Notes:

• so far: over 3700 pieces of content, started with 8
• overall sim audience: 15 million unique users, largest # of users on windows store, then xbox, then steam, then xcloud
• marketplace audience: over a million users have purchased content (in terms of percentage by platform, steam users edged out the windows store users overall, xbox users purchasing content has ticked up a lot recently)
• over 43% of the million users have spent between $10-50, over 40,000 users have spent more than $500
• in 2023, 36% of revenue came from xbox users, 64% from PC users
• in 2021 per user research, 64% said they've not bought from marketplace, now in 2024 19% are saying no
• experienced simmers and PC users are willing to pay 2x-3x the price that xbox users want to
• higher rated content drives the bulk of the purchases
• in the $40 range, there is no content that's scored below 3.6
• airports over $20 really don't sell that much, 79% bought airports scored 4.1 or higher .. European users purchased the most airports
• Marketplace and MSFS 2024, and looking ahead:
  • core design principles: simplicity, ease of navigation, ease of discoverability of content
  • current products released for 2020 can carry forward to 2024 and be monetized
  • top priority is to make the content and backwards compatibility as seamless as possible
  • Asobo will start by migrating the 2020 content to the 2024 pipeline, and then after developer sign-off they will be released (these content will be marked "2020" in the 2024 marketplace)
  • users who've purchased 2020 content are automatically eligible for the migrated content for 2024 free of charge
  • devs can choose to make 2024 versions of 2020 content (i.e. to take advantage of new capabilities that requires add-ons changes), free or paid upgrade as devs choose
• Process for getting content into marketplace will be streamlined and made easier
• MSFS 2024 SDK will be available end of September

 

 

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by lwt1971

Looking forward to allow upgrade discounts and airport configurations.

Hmm, developer can set a upgrade price for the addons to carry over to 2024.

that could end in a bloodbath.

5 minutes ago, Merawen said:

Hmm, developer can set a upgrade price for the addons to carry over to 2024.

that could end in a bloodbath.

Exactly what I was thinking

18 minutes ago, Merawen said:

Hmm, developer can set a upgrade price for the addons to carry over to 2024.

that could end in a bloodbath.

Those devs who only do basic carry-over without adding new MSFS 2024 specific capabilities, and still choose to charge an upgrade price would be really stupid to do so, and risk their business. The best developers will likely even provide 2024 enhancements and new capabilities for free I'd think, and only charge if the enhancement development work is significant. And this would be whether they're in marketplace or not.

MS is providing both the free and upgrade transition for 2020 content in marketplace to devs so that they can choose to charge for any non-trivial development work they do for compatibility and enhancements and new capabilities. I'd assume devs who abuse this and try to charge for basic carry-over will be dealt with by MS.
 

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by lwt1971

14 minutes ago, Merawen said:

Hmm, developer can set a upgrade price for the addons to carry over to 2024.

that could end in a bloodbath.

For those devs perhaps.  It's an option MSFS itself has to (and SHOULD) provide those third-parties for obvious reasons.  So long as it charging some kind of fee isn't mandatory - and it appears that is not the case - then as always it's up to those add-on makers if they want to introduce forward compatibility for free or if there's enough work involved to merit a fee.

Panic in the streets because of the paid upgrade version lol. I mean the lady did say biome and mission based add-ons will have issues making the jump so of course those devs should have an option to charge us if compatibility takes them a ton of work. Most devs will just want their stuff on the new platform ASAP so the influx of new simmers will be able to get them.

8 minutes ago, lwt1971 said:

Those devs who only do basic carry-over without adding new MSFS 2024 specific capabilities, and still choose to charge an upgrade price would be really stupid to do so, and risk their business. The best developers will likely even provide 2024 enhancements and new capabilities for free I'd think, and only charge if the enhancement development work is significant. And this would be whether they're in marketplace or not.

MS is providing both the free and upgrade transition for 2020 content in marketplace to devs so that they can choose to charge for any non-trivial development work they do for enhancements and new capabilities. I'd assume devs who abuse this and try to charge for basic carry-over will be dealt with by MS.
 

 

As long as its the dev  (and not microsoft ) who are making final pricing decisions regarding charging/not charging for the transition from 2020 to 24 im ok with it. The devs who attempt to price gouge will be the ones to be blamed and the ones who do it for free or adequately demonstrate why they needed to charge a fee to upgrade im sure will be fine.

" users who've purchased 2020 content are automatically eligible for the migrated content for 2024 free of charge "

Sound like that 2024 users will not be charged a penny to use the old stuff in the new sim. But if the old stuff is improved then the higher grade version is probably going to have an "upgrade" price. I think we are going to see 2 versions of most of the more popular addons in the MS2024 marketplace which were originally purchased in the 2020 marketplace. And items originally purchased for 2020 outside the marketplace can just be copied over into the 2024 Community folder (free of course).

2024 marketplace and library UI

Edited June 23, 20241 yr by Tuskin38

45 minutes ago, Fielder said:

" users who've purchased 2020 content are automatically eligible for the migrated content for 2024 free of charge "

Sound like that 2024 users will not be charged a penny to use the old stuff in the new sim. But if the old stuff is improved then the higher grade version is probably going to have an "upgrade" price. 

What I like hearing about this, and the advice that the SDK will be available from end of September, is that it appears the new version will allow developers to use the new SDK to improve performance, visuals or both. For that, I'm likely willing to pay an upgrade price... depending on what the visual and performance upgrade looks like of course. 

 

Hopefully developers get their hands on the SDK when it's available and there isn't a huge amount of manual work getting any additional performance out of their products.

1 hour ago, Merawen said:

Hmm, developer can set a upgrade price for the addons to carry over to 2024.

that could end in a bloodbath.

Only for the upgraded 2024 version, you'll still have access to the 2020 version if you don't want to upgrade.

off topic, but organizing would be far easier if we had 3 folders for content instead of just community and official.

Community, official, and marketplace. That way a user could easily temporarily empty the "marketplace" folder as well as the "community" folder to diagnose problems. This issue is why MS pretests all candidate content for the marketplace. Because these could break the sim and it would be difficult for the user to determine which folders in "offical" cannot be removed for testing because the sim can't run without them.

3 minutes ago, Fielder said:

off topic, but organizing would be far easier if we had 3 folders for content instead of just community and official.

Community, official, and marketplace. That way a user could easily temporarily empty the "marketplace" folder as well as the "community" folder to diagnose problems. This issue is why MS pretests all candidate content for the marketplace. Because these could break the sim and it would be difficult for the user to determine which folders in "offical" cannot be removed for testing because the sim can't run without them.

Why they can't just give the customer  an email receipt from the market Place when you purchase something with the item, date,  and cost, is beyond my understanding?  😏

2 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

Why they can't just give the customer  an email receipt from the market Place when you purchase something with the item, date,  and cost, is beyond my understanding?  😏

If Jeff Bezos owned MS, they would be giving proper receipts! That's how his little shop in his garage grew into an empire: he made things nice for his customers, instead of nice for his own company. I saw on old video interview on a news channel of Bezos when Amazon was just starting. He begged all the viewers to buy two pairs of any desired shoe on Amazon and send back the pair that did not fit, no questions asked.