FSDreamTeam forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: jgoggi on April 29, 2013, 09:28:44 am
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Dear FSDreamTeam, why didn't you develop Rome Fiumicino airport? It would have been a wonderful scenery, a great success, all Italian simmers (at least) would have greatly enjoyed it! It would have really been a dream (fsDREAMteam, indeed...). The real life situation is instead well different, an Aerosoft FS9 scenery come out almost 3 months ago that is probably the worst scenery sold by Aerosoft, full of bugs and low quality textures and an FSX "ghost" scenery that nobody knows if under development (not a single screenshot posted, after 1 and half years since the announcement of the project) and that, even if will be released, will only be an FS9 portover with the same bugs...
Really sad :-(
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Dear FSDreamTeam, why didn't you develop Rome Fiumicino airport?
Because US sceneries sells many (really, many) times more. Last time we did an italian scenery some years ago, it was Florence and it was published by Aerosoft. You would imagine that an airport of one of the most worldwide known italian cities, with a spectacular and difficult approach, a complete nearby city modeled in 3d included and with an extremely good frame rate, published by reputable publisher such as Aerosoft, would sell good. Well, guess again, because it sold less in 3 years than what JFK (but even Zurich) sold in the first 24 hours after its original release.
Since it would take just the same amount of time/effort doing LIRF compared to any other similarly sized US airport, it's clear it won't make any economic sense for us doing it.
It would have been a wonderful scenery, a great success, all Italian simmers (at least) would have greatly enjoyed it! It would have really been a dream (fsDREAMteam, indeed...).
Unfortunately, italian simmers are either too few, or don't buy that much, or a combination of the two. And not because we offer products they might not be not interested into: we have two products (XPOI and, especially, GSX, which is our best selling product right now) that are not country-related, so we can have a clear picture how many simmers are out there. The true reality is that 80% of users are in the US, and the remaining 20% is split between Germany, UK, France and Canada. Italian are maybe 2% of the total, we sell more in countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, although their population is a tiny fraction of Italy...
But you have some ways to make us changing our minds: go buy Aerosoft Florence en-masse, we'll surely notice it!
The real life situation is instead well different, an Aerosoft FS9 scenery come out almost 3 months ago that is probably the worst scenery sold by Aerosoft, full of bugs and low quality textures and an FSX "ghost" scenery that nobody knows if under development
As you might know, Aerosoft publishes many products made by many different developers, so the resulting quality varies a lot depending on who made it. They know the market well too, don't you think that, if they really believed in a Fiumicino airport product, they would assign it to one of their best developers ?
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Well, I guess that Florence did not have a great success because the airport has a short runway and only few types of aircraft can land in it. The majority of simmers, that is all those flying the 737, the MD80, the A320, not to speak of bigger airplanes, are excluded from flying to that airport...
I agree with you that Aerosoft gave very little importance to Fiumicino, and they did not assign it to their best developers, but I am still convinced that they made a mistake! People from all over the world want to fly to Fiumicino, and I am sure that a well done scenery would have gained quite a huge success. I can't believe that some completely or almost completely unknown airports that have been released by software houses like Aerosoft could be more successful worldwide than Rome's airport....
Anyway if that is your choice, I respect it, even if I do not agree.
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Well, I guess that Florence did not have a great success because the airport has a short runway and only few types of aircraft can land in it. The majority of simmers, that is all those flying the 737, the MD80, the A320, not to speak of bigger airplanes, are excluded from flying to that airport...
Then probably even Orbx is wrong and they like to lose money, since they only release GA airports for airplane type far smaller than what can land in Florence, in places nobody ever heard of...
I agree with you that Aerosoft gave very little importance to Fiumicino, and they did not assign it to their best developers, but I am still convinced that they made a mistake!
Anyway if that is your choice, I respect it, even if I do not agree.
It seems that all developers makes mistakes in their choices...don't you think, if Italy was a viable market, we would have many products released by now ? The first rule of any free market is: if there's some market potential, someone will enter into it.
