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Good Freeware bad for business?

More or less freeware?

  • We designers should make as much freeware as possible

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Good AddOns should have their price

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
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Actually I have to say that of the more than 5.000 who downloaded my EDLM2005-scenery and the 12.500 people that visited my hompage and downloaded some of my tools, noone has made a donation though it's pretty easy using paypal. :(
This is surely the most important reason I'm thinking of going payware. I hoped that at least 0.1 percent would make a small donation. :scratchch
 
Hi,

I must say that I do not agree with the argument on the "stealing" of your work. If that would mean that you could sell no software anymore, there would be no computer games, no Windows, etc for sale at all. It might be a complication when you publish something, but I don't find it a reason to do freeware. There are enough site and companies that can help addon designers with their distribution and payments. If you had to do that all yourself you would have no time left to design :).

I have indeed seen a lot of nice donationware addons in the past years. One of the best that comes to my mind is chocolateware products (to keep his spouse happy). But I agree that you should not expect wonders from this. I do also have a donate button on this site and I think I can still count the number of donations on one hand. But that is no problem for me, I am happy with the few donations I got, they pay most of the bandwidth costs of this site (together with that little Google ad at the top). I never really planned to earn a lot of money from this site anyway.
 
I'm inclined to agree with Arno about piracy -- there is not much you can do about this, especially with scenery which is a very open system. I would always assume that there are a lot of copies of my scenery which weren't paid for. Sometimes I get questions from 'customers' who are looking for support, but are quite blatent about theirs being a copy from a friend.
Needless to say I'd be prepared to fight against this, but ultimately I rely on a large percentage of my customers being honest.
-Robin
 
As I've come to learn recently, freeware can be "stolen" just as easily if not more so than payware. But then that's another controversial issue in and of itself.
 
Hi all,

I am very new to design and have not published any project yet. So please apologize my rookie attitude to this matter. :)

* I think that it is more or less a question of motivation. It certainly depends on what the designer is thinking first: making money with design is not the same like having fun with designing, I mean. Personally speaking my current and most important motivation is the feeback from my beta-testers; may it be positive or negative. At least this feedback is honest and not driven by commercial attitudes, I assume.
* When I started my current project in early June this year the idea was to build up a scenery exactly the way I wanted it. If I had had planned to make payware I would have not been so free in my decisions during the implementation. My current project is somewhat like an experiment for me, whether it is possible to design all my ideas or not.
*Aside from this I would have to calculate a very high price for the scenery if I would base this calculation on the time that I had to invest personally. But as I am by far not experienced enough I would have no feeling which price is adequate, because I simply do not know if the market would apply another standard to scenery quality than I am able to deliver.
*Another thing is that in my opinion you are committed to the buyers in terms of support and service, once you took money for your work. If you emagine the quality of feedback in certain forums the market expects ad hoc replies to questions and delivery of patches. I would not be able to comply with this because I have a bread and butter job.

So finally I agree with Arno: the best way for designers is to start up with one or more freeware projects. Not only for marketing reasons but more for reasons of learning and building up a quite high degree of knowledge and implementing. Afterwards the point where designers have to decide how to proceed surely will come. And if a designer decides to go the commercial way he has to bear in mind of all the obligations which are linked to this.

greetz
gianni
 
ProfessorKhaos said:
As I've come to learn recently, freeware can be "stolen" just as easily if not more so than payware. But then that's another controversial issue in and of itself.
Click to expand...

That is very true. We have had trouble with other designers stealing the textures of our NL2000 scenery for example. Most freeware authors will not mind others using there textures, if it has been asked before doing it. But you can still have such trouble. With commercial scenery it is a more serious problem of course, as it has an influence on the sales.
 
Another important point in designing freeware is that i have no "pressure" behind it. No one can ask for a release date or for special features that should be in the scenery. I´m biulding my EDDM scenery now for more than 2 years !
Because sometimes i have no more motivation to continue or i come across problems i can not solve and the funfactor goes down to zero. And then the problem is solved by new design software or tools (especially by arno !!) and i continue again.
A probelm with payware is the price. Most payware products cost nearly as much as the flightsim itself. So, with some scenery and aircraft one pays four or fife times the price of the sim. And then you have every two to three years a new version of MS Flightsim where not every version is completely compatible with the preceeding and you need to buy your addons again or at least you need to update them (and most updates cost as well). So its too expensive to keep your flightsim up to date. And most freeware products are more than good enough for me.
 
