MILVIZ leaves P3D enthusiast market

[Skywolf 992]

Honestly a better strategy would have been to have support for 1 plus year for p3dv5 products - King Air needs WX Radar fixed.  Do something with Activesky etc (why be stuck with Rex products) - 

Atleast push some of the P3Dv5 updates for King Air and let the product stabilize in style.  

If leaving the sim, go out in style

Edited January 26, 2022 by Skywolf

[Pinello 2]

Will the current DHC3 Turbo Otter work in v5.3? It says v4, but in other treads I read that there has been a installer for v5. Is the installer also pulled?

 

[Dreamflight767 312]

13 hours ago, simbol said:

The chain reaction that is driving 3rd party developers away from P3D is simply put lack of income.. 

Even when I am still supporting products for P3D, I find myself in the same position, my income from P3D has been more than halved.. it is 70% less vs 2020, and bear in mind I have been releasing new software for P3D via partners and contracts that I will not name / discuss due to confidential NDAs.

I get it, there are lot of you still very passionate about P3D, and there still high numbers of P3D users.. there is also a lot of users that used MSFS and went back to P3D or XP, but from those figures, there is a vast majority using "currently" XP / P3D as a holding pattern to see what MSFS will do in the next couple of updates and therefore they are not investing any more in their P3D / XP platform until further notice, this means.. no buying stuff..

So what you guys want 3rd party developers to do? sit and wait? start developing something new stuff for P3D (which would take at least 12 months minimum), while the current message from the market is saying, we are no buying stuff for P3D.. then we get the NavGraph poll results and it confirms what I see on my company accounting.. and it also indicates most people is moving to MSFS as their "full time simulator".

It also seems you all forgot what most P3D users were writing all over the place in 2019 when MSFS was announced in June 9 2019?, We saw so many post, everywhere, some of them very aggressive I must add, indicating, and I quote "I am not buying any add-on's for P3D ever again", and yes.. we saw it in our accounting books.. sales dropped in the first 3-6 months by 90%!.. some of my best friends in the flight sim community saw actually 100% sales stops for their products, they closed doors and went to work in normal jobs.

I remember around October 2019 I released AILRP, and the comments in the reviews of the products (despite receiving 9.5 of 10) were brutal, so many people saying lights for AI models? this is the problem with P3D.. I am not buying some f..** lights.. MSFS will have everything and for FREE.. and that was one of the nicest.. I had a very hard time on the first 3 months after release, I was really close to close down and give up, because I put so much effort and time developing this product and people were just incredible brutal and inhuman on their comments.. however being a person that never give up helped, I put lots of marketing, etc. and I recover the developing investment.. however it was clear, due to MSFS, I sold 60% to 70% less copies than expected..

So, is this move from Milviz really a surprise to all of you given what is happening, market indications, users reactions, etc.?

I find my flight sim company in a very awkward position, for the last 10 months the income is just not enough to justify the effort we have to put towards flight sim development, so yes, I had to do something about it and soon my first product for MSFS will come out.. (still waiting for Market Place process to complete! supper slow.. drives me insane..), but what was the alternative?, simply put, close down my business.. would that have been better for everyone? 

Now let me re-iterate, I am not dropping support for P3D, you guys know that, and I continue to follow each release from Lockheed Martin and I ensure all the products I am involved with (no just AI Lights Reborn, many others I worked with //42 and other partners) remain "supported", I want all current customers to remain happy, so when or if they move platform, they remain loyal, but lately I am really wondering if I would ever release anything new for P3D or not, because the latest thing we released new for P3D (in 2021), didn't return enough profits vs the effort put into it and all the required ongoing support it will required for the next 5 years.. I keep monitoring users reactions with each P3D release and sales figures, if these start to increase, then perhaps I might produce something new, but until then.. I am on support mode only..

So, that's the reality.. you guys should stop the negativity here, there is absolutely no need for hate, boycott or angry feelings because a 3rd party developer is trying to "survive" the incredible storm in the market shift caused since 2019 (2.6 years and ongoing). After all this is happening given end users behaviours and decisions they are taking.

Best,
Simbol

PS: The other guy mentioned in the Milviz video.. is Me.. so yes I am working with //42 to deliver the Bobcat for MSFS, I also worked with //42 to deliver the FreedomFox for MSFS and other products that will hit that market soon.. it is how I have been able to float around..

Just more of an FYI - certainly not arguing against/with you.  But I stopped buying P3D products (unless extremely discounted) because I'm afraid that my new add-on will stop being supported/fixed/updated by the developer - especially so many Developers release as "beta" word not allowed.

It's one reason I didn't by their King Air - and I'm glad I didn't.  I heard it still had some bugs at release so told myself to wait it out.  And here we are today where the future of the King Air for P3D will no longer mature.

I'm really interested in the MD-11 too.  But that thing needs to be slick and ready out the door.  No beta or future promises.  To a certain extent, I kinda feel like they did that with 717.  There were/are some minor things that could have been implemented to bring it up just a few more notches.   

[Skywolf 992]

Of all P3D addons King Air should be supported as it is the only addon with ProLine 21 System.  That alone makes it super worthy but to put it on the side is a shame.  Oh well.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Skywolf

[Bob Scott 7,721]

22 minutes ago, Skywolf said:

Of all P3D addons King Air should be supported as it is the only addon with ProLine 21 System.  That alone makes it super worthy but to put it on the side is a shame.  Oh well.

Their Avanti 180 EVO also has the ProLine 21.