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If it's any consolation, I ( and probably the vast number of people here ) will buy any airport your team develops.
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Bah, I think you can't compare a small regional airport like Florence with JFK and I am frankly still convinced that Fiumicino would sell a lot all over the world. I remember that the Cloud9 Rome Scenery had a great success, didn't it? And I think that all simmers had/have, in their FS9, the free ISDProject LIRF scenery... This means that Fiumicino is a desired airport and you will never convince me that all those almost unknown airports released by Aerosoft and co. would sell more than Fiumicino!
Now I don't know how the Aerosoft LIRF for FS9 is going, but, should it not sell well, I think it's because of the low quality, the bugs and the lack of precision, not because people don't want to buy LIRF...
Anyway, once again, it's your choice...
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Dude, FSDT has given you a LIST of FACS on why they didn't develop your airport, and you respond with a reply full of your opinions..
There ISN'T a market for LIRF !
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Bah, I think you can't compare a small regional airport like Florence with JFK
The comparison with JFK was just to show how we could outsell historical Florence sales just in A DAY. But comparing total sales, Kalahui/Kona sold more than Florence, about 4:1. There goes your theory about the "small regional airport that doesn't sell", unless you were trying to say that Kona is more worldwide known than *Florence* ???
We obviously wouldn't expect JFK sales from Florence, but if a small regional airport in the US sells 4 TIMES MORE than a small regional airport in Italy, what reasons would we had to believe that a large hub in Italy would magically sell like a large hub in the US ?
I remember that the Cloud9 Rome Scenery had a great success, didn't it?
Not really. Alessando, the original designer, works for us now, and he doesn't remember it very fondly, from the financial side.
And I think that all simmers had/have, in their FS9, the free ISDProject LIRF scenery...
"Having" doesn't always translate into "Purchasing". You can't beat freeware, and the usual mistake is basing the potential or a commercial product based on the popularity of a similar freeware offering.
This means that Fiumicino is a desired airport and you will never convince me that all those almost unknown airports released by Aerosoft and co. would sell more than Fiumicino!
You should ask this to Aerosoft. We don't usually do "unknown airports", but even when we do, such as Kona, they HAVE sold more than comparably-sized airports in Italy.
It's not that we haven't tried: we haven't done just Florence, our designers in the past made Aviano, Rivolto, Reggio Calabria, Bologna, Turin, Elba, Fly the Lakes. NONE of these was able to surpass sales of the much smaller Kona.
Now I don't know how the Aerosoft LIRF for FS9 is going, but, should it not sell well, I think it's because of the low quality, the bugs and the lack of precision, not because people don't want to buy LIRF...
That's the opposite way around: since Aerosoft *knows* that LIRF wouldn't sell that much anyway, they haven't assigned it to their best developers: why wasting their time, when they can work on something more profitable, like the next version of German airports ?
Anyway, once again, it's your choice...
It's a choice that has been driven by market experience.
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Umberto,
I’m sorry but did not know you and your team developed Florence. I have always bought FSDT products via your website. Now that I know you and your team developed it I will purchase it. Is their a reason why Florence was not available to purchase via FSDT web-sight? I would rather ensure money goes to FSDT for continued future development that I enjoy.
I respect your decisions on continuing your work with North American airports and truly enjoy them.
You never know perhaps the market will come to their sense and drive Italian airports into demand. Until then default Italian airports will do. Thank you and your team for providing amazing add-ons and amazing customer service.
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Bah, I think you can't compare a small regional airport like Florence with JFK and I am frankly still convinced that Fiumicino would sell a lot all over the world. I remember that the Cloud9 Rome Scenery had a great success, didn't it? And I think that all simmers had/have, in their FS9, the free ISDProject LIRF scenery... This means that Fiumicino is a desired airport and you will never convince me that all those almost unknown airports released by Aerosoft and co. would sell more than Fiumicino!
