And the marketplace revenue streams would have tanked overnight so they had to issue reassuring words. I do hope we get more info soon about existing airports for example. I don’t mind there being a newer version (maybe at additional upgrade cost) with new features added like support for passengers for example. I do mind if all my 3rd party airports won’t work in fs2024 without a fix or an approval. we could be waiting months. It would be like the early days of FS2020 again but with nicer scenery and a few new things to go do.
FS is already a nightmare to keep up to date between the sim and the add ons. It’s going to potentially spiral with fs2020->fs2024 migrations and approvals.
On Xbox, I’ve purchased only 3 or 4 things in 2 years. I would have purchased much more, but did not for a handful of reasons - listed at the top of this thread:
The sim has been barely stable on Xbox, and the first thing to get blamed is always add ons
No trial period for addons
The refund policy is hostile (in my opinion)
not enough information about publication/update dates or versions so we can do some education research about compatibility before committing to the “buyer-beware” purchase.
I would fully expect MS to require sign off and migration to a 2024 marketplace given they are trying to update the sim itself. But unless the Sim makes much more room for addons to function well, and Microsoft improves the policies around trials, refunds, etc, I will continue to refrain from making purchases.
Which is an entirely legitimate POV. I may be thinking along those lines too if I was still on XBox. Not too good news if you are that sales person wanting to grow marketplace sales though.
It’s good that you will be getting so many new features integrated into FS2024 this time though. FS2020 was quite bare boned without 3rd party add ons IMO. Hopefully the updated GDK (with the 500MB freed up) gets released soon and XBox issues settle down for a while.
I ended up on PC partly because I bought addons and then xbox didn’t work.
I haven’t added up my total but I think it’s unlikely to be below $500 as I have many, so I’m probably in that special bracket of their favourite customers.
What I want to communicate clearly to the Microsoft Marketplace team is, in all your statistics, you are not seeing the money you are leaving on the table because of less than friendly marketplace policies. I would buy more, spend more, and engage more with the marketplace if the sim itself was more stable - giving confidence that add ons will work, and if the policies were friendly about trials and refunds when they don’t work.
I don’t think I’m alone. If I knew how to create a poll, I would ask:
Have you ever decided NOT to purchase on the marketplace because of fear of compatibility and/or the existing refund policy? How much extra would you have spent if this was improved?
I certainly hope that isn’t the case, I most certainly will not be subscribing to Gamepass to access MSFS2024, and I’m sure there are many who feel the same
What do you think they will do with the new navigation system & charts etc. There could be a sub model somewhere there for that as part of a ‘premium’ feature access. I’d be surprised if it were all part of the base price. At some level they must look at Navigraph subs and think we’re missing out on this revenue.
Pardon my previous post on the topic. It was just after I found out the news and probably not the best way, nor most thought-out way to post my thoughts.
The problem I have with it is that most of the add-ons I own were released within the past few years. Some more recent. When I paid $15-$40 for them, I (clearly wrongfully) made the assumption that the cost would be an investment that would allow me to have the most up-to-date versions of that product for the reasonably foreseeable future. MSFS24 threw a wrench in that. It’s obviously quite easy for some here to throw money at the sim like it’s nothing, but its really hard for me to drop $25+ on an aircraft. I’m always extremely careful about my purchasing decisions. So to hear that it’s now possible for developers to charge us to bring the products we own up to MSFS24 standards leaves me a bit bitter. It’s really what I feared with the announcement of the new sim, some sort of catch regarding owned marketplace content. Sure, we can use the 2020 versions in 2024, but that means we’re using out of date versions.
But don’t get me wrong, I’d definitely have a different opinion if this were five years from now. If this were MSFS2030, I’d absolutely be ok with an upgrade fee. I don’t expect developers to endlessly update their products for free. But with most products being only a few years old or less, and some I’m just starting to get familiar with, I honestly think it’s a pretty unfair ask. Not to say that it’s fair for the developers either - but I do think they’re likely to see a boost in sales with the increased interest in MSFS24, so many may see the effort as paying for itself and not charge an upgrade fee anyway. Either way, I know where I have to draw the line to keep this hobby in the realm of reasonable affordability for me, and I guess whatever decision developers make is their decision.
While I understand where you are coming from. We have to acknowledge that bringing the aircraft up to date with all the new features in 2024 is likely to be a decent amount of work and it’s not unreasonable for developers to charge some amount of money for a substantial upgrade of their product for a new simulator.
That being said, charging a price is optional and we do not know who will choose to charge for the upgrade and who will make it for free. I think it is far too early to be all doom and gloom about it before it even becomes a problem. Whilst it is entirely fine to discuss the potential problems with the approach of course.
I would also like to say that we all purchased MSFS2020 products to the specification and feature set of MSFS2020, not whatever features will come with the 2024 platform. There was never made any guarantees from neither developers nor MS/Asobo that an upgraded version of said products would come free of charge.
