4 hours ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Good Lord, it's not sympathy for them, it's the uninformed opinions about them that bug me.

 

 

Sounds  like you have thin skin. I serious doubt Robert Randazz or Mathijs Koc cares, you do not need to defend them they can take care of themselves. They are big boys. Nothing seems to bug them (arrogance) on internet forums. So why should you care? Uninformed people have been using PMDG products for over twenty years now. They know what is going on.

Edited May 8, 20251 yr by JBDB-MD80

As was implied a couple of posts back, there are people out there (well, on here mainly, I suspect) who take the whole simming thing extremely seriously. Some of the debates I've seen on here about absolute minutiae regarding aircraft behaviour, how a specific dial in a cockpit behaves, or the size of the rivets on the tail etc beggar belief.

People who take this stuff that seriously are going to create strong self-associations with their chosen favourites, and all sorts of inappropriate behaviours are going to show up. There is a whole shelf of psychological theses waiting to be written here. Actually, I'm sure there are many already available that cover this sort of thing.

But I'm no more interested in reading them than I am a 200 page manual on how to "fly" an airliner on my desk.

If you are an actual B777 (or whatever) pilot in real life, I can understand you might get frustrated with inaccuracies in the sim version. Actually, I would suspect that if you did this for real you might well be more tolerant of such discrepancies and I suspect the main complaining may well come from, let's say, the more aspirational simmers. Those who would like to think of themselves as gaining "real" expertise via the sim. But any amount of simulation practice (at least on a desktop setup, presumably not so on an actual simulator) is really going to be no different to reading a book while sitting in front of a series of pictures of your chosen cockpit.

And no, I'm not a pilot so yes, in that sense I don't know what I'm talking about. But as an example, I used to be a fairly serious biker. And as part of that I did a police training course, got my advanced license, and did a couple of team displays with the training sergeants as part of that whole thing. As a result, I could quite happily ride my large 1100cc lump at a slow walking pace without the slightest imbalance or wobble (and do so kneeling on the seat if I wanted to show off). And no amount of "simulation" would have gotten me to that point. I have a couple of bike simulators here, and apart from a couple of runs when I first bought them, they just sit on my hard drive forgotten and unused.

PMDG, Fenix, FBW and all those folk produce stuff that strikes me as fairly meticulously researched and written. What they want to charge for it and how they sell it is up to them. If you want it, you pay what they're asking. You can question their ethics and moan about it all you like, if you want it you buy it. If you don't think it's worth it, don't buy it.

Same with a Ferrari. Is it really worth the price? For some, yes, for others, no. And remember, even if you do own a real one, that doesn't guarantee you'll instantly turn into Emerson Frangipane (lousy driver but a sweet guy <grin>)

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I corrected that for you. Maybe that is why it is listed as a best seller on the MS Marketplace?

Hence the 738 will be the one. Not many operators use the 736. Might be most popular on Xbox platform for people who don’t want to do realism.

I've been flying the MSFS 2024 777-200ER from the day it was on general release & am very happy with it.

Worth what they sell it for.

T45

I bought the 738 and the 777 with credit from buying the 738 in P3D and will never spend another dime with them unless it's a 787.  Over the same copy and paste aircraft every new sim platform.

2 hours ago, andy1252 said:

As was implied a couple of posts back, there are people out there (well, on here mainly, I suspect) who take the whole simming thing extremely seriously.

I remember posts on the IL-2 forum back in the day where people would rant about how rubbish the aircraft models were and post pages of graphs and charts to 'prove' it.

At least we have pilots on this forum that have actually flown the modelled aircraft 🙂

6 hours ago, GSalden said:

Years of development and investments to bring the highest level of realism is what PMDG does. Then people can’t expect that they would charge  $ 40-50 for it.

Customer might well expect prices to be lower when the dev is selling MANY times more copies than they previously were.

Yes there's lots of money spent on development but that's also spread out over so many more sales.

25 minutes ago, flyingscampi said:

I remember posts on the IL-2 forum back in the day where people would rant about how rubbish the aircraft models were and post pages of graphs and charts to 'prove' it.

Ahhh...chart wars. I remember them well. They were hilarious. We need chart wars on Avsim.🤣

44 minutes ago, Matchstick said:

Customer might well expect prices to be lower when the dev is selling MANY times more copies than they previously were.

Yes there's lots of money spent on development but that's also spread out over so many more sales.

Sorry, I don’t agree with you.

Price is determined before release so they don’t know how many cooies they are going to sell.

 

Sorry

7 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Sorry, I don’t agree with you.

Price is determined before release so they don’t know how many cooies they are going to sell.

 

On a companies first plane you might have a point, but on their 8th (and 3rd plane of this type) then no, they know the ball park of what they expect to sell.

18 minutes ago, GSalden said:

Sorry, I don’t agree with you.

Price is determined before release so they don’t know how many cooies they are going to sell.

