There is some serious reaching going on here and elsewhere by some to cast the survey results as something other than what they really are.

The data, facts, and survey report speak for themselves:

- 70.8% said MSFS is their primary simulator

- a great majority "highly value complex aircraft that behaves realistically and accurately" per the report (similar to last year's survey who answered the most important aspect of a flight sim is flight realism with world depiction visuals as second)

- there's all this talk about age but just because age 25-30 is the highest percentage at 11% while other 5-year ranges are lower percentages does *not* mean that a majority are young people 🙂 The fact is that 26% are in age range 15-30, and 74% are 30 or above (and even if the majority were young, so what?)

- similar to the age results and not understanding basic math, some are clinging to the RTX 4090 getting the individual highest percentage of 14.5% .. umm so that means 85.5% are using the 3080 or lower, and ~65% are using lower than a 3080 🙂

(and even if the 4090 was the actual majority, it is still silly to infer from that the "seriousness" of the summer, or what sim platforms they are fans of)

- a majority of survey respondents are likely the kind who use Navigraph (that's been known for years this survey has run), and likely the serious simming kind. In fact, the "causal/gamey/Xbox" simmer is underrepresented

- it's pure nonsense to say the survey is biased, or that it's skewed towards fans of one sim. If anything it is skewed towards more serious simmers (which means all current civilian sims get a chance at fair representation)

 

Bottom line, the one group of folks who are taking these results seriously without any bias or hot takes are 3rd party developers. The last two years of surveys, along with what they are seeing in their sales has driven them to focus on the sim platform(s) and kind of fidelity the users are demanding.

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by lwt1971

9 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

I mean just the fact that the RTX 4090 is the most popular video card in this sample should be proof enough that we're dealing with a group of 23,000 "Super Fans" rather than a general cross section of the tens of millions of flight simmers whose entire flight sim rig costs less than a 4090...

 

The 4090 being at 14.5% yes might be the highest percentage *specific* graphics card model, but that really doesn't say anything. 85% are using the 3080 or lower. And in fact one could say the 3080 series is the most popular since the base 3080 and 3080 Ti combined is at 21%. And then ~65% are using lower than a 3080, etc etc. 

This actually (and expectedly, and unsurprisingly) *does* represent a general cross section of the flight swimming community with wide ranging hardware. At the very least, to me, nothing in these graphics cards usage numbers prove that the survey respondents are of some special niche category. 

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

Bottom line, the one group of folks who are taking these results seriously without any bias or hot takes are 3rd party developers.

Sorry, but I have to laugh at that.  

The dev Facebook group (which Robert Randazzo and many other prominent developers are a part of), and the dev discord groups I am a part of, none of them took the survey seriously.  One of them even said "I'd rather mow my lawn than take that navigraph survey."

The survey is a fun indicator of what's going on in flight simming.  But it isn't to be taken seriously at all.

Before you reply, I know you're going to come back with some kind of disagreement.  Disagree all you want to.  

MSFS is the best.  MSFS is the most popular.  MSFS is the most realistic.  MSFS has the best scenery.  MSFS is the greatest.

Moving on.

 

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by GoranM

36 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Sorry, but I have to laugh at that.  

Of course you'd say the survey is just a "fun indicator" and not to be taken seriously at all 🙄.. a lot of devs actually do look at it as something more than fun (i.e. simbol of FSReborn even spoke to that in this thread). Obviously their actual sales #s are the biggest indicators to them, but to say these surveys from the past multiple years have not been looked at seriously by devs (and other stakeholders in the flight swimming community) is.. rather convenient for those who might not like the results.

I guess PMDG "isn't taking the survey seriously at all" when they create stickied posts on their forums about the results where their products have done well: https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/277106-flightsim-community-survey-2023

But please, keep laughing 😀

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by lwt1971

4 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Of course you'd say the survey is just a "fun indicator" and not to be taken seriously at all 🙄.. a lot of devs actually do look at it as something more than fun (i.e. simbol of FSReborn even spoke to that in this thread). Obviously their actual sales #s are the biggest indicators to them, but to say these surveys from the past multiple years have not been looked at seriously by devs (and other stakeholders in the flight swimming community) is.. rather convenient for those who might not like the results.

What does all that even mean?

The survey is done by potentially thousands of people.  Are developers meant to be able to influence the numbers somehow?  All we care about is our bottom line.  That's it. Survey results come out.  Then what?  What do developers do with that information?  Do they somehow change their whole strategy to increase sales?  If so, how?  How do they make the same category of add on, in a different way to attract more sales?

6 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

But please, keep laughing 😀

Oh, I am!  

14 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

I guess PMDG "isn't taking the survey seriously at all" when they create stickied posts on their forums about the results: https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/277106-flightsim-community-survey-2023

That's great.  I pinned the same thing to the Facebook groups I'm a mod in, and the discord groups I'm an admin in.  Doesn't mean I take them seriously.  I started taking the survey, but 4 questions in, I quit.  

 

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by GoranM

2 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Are developers meant to be able to influence the numbers somehow?  All we care about is our bottom line.  

Who said that developers are meant to be able to influence the numbers? It's the converse, i.e. they are likely influenced *by* these results

Yes devs care about the bottom line, and as I said in my original post survey results like these, *and* obviously sales numbers influence their strategy. For all the devs who are now solely or mostly focusing on MSFS, it's not a real stretch to think they are also looking at these survey results to drive and/or validate their strategy (again as simbol said earlier in the thread).

