Rich0

Agreed. Something we all have to keep in mind when evaluating XP is that we're not comparing the $70 XP product against a $30 FSX plus $1000 worth of add-ons. Or, I guess we can compare, but bear that in mind (the need to buy new add-ons is part of the cost of switching). That said, I suspect that 3rd-party support is going to become a factor in favor of XP fairly soon, since MS has basically been turning everybody away. When the time to switch is right is a call for each to make, but I know I that if I were about to buy an add-on it wouldn't be for FSX at this point.

Unless MS does a 180 soon, I think they're basically going to concede the market. Even after they fired the FSX team shear inertia kept them around for years, but that same force will work against them. If X-Plane becomes the place where all the 3rd parties go, then even if MS releases a competitive product nobody is going to dump their new investments in XP. I was thinking more about ATC and things to improve X-Plane. After some reflection I guess what I like about AI/ATC/weather/etc is that it introduces something to interact with in the simulator. Without it a flight from A to B is the same every time. Of course, right now the ATC isn't doing much better than that, but if we had 100 AI planes in the sky and airports dealing with changing winds or whatever then that would be a whole different story. While I know that some cringe, some kind of adventure capability would be nice, especially if the adventures can be created dynamically or by 3rd parties. It need not even be an arcade-like experience - maybe integrate some airline management APIs for 3rd parties, and have ways to trigger events that influence the flight just like failures do. If one out of every 2-3 flights had something interesting happen, whether minor or serious, that would probably make things interesting. Maybe there is a NOTAM in an area and a restriction to deal with, as well as modifications to some SIDs/STARs as a result. Maybe a local airport has temporary noise restriction changes. A good realistic simulator is the right foundation to build on, but XP could be a lot more. And none of this need be mandatory. I'd think, however, that even pilots bent on realism would probably welcome some of that at some frequency. It isn't like you can plan a flight without checking for NOTAMs.

Disclaimer - I'm not yet a customer, but based on the demo some things that might be nice: 1. Improved ATC. Others have said some of this, but ATC needs to be more than follow an IFR plan without deviation. I should be able to call just for landing clearance, or be given holding instructions, and so on. Clearance should include departure frequencies (I believe this is real-world procedure). Takeoff should include clear instructions on extent of clearance (altitude and course). I shouldn't be "off course" if I am told to fly some heading on takeoff and then just keep flying it having not gotten further clearance, though a clearance to fly runway heading and then as filed is a different matter (I think that is real-world accurate). SID/STAR altitude awareness would be really nice, as would maintaining actual separation (go figure - unlike FSX). 2. Better default keyboard maps. If I'm going to interact with ATC I need to change radio frequencies fast. A super-tune button would be nice (pretend it is my copilot), but having to hit radio dials with mice is a non-starter. Take some time to think out nice keyboard mappings and ship them as defaults, and include diagrams to print. Sure, I can do it myself, but it would be nice. I'm more sensitive to this since I'm just getting used to X-Plane. 3. More AI aircraft. I don't care if they follow perfect flight models or if they just follow linear paths. Sure, might be nice if they started having perfect real-world behavior if I were close enough to actually look at them, but that is icing on the cake (that would be nicer than FSX where AI touchdowns just look fake). More AI will help with ATC automatically. All that said, it is already a great product and has a lot of potential.

Well, a subscription-based approach eliminates the resale issue anyway - the software is rented. If there is no charge but the server is just validating the original purchase, then the success of the scheme would depend on: 1. The component on the server being complex enough that it cannot simply be replaced locally. 2. The code never actually leaving the server - input goes in, output goes out, code stays put (if the code actually gets sent to the client then the crackers will simply copy it - the fundamental DRM problem). 3. The software actually having a decent experience under these circumstances. Any communications with a server will involve latency, so it isn't like you can just feed a stream of all the simulator data in and stream control settings and rendering out in realtime. Chances are that if the software was that strong a candidate to run with a major component on the cloud the whole thing would be cloud-based anyway, like some web-based flight planning tool. All of this also ignores the possibility of legal sanctions, though the EU's jurisdiction would come into play here. A US-based developer couldn't be forced to actually comply with an injunction without US cooperation (which seems unlikely unless a similar ruling is made in the US). Of course, the developer would have to refrain from visiting the EU or countries that would allow extradition to there, which isn't exactly a great way to live. The developer would also have to take care to never have assets in the EU to seize and so on. I doubt it would really come to anything like this on a broad scale. Most likely we'll see how this plays out with EU software vendors selling to EU customers, and then the customs that arise will start applying to work produced elsewhere, starting with whatever sales the EU can control.

