And that business decision hurts the consumer. I obviously don’t have visibility into their books. Maybe it costs them 10s of thousands of dollars to maintain other storefronts. This would blow my mind but at least I’d understand the decision. But if we’re talking pennies on the dollar, is that really worth the backlash and loss of clientele?
Regarding your 2nd comment, you’re right.
That business decision hurts some consumers, but theoretically if the removed overhead translates into more/better products, it also benefits all consumers.
Big “if”. There’s obviously 2 camps here and I don’t think anything said by either side is going to swing the needle, so I’ll remove myself from the conversation. My original point of commenting was simply to voice my personal displeasure with the decision. I hope more developers don’t follow suit.
In a future where all Flight Sim addons are purchased in the in-game marketplace and only the marketplace, with no changes to store policy as it currently exists, a loss of access to your account would be financially brutal (knowing the stupid amount of money some flight sim users spend).
Anyway, best wishes to Got Friends. They make great products.
Products from Got friends released onto PS5 today.
Yeah … in my layman’s mind reducing the amount of possible stores reduces the potential user base = less sold units. Some people can’t buy in the Marketplace, because it wouldn’t accept their method of payment, for example. But what do I know …
I just don’t believe it…
That’s my case
Obligatory on-topic mention that reading through those Taylorcraft manuals I posted takes me back a simpler time of flight… Can’t wait to poke around Vermont, Alaska, and Washington in this in a couple of weeks.
It’s 2026, not 2006. MSFS is 100% dependent on Microsoft keeping the servers running, whether or not they continue to develop the sim. Microsoft is a public company in an era where it is mercilessly cutting staff and projects in order to keep the stock prices high. Read any news about Xbox/Microsoft’s games studios from the past few months.
Marketplace is 100% a critical aspect of MSFS remaining a priority for MSFT. Without a ton of revenue coming in from Marketplace, the suits will send MSFS into the pages of history. It’s not like FSX or FS2002, which will keep running forever. If the MSFS servers shut down someday, you might get a P3D-looking version of MSFS 2020 to run — maybe – and 2024 will be kaput.
So Got Friends is not being disingenuous at all in this statement. Marketplace add-on revenue is critical to MS’s support of our hobby continuing in the 2026 “games a service” financial environment. If Marketplace revenue isn’t significantly more than the cost of maintaining MSFS, the powers that be at best will put it in maintenance mode, at worst they’ll shut down the servers and kill the product.
This is a discussion outside the realm of Got Friends, so if we want to talk more about it, it should be in a separate topic. But accusing Got Friends of being disingenuous by saying Marketplace is critical to the future of the sim is not fair, because they are 100% correct here.
I also don’t want to stray beyond the scope of this thread, so forgive me if I have already. I’m having trouble finding the words to express my thoughts properly.
This is 100% correct. I don’t like it, but it’s true. Now that it exists, the previous arrangement of third party shops supplying all the addons just won’t work for Microsoft anymore. If they can get a cut of those sales, they’ll take it. If that cut doesn’t justify the expense of keeping the lights on, that’s the end of that. I get it, I see the logic, but I disagree that supporting the marketplace has to mean being exclusive to the marketplace.
All of this had made me feel like I’m not worth selling to anymore unless I fall in line and shop where they tell me to. That sucks. I wish those of us who are unhappy were at least acknowledged with an apology, but we haven’t even gotten a statement that they understand the frustration. That would go a long way, at least for me.
Then again, maybe I’m taking this too personally and I’m overreacting. Got Friends has never made a bad product. They don’t all appeal to me, but it’s all extremely high quality stuff. Maybe the right developers, and the sim itself, do indeed deserve support through the marketplace.
You are not overreacting, and you are right that we should have acknowledged this more directly in the original statement.
We understood from the beginning, that moving exclusively to the Marketplace would not work for everyone, especially customers who have diligently supported us through our website and other storefronts. We do care about those customers, and we are genuinely sorry that this decision has left some of you feeling pushed aside.
While we still believe this is the right direction for Got Friends and our future, we should have been clearer from the beginning about the impact it would have on part of our community.
Thank you for expressing your thoughts so reasonably.
Keep in mind, in cases like this, people who are upset about something are way more likely to make their voices heard. Especially on an online forum. I’m guessing the vast majority of people don’t have a strong opinion and will go ahead and buy it from the Marketplace.
Good point. You could make the argument that if MS had a thriving in game marketplace in 2004 they wouldn’t have abandoned the game for 20 years.
Thank you for saying that. I’m sure this decision wasn’t made lightly, even if it might seem that way. I believe you feel you’re doing the right thing, even if I don’t agree with the methods.
As long as my past purchases continue to be supported with updates, I can accept that. If it means Got Friends can keep making cool bush planes for me, then I suppose I can’t argue too vociferously.
Man’s Best Friend - deluxe is a great product, thank you. Just downloaded from marketplace and up and running. It’s a really fun addition to the flying experience. I’ve customer my regular aircraft with a different “friend”. I’ll be honest I find my co-pilot tortoise more helpful in a stressful landing than the rather disapproving gaze of the Asobo co-pilot 
.
This decision disappoints me as I presume it means no weapons on any future military aircraft, like the F4F-4 Wildcat. Maybe there is a way around that. But it is Got Friends decision. I hope it works well for them.
“Marketplace AS WELL” is nice.
“Marketplace ONLY” is not.
Marketplace has supported visible weapons for almost 2 years now, I believe. And I think even functional ones can be added with mods released outside of the marketplace for marketplace aircraft.
Look at all these Worms! Nice little wire animations to accompany your usual vibrations and controls.
Not to flog a dead horse but I have to agree i prefer to purchase not in the market place but instead at the webstore. For a start there always seems to be a price disparity where the market place is always a higher price. However i think GF have made some incredible mods my favourite being the F4F an forgotten aircraft like the Hurricane without them the world would have been different, so i appreciate the work that has been put in. I do hope that future projects change my mind about the market purchasing but i fell into this problem with 2020 were half of my market place mods have been disabled by MS. I don’t want the same scenario with 2024.
