Why so many UK simmers as compared to the US or elsewhere?

Another factor might be we rarely have metered internet.

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I’ve heard many people here joking about British weather. Perhaps more stay home because of the weather. :slight_smile: (I’ve experienced British weather. I didn’t think it was that bad, although when leaving your great country, Heathrow was socked in.)

But it might also be that economically, the average American can’t afford the price of the higher-end machines required to run MSFS effectively. It might also be affected because there is still a fairly large proportion of our population that does not have easy/inexpensive internet access. Or is it that generally, the whole idea of sims is over our heads? :wink: Another consideration might be that Americans may be too involved with other things besides simulation games (like maybe, reality games)?

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It’s interesting that excluding Russia and Brazil, this is also a near complete list of all countries that have received World Updates so far. And we know a Brazilian update is currently in the works and will be out in 2023.

We must also bear in mind that not everyone that plays MSFS answered the survey, or even knew that it existed. Many of us more “serious” folks who are forum members, use various flight sim Discords, other sim forums, etc are likely over-represented in this survey, as we’re the ones who were aware of it and filled it out. I’m betting the majority of simmers didn’t fill this out.

It would be interesting to see Microsoft’s numbers on the distribution of users by country. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see that the order remain very similar to this list, only with different percentages.

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Surprised that Japan didn’t show up in the “Where do you live” survey. But I guess if it was only in English, that may explain it. Not sure if any Japanese Discords for FS exist.

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I don’t know how Japan figures in terms of the use stats. Would be interesting to see Asian numbers for MSFS and how they compare to the rest of the world.

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I would think they have a pretty good market there.

Was thinking the same. Would be nice to see numbers from Pakistan to Japan and all countries between them.

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And you think the Britts in the UK can. ?
Unfortunately, in the UK, (as elsewhere) so many this winter, are struggling to even heat their homes.

UK energy bills to rise by 80% in October

(https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/26/uk-energy-bills-to-rise-by-80percent-in-october-as-regulator-announces-hike.html)

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Maybe it has to do with general aviation not being very welcomed in europe, so the next best thing is flight simming?

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Let’s not stray too far off-topic. :wink:
Keep the focus on MSFS.

That was my thought. Access to general aviation being more elusive in these places that it’s alluring, whereas it’s so mundane here it might be viewed as boring. Given the #2 and #3 countries, I couldn’t help but think it might have been wartime aviation that romanticized flying. Could be way off base there.

But airline simming seems to be by far the most popular part of Flight Simulator, not small GA or military from what I can tell.

I think cost of gaming hardware, energy, and disposable income are valid things to bring up. But that would favor a US bias, not a UK/European one from the stats I’ve seen.

One might interpret the statistics in the graph to reflect the historical relevance in which airpower has influenced each country. One might also suggest that the statistics show that the respective country’s citizens still remember the heroism of the aviators that fought for their nation.

In regards to the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill answered your question some time ago: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few”

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And a long history in aviation development. Including:

The Spitfire

The Comet (World’s first jet airliner)

Concorde

Hi folks,

The Navigraph survey results can be interesting (we here on the MSFS team even read through it carefully), but please remember that it is not a proper scientific survey and will not necessarily give fully accurate information.

Respondents were not selected at random (anyone could manually choose to respond), so the sample is biased to 1) people who speak/understand English; 2) people who were aware the Navigraph survey exists; 3) people who are willing to take the time to complete and submit their results. Combining 1-3 means that you’re going to get a response sample consisting almost entirely of English-speaking simmers who actively follow Navigraph, Orbx, FSElite, Flight Simulation Association, and other orgs that helped promote the survey rather than an accurate cross-section of all MSFS players. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising that certain countries are over- or under-represented in the survey results.

Thanks,
MSFS Team

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So share some actual usage stats! :wink:

A quick tally of 299 responses from the “Where is everyone from thread?”:

Again, subject to language bias. But even with the language bias there’s still the same trend with a disproportionately large number of UK and German users compared to the US. But I guess the real question should be, why so many Netherlands users?

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The high number of british and germans is because the battle of Britain is still going on. :rofl:

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My apologies if I offended. Such was not my intent. We also have issues with power and heating.

I was merely attempting to state reasons why our larger population may not be composed of a proportional amount of flight simmers. OTOH, I do wonder how British society’s financial stratification is proportioned compared to the US.

Anyways, happy flying!

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Perhaps but the question here was the proportion of UK to US users, both of which largely speak a similar form of English. :wink: OTOH, German users appear to water down the language effect.

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As a Brit living in Austria for the last 14 years I can say from personal experience that many native German speakers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland also understand English, especially the younger generations.

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Especially (after quick Google on the subject) I reckon there must be a bit of interest in the subject given this YT clip: