Third-Party Aircraft Development - Tail Wagging the Dog?

Do a straw poll and you’ll find most of the folks who do fly the heavies aren’t real-life pilots at all, and want to experience what it’s like being an ATP. I have some flight experience, but I’ve never been behind a big jet, or a bizjet for that matter. Which explains why I have a lot of hours in the Vision Jet, the HJet, the CJ4 and the Longitude. It’s about the experience, period. Some people want to live out their dreams, even virtually. For a real life ATP, I get it - why the heck would they want to sit and do the exact thing they get paid to do every day? That’s like asking me to put on some VR Goggles and play “Job Simulator.” I understand why they don’t want to do it, in the same manner why folks who don’t have that job want to try it.

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The bigger picture is why, after generations of humans, are we still critical of each other’s interests.

What business is it if any of ours to cast judgment on how someone wants to do something in this sim (or life)?

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Ok, i‘m on Xbox as well, and I use navigaraph(also Simbrief):joy: but doesn’t matter

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I also think from a flight sim point of view the airliners do have a quite a lot to them which make the whole experience fun, certainly now with GSX. I love flying short haul flights in the US in the sim with live traffic and live real world ATC in the background. With all the pre-flight loading and flight planning it all just comes together to make it so immersive.

You can pretend for a moment to be an airline pilot. Its just a great way to enjoy the sim, even if the actual real world experience may be slightly dull.

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I think there’s replay value in airliners, even for airline pilots, in that you get to do procedures (SIDS, STARs, IAPs) in places your airline (or the type you fly) may never visit. For a small but dedicated sector, following new procedures is like a puzzle game, especially when you start to factor in weather, virtual ATC controllers, and perhaps slightly different aircraft. I liken it to a musician sight-reading new charts. Some are a real challenge and that’s where the fun really lies.

Outside of airliners, that context is almost always there when flying turboprops or smaller, especially if you like to hand-fly. But for cruise flight, I’m with ya. That’s why I never really take any airline hops that are over 60-90 minutes or so. Follow the SID, cruise for 10-20 minutes, then start down on the STAR.

Going back to my first point, though, I believe there would be a lot more people that got into the procedural stuff if they a) knew what they didn’t know (mostly that it exists), and b) could be taught the details in a way that’s relevant to the sim environment.

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I respectfully disagree with that assessment of XBox users. Have you looked at any of the YouTube videos made my XBox users? They will review planes. They certainly enumerate the same flaws that PC reviewers do. On the forums here, unless the poster states specifically what platform they run on, you really have no idea who is XBox and who is PC. XBox users are wanting complex aircraft just as much as PC users. The thing that has been holding them back from that wish is WASM support on XBox so far. Planes such as Blackbirds 310R, XBox users were raving about just as much as PC users.

So please, enough with the “XBox users are clueless pilots who are ruining our sim because developers are ignoring us and aiming for the clueless with dumb downed content”. It simply is not true. And yes, I know. Now people will say “I watch my 13 year old son play MSFS on his XBox and he has no clue”. That may be. But there are also 13 year olds running on PC too. A small demographic of either platform does not represent the entire platform community.

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I grew up with Flight Simulator, and now I’m an adult with Flight Simulator. Kids get to sim too, whether on computer or console. :slight_smile:

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I used to fly airliners in MSFS when I was in university because it would help me study. I’d set up an 8 hour (or whatever) flight with route waypoints about 90 minutes or so apart, and then study as my simulated plane droned along between waypoints, and take breaks at the waypoints to check my flight’s progress. Then at the end, I’d land and go do something else. I didn’t particularly like flying airliners in the game, but it was a useful tool for motivating myself to do other stuff. Today, now that that’s long behind me, I’d rather fly GA… No autopilot or GPS, just me and my paper charts flying VFR around the countryside.

But, I should add, that’s just me. To each their own. I tell this story as an example of why someone might like to fly one aircraft type or another, and that the reasons for one’s doing so may not be obvious.

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It’s not, and it’s a totally ridiculous argument. Xbox was one of the best things to happen to MSFS. It expanded the user base massively and paid for all the updates we’re getting. Without those users MSFS would not be what it is nor what it will be. And it’s not just kids using Xbox. I know tons of adults who love MSFS on Xbox.