 

Price is determined based on expected sales (and investment cost) based on market analysis, what are you on about? They make a rough estimation of what they will sell to determine the price based on their profit margins.

I'm sorry but to you, looking at your signature, it's easy to say $70 or whatever price PMDG determines is "easy" or "cheap" compared to prosim (ridiculous comparison mind you they are entirely different target markets.) However when pricing products you also need to consider the pricing elasticity of your demographic, particularly the Xbox market. You with your 3x 50+ inch 4k televisions don't represent that majority demographic.

I personally don't have a problem with the price but some of your comments are lacking a lot of insight from the consumer.

Edited May 8, 20251 yr by Lucky38i

Who are we to put a price on someone else's work.

Would it be fair if you were being evaluated (for your next raise) by someone who's neither part of the company nor hasn't the slightest idea of the quality of work you put on? I wonder.

I think we are being too harsh on PMDG, I remember back in the days, we all FSX users praise PMDG for raising the bar, willing to pay 120+ for any of their products, now that that there are other options available with the same level of quality, we are complaining about the worth of their products whose price tag is about the same as a steak and a glass of red wine.

If you sincerely believe there's no return-on-investment, then don't buy, your conscience might question your good-spending-habits.

Edited May 8, 20251 yr by CarlosF

2 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

Who are we to put a price on someone else's work.

The pricing elasticity of the demographic you're trying to sell to?

3 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

Would it be fair if you were being evaluated (for your next raise) by someone who's neither part of the company nor hasn't the slightest idea of the quality of work you put on? I wonder.

We know the quality of work that PMDG puts out, ignoring this comparison genuinely doesn't make sense. The company is not my friend, they're bottom line is their priority and value for money is my priority. So as a consumer I need to evaluate if the product provides a value for me for my needs. Their investments, their expenditures, their costs are none of my concern, just like the Company isn't concerned about my own costs outside of spending money for a hobby.

6 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

I think we are being too harsh on PMDG, I remember back in the days, we all FSX users praise PMDG for raising the bar, willing to pay 120+ for any of their products,

That was with a very very different demographic to what we have now. The target was much smaller and in order to maintain margins, high prices were required. You can't genuinely think the same applies now with MSFS, especially with what PMDG themselves have said with the DC6 sales.

7 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

are other options available with the same level of quality, we are complaining about the worth of their products

Are you arguing that because we now have other options with feature sets that we don't see with PMDG products, we're not allowed to complain? Isn't the whole point of competition is so that us as Consumers can ultimately get a better product?

8 minutes ago, CarlosF said:

price tag is about the same as a steak and a glass of red wine.

I don't see how this matters, the price isn't the problem. The respective value in relation to its competitors who offer similar products with a compelling feature set is obviously to me as a consumer going to be more enticing. I as a consumer am going to start this expectation of this feature set for any product within a particular price range. Cause if X can do it, then if Y is selling for the same price they should be able to offer me the same if not better.

3 minutes ago, Lucky38i said:

I don't see how this matters, the price isn't the problem. The respective value in relation to its competitors who offer similar products with a compelling feature set is obviously to me as a consumer going to be more enticing. I as a consumer am going to start this expectation of this feature set for any product within a particular price range. Cause if X can do it, then if Y is selling for the same price they should be able to offer me the same if not better.

Personally I don't think the price PMDG charge for a single 777 is unreasonable.
I bought the 777-300 and I think it's a decent plane worth to me about what I paid. The problem I have is with charging a customer Full Price for every extra model which is why I will ONLY own the 300 from PMDG, but will get other variants of the Flight Factor 777.

14 minutes ago, Lucky38i said:

The pricing elasticity of the demographic you're trying to sell to?

We know the quality of work that PMDG puts out, ignoring this comparison genuinely doesn't make sense. The company is not my friend, they're bottom line is their priority and value for money is my priority. So as a consumer I need to evaluate if the product provides a value for me for my needs. Their investments, their expenditures, their costs are none of my concern, just like the Company isn't concerned about my own costs outside of spending money for a hobby.

That was with a very very different demographic to what we have now. The target was much smaller and in order to maintain margins, high prices were required. You can't genuinely think the same applies now with MSFS, especially with what PMDG themselves have said with the DC6 sales.

Are you arguing that because we now have other options with feature sets that we don't see with PMDG products, we're not allowed to complain? Isn't the whole point of competition is so that us as Consumers can ultimately get a better product?

I don't see how this matters, the price isn't the problem. The respective value in relation to its competitors who offer similar products with a compelling feature set is obviously to me as a consumer going to be more enticing. I as a consumer am going to start this expectation of this feature set for any product within a particular price range. Cause if X can do it, then if Y is selling for the same price they should be able to offer me the same if not better.

wow that was quick, you missed my last line

"If you sincerely believe there's no return-on-investment, then don't buy, your conscience might question your good-spending-habits"

What say you?