Good luck with that in court. What would happen would be that the 2nd licensee would need a crack. An enterprising company specializing in cracking transferred software would offer the 2nd user a crack, perhaps for a small fee, or maybe they could make it ad-supported (I imagine there would be plenty of demand). The user can download a certified virus-free crack from a soon-to-be-reputable company from a website that lists cracks in a nice organized fashion. Perhaps that third party might ask for proof of license transfer, of an affidavit or something. Viola, second user has no trouble at all. Today when a site carries cracks like these the copyright holder to the original software typically sues them to get them taken down, and this is virtually certain to succeed, often with criminal charges brought as well. However, in this case the site will simply claim that they only carry cracks to downloadable software that the original vendor refuses to cooperate in facilitating the legal transfer. They point out that they ask for certification that the transfer is legit. Since transfers are private sales between individuals this will never require more than a hand-written receipt. Chances are the EU court will uphold this now-reputable company since they're facilitating legitimate commerce, and only cracking software where the vendor has copy protection contrary to the provisions of the law. Of course, who is to stop people from providing false receipts or uploading copies of those cracks all over the place, now that people are paid to crack copyrighted software en masse from a cubicle somewhere? It seems to me that the best solution for those distributing software is to cooperate with the EU and have a process for license transfer. Sure, you don't HAVE to make it easy, but the courts don't have to make it easy to shut down warez sites either. Again, see what happened in Canada when DirecTV refused to sell service there - the government allowed descrambler technology to be sold in normal retain stores, professionally created by engineers on salary. And of course these products leaked down into the US, their main market. The bottom line is that if an industry doesn't want to find unfavorable regulations thrust upon it, they are best off regulating themselves.

I'd argue it is more detectable. In the resale piracy case, the user has already registered their copy with their personal info. Then they register the fact that they're transferring ownership, and the new owner's personal info is registered. You have the opportunity to politely remind the original owner that they must destory any copies of the software they have and uninstall it, and your transfer process might even enforce this somehow. Contrast that with a cracked piece of software. That software is never registered anywhere, and is likely patched so that it does not phone home, and people who run such software probably run software firewalls and such to block any attempts to phone home. If it does manage to phone home you get an IP and a date/time, which requires more effort to tie to an actual person. I'll agree that it is still hard to enforce, but people who pay the developer and register/etc are probably the sort of people who would do the right thing anyway. I doubt that people will buy and resell the software just to avoid having to use a torrent site or whatever.

Thanks - very helpful. Would be nice if there were default mappings for radios/etc, but this will at least help me to understand the logic of the current defaults and find something sensible.

I never really put too much stock in screen-shots - while looks are nice honestly the feel is more important. One thing I really like about the XP demo is that the frame rates are MUCH better than FSX. However, other than balloons hovering over KSEA it is a bit lacking in AI. The ATC also needs work, though I did read the blog post about that. Some ATC improvements that would help: Allow for ATC interaction beyond IFR plans. If I fly up to KSEA VFR I ought to be able to call somebody up and ask to land. For its faults FSX does this part reasonably well. Better departure/arrival procedures. ATC just clears takeoff, and doesn't give altitude clearances/etc. I don't fly in the real world, but I suspect that even on a SID you'd probably get more explicit instructions than those provided. Ability to load plans/etc - if I were using an aircraft with a nice FMS it could get tedious re-loading the same plan into 2-3 places. Some kind of "co-pilot" assistance with the radios, or good keyboard mappings for the radios. If I'm flying a 747 I'm not going to be flying the plane, adjusting the AP settings, and manning the radios solo. Honestly, even in a C172 solo I imagine the radios are a bit easier to manage than on a PC, and the ATC would likely provide departure info with the clearance to aid with that. Obviously in 15min I can't fly too far, but in my ATC experiments it seemed like I was flying in circles (told to report field in sight, then vectored off before it was). No idea how well it works to the end of the flight as I haven't been able to fly one end-to-end yet (anybody have a 10min IFR route they'd like to offer?). 15min is a bit short for a demo, but it is 15min longer than you get with FSX... Seems like ATC needs some work, though I realize it is new. Actually, keyboard settings are something that could be done better out of the box. Yes, I know I can map the radios to keys, and in general it is much better than FSX in that regard. However, I'm forced to basically design my own keyboard mapping from scratch, while unfamiliar with the default mappings. Why not find a mapping that works well and ship it with a nice keyboard template diagram. It looks like earlier versions had these available, and v10 has gone back to basics. Being able to change things is nice, but why not have the "experts" at least provide a good starting point? It has been growing on me, though - this time I didn't delete the demo after a few flights...