Now I don't know how the Aerosoft LIRF for FS9 is going, but, should it not sell well, I think it's because of the low quality, the bugs and the lack of precision, not because people don't want to buy LIRF...
Anyway, once again, it's your choice...
First they should drop FS9, that's why the lack of quality. Second, they can go higher in textures if they only make it for FSX/P3D
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Is their a reason why Florence was not available to purchase via FSDT web-sight?
It was made before the FSDT name and website existed and in fact, is listed as being developed by "Virtuali s.a.s" on Aerosoft site, because FSDT wasn't even born back then, and we also had our hands full working for Microsoft at the F/A-18, so it was convenient not have to worry about publishing and support.
We thought that a scenery of one of the most famous cities in Italy, with an interesting approach, a city fully modeled in 3d, with fast fps too, sold by a very well known publisher, would fare quite well...but apparently not. And this was one of the reasons why we decided to start FSDT and doing everything internally instead of relying on a publisher.
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Umberto thank you for the explanation and background.
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The true reality is that 80% of users are in the US, and the remaining 20% is split between Germany, UK, France and Canada
Possibly as 80% of the marketed scenery's are targeted at the American market ! :)
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Possibly as 80% of the marketed scenery's are targeted at the American market ! :)
We started doing European stuff. If it was true (and it isn't) that doing european stuff would be more commercially feasible, we would go back to it.
And note that, "Europe" for the PC market, really means 60% Germany/Switzerland, 20% UK and 20% divided amongst all the remaining ones. Since there are already lots of established scenery products for Germany and UK (guess why, it's not that only we can read stats...), we would either start to compete with them, so users will complain about the need for ANOTHER Frankfurt or Heathrow, or we would have to lose time chasing the less interesting markets.
And of course, we have two products that are not "local", which are GSX and XPOI. And guess what, even for those products that are not related to a specific place, the users distribution is still overwhelmingly in favor of the US.
Perhaps, in case Kickstarter will ever open in Italy (not likely in the short term), we might start a Kickstarter campaign for Rome Fiumicino or Milan Malpensa, and see how it goes...
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I had to make a play on your statistics Umberto :), of course you know your market.
That said I reside in the UK and have a few of your State-side scenery's along with GSX plus Geneva a European scenery ;)
And of course I greatly enjoy your products.
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I had to make a play on your statistics Umberto :), of course you know your market.
That said I reside in the UK and have a few of your State-side scenery's along with GSX plus Geneva a European scenery ;)
And of course I greatly enjoy your products.
We do need more north American airports in FSX. I support Umberto all the way regarding EU vs. US scenery.
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We do need more north American airports in FSX. I support Umberto all the way regarding EU vs. US scenery.
I agree also. Aerosoft and the devs they publish pretty much have EU covered to a great extent, at least most of the more popular and large cities. In the US we are still lacking the following.
Seattle
Portland
Salt Lake City
Tucson
Albuquerque
Denver ----- Better version than Imaginesim
Oklahoma City
Houston ----- 90% chance FSDT will take care of this once according to Umberto
Minneapolis
Indianapolis -----Better version than BluePrint
Memphis -----Better version than BluePrint
Detriot -----Better version than BluePrint
New Orleans
Just to name some of the larger cities that could either use a first make or a remake of a previously published scenery from another developer.
Given how long (aprox. 8 months) it take FSDT to produce an airport of great quality, they would be busy for years even just attempting 5 or 6 of these cities.
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DTW is being worked on by Shez and Ian over at SunSkyJet: http://www.sunskyjet.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=a0ac13c7fd271ad78ed4d4120b481d1b&topic=1076.0
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DTW is being worked on by Shez and Ian over at SunSkyJet: http://www.sunskyjet.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=a0ac13c7fd271ad78ed4d4120b481d1b&topic=1076.0
Yes, but the rest of list is ok, we need those airports ;)
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I agree all those airports are sorely missed. We also need Love Field and Houston Hobby for Southwest flights.
