What Does MSFS Do Best?

[Noel 4,563]

9 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

You’re making way too many assumptions for that to be in any way meaningful, Noel.

<<<< Pot calls the kettle black.  I'll stand by the basic logic in my comments stemming from ACTUAL in-game users, based on a world wide audience, a 24 hour day, and an assumption Store buyers exceed Steam buyers by probably 5-6x, especially when Xbox is involved.

[Krakin 5,850]

1 hour ago, OzWhitey said:

I was looking at “all”, sir. What you wrote here isn’t true at all, go back and look at the chart again!

Please note that these averages are PER HOUR. This isn't for the entire day. To get a better understanding of what the numbers mean, take the average then multiply it by 24. So let's take 5,500m players for instance. That would work out to about 132000 players for the day and that's just Steam. Do take that as a rough estimate because some players will create an overlap when they play for multiple hours but it still gives you a better idea  of what is going on. Jorg himself said that the sim sees hundreds of thousands of players a day and I think he's not lying. You could also look at the AN-225 already generating close to $1,000,000.00 in revenue since it released. MS has given metrics on both sold through units and total players in the past. the 1-2 million estimate is not dodgy at all.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Krakin

[OzWhitey 3,353]

6 minutes ago, Krakin said:

Please note that these averages are PER HOUR. This isn't for the entire day. To get a better understanding of what the numbers mean, take the average then multiply it by 24. So let's take 5,500m players for instance. That would work out to about 132000 players for the day and that's just Steam. Do take that as a rough estimate because some players will create an overlap when the play for multiple hours but it still gives you a better idea  of what is going on. Jorg himself said that the sim sees hundreds of thousands of players a day and I think he's not lying. You could also look at the AN-225 already generating close to $1,000,000.00 in revenue since it released. MS has given metrics on both sold through units and total players in the past. the 1-2 million estimate is not dodgy at all.

That’s not good math.

Jorge’s job is to boost the sim.

Jorge didn’t actually say anything solid about revenue, he talked about a million dollar cheque that didn’t actually happen. 

I’ve never seen any decent data from MS, but feel free to post links to it like I did!

[OzWhitey 3,353]

13 minutes ago, Noel said:

<<<< Pot calls the kettle black.  I'll stand by the basic logic in my comments stemming from ACTUAL in-game users, based on a world wide audience, a 24 hour day, and an assumption Store buyers exceed Steam buyers by probably 5-6x, especially when Xbox is involved.

No, I make no assumptions.

I’m reporting here on facts, insofar as I can find them - Steam data, Google trends data - and then giving my opinion at times on how it compares with my expectations.

I’m just challenging assumptions here, I still love MSFS as much as anyone, probably even more than Jorge does!

 

[OzWhitey 3,353]

33 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Okay, I see the average players in the table below. The graph above with the green line is peak players. But how do you get that the MSFS player base is shrinking on Steam? Looking at that SteamDB chart, MSFS has slightly more average players in the first few months of 2023, than the first few months of 2022/2021:

The SteamDB chart shows MSFS average players is growing a little, on a year on year basis, if we are comparing the same first few months of each year.

You need to actually read what I posted, rather than arguing against a point that I didn’t make.

[Krakin 5,850]

11 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

That’s not good math.

Jorge’s job is to boost the sim.

Jorge didn’t actually say anything solid about revenue, he talked about a million dollar cheque that didn’t actually happen. 

I’ve never seen any decent data from MS, but feel free to post links to it like I did!

You just said it isn't good math without explaining why. I even pointed out the possible limitations of my analysis. If you're just going to say it is Jorg's job to boost the sim then there's no point in having this debate because you will just call anything they say a possible lie.........

Edited May 18, 2023 by Krakin

[lwt1971 7,457]

12 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

The navigraph data tells us nothing about what we are talking about here, it only tells us about shifts in sim preference within a subset of the community. 

Let’s look at some more actual data. Google trends shows that there was a lot of interest in MSFS in release month back in 2020. But you’ll note that interest is decreasing, not increasing, in the past 12 months and is a tiny, tiny fraction of what it was back in 2020.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=Microsoft flight simulator&hl=en-US

Hey, we’re happy with MSFS because, as active users, we keep getting new, free stuff like the WT 787. But there is zero data that I can find to suggest that the broader world is noticing.

 
Yes I'm well aware that Navigraph tells us about the subset of the community, hence my qualifier about exactly that when I mentioned it. When I speak of the broader reach, I'm talking about how MSFS has brought into the fold users who were not in the flight simulator community before 2020. Do you seriously think current MSFS active users are *all* folks who were simming prior to 2020? Once again, no one is saying MSFS is at the level of reach of other games and entertainment software, but there are obviously a bunch of new simmers in the community due to MSFS who were not simming prior to 2020, the XBox community being just one example. And yes we all know a new product's popularity is at its highest when launched compared to subsequent years, but that does therefore mean the community didn't expand from before its launch.
 

