Flight Simulator is the exception to the rule, not the rule. Payware is accepted in other communities as well, just not $60 payware.
-
There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.
If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.
Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.
The Staff of SOH
It's really not about the money!
- Thread starter falcon409
- Start date
Flight Simulator is the exception to the rule, not the rule. Payware is accepted in other communities as well, just not $60 payware.
It all comes down to supply and demand. Right now, the market for FSX add-ons is VERY small, but the demand for quality is very high. So that small number needs to be able to support that high a quality. We are talking about sales counted in the hundreds, with development cost's in the thousands. World of Goo wold 80,000 units at an average of 2$, but what of there production cost's? It was a small indy dev, but game dev's get paid 60-100,000 a year. Two guys, take a year to dev a game, getting about 80,000 each, they may have broken even. Its not about braking even. Yes, they also have all the sales before this deal, (I paid 19.95 when it came out) but if they sold only using "pay what you want" they would of lost, since marketing, and transaction fees would of taken a good portion of there return.
The only way to make FSX dev viable is to get more customers, or find a way of reaching more people. Right now, there is no influx of new FS fans, so we need to find a way of reaching more of the current fans. Only about 10% visit forums. Also, the few that are left, are very hard-core, and frankly picky. In order to make a sale to them, we need to be better, raising cost's.
So we have less and less customers, demanding more and more. You can see the problem we are facing.
The only way to make FSX dev viable is to get more customers, or find a way of reaching more people. Right now, there is no influx of new FS fans, so we need to find a way of reaching more of the current fans. Only about 10% visit forums. Also, the few that are left, are very hard-core, and frankly picky. In order to make a sale to them, we need to be better, raising cost's.
So we have less and less customers, demanding more and more. You can see the problem we are facing.
Yes. A license for 3DS Max is $4995, plus Adove Photoshop at $699, and thats per team member. We do absorb those cost's over a few products, but a new version comes out every few years. Also the hardware to run that, like a $300 Wacom tablet, two $300 monitors, and a $1500 system. Thats just MY expenses.
Bjoern
worst developer ever
1) I'm a student, so I have no fixed income.
2) I can work once a year for about a month.
3) Most of that money is spent on worldly things, however I can set thirty to fourty Euros aside for FSX.
4) I don't want to shoot myself in the leg financially for a FSX aircraft.
5) Personally, I consider 5 to 10€s (max) per add-on a fair deal. (YMMV.) Especially since there's still people out there doing stuff like this without ever wanting any compensation (Well, the exception being Porkopolis, lol). Also, a few posts ago I embraced the idea of a "minimum amount".
6) Lower prices keep complaints somewhat at bay, as the sense of being ripped off if the add-on is buggy or not to the customer's liking are kind of dampened.
7) It would be a feasible way of getting some interest and customers back.
8) There's people out there who have similar thoughts.
9) Customers are not the enemy.
10) I consider love and passion a huge factor in add-on development. With the cold business-like attitude around I get the impression that these two elements just play a marginal role and add-ons are developed because of potential sales (as demonstrated by the 456464789 P-51s around) rather than the "Boy, I like this airplane so much I want to have it in the sim!" factor. The products I appreciate the most are the ones that make you feel that the developer knows and loves this thing inside out and tries to mediate his passion to you with the model and not the cold perfection of some payware out there.
And on a side note: I find trying to live off FSX add-on sales darn risky. After all, it's just a hobby!
P.S: Thanks for the accusation.
P.P.S: I know this could hurt someone around here, but I really needed to post this.
All the really good products, like the FSD P-38, Aerosoft PBY, and all other really nice payware would of NEVER of seen the light of day if it was "just a hobby", at least not to the detail and quality level. The sky would be a rather lonely or ugly place if it was not for payware, as its just simply way too difficult to make add-on's for everyone to do it for free.
The alternative is to wait for one of the very few freeware developers who make quality work to find the time to make it... which typically takes us much longer as we have 2nd lives and sometimes 3rds lol.
It is just the economy... tough for everyone all the way around... customers and payware developers.
It is just the economy... tough for everyone all the way around... customers and payware developers.
I've been building models for 30 years, rarely ever, did I sell any models. For the the last ten years I've been doing digital modelling. Since there is the internet and sim sites out there, I figured "why not upload my planes?" It's just the way I always did things.
Then there are those who came along, and said "I can make money in FS add-ons"
When the economy gets better, get a decent job, and go back to freeware. I bet you will be happier.
Just my take on all this...:ernae:
Then there are those who came along, and said "I can make money in FS add-ons"
When the economy gets better, get a decent job, and go back to freeware. I bet you will be happier.
