3 hours ago, YukonPete said:

Stay away! Terrible customer service. If they are willing to rip customers off over $5 so I don't trust them with anymore. I purchased on release day with the subscription. Was not usable at all. Couldn't start the APU and gauges flashed. they said they would extened everyones subscription when they patch it. Problem was the release bug lasted 3 weeks and they extened peoples licence just 5 days. Not interested in ever returning as a customer.

I was one of the first subscribers in that batch too.  The IXEG 737-300 in XP is my all time favourite addon, I love the 737 Classics and desperately wanted this to be on point.

Yes it was only $5 but just as with you, I found I immediately had a completely unusable plane.  I messaged their support email and got a message that just said "we will fix it". A week later with no progress, I enquired again and got the same "we will fix it" response. They were clearly just copying and pasting this "we will fix it" text in response to every support request they were getting.    When it was finally loosely flyable (sort of) and we only got the 5 day extension I was stunned.   Why would you p*** off all those early adopters, who may otherwise have spread positive recommendations about the addon?

Their Discord is an absolute uncontrolled shambles.  I don't even know if the 2 main people that post there are even associated with CSS but the way they respond to some people is so unprofessional.

The situation with CSS has been widely publicised and the product isn't even close to being at an acceptable overall quality level and yet I see people throwing $120 at a permanent licence for something they hadn't even tried.   Don't get me wrong - I'm big on free choice and 'live and let live'!   But it's another case that if the community don't make a stand with developers like this, both on product basics, (like it having zero sim vars - and thus no key command support at all), as well as how they deal with the community, their pricing model, etc.... they're going to soak up the cash and not bother to improve their game. 

1 hour ago, JYW said:

they're going to soak up the cash and not bother to improve their game. 

Here's the problem - if enough of you will this into existence, and it will come true. 

What have they done since release?
- Steady improvements to the aircraft
- Sounds like the -300/400 are coming along nicely
- They bent to all of the ridiculously loud whining about not understanding the pricing model
- EFB enhancements, new flight model for the winglets 737-5, sound rework coming

So, frankly, what are you expecting? If you just don't like them, you can say that, but saying they aren't "bother[ing] to improve their game" just isn't a fair assessment of the developer. I can't even say that about devs I would argue are more malicious actors in the space!

I purchased a 5$ subscription yesterday. When I try to use it, all I get is a dead cockpit. I read their troubleshoot guide that said I must enter an activation code that should have been sent to my email. Still nothing in my email but their launcher shows that the license is good until the end of January 2026, but I still can't use. I sent in a support ticket, but no response back yet.

51 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

I purchased a 5$ subscription yesterday. When I try to use it, all I get is a dead cockpit. I read their troubleshoot guide that said I must enter an activation code that should have been sent to my email. Still nothing in my email but their launcher shows that the license is good until the end of January 2026, but I still can't use. I sent in a support ticket, but no response back yet.

If you already manage to still the aircraft but have a dead cockpit the activation isn’t your problem. The gate exe isn’t starting properly.

start the sim and load up the plane, quit the css launcher (FROM THE TASKBAR, pressing x is not enough, then open css launcher again) it should launch the gate.exe and your cockpit should “come alive”. Though remember it is cold and dark by default.

52 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

I purchased a 5$ subscription yesterday. When I try to use it, all I get is a dead cockpit. I read their troubleshoot guide that said I must enter an activation code that should have been sent to my email. Still nothing in my email but their launcher shows that the license is good until the end of January 2026, but I still can't use. I sent in a support ticket, but no response back yet.

I had that once. Usually means the background process didn’t initialize correctly. Try opening the task manager and closing down the Gate.exe process. Then re-open the CSS launcher. That did it for me. Didn’t have to restart the sim or anything.

5 hours ago, mspencer said:

Here's the problem - if enough of you will this into existence, and it will come true. 

