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tml avatar image
tml asked sonicviz answered

Is there any hope for an individual new developer to get accepted as a "partner" for the Marketplace?

I sent in my application surely over half a year ago. No feedback, no rejection, no request for more information. What is going on?

If Microsoft wants to have only experienced companies with multiple-person teams releasing products in the Marketplace, OK, they are free to have such a policy. Even though I think that would be a sad policy.

But why can't they at least respond then, that I don't fill their requirements?

(Even though I am new in developing aircraft for Flight Simulator, I am learning quickly, and have a long software engineering experience. I would say I know what I am doing... even if I learn new things all the time of course. I am reasonably certain I will be able to produce aircraft that are as good as some already available in the Marketplace.)

Compare to Apple that doesn't have any barriers other than the yearly fee to enroll in their Developer Programme. When releasing a product in their App Store it has to pass review. That is a much better policy in my humble opinion.

I would love to be able to eventually release the results of my work on add-on aircrafts in the Marketplace. Because that will reach a much larger customer base, and the downloads are encrypted so random people won't be able to rip off my intellectual property.

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7 Answers

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yorgosGK avatar image
yorgosGK answered yorgosGK commented

I as well, but I am not a single person we have a couple people working and on payroll.

We have been waiting for almost 1 year now! I have updated the application dozens of times in an effort to make them budge! Nothing. I even emailed.

We have pleanty of success stories and even had our real airport send us a massive scaled CRJ model overseas (of an auction peice) in celebration of our efforts! Now they use our work for their ATC academy.

We are working on airport 2 and 3 as I type and even obtain our own real-world uav mapping data....we are heavily invested in this.

In a last ditch effort I was thinking maybe because we don't have a huge presents & out reach on social media I started to make my page much more active, started to share more work in progress stuff and made a YouTube Channel....then made a video as well for airport release. The company is registered and all, with accounts in Canada.

Hope you don't think I am trying to hijack or piggy-back your post! I feel youre frustration and I am following this thread. The way they onboard without any return information IMHO could get better, peoples life plans depend on it...I understand it's a lot of work and its better to use resources on more important things, but hey...I guess thats me being a tad bit eager.


I am glad someone brought this up on here - I was thinking I was the only one! Let's see what happens. As of now I see a connection error on the partners page when I am logged in! Where I would see application under review, maybe they are updating the process.

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tml avatar image tml commented ·

Yes, I get that connection error, too, forgot to mention. "An error occurred while processing your request."

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yorgosGK avatar image yorgosGK tml commented ·
I got happy when I saw something different load when logged on but I am sure its literally just down and means nothing regarding the application! Bummer, lol
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yorgosGK avatar image yorgosGK tml commented ·
i see it was back up for me - i added some links and re submited lol, good luck to your app as well!
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Nirgal2776 avatar image
Nirgal2776 answered

This silence from FS team to your request for market access is really a shame. It is not respectful

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SonantAlpaca avatar image
SonantAlpaca answered RXP edited

Hello,

It can indeed be very complicated to reach the Marketplace, and I can understand your frustration here.

You probably already know my answer: this is something that needs to be reported to Microsoft... Because they are the only ones handling this process.
Once your project is exported, it's out of the SDK team's jurisdiction. And, by definition, out of the scope of this DevSupport platform...

This being said, I will report to Microsoft your comments about the lack of answer from the Marketplace Partnership process.

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RXP avatar image RXP commented ·

Bonjour Alysée,

While at it, may you also cross-check Reality XP's application which is stalled since August 2020 (in the first batch or so)? RXP is a renowned vendor of award wining simulation products and add-ons for the last 20 years, and some new vendors unknown prior FS2020 have been approved since then and are already selling their products through the market place, even if they've applied for the market place after RXP. I can only imagine there is a bug in the system and maybe our application just got stuck somewhere in the process?!

D'avance merci pour votre aide!

PS: "this is something that needs to be reported to Microsoft... "
They aren't answering our emails since March 2020, it seems Charles Nichols isn't working for Microsoft anymore and no one is following through either.

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RXP avatar image RXP commented ·

Hi Alyzée,

I'm reviving the topic because as of today it has been nearly 18 months our application is "in process", while we've been in Contact with a Microsoft representative since Dec. 2019 until he stopped (quit?) in March 2020.


Here is back when it started:
[BLOG] September 17th, 2020 Development Update - Community / News and Announcements - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

It’s only been one short month since we launched the new Microsoft Flight Simulator and we have already received over 900 applications to our Marketplace Partner Program. That’s amazing and we are so excited to see the third party creator community embracing the new platform with such enthusiasm. Last week alone, we launched 10 all-new products and updates to 8 existing ones.

Compare with the the last public report:
[BLOG] February 17th, 2022 Development Update - Community / News and Announcements - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

As of 02/11, we have now approved 234 (+4) third parties into the in-sim marketplace and – so far 134 (+0) have released 912 products on PC (+12) and 614 on Xbox (+15). 1,839 products (+18) have already been released in 3rd party stores and the in-sim marketplace. Beyond that, another 529 products (+59) from 3rd party developers are in production (303 announced, 226 unannounced). In total, over 2,368 3rd party products (+77) are either released or are in development.


In other words:

- 26% 3rd parties approved in 18 months (234/900), 74% still waiting and some of them without any word at all from Microsoft (this topic).

- 15% have released products in 18 months (132/900)

- 11% of the approved vendors are still developing their 1st product since they have been approved.

- Those approved are selling already 11.7 products on average each over the last 18 months ( (912+614) / 132 )

- In turn, those approved are already selling about 1 product per 1.5 months on average. (edited: 1/x)

- But those not approved but who have already built a product can't sell it on the market place though.

- And those not approved don't have any access to direct technical support on the Discord channel.


Is this correct?





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StevenPearce avatar image StevenPearce RXP commented ·
Those who get direct technical support on Discord is a much more limited group; I've only heard of PMDG having it, maybe others do also?
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N6722C avatar image
N6722C answered

"Once your project is exported, it's out of the SDK team's jurisdiction "

So, is it Asobo that takes the submissions from Qualified MarketPlace Devs, and "exports" them (including the fsarchive encoding), so that they can then be placed in the store by MS ?

I ask this, because there still seems to be some confusion (at least to me) about who decides what get encoded ( ref .cfg files) and who actually does any verification/encoding/testing/ and creation of the final package, ready for the marketplace.. ?



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mihafly avatar image
mihafly answered

Hello all,

Also waiting to be approved as vendor on the Marketplace, more than a year now... I create airports.
Meanwhile, there are developers who sell this type of products for a Flight Sim: 1675079058027.png


1675079058027.png (1022.0 KiB)
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Ariebaba avatar image
Ariebaba answered

Frustrating. I applied a few months ago. And when I tried to re-log in, I was told I didn’t have a professional looking email adres. Now I don’t know if my application is rejected or, just like you, on hold. Grrr.

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sonicviz avatar image
sonicviz answered

I've been waiting over a year, and updated the application with new details a few days ago.

It's like throwing a stone down a bottomless well, no feedback, no status. Nothing.


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