I would like to gain everyone’s thoughts about a developer reward system with an annual prize event for them in the Marketplace. It would, I suppose, act a bit like a league table system under a few categories and highly visible in the Marketplace. Customers would be able to vote for it based on the below (again open for discussion). It is hoped this would encourage better development, better customer support and more developer visibilty.
MS/Asobo would provide a suitable prize to them of sufficient value as to encourage participation.
Firstly general type of aircraft (This is open for discussion as to category)
Passenger jet
Turboprop
GA aircraft
Helicopter
Then secondly - Under each of those (This is open for discussion as to category)
Customer support
Excelence in functionality
Build quality
What are your thoughts folks?
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Its not a bad idea, the awards i mean. But id remove player involvement as there will always be those that set out to bad mouth devs and products they dont like.
Id prefer to see it based on sales data, marketplace customer reviews etc.
Plus it would need to cover those products that are sold on both PC and Xbox formats as not everything on PC is as good on Xbox.
It would be comforting from a customer point of view to see which devs were most popular and which products are most widley used. This would help identify up and coming development houses aswell.
That is a pertinent point, some of the customers are dead set against certain developers with which they have had a bad experience. I personally though, would like to see a Marketplace method developed, which could be monitored, where customers could report back to developers about faults and fixes and time periods for expected resolution, which would feed into the reward system based on responses and customer support.
Some quick random thoughts:
- I’d suggest not restricting this idea to only aircraft.
- Why not use the existing star ratings, weighted by # of reviews? No need to create a new polling system in the Marketplace, which probably would be very low on the list of new features / functionality for the development team.
- Consider creating separate categories for individual developers, small development teams & large development companies.
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That would be good in theory. But MS/Asobo default & local legends etc would be at the very bottom of the league tables as they never update or bug fix them. This would dissuade devs from partnering to produce future items, MS would loose revenue and abandon any further investment.
I think the “Star” review system should be more widely used and also the ability to review updates aswell.
I agree all categories of add on should be included, aircraft, airfields, environment and soundpacks.
Maybe also an “innovation” category for those that think outside of the box and bring new experiences to the sim world
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I hadn’t thought about Asobo’s own planes as they are defaulted into the sim regardless. They could not be seen to be rewarding themselves anyway.
This is why I suggested a rather large incentive from MS/Asobo for them to want to win the prize. It surely cannot be such as we have been given as a freebie.
I also see the flip side of this coin where a developer could make money by earning other contracts because of the high quality of the product category. My feeling is that there is such a large amount of irritation at the poor quality on offer already that i’m hoping this would incentivise developers rather than deter. It would in the end hopefully prevent bad developers putting products in the Marketplace. This would also increase the reliability and trust cusomers would have in MS/Asobo’s base MSFS product.
Absolutely, why not use part of an exisiting system and rework it to function with all of our ideas.
I like the idea about large, individual and small developers too.
I see it benefiting the new user greatly too, the marketplace is a minefield with little reliable info for those new to the sim.
Some developers swamp the market with poor addons while others take years to produce just a couple of total crackers. An award system would give new customers a better informed choice while encouraging developers to “up their game” for more revenue.
Exactly, and those folk who produce a “couple of crackers” deserve some recognition. I don’t think there is anywhere, I might be wrong, that actually highlights the achievements of those really dedicated developers. This would fill this gap.
Id like to see a review system for product updates aswell. Then you can see who improves their products, how often and if the products have longevity.
Its SO annoying when you get a product update but the dev provides NO change log to say whats been done. Would also show who cares about their work and who just throws it out for week 1 profits
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That would be a great addition to the Customer support category - yes.
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Well, there is my annual Awards Ceremony 
2024’s is here:
It’s the third I’ve done in that topic.
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Thanks Baracus. You’ve done an amazing job in getting these listed.
What I was alluding to was that these are incorporated in the Marketplace for all to see. Your lists would be a great example of this inclusion so that all could refer to it and developers could be rewarded according to it.
What I was hoping for is that MS/Asobo actually gives developers an incentive to achieve better development through an actual prize, which is meaningful to them to encourage better products to land in the Marketplace.
Carrot or stick principle. A case in point - MS scenery, Captain Sim
Yea sure, I like the idea! Just I can’t see Microsoft doing it 
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We can hope they get a sense of honour! It would benefit their product if standards were increased.
Yes I think that is a good idea. I am happy for someone to develop one as I do not know how. Hopefully it will reflect rewards for good, conscientious developers and hopefully allow them to dominate the marketplace instead of the poor quality devs.
The problem is, MS/Asobo probably prefer quantity over quality as my suspicion is they make more money from that. So what we, the flight sim community want vs what MS/Asobo want become 2 very different ends of a spectrum.
The ideal would be for a compromise but they would need to communicate with us to design that compromise. I still feel the “carrot” method could be a great incentive for devs to want to partake in a challenge.
However, since nobody knows who or where MScenery are how would we invite the respective devs to join in - MS/Asobo would need to do that as part of their reward offer to them!
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