Let’s have a list of these reviewers you think can be relied on. In my experience there’s no such thing. It’s the same as listening to what a film critic thinks of a film. A lot of it is subjective and they rarely go into depth with all the stuff that matters to me. I never go off reviews and especially not from those that got a review copy from a dev. Easiest method is do your own research and go by what members of forums etc that have similar standards to you say about it. You’ll always get some early purchasers. I have done so myself for some aircraft but generally I follow my own advice and wait. Impulse buying can lead to regret.
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I was very upset when I realised the Captain Sim Hercules has no cockpit. Even though it said so in the fine print, I never dreamed that such idiocy could prevail. How can you find out speeds for flap extension, speeds, altitudes. Not having the means to fly this thing is noithing more than a con job in my view. They have my money on this occasion, but I’ll never buy any of their stuff again, ever.
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YouTube reviews are important for me, but still none of them is able to tell me how the product they are reviewing will work in my system.
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If you look at my original post on this topic, you sort of prove my point. Do some research before spending your money. I mentioned forums, Discord, YouTube etc. Someone just posted about Captain Sim, and one of the products they bought from them. That’s a mistake that should never have happened, but it seems they learned the lesson.
As for a list of YouTube reviewers, I think it’s best that each of us does our own research to find the ones we consider reliable. Cheers.
You may be right in that due diligence must be done when spending (anywhere), there are still laws that regulate the consumer/retailer/developer relationship to avoid abuse, cons, misrepresentation, etc. Can’t put the entire responsibility on one side (consumer). Some acts are straight up illegal and should never be tolerated. The inability to reimburse a purchase one might find faulty, unsatisfactory is highly unusual.
in general i find AvAngel the most reliable youtube reviewer but unfortunately for me she is PC based. i have to wait for one of the rare Xbox flyers to show the aircraft working and go from their. with the marketplace information and quality control so lax means i just dont risk it unless really sure. Again i have aircraft on my wish list over a year old but i dont have enough informed information to pull the trigger.
I agree with every thing you state, except the last sentence. It’s pretty common in the software arena for there to be a “no refund” policy.
On the bright side, the market historically gives disreputable vendors exactly what they deserve.
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This argument doesn’t hold precisely because what works on one person’s setup may not for others (to say nothing of the fiasco on Xbox with instability), so YouTube videos don’t cut it absent a reasonable refund policy. This also ignores the compatibility issues with sim updates over time as mentioned earlier.
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Well what do you do with something like FlyTampa Las Vegas, which worked fine up through SU13, then both an update to the Sim and an update to the add-on happen and breaks it on the XB version? With such a complicated game and a convoluted system of updates and developers not truly having a 100% viable pathway to fully test/develop a given bit of software, stuff will happen. In most cases it will eventually be fixed. I simply uninstalled the city and I know FT will eventually fix it, they’re one of the best out there. No big deal really.
You will get some takers buying into the current problem in the interim to where they purchase it new and ‘broken’. And you add in it may not even be MS/Asobo or the developer breaking it(could be related to yet another add-on or combination of several). So I’ll never expect perfection. Plus a star system with zero text doesn’t make for the best ‘review’ database, particularly in timeline order from most recent. You can for the most part count on ‘quality’ developers to get around to fixing it if they can. In SU9 some developers were changing the scenery to temporarily fix some of the bugs associated with animated details, then they updated again when it was restored in 10. However I would bet that the MP offerings has tripled in quantity from SU9 to SU13.
At the same time, MScenery can release at least 2 new aircraft a week with those roblox interiors, the 10 sets of cockpit lights gets right through, etc-i’m not going through the whos-who of junk. You’d at the VERY LEAST in some instances that don’t get blocked from the MP altogether would get a big disclaimer plastered on the add-on to note the SUB PAR aspects of a given payware. Like a big red ‘DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY COCKPIT’, for instance. If not from MS, but required by the ‘developer’ for their listing to go through, especially without them offering full screen shots of the add. Albeit I see many a sub 2-star aircraft continue to add to its tally of takers over months and years. WAIT -1.4 STARS, WITH PICTURES OF THE ABOMINATION OF A COCKPIT-TAKE MY MONEY! 
