Farewell FSX - off to Prepar3d forum.

[Dangerousdave26]

That is one of the other reasons why I am waiting for V2.0.

My hope is not that Flight is done MS will throw the recreational use to P3D and get paid a license fee for each copy sold. Let LM support and develop it. MS can just keep getting paid.

Will that happen who knows.

[Stickshaker]

Does P3D have the same possibilities for carrier operations as FSX Acceleration? And do utilities like AICarriers, AccuFeel and the VRS TacPac work in P3D? If yes, a 64 bits version becomes an attractive option when the time comes.

[falcon409]

. . . . . .I just think people ought to understand what the EULA for FSX and Prepar3D both say. It is a legally enforceable agreement, and frankly, anytime someone uses Prepar3D for gaming entertainment, then they are violating a legally binding contract.
Ken

In that case. . . all you folks who are not using it for strictly "training" purposes, needs to cease and desist. Last thing I need is someone coming after me for violating a legal contract. On a side note. . . .if that is the case. . .then LM needs to insist on "proof of Academia" prior to issuing a download or registration key. At this point, they're just as guilty for allowing it to happen as are the thousands who have already downloaded the Academic" version. JS:mixedsmi:

[Skyhawk_310R]

That is one of the other reasons why I am waiting for V2.0.

My hope is not that Flight is done MS will throw the recreational use to P3D and get paid a license fee for each copy sold. Let LM support and develop it. MS can just keep getting paid.

Will that happen who knows.

It won't. I personally wish it would, but I work for Lockheed Martin, albiet in a different department. Nevertheless, I have spoken a few times with the project manager of Prepar3D, and exchanged a few email, and she explained to me that LM will never market Prepar3D for entertainment for two reasons. First, Microsoft's contract with LM is ironclad in that area. Second, entertainment simply is not a market goal of Lockheed Martin and never will be.

LM paid Microsoft considerable money for the baseline code and the authority to modify that code to optimize it for training. LM's strategy is to market Prepar3D as a low-cost platform for training and mission rehearsal. This is not limited to aviation either, as a major portion of the code revision was to facilitate surface and sub-surface maritime uses. Poorer nations are seeing the possibility of using Prepar3D for certain kinds of formal training at a cost much lower than required for the more typical full fledged motion simulator devices. I've seem it also used by the USAF but I won't comment on the details.

The academic license was an effort to market the product to civilian flight academies. I also know that LM is aware that this license has been -- how shall I say this -- "creatively employed" by people looking for an interim replacement to an increasingly aged FSX because they just want to have fun on their home PC. Few people desire to be killjoys. So, I don't think LM is going to become aggressive unless forced to.

I learned all this because I was able to test the first version of Prepar3D a few years back. I offered feedback that echoed what others before me did so I wasn't of much help frankly. LM had already planned to incorporate all my inputs before I offered them. Like a lot of people, I immediately recognized the untapped consumer entertainment market and expressed my recommendation that LM release Prepar3D for the home PC market. That's when I was told it was never going to be an option.

But, what does concern me is the allure of available untapped money, and Microsoft right now has an opening to use the courts to pursue money from everyone who has provided any indications they have used Prepar3D for entertainment. It would not shock me to see a day when folks start opening their mailboxes and find unwelcome letters from some legal firm asking people to pay fines to Microsoft for unauthorized use of their proprietary software. And yes, another letter going to LM asking for payment of fines for insufficient oversight of their own EULA. Then, LM would be browbeat by a larger company (yes, Microsoft is bigger than Lockheed Martin) and forced to take action.

What I cannot understand is Microsoft's choices on this. They saw a moneypot from LM, took the money, and restricted its use to avoid creating competition. Then, despite FS being the biggest money-maker in PC gaming that MS has ever seen, they fired the developers in the series and closed the doors. They fully knew the future of PC chipsets and the reality that multi-processing was the way to go and yet refused to spend the money to develop FSX to support it. With the function of multi-processor PC's today, and the advent of modern graphics features, I have little doubt that MS could release a new FS title that would fill in the missing code to support all of flight dynamics, and we could see PC platform flight games that would actually rise to the level of scientifically accurate flight simulators.

Perhaps the problem holding this development up is one market analysis. Too few people care about aviation any more. Shocking as that is to us, especially myself since I know the joy of actually flying your own GA airplane, I'm forced to concede that general aviation is dying because people don't see the thrill of it like they used to.

Ken

[heywooood]

so multiple prepar3d fan websites, where people are posting their screenshots and videos and talking about how much fun they're having with it..and 3d party developers are posting about their addons for it....

...probably wont...draw the attention of...MS legal department...at all....ever...

[Skyhawk_310R]

so multiple prepar3d fan websites, where people are posting their screenshots and videos and talking about how much fun they're having with it..and 3d party developers are posting about their addons for it....

