I wonder if.......?

[Dumonceau]

Skippybing I never accused you or your firm of greed. If that is the way it came accross, then please accept my most heartfelt appologies.

You are one of the devs that I respect highly! Quality models at an affordable price! RESPECT!

Dumonceau

 

[Dumonceau]

All of the above leads me to another question: how many devs make a living solely of FS? Are there people out there who do?

I'm very curious about that!

Dumonceau

 

[Naruto-kun]

1 here plus most of my team mates. Although last year I was still under my parent's roof...

 

[huub vink]

Its a very small market and it takes an awful lot of time to make a model, therefore I think it is nearly impossible to make a living of it. Perhaps that companies which are specialised in GA aircraft like Alabeo and Carenado can make some profit as I expect GA aircraft are the best selling product

The average time needed to complete a model is more than a year (both freeware as payware) and apart from the person who makes the actual model,you often have somebody for the textures, somebody for the sounds, somebody for the flightmodel and somebody to program the xml files.........

Huub

 

[Dumonceau]

I can understand your POV and it is of course your prerogative. Unfortunately, that's capitalism for you. But more importantly: nobody is forcing you to buy that (non-essential) product.

Indeed, capitalism. Communism has failed, but - as Jacques Cousteau said - the next system to fail.

The world needs something else. Somthing that doesn't exclude people, something inclusive. A system that regards ALL people's happiness as the "prime directive".... A system that isn't as destructive on our own habitat as this one, a system that doesn't excell at genocide, poverty and mental desease... A system that is there for everybody and everything...

Humanity has a lot of thinking and reworking to do...

Live long and prosper!

Johan

 

[Bjoern]

I like sales. Be it on Steam or for MSFS products.

Moreover, FS pirates are no real flight sim hobbyists, they are downloaders. Hunter-gatherers if you will. They download what they want, fly it for a couple of minutes and are off to download something else.

Sounds like some of the walking wallets in the community. "Price tag?! I'll buy it!"

When I read a thread like this I wonder how many still remember the CFS1 and CFS2 day when everybody contributed to his abilities and knowledge. People still regarded flight simmimg and developing for flight simulators a hobby. Netwings and simviation were filled with freeware and you could fly nearly any aircraft you wanted.

Over the years I've seen a lot of freeware designers gong into payware and rapidly becoming frustrated about disappointing sales, unsatisfied paying customers, the product ending up on a pirate site and colleague designers who are ruining the market as this colleague is designing exactly the same model as they are.

Were we just naive or really happier in those day?

Times have changed. Bigger, better internet, greater mass appeal, influx of people only in for the short-term kick.

Ferarris cost what they do because of what they cost to make. The market for them is very small, comparatively, so they sell fewer.

A good part of the pricetag must be a "brand image" bonus. Like buying a Mercedes or Porsche.

Consumer car prices have generally gone up due to inflation, shorter development cycles and higher technical demands (iPod connector!). Sounds familiar, huh?

Most payware designers I have worked with, want to have at least the money (real costs) spend on developing the model back.

A kickstarter might help in that case. It works similar to SOH's annual bandwidth drive, but instead of a working forum users get an aircraft model in return.

All of the above leads me to another question: how many devs make a living solely of FS? Are there people out there who do?

I'm very curious about that!

One of my emergency life plans is becoming officially self-employed and doing payware or other 3D stuff. The welfare system here will support such an endeavour for a certain amount of time (two years or so), so you at least get some training wheels before you're all out on your own.

The world needs something else. Somthing that doesn't exclude people, something inclusive. A system that regards ALL people's happiness as the "prime directive".... A system that isn't as destructive on our own habitat as this one, a system that doesn't excell at genocide, poverty and mental desease... A system that is there for everybody and everything...

Death?

 

[dhasdell]

A good part of the pricetag must be a "brand image" bonus. Like buying a Mercedes or Porsche.

I heard somewhere that £3000 of the pricetag of every BMW sold goes towards advertising. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[Dumonceau]

I like sales. Be it on Steam or for MSFS products.





Sounds like some of the walking wallets in the community. "Price tag?! I'll buy it!"





Times have changed. Bigger, better internet, greater mass appeal, influx of people only in for the short-term kick.





A good part of the pricetag must be a "brand image" bonus. Like buying a Mercedes or Porsche.

Consumer car prices have generally gone up due to inflation, shorter development cycles and higher technical demands (iPod connector!). Sounds familiar, huh?





A kickstarter might help in that case. It works similar to SOH's annual bandwidth drive, but instead of a working forum users get an aircraft model in return.





One of my emergency life plans is becoming officially self-employed and doing payware or other 3D stuff. The welfare system here will support such an endeavour for a certain amount of time (two years or so), so you at least get some training wheels before you're all out on your own.