Just my take on all this...:ernae:
Yeah 2 years and counting on this..bloody fsx with all its textures thankfully with the hold on fs development I may just may get it finished
...has it really been that long groaaan I need to get a finger out
I
icarus
Guest
exactly
No, again, I would have to agree with Kevin.
I play a lot of games with free content and while some of them may look nice, they all, without fail, use internal functions to do what they do, be it for ArmA, COH/DoW, RACE/rFactor or any other genre of title. They are not, in any way, comparable to the likes of PMDG, CS, A2A, etc which do massive amounts of work outside the sim engine - whether you like what they do or not, that is a fact.
OR you get a single developer working on a single external application (e.g. ArrCab, SquawkBox) but that then has to work on the work of others, who work on others.
You might see the odd, one or two, absolute groundbreaking add-ons per generation of the sim. You will not see what we have now with FS and the standard of add-ons we get without people working full time on them. That requires an income. I think Bill's comment sums that up nicely.
I play a lot of games with free content and while some of them may look nice, they all, without fail, use internal functions to do what they do, be it for ArmA, COH/DoW, RACE/rFactor or any other genre of title. They are not, in any way, comparable to the likes of PMDG, CS, A2A, etc which do massive amounts of work outside the sim engine - whether you like what they do or not, that is a fact.
OR you get a single developer working on a single external application (e.g. ArrCab, SquawkBox) but that then has to work on the work of others, who work on others.
You might see the odd, one or two, absolute groundbreaking add-ons per generation of the sim. You will not see what we have now with FS and the standard of add-ons we get without people working full time on them. That requires an income. I think Bill's comment sums that up nicely.
Bjoern
worst developer ever
The question is: Would anyone, except of the odd mentioning in one of those wishlist threads, miss them had they never been made?
Solution: Gmax, SDK, Gimp.
Do other games even *allow* working outside the sim engine?
If not, you're comparing apples with oranges here.
Not talking about the tools... although 3D MAX does allow for a lot more... freeware developers work @ their own pace... when they have time... when other world things going well.. when it is a work of love... sometimes never gets finished.
Yeah 2 years and counting on this..bloody fsx with all its textures thankfully with the hold on fs development I may just may get it finished
...has it really been that long groaaan I need to get a finger out
MMMMmmmmmMMMM!!! Nice work Wozza!!
C'mon admit it... you like bumpmapping and the clear panel lines... I actually think lighting is simpler in FSX SDK.
No. I'm not. You are when you say that other games only come with free add-ons, for exactly the reason you stated.
If all add-ons could only have, and only ever reach, the level of sophistication of the default aircraft and scenery models, you'd see a lot more freeware. The reason that you don't is because add-on models, add-on scenery and add-on utilities go vastly beyond what the base scenery and models do.
Your arguments for why everything should be free are based on the false premise that it is possible to do the amount people do, to the complexity that people do, for free. It doesn't matter how much you want it to be so, it isn't.
Edited to add: On the other hand, I disagree with those charging for sceneries and missions that only involve default objects and techniques. If you want to charge, you have to add new content, not just use what other people have created, in my opinion. But that is only my opinion and others' clearly differ.
Bingo.
As I stated, just the initial investment in software is over $6000, not to mention $2000 in hardware. Not many people are willing to make that sort of investment, plus THOUSANDS of hours of there time, for free. Sure youll have the few mod groups who work off of pirated copy's of Max and Adobe looking for a few things to put in your portfolion, but I dare anyone to find any free game mod that is up to the quality or standards that FSX payware is. Dont get me wrong, there is some amazing stuff for Crysis and ArmA II out there, but they simply cant compair to something like the FSD P-38.
meh...
krazycolin
Banned
You may not like the P-38 but that's not the point that Kevin is making. He's say that you won't see that level of complexity or sophistication in any other game addon and he's correct about that.
The thing is, if a game like IL2 or Lock-on actually offered the ability to add sophisticated systems and coding as well as pushing the boundaries of what can be done visually, then I would think that you could make "payware" for those.
But, that's not the paradigm behind them as it is with MSFS. MSFS was designed from the ground up with the idea of addons built in. It has an SDK (albeit a crappy one) and all the stuff that one would expect for something of this nature.
kc
The thing is, if a game like IL2 or Lock-on actually offered the ability to add sophisticated systems and coding as well as pushing the boundaries of what can be done visually, then I would think that you could make "payware" for those.
But, that's not the paradigm behind them as it is with MSFS. MSFS was designed from the ground up with the idea of addons built in. It has an SDK (albeit a crappy one) and all the stuff that one would expect for something of this nature.
kc
Then it should be easy for you to find a free mod of even that quality if you have such low openion of my work.
I think it's more the fact that you're speaking of your own work...