Add that to running a market place, and making sure add ons are compatible, I could imagine this is a workload and an expense that Austin doesn't want or need.  He's in a position now where he can pick and choose what he wants and doesn't want.  Maybe if he was desperate for money to fund future development, it could be a possibility, but going by what I've seen, development is moving at a pace that I, and many other developers who are seeing it, can say is more than reasonable.  Others may not agree.  But to them, I simply shrug my shoulders.

2 minutes ago, GoranM said:

I mean, I guess they might have.  But the same could be said of any business.  They could tap into something else and make more money.  It's the return on investment that is taken into consideration.  And knowing Austin, his only interest is X-Plane.  He would rather leave the add on market to the publishers.  Operating an online store is a lot of hard work.  It's not uncommon for a 3rd party store to get several hundred support emails per day.  Add that to running a market place, and making sure add ons are compatible, I could imagine this is a workload and an expense that Austin doesn't want or need.  He's in a position now where he can pick and choose what he wants and doesn't want.  Maybe if he was desperate for money to fund future development, it could be a possibility, but going by what I've seen, development is moving at a pace that I, and many other developers who are seeing it, can say is more than reasonable.  Others may not agree.  But to them, I simply shrug my shoulders.

Fair enough. I suppose there are pros and cons. It was just a thought.

Personally, I would have no interest in selling through a LR market place.  I wouldn't be guaranteed quality customer support.  I'd much rather stick to a dedicated publisher.  And, like you, I'm far from unique.

14 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Personally, I would have no interest in selling through a LR market place.  I wouldn't be guaranteed quality customer support.  I'd much rather stick to a dedicated publisher.  And, like you, I'm far from unique.

But you wouldn't have to. I would not want LR to have an exclusive Apple like closed shop either. I very much doubt it would be in their interests. But getting a proportional slice of the pie surely would be I would have thought.
 

And I wouldn't mind betting that the percentage of users actually buying addons would increase as well when temptation is staring you in the face the moment you fire up the sim. I've got the tee-shirt!😩

Still, as you say, it's up to LR.

Edited June 29, 20214 yr by jarmstro

Considering the money he has, and the money he's pulling in through Xavion, X-Plane and other contracts, one of which is United Therapeutics, it's likely that a commission from payware to Austin is like pennies to you and me.  

14 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

And I wouldn't mind betting that the percentage of users actually buying addons would increase as well when temptation is staring you in the face the moment you fire up the sim. I've got the tee-shirt!

I'm not sure many people would appreciate ads on an opening screen of X-Plane.

(Why can't all discussions be this civilized??!!)

Austin likes to share the riches.  As long as he and his company are taken care of, he's more than happy to have others make money off his platform.  This is evident from a lot of payware using default X-Plane assets.  That's why I shake my head at people criticizing MSFS developers for using default MSFS assets.  If they're allowed to, why not??  As long as it doesn't breach any copyright, I say go forth and make money!!

19 minutes ago, GoranM said:

it's likely that a commission from payware to Austin is like pennies to you and me.  

There's a saying hereabouts: Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.  One last advantage of an in-game marketplace as a consumer comes to mind though. Fuss free automatic installation and software updates. No more trawling through multiple sites to find them or running various update programs, apps, unzipping and palaver etc.

2 hours ago, GoranM said:

X-Aviation does not extort money from developers.  I know publishers who charge upwards of 60% commission.  THAT is extortion.  XA doesn't even come close to that.  X-plane.org charges slightly more than XA, but still nowhere near 60%.  Even OrbX charge lower than most.

LR would be better off focusing on X-Plane, instead of adding 3rd party add ons to the mix in some market place.  They don't have the expenses that Microsoft now have (7+ years worth of Asobo salary, promotional expenses, server downloads for scenery as well as extra overheads).  Also, an in game market place is no guarantee that add ons will continue to work.  As soon as 3rd party plugins come into the mix, that's when things go awry, and it would be a logistical nightmare for LR to ensure 3rd party code remains compatible with X-Plane.  

LR have been profitable for 20+ years without having a marketplace.  It's a formula that has worked, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

 

Yeah I mean a marketplace takes a bit of power away from vendors and is an improvement for customers. Not really surprising you don't see any need for that.

37 minutes ago, rka said:

Yeah I mean a marketplace takes a bit of power away from vendors and is an improvement for customers. Not really surprising you don't see any need for that.

Instead of assuming why I choose the way I do business, and putting some kind of ridiculous negative spin on it, how about you elaborate on why moving add ons to a central marketplace, as well as having a separate, independent publisher, is an improvement for customers, and then MAYBE we can have a discussion.

I'll even begin by telling you why I only want one vendor.  

It completely eliminates the need to monitor 2 separate websites to address customer support issues, thereby focusing all my attention on 1 site and giving prompt and efficient customer support.  Instead of taking several days to respond to customer support, I can get back to them within 24 hours.

Would you like to try again at having a mature and reasonable discussion?

Edited June 29, 20214 yr by GoranM

13 minutes ago, GoranM said:

and putting some kind of ridiculous negative spin on it

That was funny. Didn't read any further.