[abrams_tank 7,474]

13 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

You need to actually read what I posted, rather than arguing against a point that I didn’t make.

Well, I guess we agree to disagree. For my interpretation of the Steam DB information, MSFS is slightly gaining users, year on year, as per the Steam DB average numbers (except for release, the numbers of course, were the highest in the first few months after the release of MSFS).

Edited May 18, 2023 by abrams_tank

[Ricardo41 5,959]

Kind of funny how some folks spend time in the MSFS forum telling other MSFS users about how MSFS isn't as popular as they think it is. Like it matters to anyone. 😁

[OzWhitey 3,353]

8 minutes ago, Krakin said:

You just said it isn't good math without explaining why. I even pointed out the possible limitations of my analysis. If you're just going to say it is Jorg's job to boost the sim then there's no point in having this debate because you will just call anything they say a possible lie.........

No, I didn’t say that he lies. I inferred that you have to listen to his words carefully. What did he actually say? Did he ever say that the Antonov sold 50,000 copies? Nope. Has he ever given actual average user figures on the MS servers so we could compare that with Steam? Nope, no hard numbers ever that I have seen, as I said if there is actual data rather than broad, somewhat vague statements post the link. 

[OzWhitey 3,353]

1 minute ago, Ricardo41 said:

Kind of funny how some folks spend time in the MSFS forum telling other MSFS users about how MSFS isn't as popular as they think it is. Like it matters to anyone. 😁

It actually is rather important to the future of the sim. But I’m just clearing my inbox here, i was only planning on a single post! I do like to post a link to the steam stats, though, when people get a bit overexcited. Hey, it’s data, and maybe some people here actually like data even if most obviously don’t!

[Cognita 1,113]

I am not sure what the point of this discussion is? Is it to try to establish by some objective criteria whether or not MSFS is "successful", "popular"? Is it less successful because in the midst of release hype, media coverage and novelty  a lot of people used it in the first months and then stopped? Would that not be entirely expected? Why does that matter? What is the point of arguing the point?

Notions of success are neither independent nor unidimensional; they are completely relative. We have to be clear about success in relation to what? And we have to ask if the "what" is a reasonable thing to compare against. Comparing MSFS against a tipple A first person shooter game is dubious. Turning the notion of success into a popularity contest does not seem to lead to a lot of insight. Surely success must be more than one thing. Is it technologically successful? Has it advanced what can be achieved technically in the genre of simulation? Has it been successful at enhancing Microsoft and Asobo's reputation? Has it been, if only modestly, successful at drawing more people into flight simulation, ether those who left or completely new people? Has it been financially successful (we have absolutely no idea so why argue it when there is not way to determine it; and what we consider successful is not really relevant anyway, it is what Microsoft and Asobo consider successful).

 

[jarmstro 2,405]

4 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

I inferred that you have to listen to his words carefully.

Why? Is there some subliminal mystic message I'm missing?

[OzWhitey 3,353]

7 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Well, I guess we agree to disagree. For my interpretation of the Steam DB information, MSFS is slightly gaining users, year on year, as per the Steam DB average numbers (except for release, the numbers of course, were the highest in the first few months after the release of MSFS).

We’re not agreeing to disagree. I said go back and actually read what I actually posted - which was that Steam numbers were down since the start of the year. Which they are. In every month except one, and they clearly are overall. Despite some very solid releases by Asobo this year.

For those interested in data, here are the Google trends stats for the various sims this year.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=X-plane,Prepar3d,Microsoft flight simulator,%2Fm%2F04143vt,MSFS&hl=en-US

TL;DR Based on the technical analysis, I wouldn’t buy shares in MSFS, P3D or x-plane. DCS is surprisingly robust,though - broker recommendation: hold.

😉

[lwt1971 7,457]

3 minutes ago, OzWhitey said:

No, I didn’t say that he lies. I inferred that you have to listen to his words carefully. What did he actually say? Did he ever say that the Antonov sold 50,000 copies?

One would think when they state that *all* proceeds of the AN-225 sales are going to Antonov, and then they also state that they're close to giving a million dollars to Antonov based on said proceeds, that they have sold nearly 50,000 copies.  Short of seeing some kind of proof of all their sales and transactions we kind of have to take his word for it don't we? If you're implying that they are adding their own money in order to give Antonov a million dollars.. well, that is one take I guess 🙂