What's Happening with X-Plane.com

[jarmstro 2,405]

26 minutes ago, Janov said:

have started interacting with user,

Which, it seems to me, has been unhelpful. New users are treated with derision and told to read the whole forum before asking for help with their issue. 'Use the search function and go away!' Only experts are tolerated and everyone else appears to be treated with scorn and contempt. In history the term Community Leader has been used before. The word Leader being a euphemism .😀

Edited July 12, 2021 by jarmstro

[Janov 2,383]

46 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Low/Medium/High graphics settings is generally more than enough for everyone.

Yep, you may have been the target audience this was done for 😁.

[Janov 2,383]

42 minutes ago, jarmstro said:

New users are treated with derision

Only when they behave like idiots 😁.

 

[jarmstro 2,405]

17 minutes ago, Janov said:

Only when they behave like idiots 😁.

 

I rest my case.

[FlyBaby 659]

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Not really imho. Coulda Woulda Shoulda.

"years ago" was X-Plane 9

https://www.x-plane.com/product/x-plane-9/

pretty solid sim, nothing really resembling 3PD support

Ben Supnik wrote the xlua SDK - that and 3D cockpits became a staple of Xplane around 2013 in X-Plane 10

https://developer.x-plane.com/2013/03/three-levels-of-lua/

 

Regardless, Austin has been at this for 26+ years...he "could" have been at the forefront of the freeware / payware outlets going into his sim.

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

Up till this point XP is really in a tiny niche and everyone who finds it is 1 on 1 with Austin, and the primary focus is really commercial use - starting to push into the consumer market with the Steam store listing in 2014

Not so...it was sold on Amazon years before that...lets not rewrite history in an effort to downplay the sluggish development over the past decade....

He sold it as a consumer product, and then ignored those consumers for years...

1 hour ago, mSparks said:

In short, they still don't have X-Plane really in a position where they could do it now. But there isn't much left to get there.

In short...there is no one to blame for where XP is at today ...other than Austin himself. He did not really push the sim forward and it shows. The ORG had nothing to do with that...

 

[Janov 2,383]

23 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

In short...there is no one to blame for where XP is at today ...other than Austin himself.

This is really a matter of perspective. A lot of people still choose X-Plane over the competition and maybe see no need to place any blame at all and (we have been at this point of the discussion before but it doesnt seem to sink in) commercial success is not the ultimate goal for everyone in their life´s endevours.

[mSparks 2,086]

2 hours ago, Janov said:

Yep, you may have been the target audience this was done for 😁.

it's funny you seem to think I would be insulted by that.

But I suppose I can empathise with Airbus pilot shame.

59 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

He sold it as a consumer product, and then ignored those consumers for years...

Nah - He delegated it to X-plane.org

https://web.archive.org/web/20130123042809/http://www.x-plane.com/x-world/landing/

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by mSparks

[FlyBaby 659]

30 minutes ago, mSparks said:

Nah - He delegated it to X-plane.org

Nah...he sold it as a consumer product with other retailers like amazon with reviews dating back to 2010...he then ignored those consumers..

https://www.amazon.com/X-Plane-v-9-0-PC/dp/B000LQ4CXY

Facts...

[FlyBaby 659]

1 hour ago, Janov said:

This is really a matter of perspective. A lot of people still choose X-Plane over the competition and maybe see no need to place any blame at all and (we have been at this point of the discussion before but it doesnt seem to sink in) commercial success is not the ultimate goal for everyone in their life´s endevours.

Not so..

Why is Austin now listening to consumers, using a voting system??? Why is Austin in the comment section of his low viewed teaser vid "trying" to engage with consumers??? Why is Austin mudslinging against a competitor, when he earlier claimed that he does not even look at the competition...

So it looks like a perspective can change...Austin's certainly has...he is not the same arrogant Dev seen in this 2017 (around the 8:19 mark)....Looks like something seemed to sink into him...the realization of failure.

It was this video that let me know that XP was not going much further...2021 and it hasn't.

 

[mSparks 2,086]

33 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

that XP was not going much further...2021 and it hasn't

2017 XP didnt really need to go much further - it just needed to work (which it didnt)

35 minutes ago, FlyBaby said:

Looks like something seemed to sink into him...the realization of failure

It wouldn't surprise me if Janov "secretly" accepts this.

I cant think of any other reason he would think its OK to abandon XP11 before it was finished.

