So when I check the forums and other flight sim websites every week, there is almost always new 3rd party add-on releases for MSFS. I am am referring to both freeware and paid add-ons.  It was easy to keep track of the 3rd party add-ons in the first few months of MSFS because there weren't that many, but it's practically impossible to keep track of now. Even for ATC, there are several add-on options for MSFS, with two of the most followed developments, BeyondATC and SayIntentions.AI, exclusive for MSFS only at this point in time.  Then you have all the plane add-ons, both freeware and payware, I definitely can't keep track of all of them.  And for scenery add-ons, it's even harder to keep track of all the different scenery add-ons, especially when you include freeware scenery add-ons.  And of course some of the avionics add-ons by PMS50 and TDS.  And then there are the miscellaneous add-ons, like Flow, etc.

I have also seen new add-on developers spring up from nowhere like the Fenix, FBW, BeyondATC, SayIntentions.AI, etc.

So I was there for the first few years of FSX, but away  for almost a decade before MSFS came out.  How does the 3rd party dev scene for MSFS now, compare to the last 10 years before MSFS came out (ie. from 2010 to 2020)? Were there as many add-on developers as there are now, even if they were making add-ons for FSX/P3D/XP in the 10 years before MSFS?

Edited March 17, 20242 yr by abrams_tank

It's overwhelming but competition is good for us the consumer. As far as keeping track? This current install I only use Contrails, FlyByWire, ORBX, SimMarket and the FSDT apps. MSFS addon linker for some of them but I try to minimize the changes and let the apps do their job. Otherwise, you spend more time tweaking than flying. Looking at you ortho4xp and me color correcting for hours! haha.

Oh I forgot the second part of the response haha. The amount of developers is enormous by comparison. There are some returning players for sure but a lot more newer ones. The sim, with all of its cons, is so vastly different in comparison to previous iterations and has brought a lot more people into the hobby. For better or for worse. 

I mean I remember getting the freeware PDX cityscape for orbx for fsx and thought it was amazing. FSX itself was amazing though.

1 hour ago, Sonosusto said:

Oh I forgot the second part of the response haha. The amount of developers is enormous by comparison. There are some returning players for sure but a lot more newer ones. The sim, with all of its cons, is so vastly different in comparison to previous iterations and has brought a lot more people into the hobby. For better or for worse. .

A cool, I suspected that MSFS has probably brought in a lot of new 3rd party developers.  I wasn't sure, but it was something that I suspected.  Good to confirm though with someone that was involved in flight simulation in the 10 years before MSFS was released.  I know that PMDG and inBuilds hired a lot more employees during MSFS because they are making way more money than before. From PMDG's and iniBuild's hiring, I also suspected that there are a lot of new 3rd party developers on the scene, compared to before. 

Overall, this is a huge plus for flight simulation, with more 3rd party developers, and especially, many new 3rd party developers (if that is the case). This means that flight simulation has truly entered the golden age, because of MSFS. Flight simulation could not be in a better spot.

It has been great seeing our hobby go from a tiny niche to more mainstream. 

With a lot of products comes a lot of sales.  Every storefront that I use has a "wishlist" feature that makes it easy to mark products.  Then most weekends I look at my wishlists and see if anything I want is on sale.

I find it really helps cut down on impulse buys, and by the time products go on sale, we're many updates in. 

There's a lot of good deals out there, especially on scenery if you look around.  I rarely pay full price for anything, unless it is an aircraft I know I'll use a lot. 

Personally what hit me (and my wallet) most was that multiple devs release the same airport. On P3D it was like "Okay this dev released this airport, let's buy it because no one else will do it anyway". I have dozens of airports I bought in the initial phase of MSFS because of that notion, that by now have much better versions available. But I'm not complaining, I certainly love how this hobby has become popular. More mainstream does mean more commercializing and casual stuff, yes, but it also means more products and more choice in general and in the end also more study level products. Only negative thing is really that from a pure financial standpoint doing the CaptainSim stuff is the better decision for developers. Aamir from Fenix once showed off his calculations that CaptainSim's Frankenstein aircraft likely have a 2000% (!) higher net profit than the Fenix. Knowing this, I ever more appreciate what Aamir and the other study level devs are doing.

Edited March 17, 20242 yr by Fiorentoni

49 minutes ago, kerosene31 said:

I find it really helps cut down on impulse buys

This year I began doing the same thing -- using the wish list feature and then just waiting for eventual sales. When I reviewed my spending for last year, I spent way too much on MSFS addons, and to be honest some of which I almost never use. So putting it on a wish list and then waiting a while also helps me weed out impulse buys that I will likely use so seldom that I regret purchasing. So far this year I have purchased only the upgrade to the TDS as I use that all the time in my GA flying and the COWS DA42. 