What have they done since release?
- Steady improvements to the aircraft
- Sounds like the -300/400 are coming along nicely
- They bent to all of the ridiculously loud whining about not understanding the pricing model
- EFB enhancements, new flight model for the winglets 737-5, sound rework coming

So, frankly, what are you expecting? If you just don't like them, you can say that, but saying they aren't "bother[ing] to improve their game" just isn't a fair assessment of the developer. I can't even say that about devs I would argue are more malicious actors in the space!

Hey look, if you want to rent every aircraft addon you use in the sim, you go for it.  And you can list as many 'improvements' as you like - the thing is the only aircraft addon in either version of MSFS that has had no sim vars integrated into it.  You might not know what that means or the consequences of it.  But they are significant.  No standard key commands working, no possible interface with any hardware. How many people have Winwing panels, Saitek panels, etc.  They buy this junk and find that nothing works.  They spend hours thinking it's an issue at their end.   In fact it's that the developer has completely neglected an entire profect strand of making an aircraft addon.

If you like it and are happy with what is provided - good for you.   Don't tell me I'm 'willing them out of existence'.  That's ridiculous.  If you want to choose half-baked products that you rent forever (or pay an extortionate 'lifetime cost'), you do you.  

Edited January 1Jan 1 by JYW

From a repainter perspective I noticed the liveries for this product have very low download counts.  (I have a little insider knowledge using my paint statistics).  I am presuming the product hasn't sold very well.

With a major update such as the one that came out I wouldn't mind blowing 5 bucks to "rent" it for a month.  Maybe do a screenshot review etc 

I'm waiting for v2 and the -300 and will risk $5 then...

8 hours ago, JYW said:

Hey look, if you want to rent every aircraft addon you use in the sim, you go for it.  And you can list as many 'improvements' as you like - the thing is the only aircraft addon in either version of MSFS that has had no sim vars integrated into it.  You might not know what that means or the consequences of it.  But they are significant.  No standard key commands working, no possible interface with any hardware. How many people have Winwing panels, Saitek panels, etc.  They buy this junk and find that nothing works.  They spend hours thinking it's an issue at their end.   In fact it's that the developer has completely neglected an entire profect strand of making an aircraft addon.

If you like it and are happy with what is provided - good for you.   Don't tell me I'm 'willing them out of existence'.  That's ridiculous.  If you want to choose half-baked products that you rent forever (or pay an extortionate 'lifetime cost'), you do you.  

I think there’s a couple of things here. 
 

you’re entirely right that the devs should work on simvar integration but your original comment made it out to be that the devs are doing nothing which @mspencer was pointing out is just blatantly incorrect. Furthermore, Dim (a developer) said this is planned for the v2 model. You seem to be conflating no simvar integration as equivalent to no updates to the aircraft which is extremely disingenuous.
 

Secondly they’ve already said they are revising their pricing methods which I detailed in my other thread I linked to you as you seem to have such strong gripes with renting the aircraft.

8 hours ago, JYW said:

How many people have Winwing panels, Saitek panels, etc.  They buy this junk and find that nothing works. 

To prevent something like this from happening to me again, I thoroughly evaluate the hardware and software support—both from the developers and the community—before purchasing or subscribing to an add-on. 

But putting the simvars fiasco aside, I find the pricing model here unsuitable for me...

Edited January 1Jan 1 by MaGer1965

It's been a while since I've seen so much hate directed at these guys.

 

If they offer all versions for $120, I don't think it's so bad, and renting 5 for a month seems wonderful to me for anyone who wants to try it out.

 

The problem is the same as always: they sell products that are far from finished. I won't give my opinion until I see a more final version, but I guess it's free to throw stones in this world, then others come along and charge you almost the same to upgrade to 2024 after you've paid a lot more for a few versions of a 737, and nothing happens.

8 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

From a repainter perspective I noticed the liveries for this product have very low download counts.  (I have a little insider knowledge using my paint statistics).  I am presuming the product hasn't sold very well.