[Murmur 3,944]

What? A failure? XP11 (which was released late 2016 on X-Plane.com, and in 2017 on Steam) steadily increased its users reaching 15 TIMES (+1400% !) compared to its predecessor, in terms of average Steam users (and ignoring the lockdown surge). How the heck is that a failure?

Boy, is this discussion amusing.

 

[BobFS88 640]

1 hour ago, FlyBaby said:

It was this video that let me know that XP was not going much further...2021 and it hasn't.

It seems to me that he laid out the infrastructure plan of what he wants to support in XP to allow it to go much further in stringent detail unlike the others who only spoke of vague reference of technology as if they were unprepared for an exam. That seem to have left a favorable impression on the moderator.

And since that conference FSW announce that they were delaying their release at the end of that same year only going into the new year that it was game over for them.

Fast forward to this year, PD3 is seeing some of their developers are leaving for MSFS with the announcement of Just flight ending any future release while still to continue development for X-plane. This also concurs with the statements from Aerosoft back in Nov of 2020 that the market in X-plane is still holding steady.

Feelthere, once a FSX and possible P3D developer has announce release of KLGA and plans future release of more scenery in X-plane.

Last but not lease, a lot of attention has been given to iniSimulation A300 series of aircraft with the A310 that getting a lot of notices that even MSFS fan are begging them to build one from them.

If things are going south for X-plane because Austin won’t following Microsoft lead in promoting an market place type store (which he never had to do). Then I can’t see how his market is hold up well enough to kept develop churning out new releases in the face of all the attention the MSFS get these days.

Doesn’t seem to me that a marketing strategy has anything to do with his survival. He just makes the sim work which is all you can ask for.

Edited July 12, 2021 by BobFS88

[FlyBaby 659]

47 minutes ago, mSparks said:

2017 XP didnt really need to go much further

Yep, that looks like Austin's mindset...

"Should" of been planning ahead since the days of selling to "consumers" on Amazon..."Would" of had his own store, robust forum etc...."Could" of had the present day impact on the market as his competitors...

But "you" want to blame the ORG...

[FlyBaby 659]

23 minutes ago, Murmur said:

What? A failure? XP11 (which was released late 2016 on X-Plane.com, and in 2017 on Steam) steadily increased its users reaching 15 TIMES (+1400% !) compared to its predecessor, in terms of average Steam users (and ignoring the lockdown surge). How the heck is that a failure?

Boy, is this discussion amusing.

Those numbers are pathetic when (according to @mSparks ) XP had less peak users than a decade old sim...

21 hours ago, mSparks said:

Peak Steam users

FSX April 2020: 5,971

XP11 April 2020: 4,173

 

Also, you know your platform is failing when well respected high fidelity DEVs like PMDG abandons you...Again, I will let @mSparks xplane it to you...

Now that is amusing...

On 7/11/2021 at 3:45 PM, mSparks said:

PMDG grew large on the back of the wealthy P3D userbase and large FSX userbase.

They learnt pretty quickly from the XP DC6 that XP didn't have a userbase large enough to pay their salaries. Probably more to that story, but for all else that is all that will have made the difference.

 

[FlyBaby 659]

35 minutes ago, BobFS88 said:

 

And since that conference FSW announce that they were delaying their release at the end of that same year only going into the new year that it was game over for them.

 

Actually, FSW had a great vision, and actively "engaged" with the community. LR could have learned from that...

37 minutes ago, BobFS88 said:

If things are going south for X-plane because Austin won’t following Microsoft lead in promoting an market place type store (which he never had to do). Then I can’t see how his market is hold up well enough to kept develop churning out new releases in the face of all the attention the MSFS get these days.

It is just the opposite, Austin is now looking to follow MSFS' lead...he is engaging more (has his "whittle" voting system for features etc). He is now looking at the competition and changing his arrogant ways to add better visuals to his sim.

Yep....he got a taste of the "unpredictable world" nonsense he was talking about...

42 minutes ago, BobFS88 said:

Doesn’t seem to me that a marketing strategy has anything to do with his survival. He just makes the sim work which is all you can ask for.

Sure it does, Austin has just neglected it for all of these years. I mean, I don't think you will ever find the top guys at Asobo / MSFS lashing back at commenters in their teaser vids. 

But then again, when your teaser vid gets 6M+ views and thousands of comments...you already know you did something right.