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sigh

And for those questioning those who love to fly airliners… What, is everybody supposed to like what you like? Jeepers. I’m not a tubeliner flyer either (well, not all that much. I do love the 247, and I have the Islander and DC-6 and hope to have time to learn to fly them someday), but I admire the people who do and who learn all the processes. I would never dain to suggest everyone should like what I like, nor would I wonder about it at all. That would be like saying “Why’d you marry her (or him)” (ok, sometimes that’s warranted, lol)

I mean, it’s totally cool to think “Eh, I’d never want to do that”. But to transfer that to others is crazy.

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Most people i have to explain flight simulator to are only showing interest in order to be polite. Most have no idea how you get a kick out of pressing buttons for 30 minutes in order to fly in a straight line for 4 hours. I get blank looks from almost everyone i know when i talk about my flight simming adventures because they’re not interested in flying virtual airplanes. “Why don’t you get a real pilots license” They ask. “What do you get when you complete a flight?” They wonder. If you are having to answer those questions that person will likely never care about flight simulator beyond that conversation.

MSFS draws a crowd because it’s visually phenomenal and costs a dollar to try it. You don’t have to be an avgeek to try a game based on those two things alone. Doesn’t matter if it’s flight sim, truck sim, boat sim, car sim, goat sim, dirt sim, sleeping sim, sim sim… Make it cheap and make it look good and people will play it. It’s a very low risk game and you’re not losing much if you don’t like it. That’s why i always recommend to try it on gamepass first. Worst case you’re out a dollar and a little bit of your time. There’s always one person that buys the expensive version of the game, $5000 gaming computer, $10,000 worth of peripherals and addon content only to find that the game doesn’t run at all on their computer. Well if you had just got the $1 game pass version to try it out you wouldn’t be out $15,000

My reference to “you’d be hard pressed to not have heard of it” was in reference to the “gamer” crowd surfing the MS Store or Steam Store for another thing to play.

I was certainly not referring to those outside of the gaming loop.

And i’m not sure what issue you have with that crowd. Are they asking for your opinion on it before they buy it but ignoring your advice? Why do you care if the average xbox COD gamer tries out Flight Simulator? Are people not allowed to explore new things? What if that xbox gamer tries out flight sim and loves it so much he goes out, builds a PC and buys $10,000 in flight simming peripherals and addons?

Flight simming is not an exclusive hobby for avgeeks and should be as inclusive as possible. 20 years ago yes it was a niche club and if you wanted something that went against the grain you were chastised for it and even today it continues unfortunately.

Honestly I get the vibe you only want avgeeks and aviation enthusiasts to play flight sim. That would be like saying “only military veterans can play battlefield.”

What are you talking about?

I am an Xbox pilot and absolutely nothing I’ve written here has been against Xbox pilots or anyone who wants to try the sim out causally. It’s the complete opposite.

Slow down there killer, go back and carefully re-read all my previous posts here in this thread before assassinating me.

I was defending the Xbox for being blamed for the dumbing down of aircraft in the sim. My point was, due to changes in this “hobby” and the mass marketability of the sim via MS Store and Steam to many types of gamers with varying types of peripherals, that it isn’t the Xbox to blame (if there is even blame to be laid) on the way the 3rd parties build aircraft. I was saying that lots of types of people are reaching out to MSFS simply due to how accessible it is. I am saying that is a good thing.

How you arrived at your conclusions about me being the opposite is beyond me.

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Let’s all take a deep breath and step back folks. Discuss the topic, don’t engage each other. Thanks.

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The OPs question was why are they developing anything other that study level, complex aircraft.

I strongly believe that the huge revenue stream from the xbox crowd drives this. It also encourages devs to develop simple aircraft, that look pretty to fly from the exterior views. Certainly not all xbox users are doing this, but every xbox user I know (admittedly just a handful) are.

The upside: MSFS is flush with cash for development.

The downside: MSFS is flush with cash from users who aren’t interested in system depth.

Just my humble opinion, based on real life observation, in my tiny sphere.

it was like that before the xbox crowd came along tho

And you’d be strongly wrong. There is a huge percentage of the MSFS population, Xbox and PC, who don’t want to bother with complex aircraft.

The complex aircraft contingent is significant in size but relatively small. Big enough to justify developing for it, but the basic aircraft sell more.

Personally, I want all the detail, but I’m not going to think it’s wrong that others don’t want that.

When I say complex, I mean the oft used “Study Level” term, as incorrect as it is…
You can corroborate this information with any developer you might want to contact.

In any event, Xbox has nothing to do with it.