With a major update such as the one that came out I wouldn't mind blowing 5 bucks to "rent" it for a month.  Maybe do a screenshot review etc 

I think I've said it already 5 times about this product, but I'll say it again: It was dead on arrival. This is now probably their last try to get some potential customers and it will most likely fail, leading to the product being discontinued either silently or openly.
Anyone who now pays 120 dollars for this has no one to blame but themselves.

3 hours ago, Lucky38i said:

You seem to be conflating no simvar integration as equivalent to no updates to the aircraft

Truly, not at all.

It's been totally misconstrued that my criticism was ever about them 'not updating their plane enough'. That's just something 'mspencer' created.  My frustration is that, despite that huge update, they still have no simvars and no keyboard compatibility.

It was about what they are choosing to work on - what their priorities are.  It was never a claim that they are sitting doing nothing.

It seems that whilst the majority see this product for what it really is - there are a small core of you that will slap down anyone who points out it's many insufficiencies and problems.  In the case of @mspencer, even creating a strawman argument based on a claim that they 'don't bother updating this plane' which I never said.     

You are calling me disingenuous, which is no small claim, merely for pointing out an opinion that they are critically wrong to be adding other features, whilst still having no keyboard command support.

Your very positively biased accounts of this product have been noted. That's ok.   But please don't support others' utterly false arguments that I ever claimed they aren't updating it.     Heck, I've mentioined how sohcked I am that there is no keyboard functionality in about 10 posts now!  

They can work on it 24 hours a day but if they still don't include a basic, expected function like this, they are getting it wrong and I will point it out.  

It is pretty clear that I have always been referring to them not bothering to add key control compatibility,

Edited January 1Jan 1 by JYW

13 minutes ago, JYW said:

It's been totally misconstrued that my criticism was ever about them 'not updating their plane enough'. That's just something 'mspencer' created.  My frustration is that, despite that huge update, they still have no simvars and no keyboard compatibility.

Ah fair enough, I see what you’re saying.

13 minutes ago, JYW said:

It was about what they are choosing to work on - what their priorities are.  It was never they are sitting doing nothing.

I think their current priorities are fine, I don’t see the point in hardware integration for an aircraft that was relatively broken. The update was primarily bug fixes and improved behaviours which I wholeheartedly welcome. I’m annoyed at the lack of hardware integration as programming my hardware was annoying even with spad but at least I can run decent flights now.

13 minutes ago, JYW said:

It seems that whilst the majority see this product for what it really is - there are a small core of you that will slap down anyone who points out it's many insufficiencies and problems.

Though I’m not sure if this is directed at me I’ve been plenty critical of the devs here and on their discord but at the same time I do want to see a good classic 737 rendition and I’m fruitful CSS can do it, but they very clearly released too early imo. I’ve even advised people not to buy the aircraft until at least the upcoming update.

13 minutes ago, JYW said:

Your very positively biased accounts of this product have been noted. That's ok.   But please don't support others' utterly false arguments that I ever claimed they aren't updating it.   

It is pretty clear that I have always been referring to them not bothering to add key control compatibility,

That wasn’t my initial assessment of what you wrote. Particularly:

Quote

they're going to soak up the cash and not bother to improve their game. 

That comment is generalist compared to your specific concerns. but I have a better understanding of your point now. 

Just now, Lucky38i said:

hat wasn’t my initial assessment of what you wrote. Particularly:

Quote

they're going to soak up the cash and not bother to improve their game. 

That comment is generalist compared to your specific concerns. but I have a better understanding of your point now. 

Ahh, here's the problem.

Perhaps it doesn't exist in your culture, but the term "improve their game" in British English, doesn't mean literally "not improving a game" 😊

"Improving ones game" means just generally doing better at something.   It's a qualifier not a quantifier.

Eg...   

"Microsoft have been really sloppy with bugs to Windows 11 lately.  They need to improve their game".

(This doesn't relate to a specific 'game'.  It uses game as an analogy for what they do.)