10 minutes ago, GoranM said:

That's great. I pinned the same thing to the Facebook groups I'm a mod in, and the discord groups I'm an admin in. Doesn't mean I take them seriously. I started taking the survey, but 4 questions in, I quit.  

That's great that you quit early.. but certain devs *themselves* not taking the survey is quite besides the point.. rather, the devs would be interested in what the *end-users* have to say.. not sure why this is hard to understand.

And PMDG seemed to be taking it quite seriously in welcoming the results that their 737 is the #1 fav aircraft mod among the respondents 🙂

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by lwt1971

Both are dynamic platforms and it's important to appreciate, in terms of user-base size and growth rate, how little time MSFS has been on the market versus XP:   3.33y vs 24y.  And on the horizon now we're going to see next generation MSFS with its massively optimized multithreading and feature set, and I suspect we will see a significant jump in its user base on top of the incredible pace of adoption that already exists with MSFS.  Meanwhile, XP will likely see very little increase in its user base beyond what came with XP12, which likely came mostly from XP11 users wanting to upgrade.  Out of all flight sim users very likely only a small percentage will be after what XP offers over MSFS, especially upcoming MSFS 2024.  These dynamics will continue to drive 3rd party content developers accordingly.  

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Who said that developers are meant to be able to influence the numbers?

I certainly didn't.  I'm asking the question.

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

i.e. they are likely influenced *by* these results

To do what?  I already told you, every single dev in the groups I'm in have said the survey isn't to be taken too seriously.  You mention 1 dev in these forums.  I'm mentioning upwards of 40-50.

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Yes devs care about the bottom line, and as I said in my original post survey results like these, *and* obviously sales numbers influence their strategy.

They make add ons.  They sell them.  There's nothing strategic in that.  

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

For all the devs who are now solely or mostly focusing on MSFS, it's not a real stretch to think they are also looking at these survey results to drive and/or validate their strategy (again as simbol said earlier in the thread).

I've been told I can print money if I convert the CL650 to MSFS.  I don't need a survey for that.  I get it told to me on a weekly basis.

5 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

rather, the devs would be interested in what the *end-users* have to say.. not sure why this is hard to understand.

No, they don't.  They already know.  MSFS is the most popular.  We don't need a survey to tell us that.  We've known it from day 1.

Any aircraft dev who knows what he's doing, would know the aircraft that sells the most is a passenger airliner with glass displays and an FMC.  Is a dev happy to spend years on an airliner to make big bucks or a few months at a time on GA aircraft to make short bursts of income?

These things, we already know.

Scenery dev's know that airports like KORD, KLAX, Kai Tak sell the most.  Small regional airports sell less.  A region like Death Valley would hardly sell at all.  Innsbruck would sell heaps.  

Military aircraft sell poorly.  Bizjets sell very well.

Len, we know all this.  A survey might reassure dev's they are doing the right thing by staying with what they know.  But that's just it.  It's an indicator.  We go by the market.  We take notice of what sells and what doesn't.  Mostly through experience.  

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by GoranM

11 minutes ago, Noel said:

Both are dynamic platforms and it's important to appreciate, in terms of user-base size and growth rate, how little time MSFS has been on the market versus XP:   3.33y vs 24y.

Huh?

MSFS has been around since the sublogic days back in the 80's.  Going by your logic, I could say P3D V6 has only been out a few months and already has a market, and X-Plane 12 has only been out just over a year and is doing well.

What a weird example.

 

13 minutes ago, GoranM said:

To do what?  I already told you, every single dev in the groups I'm in have said the survey isn't to be taken too seriously.  You mention 1 dev in these forums.  I'm mentioning upwards of 40-50.

Riiiight sure.

For someone who keeps repeating ad nauseam about how they don't take the survey seriously, or know many others who also apparently don't, you seem rather interested in talking about the survey in this thread a lot 🤣

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by lwt1971

49 minutes ago, GoranM said:

MSFS is the best.  MSFS is the most popular.  MSFS is the most realistic.  MSFS has the best scenery.  MSFS is the greatest.

I sense a little sarcasm here. Are you trying to tell us that MSFS isn't all this? 😜

5 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Riiiight sure.

For someone who keeps repeating ad nauseam about how they don't take the survey seriously, or know many others who also apparently don't, you seem rather interested in talking about the survey in this thread 🤣

I know you want to believe this, like you want to believe all your own narratives, but you might want to check what I originally replied to.  

😉

4 minutes ago, Rimshot said:

I sense a little sarcasm here. Are you trying to tell us that MSFS isn't all this? 😜

Me?  Never!  No way!

Edited December 27, 20232 yr by GoranM

Just now, GoranM said:

Huh?

MSFS has been around since the sublogic days back in the 80's.  Going by your logic, I could say P3D V6 has only been out a few months and already has a market, and X-Plane 12 has only been out just over a year and is doing well.

What a weird example.

 

BS, that's ludicrous none of the early developers have had anything to do w/ MSFS beyond some legacy code very little of which is in use currently whereas XP has been under the same developer for all of those 24y.  You full well know MS parked flight simulation in terms of development many many years so your logic is just usual:  you're here doing what you and your gang always does:  scout for positive messaging on the MSFS forum then jump in to do your very best to denigrate it, usually in the hopes of shutting it down.  Hopefully the moderators can track what you're doing, yet again, and again.