But a simple 24 hours automatic grace period would fix just about everything. But, MSFS keeping everything installed/uninstalled would need to be tweaked, and I’m sure there’s a developer agreement somewhere in the system. Pretty sure in most instances if you get a refund from zendesk, you could STILL reinstall the add-on, it doesn’t disappear. No reason they couldn’t add this into 2024 day one though.
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Doesn’t matter, fs too unpredictable. Most people didn’t have an issue with certain planes I could not even get to allow me more than 10fps.
Interesting, most you’d get banned quickly from certain forums/chatrooms for saying stuff like that. Everyones got Stockholm syndrome and protects fs2020 like it’s their master. Can’t criticize it.
this subject and the dissatisfaction with the service and quality of the market place has been going on for years now. it is obvious that asobosoft are not interested in change and dont care that a more robust selling service might lead to more sales and more of a cut for them. so be it.
and the answer to the ones who point out its all up to the customer to do the research before purchase, fair enough. but would that person buy a new car without a test drive or a competent refund service?
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Not many youtubers review airports and even then it’s the odd airport it is mostly planes they review. i’ve also seen low stars for great addons and 4+ stars for something i think is a pile of junk
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I would love a 24 hour ‘test drive’ option , i mean i can walk into a car dealership and test drive a high value real life vehicle , but I can’t test something that is a digital product itself that is used in a digital environment?
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100% agree. It is because there is very little pride and confidence in the product. Not all, but many.
Well it’s pretty open sourced and a gigantic world world with near infinite add-ons, as freeware can affect payware. After a few years, every iteration of MSFS becomes difficult to manage without tweaking and some sort of research on the part of the user. It’s not completely canned, where it’s a racer that only has the developer’s car packs offered. It’s not difficult to mess this game up, and sometimes to a point where it’s impossible to figure out what did what to do it.
The 24hr download to purchase commitment would be a fantastic way for it to police itself to some extent, at least it would lower the workload on zendesk. Maybe something like 45 days before you could attempt to re-download it. I’m sure though someone with the will could ‘steal’ it that way, but xbox is either yay or nay. At least do this for xbox as we can’t even mod anything anyway.
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There are plenty of add-ons with no reviews available. A lot of the small GA airports from small-time developers for example. Sure, they’re cheaper, but I’d buy more of them if I could sample them first instead of just throwing $10 or so out there and rolling the dice every time to see if this is going to be a favorite locale I’ll frequent or something I’ll never visit again.
As has been mentioned, there are plenty of costly add-ons with glowing reviews that also break later on. The JF Warrior was a prime example for me. None of the reviews were updated to say there were now weird issues controlling pitch, and if you really scoured the forums, you could find reference to this issue on other JF planes, but it didn’t affect everyone equally, so basically you just had to buy the plane and discover the hard way if you were one of the unlucky affected ones.
With the DRM encryption tied to your Microsoft account, piracy should be far less of a concern for developers too. And a 24-hour grace period should be trivial to implement with this system. I wouldn’t even mind if instead of getting a cash refund, I’m refunded Marketplace tokens. I’ll use them on something else.
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Agreed. Cost money to hire a lawyer was my point.
For the jailhouse lawyers who lurk in this topic. I’m mean if the software is so bad and the refund so unjust… don’t engage MS/Asobo. Don’t buy their products. ahhh but that is not the goal. The goal is to convince other buyers not to buy the product. Like the Brits say that is rubbish For me the Marketplace is good. I have no complaints. Refund or no. I keep purchases in my hanger. Don’t have to fly them just collect them I like good modeling it is a hobby. Spent 8k for the computer…over $1k on controls. I can spend on paid add on’s. Heck I can spend $150 on a good steak, Navigraph and SimBreif must buy. I purchased many airports for the Twotter. Other enhancements. etc. etc. etc. I am not alone. You don’t spend that kind of money and have the Sim be junk software or because of a trial or refund policy.
Wow. With your resources, I’d be flying IRL, not play flying.