 

To the original post, there is a vast increase in development activity around MSFS. The last years of P3D were pretty slow development wise, not just the number of addons but the innovation in them. Despite Lockheed introducing support for many new features, from dynamic lighting to sloped runways, developers did not really jump on these things and development began to stagnate. I understand this may be that it was just too difficult to develop these features and developers in the end decided to not bother, as it probably would not affect sales very much. Look at the freeware community -- ever day there are dozens of offerings posted to .to, whereas if you go back and look at the Avsim library there was very little contributed by freeware developers in the P3D days. MSFS revitalized a community around the gene and that I think has been a really significant contribution. We are approaching a point where virtually every significant airport will have an third-party offering. Never in my 30 years of simulation have we had nearly every major airport in Canada, and at a decent level of quality.  For me personally it will not be long until there is really no more scenery I will want.

Edited March 17, 20242 yr by Cognita

10 minutes ago, Cognita said:

This year I began doing the same thing -- using the wish list feature and then just waiting for eventual sales. When I reviewed my spending for last year, I spent way too much on MSFS addons, and to be honest some of which I almost never use....

I also use the Wish List on the MS Marketplace, and was intending to wait for another big sale. Unfortunately, nothing happened since Christmas, and my resolve eventually disintegrated! I have purchased several airports in the past few weeks, and now my Steam Wallet is empty  I guess that I will just have to transfer some more money, and go without heating for a bit

Edited March 17, 20242 yr by Christopher Low

17 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

Unfortunately, nothing happened since Christmas

I am holding out that they have a Spring sale, which I believe they have previously done, hopefully in the next few weeks.

47 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

Personally what hit me (and my wallet) most was that multiple devs release the same airport. On P3D it was like "Okay this dev released this airport, let's buy it because no one else will do it anyway". I have dozens of airports I bought in the initial phase of MSFS because of that notion, that by now have much better versions available.

Ahh, I didn't know this. Thanks, this is very good information!

For sure, more competition is better, because this means we have more selection. I guess it's a nice perk for MSFS users that they have multiple airports to choose from because sometimes there are multiple devs that do the same airport.

There are "new" developers now. Maybe. And why?

I have a theory... I can cite perhaps a couple of examples.

Carenado has been relatively quiet in MSFS in comparison to how busy they were developing plane add-ons in P3D and X-Plane before MSFS.  And why could that be? All their developers got wise ...and decided to go work develop for themselves instead of working for someone else. lol 

Another example?  Developers who used to do freeware really like their coffee. They figured they can get their free cups of coffee instead by developing for MSFS and distributing them to flightsim.to. Or, they can develop add-ons at almost freeware prices (cheap) and get the same exposure doing what they like to do. 🙂

Edit: A more likely scenario, developers from all previous sims flocked to MSFS creating a seemingly bigger market for the platform.

Edited March 17, 20242 yr by Matt Sdeel

2 hours ago, Cognita said:

I am holding out that they have a Spring sale, which I believe they have previously done, hopefully in the next few weeks.

Yep, most major holidays have a sale.  I'd expect a "spring" sale around Easter.  Sales around holidays often happen in the MS Store. 

2 hours ago, Cognita said:

I spent way too much on MSFS addons, and to be honest some of which I almost never use.

This was very true for me in P3D. I can count at least 10 planes I have only used one or twice and literally also have dozens of ORBX sceneries I have yet to visit more than once. ORBX's True Earth and Cityscape lines were just gathering steam when MSFS came out in 2020, and MSFS was like hitting a brick wall for them.

Lots more to buy and lots more junk that's spread over geographically small areas to maximise the number of packs sold (looking at you Taburet, Illuminators and South Oak Co.)

I've been far more strict with myself on purchases than in P3D.
Quality only, meaning only 2 replacement airports so far in 3 years. MKS' LEBL for LVFR's version and iniBuilds' OMDB for FeelThere's (both were a punt I took when I first started with MSFS).

Aircraft-wise, I've bought only 8. The misnomered "Expert Series" MS/HH ATR has been my worst purchase so far (permanently removed from my PC). The JF Hawk and FSR Sting have issues (sadly) and I just lost interest in the FFX HondaJet.
Otherwise, the Fenix A320, A2A Comanche, PMDG 737 and HPG H145 all get some to regular use.

As said earlier, the wishlist function on many of the stores can make it easier to resist day one releases. Instead helping to wait for a more mature product and possibly at a lower price during a subsequent sales period later.

2 hours ago, F737MAX said:

I've been far more strict with myself on purchases than in P3D.
Quality only, meaning only 2 replacement airports so far in 3 years. MKS' LEBL for LVFR's version and iniBuilds' OMDB for FeelThere's (both were a punt I took when I first started with MSFS).

Aircraft-wise, I've bought only 8

Me2 with few more airports but less aircraft.  I was so struck by how much better the default airports looked compared to P3D (even w/ their well known issues surrounding layout and taxiways etc) that I only paid for airports that I was pretty familiar with:  KSBA, KDEN and only because of the terrain elevation defects w/ the default Premium edition KDEN, KSAN, KLAS and KLAX.  Recently added KSBP as I grew up next to it and went their w/ my dad a few times as a kid.  Aircraft:  PMDG 738, AS CRJ700, FBW320n w/ a donation or two, and that's it.  I use WT 787X which is great for what it is.  I'll probably pick up 777 but as someone who really aims for 2-3h flights these heavies don't come into play as much.