I've been a long time lurker here in the forum and a scenery designer for the past 4 yrs.

Most of the scenery I design is for my own use and for friends, I have never posted anything on any of the sim sites. My reasoning behind it is I dont want the flood of emails from people who think that a certain piece of equipment or scenery files isn't to exact standards. If it isnt, then why did I spend months researching for my project.

Would I ever consider releasing scenery that I think I should be compensated for? No. My reasoning is simple, Im doing it because I enjoy it. I would rather get an email from a user thanking me for producing the scenery, or offering suggestions, than emails I have gotten in the past about something not being right, when the real thing doesnt have what the user wanted.

Good freeware isnt bad for business, its good for busines. If freeware designers can produce scenery that is as good or better than the payware guys, they, the freeware guys are raising the bar.
 
Those are a lot of good reasons for freeware. I hadn't thought of some of them.
But all in all I still think it's weird to put maybe thousands of hours into a project which you give away for free - and in the end even receive "instructions" how you could've made it better like I did for EDLM2005... :rolleyes:

Freeware or payware - I think the job would be much more fun if you'd get more motivating feedback for it. (but maybe that's only me...:o)
 
I think the job would be much more fun if you'd get more motivating feedback for it. (but maybe that's only me...
Click to expand...

Horst, I agree with you. It's only a few people (mainly on this forum) who give you feedback.

Even if you ask for it, you don't get anything in most cases (Sometimes, it's really okay, but mainly...). No "No that's crap" or "hey, looks great" or "I have some photos. Maybe they'll help you." And I really hope that there will be no mail flood after the release, saying "Uh...that part looks crappy." or "Why is this missing?!" or something like that. In my opionion they had their chance during the development. That's why I post my progress in forums, to fix apparent erros before releasing the whole thing (Well, hoping to get some feedback, but as I wrote before...)
 
My versions of EDDF are now public for more than half a year. All in all they had almost 20000 downloads.

I got not very much feedback per mail - mostly some questions about AFCAD or asking for permission to host the file.

But if I search for it in google, I get a lot of "eedback" from inside the forums. They discuss the disadvantages and the advantages, compare screenshots, test it with lots of AI planes and much more. If you want feedback - look into the forums!
 
That might be true. But your's is finished, mine is not. Maybe that's the difference. Okay, I got some feedback during the last days (When I posted the newest shots). Well, let's see what happens, when EDDF is finished....
 
Hi,

I would say freeware all the time. I make my sceneries for me but I still freely release them for public use.

My lastest release under the UK scenery design name, was extensively researched and was four airfields in one package. I'm happy for people to use download and use my creations.

I've purchased numerous scenery addons only to be dissapointed with them. Some people seem to have the misconception that because its Payware it's going to be better. I've found this not to be the case as there are many freeware sceneries that are far superior than any payware scenery.

For example, before I released my local airport, I got a email saying 'when is your scenery going to be released because a payware version is due out in a few months and yours wouldnt be staying on my computer after its released" I thought fare enough. A few months past and my scenery was available as was the payware. I recieved another email from the same guy, and he explained how the payware version was "rubbish" compared to my freeware version. I thought :p

We have to remember that the Payware guys have the same knowledge (more or less) as the Freeware guys. Except the payware one want to make some kind of living from it. Which in a society high on piracy seem somewhat pointless, especially for addon sceneries. Because its always going to be there.

The exception to this rule of course is Addon Aircraft which, as far as I'm concerned are far FAR superior that any Freeware aircraft, In regard to realism, aircraft systems, etc. I'm not saying freeware aircraft are bad or anything, far from it. I just feel I can spend my money on Payware Aircraft knowing its going to be worth it. I must have purchased 15 Payware Aircraft and there's not one I was dissapointed with.

Anyway I have stopped buying payware scenery now I can make my own(sick of spending money only to be disappointed) ;) :D

Stevo ;)
 
Hi,

Whatever you make, you will always have some people who email you negative about it. In most cases you must just learn to ignore them. In this case I mean people who mail you things like this:

"I just tried your scenery, but it is crap. It does not run on my computer. So I have removed it again"

What would they expect? Should I congratulate them on uninstalling it again? Feedback like this is something you can not do anything with. But luckily most users give much better feedback. They offer extra information for example to improve things.

