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Lets Help Developers Sell More

A business is still a business. We're foolish to think that any business is only out to perform the way we want them too. Many people have pretty clownish ideas of how a business should be ran in the first place. I've seen this industry at it's best, and I think I've seen it at it's worst. I don't mean to be so negative, I just don't think things are so sunny that an arrogant small business owner is going to say "yeah!! great ideas guys!! Why didn't I think of those!!"


Gajit, there's nothing wrong with your ideas, but if any of them aren't already complied with, it's probably on purpose.
 
gajit said:
Any other ideas?
Click to expand...

5. If your beta testers constantly use "awesome, fantastic, best, etc." in their feedbacks, fire them immediately! They are the main reason your customers complain. The less "service pack" and "fix patch" in your beta testers' CVs, the better!!!

6. Define "native" and "compatible" and stick to it. Once you deliberately lie to your loyal customers, they will disappear in the blink of an eye. If you don't already know the value of your loyal customers, you should pack it up and retire for good.
 
and a customer is still a customer
and just maybe i may purchase some thing
just cos i like the developer
regardless of quality or reviews
there are a few here and im not saying there quality
sucks or anything like that
but i may just buy them cos i like them
the devs that is
just to give them support
just like paying higher gas prices at a gas station
just because they are good guys
H
a different view
 
gajit said:
Who is stopping them?

Also - does anyone know how many FSX microsoft has sold to date? Or FS9? How many newcomers into the market every year? Or - how many new members join SOH every week?

What is a shame about the market is that I know some people who buy the box but have no idea that addons, even freeware are available until they are told by recommendation.
Click to expand...

The actual sales figures from MS for FS have always been a closely guarded secret. I'd be surprised if anyone here can offer more than an educated guess. My best guess is that it's in the hundreds of thousands of copies for FS9 & FSX combined. A wildly successful add-on will sell a thousand copies or more, but there are plenty who never make the magical 1K mark. So yeah, there's a huge discrepancy between the number of boxes out there and the number of users who've bought add-ons.

Part of the reason seems to be that a whole bunch of FS buyers are either ultra-casual fliers who don't need any add-ons to make them happy, or people who try FS once and put it down. "Too hard," I've heard friends say, or "too boring." A friend of mine's husband got FS8 years ago and tried it once, couldn't get the plane off the ground without crashing, and quit in frustration. That's after 30 whole minutes of flying! He removed it from his HD and never tried again. So when we consider all those copies of FS sold, let's also factor in that a lot of folks aren't the serious pilots/flying studs/ultra-geeks that we are.
 
spotlope said:
The actual sales figures from MS for FS have always been a closely guarded secret. I'd be surprised if anyone here can offer more than an educated guess. My best guess is that it's in the hundreds of thousands of copies for FS9 & FSX combined. A wildly successful add-on will sell a thousand copies or more, but there are plenty who never make the magical 1K mark. So yeah, there's a huge discrepancy between the number of boxes out there and the number of users who've bought add-ons.

Part of the reason seems to be that a whole bunch of FS buyers are either ultra-casual fliers who don't need any add-ons to make them happy, or people who try FS once and put it down. "Too hard," I've heard friends say, or "too boring." A friend of mine's husband got FS8 years ago and tried it once, couldn't get the plane off the ground without crashing, and quit in frustration. That's after 30 whole minutes of flying! He removed it from his HD and never tried again. So when we consider all those copies of FS sold, let's also factor in that a lot of folks aren't the serious pilots/flying studs/ultra-geeks that we are.
Click to expand...
so true
many years ago a friend introduced me to simming
henry as he is started finding all kinds of add ons
the same friend today could not care less
probably has the Sims not the fs kind
some of us take to it some just buy it and leave it alone
i know a couple of local pilots who have it ,use it
out of the box thats it
but you have a mooney hey heres a new paint
they dont care
an observation
H
 
Is it that bad? MS were apparently not "losing" on flight simulation. Apparently it was making profit (no matter how small, a profit is a profit)

How do we reach all those offline FS owners? Any FSEvangelists out there? Should we start going around in pairs, knocking on doors, distributing copies of the "Control Tower"?
 