[Skywolf 992]

23 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

Their Avanti 180 EVO also has the ProLine 21.

Lol...then a proper send off to the P3Dv5 addons should be done.  

[airservices 133]

So what happens when you run out of activations on one of your aircraft ?

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

1 hour ago, airservices said:

So what happens when you run out of activations on one of your aircraft ?

email Oisin, he give you some more.

[coastaldriver 919]

Well MILVIZ merely join the lengthening list of flight simulator software development businesses who are unable to justify the cost (or resources) to provide content for MS and to provide content primarily to the general market. In other words most if not all of these companies do not have the capacity to provide across multiple platforms. The carry over of their legacy lines into P3D was a bonus and a stop gap but once MSFS got going they were powerless to stop the loss of sales - not because they were deficient but the customer base for FSX or the old MS ESP simulation engine made decisions to go with a completely new game platform in the folorn hope that would be what FSX never could be and what P3D is pretty close to being a superb graphically rich simulation program. 

I can accept that many friends and associates I have had contact with in the simulator community at large (here and on other specialist flight sim fora) prefer and like MSFS - good for them they are all adults and if they are convinced it is the future - that's fine by me as well. I also recognise that the sim community or goodly sections of it are an ageing lot and so change is never palatable or easy. But lets be frank - MS is pushing MSFS into the X-Box line and that is where it will stay. They have also been very clever at convincing people that decade old Bing Map data is the next greatest thing (well its not and there are huge holes in Bing coverage for various reason just like there is for Google) So you will never see magically rendered small pockets on the globe. But the best tactic they have followed is to hook in the developers to provide content (at their own cost) and offloaded to those developers the updating and software modification costs) That leaves ASOBO free to tidy up the Bing map stuff, the X-Box functionality and provide sufficient software tools or knowledge to developers to produce content. All the developers know they cannot produce a P3D level or study level aircraft simulation for MSFS the underlying simulation engine does not support it nor is the code sufficiently defined that would make it supportable. For the very same reasons MSFS cannot do proper RNC via navaids with IAPs etc, that is not built into the sim function either. Scenery development is relatively easy and the development of 3D models based on photographic data is not new either (See Google). So you can see why MILVIZ are sensibly (and they are not alone) keeping capacity and part of their business developing specialised contracted software for the military training market (That may be P3D based it may not) 

Thats what we have to live with. The most dissappointing aspect of all this is how many very very clever small one person shows and or hobbiest amateurs basically drew a line when MSFS arrived and said thats it from us for any flight simulation development at all. We have lost an enormous pool of talent and skills in that journey. 

So MILVIZ like a whole bunch of other developers will produce simplified visually appealing contect that work on XBox and they may even do ok financially out of it but advanced simulations such as we have had no they are gone. If you have them and installed make backups your going to need them because they wont come again. 

So all the best to MilViz - I am simply sorry you did not upgrade or finish off some of your stuff (but I did independently), So let me rephrase this, thanks for what you did do I have it working in P3D but you will not be seeing me as a customer again because I am not interested in buying what you will be selling its not of interest to me just as countless comparison between many on this forum who contrive to do continuously to say one is better than the other, they are not.  they are now completely different software platforms going in completely different directions. Any likeness MSFS has to flight simulation is purely coincidental. Besides I get it with LM they have said all along they are not doing hobbiests and they don't do games they produce for serious training and simulation (on ground, water or the air). 

Lets also be frank it has been probably4 years since I bought any MILVIZ products at all - not because they were not good (Their Beaver and Otter were excellent) but because I was not interested in the rest of the product line. I had the Capt Sim 200 and 300 I had a very nice King Air 200 and did not want the 350 and I had no interest in the C310 or more recently and last the Skyraider. They also made those product line choices and quite frankly for some stuff they did it was always a very small niche market anyway and they had a knack for trying redo an aeroplane that was either in the sim or had been done by somebody else which I always found strange no matter how good what they did was!

Edited January 27, 2022 by coastaldriver

[Dominique_K 10,146]

3 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

. 

So MILVIZ like a whole bunch of other developers will produce simplified visually appealing contect that work on XBox and they may even do ok financially out of it but advanced simulations such as we have had no they are gone. 

You have of course watched the stream to confidently say that ? 

So you , like a whole bunch of others, produce simplistic predictions which have been already proven false and seem to be, visually of course,  just an expression of biases. I have flown P3D  for years and now in MSFS have two MV aircraft, the Corsair and the Porter.  I also fly there the PMDG DC6. They are in no way inferior to what P3D aircraft offer that I can see. 

And yes I do use with them my Warthog HOTAS and MFG pedals not an Xbox thingie as you may think 🤣. As in P3D, because they deserve a good set of controllers.

 

[coastaldriver 919]

Well DominiqueK - glad you enjoy it then! Have fun!

[kevinfirth 1,396]

4 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

I'm going to miss the 310R deluxe.  The KA350 seems to be working fine in P3D V5.3.

Cheers, Rob.

 

Bar the weather radar

[pedrotrindade 335]

So, after this announcement we will not have compatibility updates anymore, right?

[harrry 322]

2 minutes ago, pedrotrindade said:

So, after this announcement we will not have compatibility updates anymore, right?

Remember the same thing will happen if you buy their products in MSFS soon.,

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 540]

@Dominique_K 

You have a system similar to mine. How does MSFS run these days?

I didn't like it very much at the time of the Beta.

PS: sorry for offtopic.