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With the recent release of Vancouver, Portland (PDX) makes the most sense to me for a next release; more so than Houston. We need at least one city to match-up with Vancouver for a short-haul option; plus the PDX/YVR pair would fit perfectly with the new Q400, now that it's available as well as other Dash-8 softwares. The default SEA also fits in till we can get a good payware someday. PDX would also fill a big gap between YVR, SFO and SJC and, I would think, encourage more YVR scenery sales.
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With the recent release of Vancouver, Portland (PDX) makes the most sense to me for a next release; more so than Houston. We need at least one city to match-up with Vancouver for a short-haul option
Well, KIAH would fill that role for KDFW, and it's the 7th busiest airport in the US for the year 2012 (growing up from 10th place in 2011), I believe PDX it's around the 30th place.
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Well, KIAH would fill that role for KDFW, and it's the 7th busiest airport in the US for the year 2012 (growing up from 10th place in 2011), I believe PDX it's around the 30th place.
Plus the fact I think it is probably the most requested airport I have seen in the various forums.
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Well, KIAH would fill that role for KDFW, and it's the 7th busiest airport in the US for the year 2012 (growing up from 10th place in 2011), I believe PDX it's around the 30th place.
Plus the fact I think it is probably the most requested airport I have seen in the various forums.
How about KSEA? is it really impossible to make?
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How about KSEA? is it really impossible to make ?
It was said JFK was impossible to make too, years ago. And doing impossible things it's a good way to be motivated to find new ways to do things. So yes, KSEA looks a very strong candidate too, maybe next year.
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How about KSEA? is it really impossible to make ?
It was said JFK was impossible to make too, years ago. And doing impossible things it's a good way to be motivated to find new ways to do things. So yes, KSEA looks a very strong candidate too, maybe next year.
Cool ;)
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I would love to see KSEA done, one of my favorite airports. I had given up hope of seeing this one since the FPS are so terrible in the area for some reason. Good to see you guys haven't given up hope on it.
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I would love to see KSEA done, one of my favorite airports. I had given up hope of seeing this one since the FPS are so terrible in the area for some reason. Good to see you guys haven't given up hope on it.
Yes strange that FPS go higher in SEA area, can anyone explain why?
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Probably all those high quality models given us by Microsoft. ;D
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Probably all those high quality models given us by Microsoft. ;D
;D
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It was said JFK was impossible to make too, years ago. And doing impossible things it's a good way to be motivated to find new ways to do things. So yes, KSEA looks a very strong candidate too, maybe next year.
There is already a very good payware KSEA scenery available, even though it's completely outdated. IMO You should concentrate on the major US hub airports which don't already have good quality payware options available.
Examples:
KMSP Minneapolis-St Paul
KDAL Dallas Love Field (Southwest)
KDEN Denver
KSLC Salt Lake City
KMEM Memphis (FedEx)
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It was said JFK was impossible to make too, years ago. And doing impossible things it's a good way to be motivated to find new ways to do things. So yes, KSEA looks a very strong candidate too, maybe next year.
There is already a very good payware KSEA scenery available, even though it's completely outdated. IMO You should concentrate on the major US hub airports which don't already have good quality payware options available.
Examples:
KMSP Minneapolis-St Paul
KDAL Dallas Love Field (Southwest)
KDEN Denver
KSLC Salt Lake City
KMEM Memphis (FedEx)
Which KSEA scenery is that?? there is NO version for FSX/P3D. So yes we do need a new version of KSEA
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Not sure if this was asked before but did the Vancouver airport sales not do very well. All this talk about only making US airports. Just curious
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Not sure if this was asked before but did the Vancouver airport sales not do very well. All this talk about only making US airports. Just curious
Vancouver sales were very good, and I tend to include Canadian airports together with the US when discussing choices but, since Montreal it's already done, I don't think there would be so many other options left other than Toronto, which I think is being made too.
The issue is, there are way more *large* airports in the US to choose from.
