The latest issue with the Aerosoft CRJ being corrupted by the Marketplace encryption makes the marketplace incompatible for complex models like this. Couple to that the delay in getting upgrades when they are immediately available to direct purchasers and its enough for me to abandon the marketplace from now on.
I supported it because its important that after the initial purchase capital there is a steady income stream if we want to have Microsoft/Asobo updates like the World updates.
The idea of the marketplace is good, it keeps things well organised and if a bit late, updated but it simply isn’t working in its current form and at best 3rd party developers are uncooperative if you by their product from the Marketplace.
As far as complex aircraft and timely updates are concerned its not fit for purpose. Maybe it will be one day?
The problem is even if vendor make a patch quilckly, he cannot put it on his own site before it become available on the MSFS Market (and it can take time). This system is bad in term of user experience.
Personnally, i prefer to buy on dev site.
Ok, that mean less money for FS to make the sim evolved, but why I would give MS a part of developer’s money juste to have a Tom Cruise extension when so many bugs remain (and new created !).
Its interesting that some company’s like Carenado have chosen to put their products solely in the Marketplace, I bet if the encryption problem with the CRJ happened to one of their products they would work really hard to get things working again as quickly as possible and keep their customers happy and provide updates straight away.
So what is wrong with Aerosoft and are the update delays actually caused by Microsoft needing to encrypt all marketplace stuff including updates?
I agree they did not apply the encryption, but what did they do to rectify this and to help their customers who made the mistake of buying through the marketplace.
They did very little, were obstructive to forum posts, said that the problem was too small for them to concentrate on and at the same time refused to issue working versions (even old versions) because there were so many it would have cost them too much.
Even when its not your fault, when its your product, you have a duty of care to ALL your customers not just those that buy direct, otherwise the Marketplace isn’t fit for purpose.
My only issue with the marketplace is that if you download from the Microsoft store and purchase from the marketplace and then switch to steam (which I did because of constant crash to desktop on the Microsoft store version) or vice versa, none of the marketplace purchases you made will carry over when you download on steam (or ms store), even though you have to sign in with your Xbox gamertag on the steam version.
It literally makes no ■■■■■■■ sense. Just a way for them to take more money. I’d recommend using a third party like contrail or from the dev directly, that way it won’t matter what version you use. Plus the developer benefits more if you purchase from them directly.
Aerosoft are appalling and have zero customer service skills.
If They don’t like the post they lock it before it’s resolved.
They misrepresent and deliberately misinterpret requests
They avoid answering a direct question
They refuse to help anyone who didn’t buy direct and say customers of the marketplace buying their products are not their customers.
They don’t allow you to vote against them.
They are arrogant, patronising and have the audacity to insult their customers accusing them of having anger management issues.
They say they could offer a solution through their shop then don’t.
They are hypocrits saying the problem is too small affecting too few customers and at the same time say it’s too expensive to help everybody.
There forum is a joke.
And if I had the time I’d tell you the whole story of what’s wrong with them.
“Worth” is in the eye of the beholder. From a purely logical point of view, consider how much MSFS 2020 cost you, and how much functionality and features are included for what you paid.
Now compare that to an add-on which costs maybe 50% of what you paid for the sim. Did you get a corresponding amount of features for the money? Only you can judge for yourself.
From an economics perspective, using the marketplace must lower someone’s return, it’s just adding another exit for cash. When buying direct, the value represented by the asking price is shared between the user and provider only.
Yes, and you just reminded me of something similar to the Marketplace… long ago I signed up to develop courseware for Microsoft’s Official Curriculum, where one can get trained on various technologies. It seemed like a great way to have a nice side income. However, the cut Microsoft took for listing the course on their website was astronomical, and it was taken from every student purchase. Quite a great way for a big company to make money, I thought, but not so much for me. Because the amount left over for me was not really worth the effort, I did not end up pursuing that income-making opportunity.
So, think about the perspective of the developer… it makes perfect sense that they would not support a product purchased from Marketplace because they are not making much money from it.
The marketplace to me has been the biggest source of frustration since the game? / Sim? was released. I tried with the assistance of support here to be able to purchase a couple of Carendo AC for over 3 months trying everything they suggested and still getting the dreaded “purchase failed” and "we can’t help any further?? ". Hello…
I reinstalled the sim with different user rights and Microsoft accounts three times and managed somehow to download the WACO and Mooney which was all I wanted at the time but had to run the sim under admin user as that’s how I purchased and initially installed it.
Possibly I’m fortunate in that Carenado is currently to the best of my knowledge the only? developer with product selling solely through the Marketplace? But there will inevitably come a time that something I want will be a sole marketplace buy.
What I can’t understand is why it is so difficult for Microsoft or whoever to sell product though their store in the same way as they sell the Sim ??? the X-Plane store sells all products scenery and AC, Aerosoft sells their own and other products in their store and both handle updates easy peasy - so what’s so precious about this marketplace which is for me at least and I know many others, BROKEN .
They have a store that is up and functioning that sells individual apps or whatever so what is so hard about selling Sim addons the same way with an individual account like the rest of the Sim World where you have a record of purchase and updates ???
IMO, no, it is not. I just made my last purchases from there, ever. I picked up Tenerife Sur (Reina Sofia) and La Palma, both sim-wings creations. I do a lot of flying around the Canary Islands so I was happy to add these custom “enhancements” to my game. They were fairly expensive. I installed them an immediately noticed upon arriving in the vicinity of Reina Sofia that some of the landscape had been replaced with white block looking . . . Items? Hard to describe and not at all pretty to look at. Very distracting actually. I then flew over to La Palma, same deal. So instead of bits of what might be characterized as maybe fields or farmland, I have white blocks that look like they might be misplaced glaciers. I have an NVidia 3080 so it’s not a graphics issue and without the addons the scenery goes back to normal (glacier free).
I feel the that the rating systems suffers from incredible ambiguity. One person’s 4 star could be another’s 2 star and so on. I think that there should be some way to incorporate written reviews, even brief ones. While someone might be happy to replace fields and farmland for glaciers just for the experience of the custom airport look when they’re on the ground or taking off, I’m simply not happy with that but there was no way for me to know about it until I purchased them.
The main benefit is that you won’t lose access to any content as it’s tied to your account.
But yes, due to arcane MS Store licensing rules most devs take longer to update it there. That’s a Microsoft issue.
Same goes for cost. Microsoft takes a cut of all sales, so of course they will charge more for the extra work required to get it on the marketplace (and maintain it there), especially when MS is taking a cut.
The marketplace will never be as robust as the outside add-on community. It just isn’t possible with current restrictions and content licensing rules.