And I think, if you make something as freeware, it is fair that you have an attitude like this:

"It is available for free and I hope you enjoy it. If you have constructive feedback, please let me know. And if you find it crap, so remove it. You have not paid for it."

And Thorsten, why do we spend that much time and give it away for free? Well, I think you can ask the same to authors of free software. In general I think we do this, because we have fun in creating it and like to share it with others so that they have fun as well. Any happy will always cost you time and money is not always needed to compensate that.
 
True words, Arno. :)

Well, there's always the dream to even make money with your hobby - but I think that's why they call it "hobby". :D
 
I doubt the small payware designer make serious coin, maybe enough to pay for their broadband and buy some tools, other than that its nothing that they could live off of.

Heck, if I was to make payware, the money would go to my wife as a payoff for allowing me to spend so much time at the computer :laughing: :laughing:
 
Hi Dave,

Very good point. I think there are very few people that can actually live from selling addons. Most do it besides their normal job. And I think your last remark is spot on, the money will usually be used to compensate the family for all the time spend behind that PC screen.
 
"The exception to this rule of course is Addon Aircraft which, as far as I'm concerned are far FAR superior that any Freeware aircraft, In regard to realism, aircraft systems, etc."

I guess even this is a matter of preference. If I look back over the last couple of years at the planes I have enjoyed, and flown, the most:

Convair 240 (CalClassics)
Rockwell Commander
Howard 500
FSDesign L049 Constellation
Beech 18 (Shupe)
and most recently JBK DC-4

All Freeware.....but as professional as they get. Had they been payware, I might have bought 1 or 2, maybe 3....and missed out on some of my best times with Flight Simulator. However...these are all planes I love....and I was lucky they were freeware. I certainly wouldn't feel cheated if I had bought them.

One thing is for sure. When you get a scenery of plane, or tool...or even a tip, that you like....it is good to take a couple of minutes to send an e-mail (or a post on a forum) to tell the author "Thanks!". From personal experience, for the few little adventures I have posted were well rewarded by receiving an e-mail or two from a user letting me know they enjoyed it.
 
I find feedback to be sometimes very interesting and often conflicting. Everyone seems to have a different impression of what makes something more "real". Often this comes down to issues of detail, framerates, textures (especially saturated vs muted colors), etc... can't please everyone.

Some feedback can be very useful but remember you're the one who has researched the project and your scenery may be closer to reality than other people's initial perceptions of it. This is especially challenging when there are so many addons out there for coastlines, roads, meshes, landclasses, etc.

A quick scan of subjects over at avsim and others shows that even freeware sceneries get alot of unwarranted criticism (often due to the user's error during installation of your scenery or someone elses). Some people expect to get stuff for free (including by piracy) and then slam you for not providing full support to them. Those folks deserve to be ignored. Note that this is different from the person who means to provide genuine and helpful feedback. You may still disagree with them in the end but they're an asset to development.

With regard to aircraft I have both freeware and payware. I tend to like most of my payware a little better than the freeware but that is by a narrow margin. I regularly fly both types but I tend to like virtual cockpits which sometimes are quite lacking on freeware. Also, the mere process of scrutiny that gets applied to payware tends to reinforce the idea that it has to be good before I'm willing to buy it.
 
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I created a scenery that was included in a payware Australian Aircraft, still to this day, ill never know how many installed this bonus software included with the main package but the exercise was more for showing the flag.

As my fulltime job is working in a computer retailer store, building and repairing PC's, i had the idea of displaying a DVD box version of the scenery in the 3 stores of the company i work for. These boxes were just to guage the level of intrest and contained no CD. Just a Jacket cover and my co-workers were instructed that it was a display box only and was never to be sold.

The only time i ever recieved and email was a complaint that the box a person was in possesion of had no CD inside. I responded that this software had only been commercially released as part of a larger package, but , if the emailer had been charge a purchase fee , i was happy to provide him with a copy.

Never heard back from him again ! evidence of theft ?

In regards to freeware, aside from the beta testers, the only indication of intrest ive seen is the number of downloads, certain scenery has recieved and ive never to date had any email negative or positive.

As FS is a niche market, once your name is out there for recognition, there is a possibility for some money to be made from payware but, your target market will dictate the final sales.

Australia for one is not an area where you could expect a lot of intrest in aside from the major airports at an international level and scenery is allways the poor cousin of aircraft.

Jeff
 
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