I suspect this is due to the nature of the market. People who are into flight simulators probably tend to be far more technically inclined than the average computer user, and those who want payware add-ons that make the simulation even more complex probably are even more technically skilled. With those skills comes the ability to find/use or even create pirated software. That doesn't make it a good thing - but it is one of the reasons this industry is likely to struggle with piracy. You mentioned activations, and the kind of user who buys flight simulator add-ons is also the sort of person who is likely to need lots of activations for completely legitimate reasons as well (changing hardware, re-imaging hard drives, and so on). Personally I don't care for software that depends on internet activation servers, since they're a potential future point-of-failure. However, I am guessing that developers find that they sell more when they use this stuff, so that's just the nature of the beast. Just as many pirates might indeed never buy the product if it weren't free, many developers might never build the product if they couldn't squeeze out some additional sales by using more intrusive copy-protection. I wish there were a better solution out there, but we all enjoy a hobby that is relatively rare in the population, but which is fairly expensive to cater to, which means that if we want to keep it going it is going to cost a fair bit of money.

This is one of the things that would bother me. I don't generally download detailed local scenery in FSX and wouldn't plan to do it in X-Plane. That sounds like a mess of micro-management unless you only fly in a small area. Whether it is stock or an add-on or two I want to tweak a few settings and get half-decent global scenery. I don't care if when I fly over my house that I can see it and it has the right number of windows - I just want there to be rivers/towns/etc in approximately the right areas. Airports matter more. I don't need every outhouse in the right spot, but the runway/taxiway/parking layouts should be accurate. Even FSX isn't perfect in that regard - often you have taxiways dumping you in a grass field for small airports. In FSX the sort of scenery changes I've found helpful are denser grids, better terrain maps, and better textures. Honestly, that is about all I really need - I don't need 14GB of photo-accurate scenery that covers 500 km^2. If this sort of thing is available in XP that would make me happy. From what I've read the clouds sound better in XP10. FSX clouds are great for screen-shots, but they don't look so nice when you're flying through them. I don't take screen-shots - I care more that clouds behave decently when I'm flying in them. My only complaint with XP is that it seems like the clouds don't render to the horizon, but I'm just messing with the demo so maybe I haven't found the right setting. I re-downloaded the demo and was a bit more impressed this time around. I'll have to mess with it some more. One suggestion I would make to Laminar is to make the demo use a Cessna or something smaller than an airliner. When taking off in an airliner you really need to be able to manage controls/autopilots/etc, and without knowing how to work FMS/etc you're going to struggle to get that thing where you want it, and where are you going to fly it in 15min? With a small plane you can just "wing it" fairly easily and fly circuits or whatever. It isn't a big deal if you can't find the flaps button in a 172, and you are going to rip off your gear or stall if you don't micro-manage your speed while looking for that button.