...probably wont...draw the attention of...MS legal department...at all....ever...

I hope your dismissal remains true. I really do. But, I remember how many decades people were very public with all their websites and discussions of how easy it was to share music and video files, even going so far as to call people suckers who kept paying for it instead of joining the many file sharing websites.

I remember how people laughed at the first letters they received to cease and desist. I joined the chorus saying how out of touch the RIAA was and how badly they were erring in refusing to figure out a more friendly reaction to it. But, the RIAA kept saying they would take action and when they started sending out court summons and receiving multi-thousand dollar settlements from average citizens, the laughter stopped and the protests began in earnest. But, the RIAA never stopped. They just kept going after people by the thousands and shutting down those file-sharing sites and suiing their owners into bankruptcy.

In the end, the RIAA crushed the file sharing sites and the file sharing industry. I was very glad I never joined one. When the RIAA sued for and finally obtained the registration membership rosters for the largest of these sites, and used them to send out the notices of collections, when combined with the successful court judgments, a lot of average Joe's got hurt badly, including parents who didn't even know what their children were doing but still had to pay for it!

People are free to make their choices. I just figure once every blue moon or so someone ought to point out the legal realities of all this. But, likely MS is more customer savvy than the RIAA was. I also hope that's true because I think the RIAA still made a huge mistake.

Ken

[TheGrunt]

It won't. I personally wish it would, but I work for Lockheed Martin, albiet in a different department. Nevertheless, I have spoken a few times with the project manager of Prepar3D, and exchanged a few email, and she explained to me that LM will never market Prepar3D for entertainment for two reasons. First, Microsoft's contract with LM is ironclad in that area. Second, entertainment simply is not a market goal of Lockheed Martin and never will be.

Very true. Especially the whole business sector that LM deals with is quite defining and some consumer business is just something out of their area completely.

The academic license was an effort to market the product to civilian flight academies.

This is incorrect. Using P3D in flight academies and pilot training requires Pro version. If you use it yourself for personal private pilot training, pro version is required.

I also know that LM is aware that this license has been -- how shall I say this -- "creatively employed" by people looking for an interim replacement to an increasingly aged FSX because they just want to have fun on their home PC. Few people desire to be killjoys. So, I don't think LM is going to become aggressive unless forced to.

I agree. They also benefit from wider user base having a big bunch of software testers. They are, as I've understood, quite small team after all.

But, what does concern me is the allure of available untapped money, and Microsoft right now has an opening to use the courts to pursue money from everyone who has provided any indications they have used Prepar3D for entertainment. It would not shock me to see a day when folks start opening their mailboxes and find unwelcome letters from some legal firm asking people to pay fines to Microsoft for unauthorized use of their proprietary software. And yes, another letter going to LM asking for payment of fines for insufficient oversight of their own EULA. Then, LM would be browbeat by a larger company (yes, Microsoft is bigger than Lockheed Martin) and forced to take action.

This is something I disagree. First, some people seem to have really strange image that this whole enthusiastic simulator market is something big. It isn't. That's why there practically aren't any companies left, that offer their hard core simulators only to consumer market, except 777 Studios with their historic Rise of Flight. Both Laminar Research and DCS have strong professional markets and those three are pretty much all the companies still producing some way serious simulators for the consumer market at all. Now, if there really would be some serious money involved, we probably would have several companies making these sims and I'll bet that MS would be there too. There is only one figure relating to FSX sales that is somewhat confirmed, and that is 280,000 copies sold for the first year. That is simply ridicilously small amount of sales for a software that took long time to make with quite big dev team. At the same time, their ESP business really didn't go that well so they were losing money. Whole focus of the company was already somewhere else and for the gaming, Xbox business was thriving. ACES needed to go. We of course saw some revival with Flight, which IMO was quite bold attempt to "casualize" simming, but after few months it too failed to bring money in and, boom, it was gone and with it the MS flight simulator business.

Second, I can't see how microsoft can sue some user by any law. You haven't bought Microsoft software, but LM software and that is just not going to happen. What is possible though, is MS suing LM based on the contract they have made when LM purchased ESP code. If that happens, LM may of course enforce the EULA some other way, like revoking the license activation, which probably would be the most likely way IMO. Then, why haven't that happened already? Why isn't MS suing LM's a** off and LM enforcing their EULA? Pretty much of that lies behind that contract MS and LM made and nobody here knows what is truly written in it. Period. Both companies have armies of lawyers and believe me, if there would be possibility to make some true money from whole affair, MS would be on their way already. On the other hand, because LM has battalion of lawyers too, wouldn't you think that they know what they are doing here instad of almost deliberately ending up in a costly corporate trial battle? So, there are practical reasons behind everything and other fact is that nobody cares: Money involved in consumer sim market is so darn low.