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Which KSEA scenery is that?? there is NO version for FSX/P3D. So yes we do need a new version of KSEA
Apologies, I thought someone managed to get a decent FSX merge going with FT's FS2004 KSEA scenery.
Now I guess we do need a FSX version of KSEA, but that would be dependent on FT not doing a reboot of their old KSEA scenery, like they had done with Dubai.
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I would absolutely love a KSEA. I think simmers have wanted a KSEA for years now, and if the Vancouver sales were great, I can only imagine how well Seattle will sell. Also it is a large airport, and it is not too close to Vancouver, but just perfect. I think that simmers could overlook the performance issue if such a good scenery is made (what I mean by this is that maybe simmers could use aircraft that require less performance, or decrease AI, or what not).
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I don't think there would be so many other options left other than Toronto, which I think is being made too.
Are you serious Umberto? :o
CYYC (Calgary AB) Very large airport. Second parallel runway to be finished next year. Whole new section of terminal. Whole airport area/size is equivalant to that of CYVR.
CYEG (Edmonton AB), CYWG (Winnipeg MB) Not massive but not tiny either. Much much larger than either Lihue - Hilo or Kona or Kahului, and you did those airports and they sold well.
Since CYVR is on the west coast, there are hundreds of flights to points within Canada. The problem is they are all east and the nearest airport to date is CYUL (Montreal). I did this flight last week. Air time was 5 hours 8 minutes. Not the type of flight I want to make on a weekly basis on the simulator. CYYC/CYEG are just over 1 hour flight time with many daily flights. Flights from either CYVR or CYUL to CYWG take about 3 hours, not short but not overly long either.
Of course I also do flights south to KLAS, KSFO, and KLAX but flights to major hubs in Canada suck using default scenery. Even Orbx does very little to enhance CYYC or CYEG. Perhaps airports such as CYWG and places like CYQR (Regina SK) could be sold in packs, much like the Hawaiian airports were. Other than CYYC, these other airports are smaller but they are certainly busy on a daily and nightly basis and get arriving and departing flights from many U.S. and International carriers. All these airports see see a large variety of aircraft including all the heavies. Just as CYUL sold well, so too I believe would these other airports as they are comparable in size. Just my thoughts...
Cheers,
Thad
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I would love to see KSEA done, one of my favorite airports. I had given up hope of seeing this one since the FPS are so terrible in the area for some reason. Good to see you guys haven't given up hope on it.
Yes strange that FPS go higher in SEA area, can anyone explain why?
Would actually be interesting to research why the FPS' are so 'horrible' in some areas of FSX and better in others? KSEA/Seattle area is generally hard on FPS - so is New York (which is also why I fear for the upcoming development of New York area).
Is it because old code, still remains in some areas of FSX in these areas? (have NO idea - just guessing here)... it's not like, it's more detailed etc... Quite interesting problem, actually...
KSEA by FSDT would be fantastic - but wether it could be done within reasonable performance? FlyTampa has already passed on it...
Hoping that FSDT could/would do their magic? :)
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I would love to see KSEA done, one of my favorite airports. I had given up hope of seeing this one since the FPS are so terrible in the area for some reason. Good to see you guys haven't given up hope on it.
Yes strange that FPS go higher in SEA area, can anyone explain why?
Would actually be interesting to research why the FPS' are so 'horrible' in some areas of FSX and better in others? KSEA/Seattle area is generally hard on FPS - so is New York (which is also why I fear for the upcoming development of New York area).
Is it because old code, still remains in some areas of FSX in these areas? (have NO idea - just guessing here)... it's not like, it's more detailed etc... Quite interesting problem, actually...
KSEA by FSDT would be fantastic - but wether it could be done within reasonable performance? FlyTampa has already passed on it...
Hoping that FSDT could/would do their magic? :)
I'm sure that FSDT can do KSEA ;)
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CYEG (Edmonton AB), CYWG (Winnipeg MB) Not massive but not tiny either. Much much larger than either Lihue - Hilo or Kona or Kahului, and you did those airports and they sold well.
