About developers, beta testing and other things.

Stratobat said:
Hey SkippyBing,



That's like saying you should sleep less because sleeping in on your day off is an opportunity cost or if you have a Monday to Friday job you should be ashamed of not working on Saturday and Sunday.

Where does the line get drawn? Should a person neglect the family as well and define spending time with the kids, playing outside in the garden, as an opportunity cost?

People should be able to differentiate between hobbies and jobs.

Regards,
Stratobat
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Every decision you make is an opportunity cost, balancing your needs against each other. From the basics, providing yourself with food and shelter, to the advanced giving yourself a feeling of self worth or contentment. Seriously Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, it's a real thing.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have hobbies or lie ins, I'm saying it's false to say developing freeware costs nothing as UK Mil claims. Otherwise if he charged something for his models he'd have 100% profit.
 
Moderators please don't lock this thread. Cody began a perfectly reasonable thread here which has already developed interesting comment. I see no signs of any friction, healthy robust debate but not friction. Both sides of this debate need to air. If we keep shutting threads down, censorship will eventually rule.

I also lament the passing of older times Helldiver but unfortunately demand for more complexity, function and content for prices which have not really moved in years, is what is going to do the damage, not people's ability to purchase equipment. To achieve these new technology levels more expensive and complex programmes are needed to produce model quickly. The cost of such software is beyond a lot of people.

I don't think most prices have actually risen in years and I don't know of many hobbies where that is the case. People are still talking about $30 for an add-ons. They have been doing that for almost 10 years.


The quality and performance of computers has increased out of all proportion to their price so your comparison with ham radio doesn't quite make it. It is not the cost of equipment bought by the fortunate few that impacts this hobby.

What does impact this hobby, like any other, is global recession.
 
Hey SkippyBing,

SkippyBing said:
I'm not saying you shouldn't have hobbies or lie ins, I'm saying it's false to say developing freeware costs nothing as UK Mil claims. Otherwise if he charged something for his models he'd have 100% profit.
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I can not fault you on Maslow's but if you peel away the onion skin, so to speak, freeware can actually cost you nothing to develop. Many years ago I was part of a design team and I don't recall any of us ever spending money on research material.

You could always argue that the internet, in itself, costs money (Bandwidth, ISP) but when you're using the internet for other things (Work, corresponding with family, etc), it's kind of a mute point.

The beautiful thing about human nature is that people are diposed to helping one another . One good deed enforces another and there are plenty of people out there on this very forum who share their knowledge and open their reference libraries with no thought of compensation.

Please do not construe what I'm saying here as me having something against payware developers. In the limited correspondence I have had with some payware developers, they have always been pleasant and more than willing to help me out.

I'm just merely highlighting that some people choose to develop as a hobby and do not equate it into pounds and pennies. Maybe their financial situation lends itself to this or it is a calling that they have. Sort of like how some people give their free time to doing charitable works.

Maybe I'm wrong though... Wouldn't be the first time :p:

Regards,
Stratobat
 
SkippyBing said:
Wrong, it's cost you time that could have been spent doing something more productive. It's known as an opportunity cost, you've lost the opportunity to do something else. Unless you're immortal and have unlimited time.

Say you spent 100 hours total to produce a model (all devs I know this is woefully underestimating it but it's just an example), you've forgone 100 hours that could have been spent working in an all night petrol station for £5 an hour (what's the minimum wage these days?!) so that's £500 you've lost by deciding instead to build a model.
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Yes but I have a full time job, and building models is my 'hobby' So it DOES COST ME NOTHING. How many times do I have to repeat it. MY MODELS COST ME NOTHING, except time, which is my freetime, after work.

So it can cost you nothing. I do not rely on it for a wage, and the time I spend, would just be sat in front of the TV.

It can be done, FREEWARE can be produced from nothing.
 
Well yes, your time could be called "free" I suppose but if you are using higher end software and computers then there is a cost there. If you use GMax, Paint or maybe Gimp or something I suppose you'd be getting the overhead down but I doubt if a lot of freeware designers are doing that anymore.

If they are using machines and software that belong to say, their place of work, then that is definitely a cost. To someone....:rolleyes:
 
I agree, but I use GMAX, which effectivly was free with Fs9, and paintshop pro, which was purchased many many years ago, so yes, was a cost, but cetainly not one i look to recoup, as it was bought for a hobby.

But my point is, it STILL is possible to produce good quality models for free. yes, mine are not to the standard of payware, but good enough for free
 
I get the feeling after reading some posts here that I should be getting paid for playing FSX!!

I had to replace my power supply and video card to allow my computer to run FSX with at least half decent frame rates which cost me money.

I spent countless hours learning to fly a helicopter properly. I spent almost the same amount of time learning carrier operations with the Acceleration Hornet. All this without earning a wage so far.

So if time is money I am woefully short in the pecuniary compensation aspect of this hobby!

Regards, Mike Mann
 
There are still opportunities to be made, do not forget who MS sold the product range to. They did not invest that type of money purely to take a potential nuisance product off the market horizon.
 
UKMIL said:
But my point is, it STILL is possible to produce good quality models for free. yes, mine are not to the standard of payware, but good enough for free
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Absolutely true! However, the expectations from "Joe Sim" have increased to the point that it is rapidly becoming a zero sum proposition: damned if you do; damned if you don't.

My late granpappy often quipped that "...quality is like buying oats son, if you want nice fresh oats you have to be willing to pay the farmer a fair price. Otherwise you'll have to be satisfied with oats that've already been through the horse..." :ernae:
 
UKMIL said:
It can be done, FREEWARE can be produced from nothing.
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Exactly.

Even if there was some cost involved, like shooting a (cheap) manual from EBay, I still wouldn't roll the cost off on anyone else.

I do add-ons primarily for myself, after all. Throwing 'em out to others is just secondary nature.
 
Capitalism Capitalism Capitalism. You get what you pay for, and Communism doesn't work (been proven). Freebies are great!! I appreciate all the freebies in flight sim, even the ones I don't like enough to use. But, and this is a big but:

"The best things in life are free, but the really really really good stuff is going to cost you."

Let's put this into the perspectives of cars:

Freebie, Nissan, Jaguar, Ferrari.

If someone gives you their old car because you can't afford one, do you have the right to b*tch if that car develops a bit of a problem after you get it? If all you can afford is a Nissan, do you have the right to b*tch to the Nissan dealer that it's not as nice as a Jaguar, and since you expect value for your money they should throw in some free extras? If you buy a Jaguar because you can afford one, do you have the right to return to the car dealer and get your money back because you got in a race with your friend who has a Ferrari, and you lost? If you buy a Ferrari because you think it's going to have women falling all over you, do you have the right to yell and scream at the Ferrari dealer if women still won't look at you?

You get what you pay for, and there bloody well are different levels of what a customer is entitled to...because it's all dependent upon what you paid.
 
Bone said:
But, and this is a big but:

"The best things in life are free, but the really really really good stuff is going to cost you."
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I could counterprove that with an intercourse related example, but for the sake of family friendliness, I'll keep my mouth shut. :icon_lol:
 
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