Seems a bit odd for software in this price range. I've seen expensive software that requires dongles or license keys, or even annual renewal. 15-days seems a bit crazy. I've been involved with software packages at work that we've paid 7-figure sums on licensing for, and we'd never deploy something that needed some kind of intervention every 15 days. I think SAS was one of the more intrusive things I've seen, and they can get away with it only because they're basically the gold standard (and if we asked them nicely they'd probably give us a grace extension while we're haggling over prices). Could you see Walmart distributing keys to every cash register in the country for the biweekly security check? Keep in mind that the people who are paying you aren't your enemy. A vendor approached us with plans to move to a license server model due to piracy concerns in the East, but they were very sensitive to customer reception, and would bend over backwards to keep it out of the way. Unless you are the only game in town you really can't afford to tick off people. Granted, I work for a big company and even very large companies have to agree to stuff like audits and source escrow to do business. I imagine a mom-and-pop company wouldn't get the same treatment. In any case, I think the more successful add-on vendors already realize they have to work WITH their customers to have customers. Most bend over backwards to provide support and that is part of the overall experience. I think that the bottom line with a ruling like this is that vendors will need to provide a basic license-transfer mechanism in their registration system, will need to explicitly limit support duration, and that's really all. They'll also need to make sure replay value is good so that they're not clobbered by the secondhand market.

Actually, there is another way. Explicitly state that a certain amount of support (so many incidents, so many hours, etc) are included in the purchase. You would need to track that obviously which is an overhead, but I'd think it would be trivial compared to the cost of support itself. If the license were transferred, then so would the support obligation, but the counter would not be reset. This is very similar to what happens with cars - you buy one with a warranty and sell it. The warranty follows the car, but still counts down from the original sale date. I think the same is the case when vendors offer free maintenance with a car - the support follows the car. In any case, I do feel for those making commercial add-ons. I tend to cringe at the prices, but the reality is that these prices are VERY good for what they are. When the latest big-name FPS title sells for $70 a huge percentage of that is profit since the development costs are amortized across millions of sales. I don't know how many people buy a $60 aircraft, but I imagine the costs for the nicer ones are considerable and are certainly borne by far fewer people. I suspect this is a bit of a labor of love for those involved, and it is a shame that the necessary costs tend to create some division in what would otherwise be a tight community.

I can think of a few ways. Create a form for the existing licensed user to log in and record their transfer of license. If you can validate the licensed user for the purposes of determining if an install should be allowed to run, then you should be able to validate them to allow them to transfer it. Maybe have an option right in the software to transfer a license. You run the command and enter a new owner email address. You get a confirmatory email, and once you click on the link the software is now owned by somebody else, and your existing copy becomes unregistered. As a bonus you can easily fix email address changes in this way as well. If in a one week period of time 3000 people claim to have repurchased the same serialized copy of the software chances are something fishy is going on. On the other hand, if you get a request to transfer a license every few years on a copy, chances are that is legit. I don't think a court is going to punish a company for doing reasonable due diligence. What they won't accept is a company that just outright gets in the way of legal behavior, and so on. I do understand the concerns of content creators, and I want to see more content created. However, the first sale doctrine is a good principle, and we should be willing to embrace it and try to make it work.

I just wanted to comment that this discussion has been helpful for me (skipping over the more bickering posts). I am not an XP user yet, but I feel that it is inevitable that I will be some day. I'm just trying to figure out when that day should come. I tried XP demos back in the v8 and v9 days, and the v10 demo (I'll likely give it another shot sometime soon). My reason for holding back was just general level of polish, especially with aircraft panels and availability of 3rd party aircraft, and the ATC. It seems to me that all of these things have been improving but I'm still on the fence. Both platforms benefit from 3rd-party additions so I am trying to be fair and evaluate XP against FSX minus add-ons. The biggest benefit I see is that it is just a better foundation to build on. Anytime I load up an FSX install with stuff I end up wiping everything and starting over, because general stability and the 2GB limit hit and I can't get through a flight without it dying. Here is a question for the XP enthusiasts - how is the product with saving flights when using 3rd-party tools? One issue I've found with FSX is that some of these tools do not behave well together if you want to save/restore a flight (older tools like radar contact really spring to mind here). I generally can't sit in a chair for a six hour flight and real life tends to intrude, so having the ability to save/restore is a BIG plus for me. I'd think that sim makers would benefit by just having an API for saving state (add-on defines callback for about-to-save, when called it passes an arbitrary binary/xml/etc blob to the simulator, and when it restores it gets the blob back). I guess I don't look forward to a new learning curve. Things that I tend to use in a flight sim include: 1. Complex aircraft/panels (lots of systems/etc). 2. Lots of ATC interaction. Ideally I'd like something dynamic and not super-scripted, and the more real the better. 3. Some level of cheating - if I'm flying a 747 solo with mouse-click buttons I'm not going to be able to operate the thing like a two-man crew with real dials that are always in reach. Radio frequencies are a BIG area where this applies, especially on approach/departure. I actually tend to disfavor products that force people to do a lot of manipulation, although a realistic ATC that doesn't switch the frequencies 14 times in two minutes would help as well. 4. Interesting places to go and see. I don't care if the best places to visit are the same as in some other sim, but there should be fun places to fly around. 5. The knowledge that 3rd parties are starting to make nice add-ons. It seems to me that XP is just crossing this threshold now. I don't really want to make this about XP vs FSX/etc. I guess I'm just looking to get a sense for when the right time to jump on-board is...

