When developers are designing their own DRM solutions which may be compromising your data protection and information security by installing additional software to monitor your computer and might send datasets of your information for checks or advertising. An example of unwanted data usage is PMDG “Requirements to Play” policy which says “SOFTWARE MAY COLLECT DATA FOR IN-GAME ADVERTISING” and etc.
Development of DRM software to monitor user data usage can introduce security bugs and allow an attacker to gain access to the machine. I understand that any software installation has security risks but installing software that isn’t required for the operation of the product is bad idea.
Many people who cannot afford two computers in the home cannot separate gaming and online banking operations and minimal amount of software installation from trusted sources is better than downloading bits and pieces from different sources or running software which is monitoring their data usage for illegal purposes.
Also buying products from different developers on different platforms means multiple login details and digital codes, etc.
The marketplace solved these issues and put everything in one place within a secure environment of installation and one login detail.
Is it really that bad buying a product from the marketplace?
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It’s not “bad” but you have to deal with two things:
- Updates will arrive slowly - if a release has some annoying bug you’ll have to wait up to half an year until it’s fixed on the MP compared to a direct buy on the dev side.
- Limitations - the MP has specific rules like you cannot download a military jet with external loads like weapons or drop tanks. In such a case the MP version does not offer this while the other version has it. Also the MP only allows WASM and no external applications. This is the core reason for Fenix not releasing the A320 on the MP as it relies on external software.
If you are fine with the above points there is nothing wrong going MP only imho 
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Caveat emptor. You don’t get a receipt, so good luck if you have a problem.
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Personal Comments
Disclaimer: I am a Steam User. Ideally your experience should not matter which store your MSFS account is based on, but your mileage may vary.
With that said, I have bought exactly one product (Carenado C170B) using Steam Wallet. It converted my money into sufficient MS Credits and I was provisioned with my purchase immediately. Pretty straightforward.
I’ve never had to do a refund, so I can’t speak to that. I do have products from other stores for MSFS content, there’s never been a challenge to keep track of your logins. There’s many strategies to that, but perhaps the most useful is to use a secure password program and to not reuse your logins and passwords so that you’re somewhat immune to Credential Stuffing. I prefer to keep my options open because MarketPlace doesn’t offer everything that I would theoretically like over the course of the sim’s lifecycle.
As for DRM interfering or causing issues with the PC’s other functionality, i.e., surfing (which includes access to financial and purchase sites) as well as content creation (I take photographs on the side and do a lot of post-processing) as well as simple web content publication - I’ve never seen it, and I’ve been on this sim since August '20 launch.
Had that situation once on three times I bought - I just got in touch with Zendesk and the situation was solved after 24h.
■■■■ may happen on every store out there, at least in my case it was fixed fairly fast and satisfying.
The conversion of your money into “credits” to avoid refunds being given is a reason I avoid the marketplace.
Marketplaces are generally a good idea providing your hard currency = the actual product, not credits.
Marketplaces sometimes also take a hefty cut of sales which means less money to the developer which I’m against.
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Unequivocally a myth. Why do you spread such nonsense?
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This isn’t exactly a myth.
With the MS Store version (PC & Xbox), you get a receipt for Sim Credits. However, you do not get a receipt for what you spent those sim credits on and that makes the receipt less useful and puts the onus on the user to jump through hoops with the various parties involved in seeking out a refund, should one be granted at all.
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Updates take months to get into marketplace…
GSX Pro does not work with Marketplace airports…
so yeah, no thank you.
Well this is a product which aim is to make money. Once it stops making money they will start to develop the next iteration, where all your stuff will be worthless.
Rather spend money where you can hope for improvements, than on e.g. SimMarket.
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I like the MP because it’s all in one place and they sometimes have really good sale discounts. The MP also seems to be cheaper for me and it shows me the price in my local currency whereas most of the 3rd party stores don’t have NZD (and after conversion rates it’s often more expensive).
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In addition, unless you are on the Stream version, all products from the Marketplace will be encrypted. Other addons such as GSX, RAAS, Little Nav Map, one of my career addons, etc, if they need to be able to read other addons, they won’t be able to read anything in the OneStore directory. I originally came from XBox so had a ton of Marketplace addons, but was getting more and more applications that couldn’t work with those addons. Finally I have been repurchasing the addons from OrbxDirect or SimMarket. I then went and bought the Premium Deluxe version of MSFS again, but this time through Steam, so now even the MSFS packages aren’t encrypted.
I would have preferred to still be Marketplace. (Especially since I wouldnt have to be buying the same things again). But then the encryption stops so many things from not working.
Am I reading that right? You are saying that everything you buy via the steam version is un-encrypted including aircraft.
It is not bad. There are some drawbacks as mentioned above, but I never had an issue buying stuff from it. There are sometimes good deals from a buyer perspective.
And that the Marketplace will take a margin from the developer might be true, but I have heard from developers at the same time it gives them an audience that greatly enlarges the sales volume which they would never experience otherwise.
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I have purchased lots of scenery items from market place. Later on I recognized I cannot use these sceneries on map&nav utilities such as littlenavmap because of the sceneries are encrypted. Next time, I will never purchase any scenery product from market place. It is now clear pmdg efb will not use these scenery files because of encryption. This was a totally waste of money for me. I don’t know if there is a warning before purchase anything on market that states there will be encription over sceneries and cannot be used in 3rd party tools (little navmap etc).
I use the Marketplace and other stores - depends on where things I want to buy are being sold from. If something is available only on the MP, that won’t put me off. If something is available in MP and elsewhere, I will tend to buy externally if from a developer website rather than another online store.
To be fair, MP is convenient and generally seems to be the same or perhaps cheaper price. I’ve never had any issues with transactions failing, goods not downloading etc. Never had cause to request a refund either.
I’m not sure updates are as slow as they once were - I think MS largely seem to have got on top of that. Maybe they are a little slower, but not the weeks and months that we saw in the sim’s early days.
It would be helpful if the MP was also available online, outside of the sim - that would be a nice addition.
So it’s just another shop for me really.
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Do you have a source for the PMDG comment here? Also how does littlenavmap or the PMDG EFB “use” sceneries? Are you talking about the frequencies etc?
Not being able to use it with external apps like nav utilities is a huge minus of Marketplace.
That’s why I prefer to buy it directly from the developer if he has own shop or from other stores.
MP is the last place I would look for something.
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remember that msfs will continue if the business model is viable. and after msfs has been bought by all, there will only be commissions on marketplace sales, as well as on the sale of microsoft products
That just means Microsoft has incentives to make the marketplace more appealing than it currently is.
(Or they can just milk their captive audience on XBox.)