What I cannot understand is Microsoft's choices on this. They saw a moneypot from LM, took the money, and restricted its use to avoid creating competition.

Why not to sell the ESP code? MS have still full rights for the FSX code and to market the software and develop it if they will. They practically didn't lose anything. About possible restrictions, you know those if you've seen the contract. We don't know what is based on the contract, and what is corporate strategy.

Then, despite FS being the biggest money-maker in PC gaming that MS has ever seen, they fired the developers in the series and closed the doors.

This is just nonsense. Halo franchise and many other AAA titles published by Microsoft for their own consoles and partly ported to PC also are far more profitable than some poor flight sim, not to mention the revenue whole Xbox business is bringing in. Just first three Halos have sold over 21 million copies and Halo 2 brought $125 million just in the first day. For FSX I've seen many times that since its launch, its sales are barely a 1 million copies. That is really, really bad business and MS didn't even get a dime from 3PD sales for the whole time. That they tried to change with Flight.

They fully knew the future of PC chipsets and the reality that multi-processing was the way to go and yet refused to spend the money to develop FSX to support it. With the function of multi-processor PC's today, and the advent of modern graphics features, I have little doubt that MS could release a new FS title that would fill in the missing code to support all of flight dynamics, and we could see PC platform flight games that would actually rise to the level of scientifically accurate flight simulators.

Perhaps the problem holding this development up is one market analysis. Too few people care about aviation any more. Shocking as that is to us, especially myself since I know the joy of actually flying your own GA airplane, I'm forced to concede that general aviation is dying because people don't see the thrill of it like they used to.

Yes, of course MS could create a simulator. Every major game studio or software company could create one, if they just would want to. Truth is that there is not enough market for them to get back the expenses and make some money out of simulators. Aerosoft, for example, came to this conclusion while they couple of years ago studied the possibility to create a simulator software. If there would be some money in it, we would have simulators like we have first person shooters right now. There seems to be some sort of viable consumer market for three studios right now (perhaps four if 1C can jump back in with their co-made WW2 sim with 777 Studios), which may be a bit overestimated, because two of them is seriously in professional simulator market. Based on all this, I am not that surprised that MS, which is a corporate operating in one of the most competitive business areas in the world, decided to shut down its sim franchise.

IMO this whole EULA talk is really boring. Few guys in Avsim seem to pop this stuff up in every chance they get, but discussion really goes nowhere. Because no one here knows the contract (or if one does, probably won't tell about it) and decisions made in LM and MS based on that, all this is quite futile.

[jmig]

Very true. Especially the whole business sector that LM deals with is quite defining and some consumer business is just something out of their area completely.

This is incorrect....
IMO this whole EULA talk is really boring. Few guys in Avsim seem to pop this stuff up in every chance they get, but discussion really goes nowhere. Because know one here knows the contract (or if one does, probably won't tell about it) and decisions made in LM and MS based on that, all this is quite futile.

Very well written. Your logic seems well reasoned and you stated it quite well.

As for following EULAs, there are people who get a sense of security from following the rules, they see themselves as good citizens. They will not knowingly violate the EULA. There are people who get a sense of excitement out of breaking a rule, to see if they can get away with it. They may see themselves as rebels. These people will give the classic finger to the EULA. Finally, there are the vast majority of people who could care less about a EULA. They hit "I Agree" because they have too in order to use the software. These people will then go about life doing whatever is convenient. While they might not willfully violate the EULA, they will if it gets in the way of doing what they want to do.

These are the vast majority of software users. These are the people who will cut off the mattress and pillow tags, not because they get a sense of "in your face", but because they just don't like it on the mattress or pillow.

The end result is that around 75% of the users could care less about any software EULA.

[mmann]

When all is said and done, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Enough has been written about the Prepar3d EULA on the various flightsim community websites, that most interested people are well aware of the restrictions. After all, it's not like they can just grab a copy of Prepar3d at their local computer store.

For those that "give the classic finger to the EULA", they have a lot of confederates residing at the various online piracy torrent sites.

This is going to be my last post about the EULA's in this thread; we all sound like broken records representing our opposing views on this subject.

[Naismith]

Whoa there folks, all this comparison between a "loose interpretation of EULA" and piracy is unfair and way off the mark. I feel pretty sure LM have lawyers and have considered all the implications before allowing their product available generally on the marketplace. All this talk is just silliness.

[Roger]

Thanks Naismith, that is my cue to end this thread. Eula scaremongering has past it's sell by date; Avsim had this at the beginning of P3D and locked down such threads as I will do now.
P3D is a product, which when bought for academic, developer or full license allows a wide and varied customer base to experiment to their heart's content, which as far as I can see is exactly what they do!