What we do (hopefully) get is to keep using the product we did pay for in 2020 in the new 2024 simulator without having to pay for it. I think this is a reasonable approach all things considered. You won’t lose anything (again, hopefully) by going to 2024, but you might not (although I think its a fairly good chance we do) get a shiny new version of your old products for free.
I’m surely not the only one that stops buying anything in MP2020 now that I could have to pay a fee to use it in 6 months in msfs2024.
I’m now looking for the “free compatibility” label…
I think most people don’t understand they can’t just offer the 3rd party products in the new marketplace without the consent of the developers. As far as I understood, all products will be ready, but it’s up to the developers (because they have IP rights) to authorize it.
I think it was clear to understand the add-ons would be ready day one, all of them. But developers should check the products and just accept to be in the new marketplace.
Also, it’s up to the developer to offer the product as is (without updating it with new visual effects, new flight model etc), or update them. If updated, they might or not charge an extra for it.
I think Microsoft/Asobo are doing everything they can to bring everything from 2020 day one, but they still need the 3rd party dev’s authorization (I think that’s common sense).
You have no reason to apologise for your post. I do understand and empathise with your point of view
I must admit too that when I heard months ago that almost all addons from FS20 bought on the MP would likely work on FS24 I also assumed there would be no upgrade charge.
I can understand therefore that you are disconcerted now to learn that there could potentially now be a charge for this
Again, because there is some confusion, Marketplace now sounds like it will work like Xbox Marketplace. You own what you own. It should be compatible on the new version. If you wish to upgrade that software to a newer version it might be free or it might cost a little ($10 was the going rate for games, if they charged anything at all, most were free, so I figure an addon if they charge for it should be less, like, $5). But you do NOT need to upgrade to keep using what you already own on the new system. You already own it and it is already compatible.
This is better than how Marketplace worked last time where if you had the FSX version of the PMDG DC-6, you would have to pay full price for the 2020 version on Marketplace while other vendors like PMDG, Orbx, and Just Flight could offer discounted upgrade paths for previous owners.
Now Marketplace can do that too.
IIRC, very few people were upset that PMDG re-released their DC-6, rebuilt from the ground up, on 2020 even though they had already released a version of the DC-6 on the prior sim. Same goes for their 737.
It is confusing, like describing the internet to someone who has never used it, until you see it in action. But to console gamers, they just described a MSFS Marketplace that now works like the Xbox Marketplace with similar icons showing what is compatible with what.
I am probably a minority here, but I honestly don`t mind paying an upgrade fee in MP2024 for the addons I still want to use. A lot of my previously bought addons are never used anyways and will not be missed.
I also dont mind paying for a new version of a game (or sim). I am kind of used to that. I will have had over 3 years of fun with 2020 when 2024 releases, and to me that is good value for money.
Nice presentation by the MSFS team! The screenshots of the new marketplace UI looked nice too.
There will be no upgrade charge for your 2020 products to work in 2024. The only thing you could choose to purchase is an upgrade and only if the developer for the product decides to charge for the upgrade at all.
Software trials and refunds are a tricky issue. I suppose a time-gated trial for something you’ll likely use a lot (e.g., an aircraft) could work, but you still make software piracy easier. But how do you offer limited access to scenery or mission packs where you may want to use them for an hour or two?
Refunds are just as problematic for the same reason, people can refund something after using it. This is why Xbox limits you to a few refunds a year.
I think the real answer is giving customers better information before purchasing add-ons:
Allow owners to rate a product. This already exists but only in a simple star rating, you should have to write a significant amount of text (>=50 words) along with your rating that users should be able to read.
Allow addon developers to write a reply to feedback/ratings if they want to. We see something like this on Google Player where someone might report an issue and a developer might reply with “We are aware of this, and are publishing a fix tomorrow” or “Please email us at support@ example .com to give us more information”
This lets would-be customers see that the developer is aware of issues and willing to engage with you if they experience a problem
Allow us to report add-on issues (‘false advertising’, ‘broken’, etc) from the package manager.
These reports get reviewed by the marketplace team, which can require the developer to fix issues OR temporarily suspend the product from the store page (not your package manager if you own it) preventing people from buying bad products.
I think these three things could go a long way - allowing people to feel more comfortable to make purchases.
Trial period, and refunds, exist widely in the software industry. It’s not a technical hurdle, it’s a policy hurdle.
Example, if a developer wanted to offer users a trial period, it might work like this:
Download the item and install it
It activates a timer on the marketplace server,
Temporary trial activation on the client.
If the customer goes in to the Content Manager and clicks “Cancel Trial” (or whatever wording you like) before the trial is over, then the purchase is cancelled and the software is deleted (or deactivated).
If the customer does nothing, once the trial period is over, the credit card is charged, and the client is permanently activated.