I agree that resold licenses are not pirating under the court's ruling. Perhaps I should have used the words "circumventing access controls" or something like that instead. My point was that trying to use DRM to block the legal resale of licenses is just going to result in a backlash that will make it harder to use DRM to block illegal redistribution of the software. If you lump people doing something that is legal with people doing something illegal courts will usually punish you for this. This has happened numerous times. I cited the DirecTV / Canada situation. The same thing has happened to printer manufacturers who stuck bits of BIOS on printer cartridges (3rd parties were given the right to copy the firmware wholesale - since the printer would only accept an exact copy). This also happened to Nintendo with their gameboy - 3rd parties were actually allowed to display the Nintendo trademark without a license in a manner that would otherwise be obvious infringement because Nintendo made displaying the logo mandatory for the game to run (the console checked for the code to display the logo). When companies create shortages of important products governments will issue compulsory licenses. The bottom line is that when companies try to play legal games to extend IP law to cover stuff that courts and legislatures have already ruled are legal, it backfires. They expect the courts to apply some narrow interpretation of past law as if they themselves were computer chips. You can't hack the law like it were a dumb finite state machine - if the intent of the court was to allow something to happen, then they're GOING to allow it to happen. If you play along with the court you make less money, and if you don't play along you make even less than that.

Seems like many of the comments speculate that publishers will simply do stuff to make it difficult/impossible to actually use a resold copy, even if it isn't illegal. That is a pretty naive approach. If publishers were to do this, the logical next step is that the same court would rule that circumvention tools are legal. This happened in Canada when US-based Satellite TV companies refused to sell service to Canadians. The Canadian government simply legalized descramblers and cloned smartcards and such, and with the creation of a market they took off, and of course that meant a big blackmarket supply for US-based customers as well. The only things that make pirating difficult are customer goodwill, the fact that it takes a fair bit of effort to crack decent protection schemes, and that being illegal it is difficult to collaborate in such activities and hard to find servers to distribute these works or monetize them. Defiance of a court order will take care of all of these. It will tick off legitimate customers (denied a legal redistribution right), and will allow companies to operate in the open hiring people to break protection schemes and sell cracks for money and even advertise them on mainstream websites. Right next to your link to buy your software on amazon.uk you might be able to buy and download the crack. The smarter move would be to ensure that your customers are able to exercise their legal rights. If a customer says they want to transfer the license, let somebody register a new key for the serial number and revoke the old one. Sure, that costs a token amount and generates no revenue, and maybe even is a lost potential sale, but there's nothing you can do about that. If you don't want people to resell your content give them a reason to want to keep using it. Or, you can try to fight the courts. Just keep in mind that you need the courts on your side if you don't want to REALLY see piracy take off. Compared to more mainstream software industries flight simulator software piracy seems to be much less of a problem. Sure, the big products like FSX or X-Plane or whatever are more likely to be pirated, but there are a bazillion commercial add-ons that just aren't on the radar of the people who do this stuff. If you let them start getting paid for it, that will change.