Hang on... a memory chord was plucked. While doing stats of my paints on Avsim, I was pretty chuffed to see my Hawke's Bay paint for the DA Cheyenne had hit around 1200 downloads or so. OK - a popular model in FS9, agreed. Most of my paints average 500 i.e. 1200 at the top and 70-80 at the more esoteric end of my painting.

That would back up the sales figures. But then I looked at the Jetliner faction. Paint's there regularly hit ten plus thousands. Your average flight sim "oik" flies jetliners, so that really means that we here are odd ones out. It would, perhaps, seem that the money is in commercial planes.

Can't have that! Let's go preach :icon_lol:
 
It wouldn't surprise me if the DA Cheyenne sold more than a thousand. It's a fairly complex plane for GA, and was well-received. And yes, of course, airliners will always top the charts. Still, you can't exactly go by download numbers either, as there are a lot of folks who just don't read right and think they're downloading a whole plane. You laugh, but I've seen it happen.
 
tigisfat said:
Gajit, there's nothing wrong with your ideas, but if any of them aren't already complied with, it's probably on purpose.
Click to expand...

True enough - on purpose or too close to the product after working months on it. Also given a feed of wow, wonderful, will sell thousands from the beta testers!
 
To answer another one of your comments gajit, about how many newcomers there are to this site, count the number of people who have signed up to SOH in the six months complete of this year that post on threads...

...there's a whole one on this thread <waves at="" 2low="">:wavey: [waves at 2Low... Hello!]</waves>
 
IanP said:
To answer another one of your comments gajit, about how many newcomers there are to this site, count the number of people who have signed up to SOH in the six months complete of this year that post on threads...

...there's a whole one on this thread <WAVES class=inlineimg title=Wavey alt="" border="0" src="http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/images/smilies/wavey.gif" :wavey:Hello!>
Click to expand...

Im not sure i understand exactly so forgive - is there a way of telling how many new people look at this site and therefore what newcomers there are? They wont always want to write something - some will be shy like me!
 
I've been a Flight Simmer for more than 20 years. Joined SOH last year. And am just slightly more shy than gajit!
 
gajit said:
What is a shame about the market is that I know some people who buy the box but have no idea that addons, even freeware are available until they are told by recommendation.
Click to expand...
Probably very true. According to Abacus these internet sales account for only about 10% of all FS related sales.
:ernae:
 
spotlope said:
It wouldn't surprise me if the DA Cheyenne sold more than a thousand. It's a fairly complex plane for GA, and was well-received. And yes, of course, airliners will always top the charts. Still, you can't exactly go by download numbers either, as there are a lot of folks who just don't read right and think they're downloading a whole plane. You laugh, but I've seen it happen.
Click to expand...
Not to mention the hundreds to thousands of copies out there from the pirate sites. Sell a couple hundred copies and then see repaints being downloaded many many more times from multiple sites even when the description says "textures only". Something is up?
:ernae:
 
gajit said:
Im not sure i understand exactly so forgive - is there a way of telling how many new people look at this site and therefore what newcomers there are? They wont always want to write something - some will be shy like me!
Click to expand...
well that info i do have
there are many who never post
on a weekly average i manually register
about 50 thats just manual not including people who
register themselves
H
 
Henry said:
well that info i do have
there are many who never post
on a weekly average i manually register
about 50 thats just manual not including people who
register themselves
H
Click to expand...


Tx Henry - Interesting - put simply - it proves that there are growing numbers out there seeking more from their FS - in some shape or form.
 
gajit said:
Tx Henry - Interesting - put simply - it proves that there are growing numbers out there seeking more from their FS - in some shape or form.
Click to expand...
now they do cover cfs1 and up
and some just a particular download
so growing numbers is not necessarily true
thats hard to judge
H
 
Henry said:
now they do cover cfs1 and up
and some just a particular download
so growing numbers is not necessarily true
thats hard to judge
H
Click to expand...

Oh yeah - Forgot about all those other sims. Shame its not just FSX or it would give more hope to devs.
 
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