Death?

Thank you for that
As "the worst developper ever", mind telling us your age young man?

Especially since your german, the country that it destroying the EU through Angelas's autherity???

maybe because you germans want the world to suffer because you lost two world wars??

 

[SkippyBing]

Skippybing I never accused you or your firm of greed. If that is the way it came accross, then please accept my most heartfelt appologies.

You are one of the devs that I respect highly! Quality models at an affordable price! RESPECT!

Dumonceau

No apology necessary! I knew it was directed at us.

My point was you can't use the price of FSX to judge whether developers are being greedy. If people are trying to make a living at developing for FSX then the cost of the add-on will have to reflect it and due to the much smaller numbers of models sold vs copies of FSX the price may well be higher. They aren't being greedy they're just reflecting the true cost of developing a model.

We aren't trying to make a living, more recoup some of our costs and pay for the occasional system upgrade or annual type rating exam. Consequently we can write our time off and charge less.

 

[Bjoern]

I heard somewhere that £3000 of the pricetag of every BMW sold goes towards advertising. Can anyone confirm this?

No time to look that up, but it sounds plausible. Advertising companies usually get paid very handsomely by big companies.

Thank you for that
As "the worst developper ever", mind telling us your age young man?

My mental age is about 12 and a half, just like any other male between the age of twelve and a half and his seventies.

Especially since your german, the country that it destroying the EU through Angelas's autherity???

maybe because you germans want the world to suffer because you lost two world wars??

Seriously?!?

 

[Lawman]

Thank you for that
As "the worst developper ever", mind telling us your age young man?

Especially since your german, the country that it destroying the EU through Angelas's autherity???

maybe because you germans want the world to suffer because you lost two world wars??

Let's keep it nice and civil, shall we?

 

[joe bob]

Setting aside all the time and research costs involved in developing, I am not so sure Flight Simmers appreciate the level of support that has come to be expected, one on one, not only in their support forums but also forums such as these.
That level of contact has to eat up hours in the day.
When you have that level of familiarity you get a huge amount of input on the next project as well. A project hasn't been released yet can be trashed in the community because it does not meet some vocal persons idea of what they think is important and who will make it their mission in life to cry about to the point of being abusive.
I think addons have adapted to what the market will bear but compared to the effort that goes into them I don't see that level as being overpriced.
Being out of my price range does not automatically equate to overpriced in my view.

 

[Mickey D]

"Back of the envelope maths indicates I'm lucky if I make about £1 an hour on the average model we produce. To make the minimum wage, in the UK, we'd have to charge around 8 times more (and still get the same sales) which would mean charging about £100 or $160 an aircraft."

Wow as much as that Skippy. I must be doing something wrong.

 

[wombat666]

Thank you for that
As "the worst developper ever", mind telling us your age young man?
Especially since your german, the country that it destroying the EU through Angelas's autherity???
maybe because you germans want the world to suffer because you lost two world wars??

Now that is simply not very civil and is perilously close to collecting an 'Official' rap over the knuckles!
Please keep it civil Dumonceau.

 

[UnknownGuest12]

Quote
"Development costs are spiralling out of control because of market demand for systems depth, content and features"
Same old question...how many of simmers want a "real" simulation? Know many say so, know it takes months, years to mastera plane. Not to mention having to be pilot, 1 officer, flight engineer, etc...

Really don't have the need for systems depth. Alabeo is fine for me, and always wait for a sale, lower price to buy a plane..

regards

 

[bazzar]

One of the foremost problems that faces developers these days is trying to make a close to 10 year old game engine (parts of it older) do things it was never intended to do.

As real world aircraft get more complex, so does the specification of an add-on. Modern airliners have amazingly complex computer systems to drive everything. Not add-ons - these have the same computer on which you write a Word document or send some simple emails.

Currently there have been many debates over screen refresh rates. The FS engine runs on what is called Tick18 which is a draw call for anything rendered therein at a rate of 18 frames per second. Any command, texture draw or animation will create such a call. So, with multiple MFDs, PFDs, radars, FMCs, radios and so on on a modern VC the draw call is huge.

Outside we now have wingflex, complex spoiler systems, multiple gear animations and more to add to the mix.

Demand for texture detail is such that 4096 sq texture tiles are now not uncommon.

It's a bit like Mr Creosote from Monty Python. " A wefferrr thin Electronic Flight Bag - perhaps or just a morsel more of forward view 3D terrain following doodads?...."

Original FS models were configured for around 50,000 polygons all up. We now have models flying around of 300,000 polys or more.

Something's going to blow...budgets already have..

 

[hairyspin]

One of the foremost problems that faces developers these days is trying to make a close to 10 year old game engine (parts of it older) do things it was never intended to do...

