23 minutes ago, GoranM said:

 

I hope you don't mind me discussing X-Plane here in the MSFS forums; I’m doing so simply to address your question.

I'm not entirely sure which part you are referring to, but if it is the humorous comment about "Was there a flight sim in 1995…", I interpreted it positively. He followed up by explaining that Microsoft has released new versions of its flight simulator every few years.

If you're familiar with Austin's background, you'd know this was meant to be light-hearted, as he had expressed dissatisfaction with the flight simulators available back then, prompting him to create X-Plane for personal use. Initially, the first few versions of X-Plane were intended only for personal use and for friends.

I wonder if you're aware of Austin's charitable endeavors, such as the Ava Lane Meyer Foundation named after his daughter, or his generous donation of four electric school buses to different schools.  Or his $5 million donation to a pet adoption center he was passing, that was under threat of closing down.  He asked the manager of the center how much they needed to stay open.  He took out his cheque book and wrote a cheque for $5 million on the spot.

One significant contribution was his legal battle against the patent trolls at Uniloc. I encourage you to look into it. He even funded a documentary about the case. The victory set a precedent that benefitted not only MSFS through its cloud server and other games but also fostered innovation without the looming threat of patent infringement lawsuits.

In my interactions with him, I haven't found him to be an ego-driven or sarcastic individual. Instead, he is one of the nicest people I’ve met, always courteous and respectful, even before he knew who I was. Regardless of our acquaintance at the recent expo, his demeanor remained unchanged.

 

Thanks for the info/details Goran, some of them i knew already. Of course he is a special and talented person, but indeed sometimes on interviews he is too ironic and sarcastic especially when he was to defend his baby ( X-Plane ) 

27 minutes ago, Seth2021 said:

Thanks for the info/details Goran, some of them i knew already. 

You're welcome.

27 minutes ago, Seth2021 said:

but indeed sometimes on interviews he is too ironic and sarcastic especially when he was to defend his baby ( X-Plane ) 

When you analyze it, there aren't many options for defending something you created, and has been part of your life for near 30 years, with the criticisms and bashing coming for the same amount of time—other than anger/annoyance, mockery, or sarcasm. I believe Austin opts for the least harmful of these three.  A parallel would be how you defended your sim of choice against my comments.  If I'm not mistaken, you showed annoyance.

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by GoranM

At the risk of taking this thread off topic, I am just moved to say that I have followed Austin, particularly his battle with Uniloc, which must have taken a personal toll, and the development of X-plane and at least from what I know publicly I find him a thoughtful, kind and capable person. It is really not at all easy to innovate and build up a product like X-plane in the current environment, and that whole team is worthy of respect. X-plane itself is a very competent simulator and I am happy to see it maintaining a healthy market share -- I know it is only 10-11 percent of this Navigraph survey, but that is not at all bad and it is not falling further, unlike P3D, even with all the success of MSFS. Personally, I want it to continue to develop and grow because I want Austin's and the X-plane teams' vision to continue to develop and mature. I am not much of a believer in the idea that competition drives progress; if we can find a way to support and encourage both MSFS and X-plane I think we will have a brighter future.

9 minutes ago, Cognita said:

if we can find a way to support and encourage both MSFS and X-plane I think we will have a brighter future.

Thankfully, the vast majority of people have no problem with more than 1 flight sim on the market.  It's the select few, who make up a very small minority, that engage in the tribalism that manifests in toxicity.  They just tend to scream the loudest, making it appear as though the tribalism is everywhere.  And it comes from both sides, but from personal observation, it's far more prevalent on the MSFS side...which stands to reason because there are far more people running MSFS than there are running X-Plane.

22 minutes ago, GoranM said:

which stands to reason because there are far more people running MSFS than there are running X-Plane

Why do you suppose that is, here 4.5y later and even after a disastrous sequel release the combined XP user base is still less than 1/5 of the combined MSFS user base on the Navigraph survey, limited that it would be.

@Cognita...see what I mean?---^

14 minutes ago, Noel said:

Why do you suppose that is, here 4.5y later and even after a disastrous sequel release the combined XP user base is still less than 1/5 of the combined MSFS user base on the Navigraph survey, limited that it would be.

Let me ask you a few questions that you can claim doesn't prove my point.  

Why does Toyota sell more cars than Ferrari?

Don't like the car analogy?  Ok, I'll use another one.

Why has Microsoft sold 300 million copies of Minecraft, and only (according to Seb) 10 million copies of MSFS, with many of those copies coming from Gamepass?

Want to discuss figures?  Ok.  Why does Asobo need over 300 programmers to work on a flight sim, and Laminar only needs about 20?

Why do I stay with X-Plane and not move to MSFS, even though several people in here have said I would go broke 5 years ago when 2020 came out?

Do I think 2024 is disastrous?  Of course not.  Is it performing worse than 2020?  Of course it is.  The stats prove it.  Is XP12 performing better than XP11?  Yes.  And that survey was done prior to the 12.2 release, which has been received extremely well by the community.

I can ask many more questions, but I'll end with this.

Why do people like you care so much about X-Plane's success (I consider a product that constantly makes a profit for 30 years, and has never had to shut down, a success), when you have no interest in using it?