Just as CYUL sold well, so too I believe would these other airports as they are comparable in size. Just my thoughts...
You seem to know about our own sales (or FlyTampa's) something we didn't know...it's not that the Hawaiian Airports sold badly, they didn't, but they took 1 year for each pack to make, and guess what, users see more "value" in purchasing 1 large hub, compared to 2 small/medium airports and it takes about the same time/effort for us. We had to offer deep discounts to PHNL users and package deals to push the Hawaii airports: I don't think many purchased them at full price.
The main reason we made the Hawaiian airports, was to offer short range destinations to those not wanting to fly 5 hours to reach PHNL, and there was another reasoning behind them which was related to the MS Flight, which unfortunately didn't go well because how MS Flight ended up to be (when we first heard of MS Flight in 2010 and played with the Alpha version, it was certain it would had an internal in-app store open to ALL 3rd parties...).
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I'm sure that FSDT can do KSEA ;)
Any developer can do the airport, trick is getting it to play nice with all those high quality models from Microsoft. If someone like LimeSim were to do a nice photoreal scenery of Seattle with low polygon models...
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Any developer can do the airport, trick is getting it to play nice with all those high quality models from Microsoft.
It's probably easier to replace them all, rather than trying to fix them...
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Any developer can do the airport, trick is getting it to play nice with all those high quality models from Microsoft.
It's probably easier to replace them all, rather than trying to fix them...
Go for it Umberto ;) I'm looking forward to see FSDT's version of KSEA :-)
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If US airports sell so much more than anywhere else than why are other developers making airports outside the US. You make great sceneries so it would be nice to see high quality airports outside the US. Calgary to Vacouver would be nice or Edmonton. Not so interested in KSEA.
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If US airports sell so much more than anywhere else than why are other developers making airports outside the US
You shouldn't assume that something sells "just" because someone is doing it. Many developers see flight simulation as an hobby and have other jobs, so they likely do something they *like* more, rather than what is commercially sensible...We do it fully time, and this means we must be very careful what to chose.
Also, I never said that "only" US airports sells well enough. Some countries in Europe are worth working on, and they are Germany first and foremost, and then UK. And guess what, they are well covered by established developers.
. You make great sceneries so it would be nice to see high quality airports outside the US. Calgary to Vacouver would be nice or Edmonton. Not so interested in KSEA.
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But you have some ways to make us changing our minds: go buy Aerosoft Florence en-masse, we'll surely notice it!
I just went to their main website, the US version of it, and couldn't find that scenery. I googled it and got a hit (http://en.shop.aerosoft.com/eshop.php?action=article_detail&s_supplier_aid=11314&s_design=DEFAULT&shopfilter_category=Flight%20Simulation), but it seems like its only advertised on their European site, so there might be a lot of people who have never seen it. Since I always go to their main US site to browse their offerings, I had never even seen it prior to you mentioning it.
Make me wonder how many other products they sell that I have never seen because they only advertise them on the EU site.
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Also interesting to note that you can download it in trial mode prior to purchase from the Aerosoft product page... makes me wonder why Umberto doesn't add it to his own web site, if a trial is available. I presume you could activate through the addon manager?
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If it's any consolation, I ( and probably the vast number of people here ) will buy any airport your team develops.
I have to confess, I am one of them :)
I've said it before and I will say it again - FSDT are one of (top 3 in no particular order) the BEST!
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Calgary to Vacouver would be nice or Edmonton. Not so interested in KSEA.
The market for YEG would be pretty limited at best and I would think incomparable to SEA. I can see the easy routes to/from YVR or YYC etc, but from a scenery standpoint it would take alot more than FSDT's magic to make YEG attractive enough to fly to. Calgary is almost ready from Simaddon's, and YWG as much as it could use a serious makeover just doesn't have the demand or market either.