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This point has been made above but I’ll call it out here - speaking as someone who does a lot of work with survey research, including helping develop and edit survey questionnaires in addition to writing about the results - the Navigraph survey isn’t at all representative of the flight simulation marketplace (small “m”). It’s promoted by Navigraph and third-party vendors, and on flightsim websites, where the readership/viewership is hardcore and likely to skew toward “study-level” civil aircraft and real-world procedures. Missing are combat simmers, military and warbird enthusiasts, causal simmers, newcomers to flight simulation (there are a lot of those) and anyone else who generally gets some different kind of enjoyment out of simming than programming FMCs and flying DME arcs to tight tolerances.

To get a sense of real, broad-based demand, I agree it’d be more useful to follow the Ten Best Aircraft thread. Even better would be to follow what developers actually produce. Not all of them are business-oriented - some are small enthusiast or engineering-driven teams - but a lot, especially the bigger ones, have plenty of data on what sells. That’s what’s behind their development plans.

In other words - don’t read the survey results. Read the box office returns. They’ll tell you what goes on.

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Bingo. You have to understand the selection bias of the sample set, and not try to draw broad conclusions of the overall population.

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I appreciate everyone taking time to respond to my topic. I have enjoyed reading and learning from many of the posts.

I don’t have much of a response other than thank you. To the extent that I do, I offer those thoughts below, but I first want to clarify a few things.

First, I should have worded the question differently. I premised the question as if I know for a fact that third-party devs are putting more resources into one type of aircraft over any other. I should have specified that my question was based on opinion informed only by personal information.

Second, my topic was not intended to pit Xbox gamers against PC users. I made reference to the average Xbox gamer and Navigraph users. So, I was not speaking in absolutes about all Xbox gamers and all PC users. I was only making the references and comparison, between average Xbox and Navigraph users, because my topic was inspired by the Navigraph survey results. Again, 82% of the Navigraph survey respondents do not own an Xbox of any kind. So, yes, I assume Navigraph users are on average PC users and also more representative of the flight sim community, i.e., the community that is likely to attend things like FlightSimExpo or have a home cockpit/advance peripherals/etc. But again, I am only speaking in terms of averages, not absolutes.

Third, I was inspired to create this topic so that I could test my assumptions against others’ thoughts, observations, and insight and become better informed about the MSFS third-party aircraft market. As I stated, I think variety in the third-party aircraft market is a great thing for the sim, but I think the market is skewed and out of equilibrium. Right now, I am perfectly content with MSFS, but I am concerned about the future of the third-party aircraft market. As I see it, XP12 has potential to be more robust, but it’s impossible to know where that sim, and its third-party market, will go from here. So, I am not an XP12 fanboy who was just looking to rile up Xbox gamers. To the contrary, I have owned MSFS since the day it launched and hope that the sim only gets better. I just have some concerns and wanted to know if others shared them.

I have learned a great amount from this topic thread and am grateful for everyone’s responses. But right now, my opinion is largely the same. There might be more diversity among the Xbox user than I originally thought, but I still think the market is out of equilibrium, and if true, the future will not be good for the third-party aircraft market and MSFS.

Lastly, before typing this post, I took someone’s suggestion and checked the trending and best sellers sections of the Marketplace, and these are the results for aircraft and aircraft-related addons only. I recognize that this is a snapshot in just one moment of time, but I find the results to be pretty fascinating. I’ll leave it there for others to discuss.

Trending: Airliner Missions, 747 Soundproof + Liveries, Capri G2 Liveries, F-14, B787 Liveries 1, A320 NEO Liveries 1, A320 NEO Liveries 2, A320 NEO Liveries 3, F-18 Liveries, SU-57, A310 Liveries, A320 NEO Liveries Asia, B-52 Stratofortress, B747 Liveries, F-16, B787 Liveries 2, Twin Otter, G39, MIG-29, Pilatus PC-12, Tanarg 912, YAK-9

Best Sellers: CS 206BS, PA-28 Archer II, 737-700, A320 NEO Liveries 1, A320 NEO Liveries 2, A320 NEO Liveries 3, Airbus A318 CEO, Airbus A319 CEO, Airbus A321 NEO, Beechcraft Model 18, Boeing 737 MAX, Boeing 777-300ER, Concorde, Corvette C8 (I’m sorry, but I do find it embarrassing that a car is a best selling add-on in a flight simulator), Eurofighter Typhoon, F-117, F-14, F-22A, F-35, JU-52, P-40 Warhawk, PC12, Reno Air Races, Cirrus Vision Jet, CRJ, HJet, V35 Bonanza.

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