No one has been able to answer that question.  If you don't care about it, there's no reason to talk about it.

Edited April 17, 20251 yr by GoranM

36 minutes ago, GoranM said:

Thankfully, the vast majority of people have no problem with more than 1 flight sim on the market.  It's the select few, who make up a very small minority, that engage in the tribalism that manifests in toxicity.  They just tend to scream the loudest, making it appear as though the tribalism is everywhere.  And it comes from both sides, but from personal observation, it's far more prevalent on the MSFS side...which stands to reason because there are far more people running MSFS than there are running X-Plane.

I agree 100% with you. But please just go on all X-Plane Facebook pages and check the comments. You will be surprised of how many times you will read the word " MSFS" enriched with anger, hate and vindictive behavior. Of course there is also the same on MSFS pages, but on X-Plane side ...its boiling anger !

4 minutes ago, GoranM said:

 Is it performing worse than 2020?  Of course it is.

wrong 100%. I am on the beta and right now flying and i could see my 13900k working in all cores + 4090 make its magic. the Hardware works perfect on 2024 !! 

1 minute ago, Seth2021 said:

But please just go on all X-Plane Facebook pages and check the comments. You will be surprised of how many times you will read the word " MSFS" enriched with anger, hate and vindictive behavior. Of course there is also the same on MSFS pages, but on X-Plane side ...its boiling anger !

You're absolutely right.  I used to be a member of almost every X-Plane Facebook group.  I left every single one of them after a few weeks.

Ironically, the X-Plane subreddit on Reddit is surprisingly civil and pleasant to be a part of.  

1 minute ago, Seth2021 said:

I agree 100% with you. But please just go on all X-Plane Facebook pages and check the comments. You will be surprised of how many times you will read the word " MSFS" enriched with anger, hate and vindictive behavior. Of course there is also the same on MSFS pages, but on X-Plane side ...its boiling anger !

Didn't think the base sim war could get any worse, so from my sim is better than your sim, we are moving on to XP users are angrier than those of MSFS? 

1 minute ago, Seth2021 said:

wrong 100%. I am on the beta and right now flying and i could see my 13900k working in all cores + 4090 make its magic. the Hardware works perfect on 2024 !! 

You misunderstood.  What I meant was, is it selling more than 2020.  I used the word performing as a sales indicator.

Just now, GoranM said:

You're absolutely right.  I used to be a member of almost every X-Plane Facebook group.  I left every single one of them after a few weeks.

Ironically, the X-Plane subreddit on Reddit is surprisingly civil and pleasant to be a part of.  

Being that I'm banned from F/B, I can no longer comment on posts there, but with MSFS being part of gamepass that has a ton of kiddies playing all sorts of games, I find it hard to believe that XP users are worse with the comments. Most of the unhelpful comments come from immature individuals and you will find more using MSFS than XP, simply due to gamepass.

1 minute ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

Didn't think the base sim war could get any worse, so from my sim is better than your sim, we are moving on to XP users are angrier than those of MSFS? 

It's embarrassing for both sides.  People have been trying to get me to say that MSFS is a steaming pile of you know what.  Some have even said I did actually say that MSFS is garbage, and I challenged them to find any quote, from any online space, where I said it.  No one could.  

I own MSFS 2020.  I bought it 6 months after it came out.  I have never said no to making add ons for it.  There are reasons I won't make add ons for it, which are too plentiful for me to get into.  Besides, people will say my reasons are lies, but they're not. I've looked at the SDK in depth.

1 minute ago, Mike_CFII_MEL said:

Being that I'm banned from F/B, I can no longer comment on posts there, but with MSFS being part of gamepass that has a ton of kiddies playing all sorts of games, I find it hard to believe that XP users are worse with the comments. Most of the unhelpful comments come from immature individuals and you will find more using MSFS than XP, simply due to gamepass.

Well, there are cases, that men of age can act like teenagers when it comes to negative comments about the competing platform.  I won't mention names, but they give their age away in their forum signatures by stating when they started flight simming.  

1 minute ago, GoranM said:

It's embarrassing for both sides.  People have been trying to get me to say that MSFS is a steaming pile of you know what.  Some have even said I did actually say that MSFS is garbage, and I challenged them to find any quote, from any online space, where I said it.  No one could.  

I own MSFS 2020.  I bought it 6 months after it came out.  I have never said no to making add ons for it.  There are reasons I won't make add ons for it, which are too plentiful for me to get into.  Besides, people will say my reasons are lies, but they're not. I've looked at the SDK in depth.

I use both platforms and enjoy both for different reasons, they are both good and bad in certain areas. Those that would like to see any flight sim disappear from the market have zero idea on how companies are motivated to make their products even greater. I think some of the proof in my statement we can see right now. This is just my personal belief but I think L/R were caught flat-footed when 2020 showed up on the scene after disappearing. I believe L/R were in cruise control due to the lack of competition. With 2020 and 2024 on the scene they have now put graphics into high gear priority, one of the reasons I still believe things that were slatted for an earlier release have been pushed back. 

So for those that only fly XP, you should thank Microsoft/Asobo, they are the ones responsible for 12.2 graphics! This I have no doubt!