What’s the estimated timeframe of someone contacting me about my new
application to become a flight simulator partner?
That’s painful topic and, my opinion, should be urgently revised. But
Microsoft team responsible for that, while here you can get support from Asobo
developers. Wrong place to ask.
Let’s have a look into the last 7 Development Updates in official forum since
May:
[BLOG] June 16, 2022 Development Update:
As of 06/11, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] June 9th, 2022 Development Update:
As of 06/04, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] June 2nd, 2022 Development Update:
As of 05/28, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] May 26th, 2022 Development Update:
As of 05/21, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] May 19th, 2022 Development Update:
As of 05/14, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] May 12th, 2022 Development Update:
As of 05/07, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
[BLOG] May 5th, 2022 Development Update:
As of 04/30, we have now approved 251 (+0) third parties into the in-sim marketplace
I know several companies and people who have been waiting for it for more than
6 months. So judge for yourself based on the speed of the last 7 weeks when it
will be your turn. Assume that there are more than 50+ entities waiting for
it.
There has been a few topics about this lately, for example:
https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/t/4287 The selection process seems to
be drastic, about maybe 25% of applications have been approved since day 1
(see link above). And the existing offering shows that quality of the product
doesn’t matter much: whether the customers are judging a marketplace product
good or bad, or whether the reputation of the vendor (regardless it is known
prior marketplace acceptance, or after once the first products ship through
the marketplace), this doesn’t seem to make any difference in the selection
process. If this is any indication, I’m the founder of Reality XP, a renown
and awarded vendor of simulation solutions with more than 20 years experience
on FS, X-Plane, P3D, Elite, and others I can’t speak about. We’re in the
“Official 3rd party Devs” group in the FS2020 forum (aka CptLucky8) and we’ve
applied to the marketplace nearly 24 months ago, yet, Microsoft is still
“processing” our application… It would be a fair assumption to imagine some
might believe FS2020 is targeting an audience for which they can’t see what is
our value proposition, in which case instead of stopping all coms dead-cold
since March 2020 without an explanation, it would have been fair to at least
inquire and ask us. I see no particular reason for such a hold up, and I won’t
speculate why our marketplace application is left pending for 24 months, but
in case some do believe Reality XP intends to sell a product based on an
unlicensed (a libel someone close to the decision making process keeps
repeating) Garmin trainer on the marketplace, and if this is the only reason
why they’re holding up our application, they’re 100% wrong about us! Not only
because even if we’d try to push such product once accepted, the marketplace
product ingestion process can still veto it, but even more so because think
about this: what is the benefit for us to cut 30% of our revenues for a
marketplace which doesn’t bring any value to our target customers for this
type of sophisticated and authentic product? And what about Asobo who seem to
be in dire need of expertise in various flight simulation fields, but not
enough candidates are knocking the Asobo door to fulfill the available job
offers (some have been know to be left open for 6 months or more)? Working
hand in hand in partnership with more flight simulation veterans doesn’t seem
to be a bad idea to me then. After all, a dev is a dev, and his/her dev
expertise on simulation products, his/her knowledge of the simulation world,
and his/her experience with customers should be helping better going forward
than not having any (or not enough) candidates. So on one hand Jorg is saying
he is sad there isn’t more vendors on the marketplace, but on the other hand,
there are knowledgeable third parties, willing to, who are barred the
entrance…
Thank you very much. Sounds I know this person, but I didn’t know Reality XP
or CptLucky8
RXP said " It would be a fair assumption to imagine some might believe FS2020
is targeting an audience for which they can’t see what is our value
proposition " A very fair opinion IMNSHO. Despite protestations to the
contrary in some of the developer live streams, the interaction with
developers and the marketplace induction does seem more oriented to a client
base that uses a $600.00 XBox, rather a cockpit building sim-LARPER like
myself for example who has spent $15,000.00 plus on hardware to run the sim.
Maybe I should have bought a red sports car? This impression is only augmented
by Jorg Neumann, on whether MSFS development is tied to XBox:
" There is nothing we do that doesn’t come to all platforms.
Literally nothing." In this June 22nd, 2022 interview with HeliSimmer (at
this timestamp)