I have to gently disagree Baz. When FSX was launched, Moore's Law on computing speeds was assumed and ACES expected we'd be running 7 or 8GHz processors by now, whereas even the maddest overclockers don't quite get to that yet. Multi-core processing has taken over as the development area in CPUs now.

If FSX wasn't meant to do as much as developers have got it to do then I wonder what the pages and pages of the SDK, published close to ten years ago, are documenting. Reams of A4 in my ringbinder list umpteen simulator variables; yet more pages on SimConnect; extraordinary flexibility to code conditions into animation and visibility systems and the scope of C++ coding and other black arts mean developers haven't yet exhausted the potential for development in FSX.

The limits are the 32-bit memory model and I agree something's gonna blow, probably tipped over the edge by 4096 textures and too many of 'em. It's just that we haven't got there yet!

 

[Naruto-kun]

Currently there have been many debates over screen refresh rates. The FS engine runs on what is called Tick18 which is a draw call for anything rendered therein at a rate of 18 frames per second. Any command, texture draw or animation will create such a call. So, with multiple MFDs, PFDs, radars, FMCs, radios and so on on a modern VC the draw call is huge.

Actually this only applies to XML gauges. In C++ gauges I have timed the PRE_DRAW calls in gauge callbacks and they are pretty close to the actual game framerate.

And proper threading, combined with newer faster graphics libraries, along with proper organization of the textures to keep their count to a minimum, actually allows glass to have no (noticeable)impact on framerates at all.

 

[PHo17]

I have to gently disagree Baz. When FSX was launched, Moore's Law on computing speeds was assumed and ACES expected we'd be running 7 or 8GHz processors by now, whereas even the maddest overclockers don't quite get to that yet. Multi-core processing has taken over as the development area in CPUs now.
...

I agree with you Tom. MS stopped the FS developement at the worst moment possible. FS2004 has been running fine years in (now) old computers and FSXI (and it's possible succesors) would be running fine if it ever existed. FSX can still be puzzling for modern computers. Like Vista had been and stayed the latest OS of MS.

 

[wombat666]

One of the foremost problems that faces developers these days is trying to make a close to 10 year old game engine (parts of it older) do things it was never intended to do.

As real world aircraft get more complex, so does the specification of an add-on. Modern airliners have amazingly complex computer systems to drive everything. Not add-ons - these have the same computer on which you write a Word document or send some simple emails.

Currently there have been many debates over screen refresh rates. The FS engine runs on what is called Tick18 which is a draw call for anything rendered therein at a rate of 18 frames per second. Any command, texture draw or animation will create such a call. So, with multiple MFDs, PFDs, radars, FMCs, radios and so on on a modern VC the draw call is huge.

Outside we now have wingflex, complex spoiler systems, multiple gear animations and more to add to the mix.

Demand for texture detail is such that 4096 sq texture tiles are now not uncommon.

It's a bit like Mr Creosote from Monty Python. " A wefferrr thin Electronic Flight Bag - perhaps or just a morsel more of forward view 3D terrain following doodads?...."

Original FS models were configured for around 50,000 polygons all up. We now have models flying around of 300,000 polys or more.

Something's going to blow...budgets already have..

I find the demands made by the upper echelons of the market odd, 'conflicting' in my opinion.
They demand 'Real Life' procedures and systems, complete in depth immersion, along with external 'Real Life' animations and detail.
As a simple suck I can't see the point, aircrew who are completely occupied with flying a modern complicated aircraft never view the externals, so why do the 'Real as it Gets' lot want all the outside bells and whistles?
I'm happy (as a simple suck) with reasonable systems and graphics, or the option of a 'Light Version' of my chosen aircraft.
The recent McDD DC8 comes to mind, with the 'Light' external textures option, and Carenado's C90 'Light' interior is another example of thinking outside the box, neither aircraft suffers and one gains extra FPS.
Having said that, I'm collecting the basics of a next generation box in a few days, not necessarily with Slight Simming as a priority, but partly so.
I'm always one for ramping up the system, fast is good, faster is better!!!
And I'm a simple suck who really likes speed.
One question Baz, which I 'think' I know the answer to but I'm asking it anyway, FSX/P3D is a resource hog, what with complex aircraft and scenery, that I understand.
However, a brand new and very complex Motor Racing simulation (pCars), complete with dynamic engine, suspension, engine controls and high resolution internal/external textures, 'the whole nine yards', plus active scenery and weather demands far fewer resources.
Answers on a Post Card will do.
Either way, next Saturday will see my budget evaporated.


Budgets? What budgets??

View attachment 11970

PLUS

View attachment 11971
PLUS

View attachment 11972

OR MAYBE

View attachment 11973

Might be sufficient for another couple of years.