14 minutes ago, Rimshot said:

I'm still disappointed we're not allowed to have firm discussions about the qualities of each sim; although I do understand we can get a little childish about it, including me...

Feel free to start the debate in neutral territory - Hangar Chat.

12 minutes ago, sloppysmusic said:

Will do...EXCEPT that my reason for considering P3D NOW is right at the time the PMDG ac are not for sale. If they don't come back it changes my decision. The new thread will have the list of ac including PMDG addons I will need to work to move to P3d!

The iFly 737 is highly praised. 

17 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Feel free to start the debate in neutral territory - Hangar Chat.

The iFly 737 is highly praised. 

I have the PMDG 737 in FSX and MSFS. It's my favorite overall ac. I don't need another 737 in P3d unless a classic. I just NEED my 747 and 777s there with the RIGHT mouse button scripts :D I know I will have to stick with FSX to use the MD-11.

EDIT: I will obviously wait on PMDG to decide how sim-history will remember them before I start a new thread. Discussing versions is just moot if there are no PMDG planes in the sim for me. Thanks to @Ray Proudfoot for reminding me why I'm even in this thread lol!

Edited August 6, 20241 yr by sloppysmusic
Final word (for now!)

I do not like where this subject is headed. Let's not confuse competition with toxicity. 

I hope on a answer from PMDG. And I dislike Ray being muted twice in the forum of PMDG about us, P3D users. 

1 hour ago, Zylx said:

Now that PMDG is making money hand over fist on their MSFS products, they've abandoned us P3D users, discarded us like yesterdays trash and it's just heartbreaking to see it happen after all the years we supported them and made them what they are.

I’m certainly not here to defend PMDG - they’re more than able to do that themselves if they choose - but we’ve seen these sort of posts over and over again in the course of the last four years.

The idea that developers have abandoned their ‘loyal customers’ is to turn events on their head. All developers have reported that sales of products for P3D fell off a cliff when MSFS was announced back in 2019.  Whether you like it or not, there’s simply no getting away from this.

Developers didn’t abandon P3D. The user’s of P3D abandoned it. All those loyal customers that made PMDG, Milviz, et all a success; they’re still around and the vast majority of them now buy products for MSFS. 

It’s as simple as that.

What PMDG have done? Ummm, it’s undoubtedly a clumsy and slightly arrogant way to go about things but the sheer size of the market for their  MSFS products means a trickle of P3D sales is a distraction they can do without.

For all the predictions of future doom and customer retribution, it’s hard to see how this is a decision that’s going to come back and bite them on the rear end.

No doubt the next - and last -major developer to give P3D the cold shoulder will be FSLabs when they release for MSFS and promptly discover that their sales on that platform far exceed anything that went before.
 

 

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Developers didn’t abandon P3D. The user’s of P3D abandoned it. All those loyal customers that made PMDG, Milviz, et all a success; they’re still around and the vast majority of them now buy products for MSFS.

I agree with your statement. However, if you go over to SimMarket and peruse the P3D section you’ll find hundreds of offerings still available. Have SimMarket removed them because sales have slumped? No, they haven’t.

The same applies at ORBX. Everything that was available prior to August 2020 is still available.

PMDG’s claim that they would actually lose money by continuing to make their P3D aircraft available is nothing short of preposterous. If that was true then both SimMarket and ORBX would have removed theirs or face a severe drop in income.

Someone here wrote that PMDG made more money in a few days when they released the DC-6 (I think it was that) for MSFS than they had for their P3D products. Rolling in money but each sale of a P3D aircraft now would cost them money.

Can anyone see the logic in their decision because I’m damned if I can?

I don't see any logic in what PMDG is doing. 

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Can anyone see the logic in their decision because I’m damned if I can?

Yes I can see the logic in it from PDMG’s point of view.

Selling stuff through your own website, hosting it, taking transactions, paying for DRM activation, etc. It all has a cost. These things work on economies of scale. Sell a shed load and it’s worth the effort. 
When those sales become a trickle then all the above potentially makes a loss. Especially when the man hours devoted to it are probably more profitably employed on administering other products that are (pardon the pun) flying out the door.

These days, no management accountant on earth is going to agree to all those lovely profits from the latest and greatest going to subsidise the golden oldies.

I suspect PMDG would like to withdraw their planes from Orbx, Aerosoft and Sim Market too for all the above reasons but are limited by previous agreement or these 3rd party sellers still have product codes to sell. Certainly, PMDG’s MSFS products are only available through themselves or the ingame market place.

Given that Aerosoft are still selling the PMDG range,
Search results for pmdg | Aerosoft Shop
isn't the protest about 
" I want to buy them but I can't"  a complete non-issue?
The PMDG P3D forum is still open for support, no one has suggested that
the support will be withdrawn, so nothing to complain about, even on 13 pages.

7 hours ago, DD_Arthur said:

Selling stuff through your own website, hosting it, taking transactions, paying for DRM activation, etc. It all has a cost. These things work on economies of scale. Sell a shed load and it’s worth the effort. 

Compared to the profits from MSFS sales I’m sure they can stand any tiny losses.

So why not give formal notice of cessation of sales and allow those who may want to buy something a chance to do so? Just shutting up that shop without notice is bizarre.

 

9 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Can anyone see the logic in their decision because I’m damned if I can?

The last product released for P3D was the 777-200ER and it is 3 years old. Maybe they bet that at that time, the remaining P3D users would have bought it anyway, same for their older products. And it's not the new P3D users that would make a huge difference. We'll never know the numbers but how many p3D sales were they making each week just before they removed the P3D line?

Add to this that most people entering the P3D market now will buy the 6.0 version and the PMDG products are not offcially compatible with this version and as such not even supported. Yes, I know you can buy P3D 5.0 and even the older version on the P3D website but a newcomer will never buy an older version, figuring that the newer version is the best one. And same question, as LM doesn't even promote their products, how many newcomers each week are we talking about?

I assume that PMDG don't want to deal anymore with newcomers asking for support because the product they just bought is not compatible with P3D. Simple as that.

Another hint is that of course they still update their msfs products. the 777 just received a new navigation database update and of course, P3D users will want the same update. No complain about that, they are right. But we know that PMDG will probably not do it. So removing the products from sale maybe solve the problem for them.

Now, about the loyalty of the P3D users? Come on, most of us are simming from many years and we all come from FS9, FSX and P3D. So we are all loyal custumers. We could even claim that msfs users are even more loyal because they bought the same products maybe 3 or 4 times since FS9.

No one is forced to move to the next sim and your choice to stay with P3D is respectable. But you need to understand that this choice has consequences and the most important one is the lack of new products and loss of support from developers. One day, msfs will face the same fate and we will probably hear the same complains once again. And maybe I will be one of them, who knows?

 

Can we please stop focusing on which sim is better? It's P3D forum. We are not obligated to listen to your praises. 

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Just shutting up that shop without notice is bizarre.

I would imagine RR will come through with some sort of announcement in time.
I have no doubt they are making an enormous amount of money out of MSFS sales so perhaps there is room for a little magnanimity and they’ll go the Milviz route; free download for a limited time on the understanding there will be no support for this before shutting up shop.

Who knows….

2 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

 free download for a limited time on the understanding there will be no support for this before shutting up shop.

Who knows….

PMDG already stated that this will never happend.

11 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Can anyone see the logic in their decision because I’m damned if I can?

No doubt that thought and logic behind it came from certain member who joined the team from Aerosoft, who turned very anti P3D ever since MSFS came out.

5 minutes ago, sdirand said:

PMDG already stated that this will never happend.

Ahhh….then it’s all or nothing?