Ok I’ve been doing some reading around, and it appears that it’s not Paddock in itself that has angered a part of your community, but the nature in which it has been implemented.
Now, on the face of Paddock seems like brilliant idea - the ability to share profiles is fantastic. However rather naively I thought that this would be optional.
Now I need an answer from you which will possibly determine whether I keep the Simucube, or I sell it and go with VRS or, god forbid, Fanatec.
Is the ability to create offline profiles going to permanently remain?
I can see no reason why offline and Paddock cannot exist together - it’s just a few parameters after all. Unless… and this is the cynic in me, Granite Devices is intending to create an additional revenue stream by monitising the True Drive Paddock software on a subscription basis.
I’ve been around the internet too long and seen a lot of shit, and honestly what you are doing really does smell like the beginnings of a subscription service.
Yes it will. It was much requested by the community, so minimally working solution was implemented. However we do not have the development resources to keep two profile management systems that have 1:1 the same features.
No such thing is planned.
You are right, too many convert their perfectly good products to subscription based services.
But we are facing the same issue at some point - no additional revenue stream as the wheel base is too good and there is nothing to update to. If we ever update the wheel base, we will have the same software also released for Simucube 2 because we care about our customers AND we will still not have development resources for two different products. And how about subscription based warranty extension service, that would also interest many, we think.
And depending on cost a subscription warranty extension would be of interest to me, but it then would need to be something extra like a premium service - for example my unit fails, then you send me a loan unit. I return my unit in the loan unit packaging, and when I receive my repaired unit back, I return the loan unit - all shipping paid by you guys. If it was something like that then I’d be interested.
I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. I’m using Paddock and I like it a lot. My profiles are saved online on my account and there is also a cached local copy save.
If I reinstall my PC I just need to login and all my settings are back. And when I have an internet outage I can just keep playing in offline mode.
To be honest I don’t see any downsides here.
The UI is maybe not that clear if you are used to the old UI, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.
Hover over a profile and you’ll 3 button. A check mark, eye and wrench.
The checkmark activates the profile and loads it onto the Simucube.
The eye allows you to view the profile and from there you edit the profile, but also duplicate it.
The wrench brings you directly to the FFB settings.
That’s basically that’s all there is to know about the Paddock. Just set in True drive that it should default to your own profiles and not the internet profiles. Maybe the local profile things should be the default since that seem what confuses most people.
This is a very good idea. However, as units are sold not by us, but resellers, then it becomes very expensive to import stuff directly to EU to our service center - we need to pay taxes and customs, and when we send the unit back to customer, the customer will also have to again pay the import charges and possible VAT. And this is with all the paperwork in order. For this to go without any of these hurdles, the units will have to go through the reseller so that correct paperwork of the B2C and B2B transactions can be handled correctly.
This aspect of TD is not intuitive at all. When I first went to the profiles all I wanted to do was create new profile so I could understand what settings were available, but all I could see was a wall of other people’s settings. I could not see how to create a profile until I found the button to go offline.
There’s work to be done on the UI, I’m afraid to say.
We have been thinking of adding a “hints and tips” popup to the Paddock via 3rd party javascript library, but I think most users would not appreciate them. I do have good ideas on how to improve first time use, though, and some of that is in work.
Maybe something that can also help is make the 3 symbols (checkmark, eye and wrench) have more contrast. It took me a few days before I saw them because the contrast isn’t very good on the background of certain games. Maybe add a black border around the icons to give them more pop. That’s something that works extremely well for subtitles on TV for example.
But once you know where to click, the software is easy to work with.
Especially the mouse hover text is quite low contrast, but somehow Windows seems to do it, as the same page opened with a web browser is rendered correctly.
It is a web application, so we can develop some things and check the result via web browser. The integrated web engine used in True Drive is based on Chromium.
I tried 2021.9, but it complains about firmware, and I really don’t want to be doing any voluntary firmware upgrades/downgrades because I brick stuff when I do that - I’ve got god knows how many expensive devices that got bricked with firmware updates.
At least the wheelbase has a resale value at the moment. It won’t have if it gets bricked by me.
Sounds stupid, but that’s how my luck is with firmware.
If you need more revenue then you need to get creative and provide real value.
For instance, I’d pay money right now to get DirectInput Effects fixed.
When I had an AccuForce, they had this discussion about their SimCommander, as well. They never did do anything but they already had other established revenue streams.
At the time, I advised them that if they needed money from SimCommander then they needed to get creative. You just can’t charge for static software beyond the initial purchase price.
There are many options:
Pay once: Use the software forever
Pay only for new versions you want: Get to keep using only that version forever. Allows users to only buy what they find is of value
Pay a yearly subscription which guarantees 3 or 4 significant updates
Pay a certain higher one-time lifetime subscription fee and get updates forever
Crowdfund releases and features/fixes: This will tell you what people actually value. Example: Set a minimum crowdfund amount that users must reach before you’ll commit to a release or feature. Add in features if you exceed the base amount by X amount.
I just donated 8 euro to SimHub today even though I already had a license because their V8 release had real value and effort put into it. They don’t even require ongoing subscriptions. They don’t even try to push it. They really should, a little anyway, as they have a really high value product.
Cloud profiles are nice but are not convincing enough themselves to warrant a subscription.
But maybe you could start improving support even more for old and new games and that might warrant a subscription fee.
The ProtonMail guys just came out with an unlimited package (mail, vpn, calendar, storage) as they finally realized they really had to add value to justify a higher monthly fee.
You’ll create ill will and negativity if you try to shoehorn in things that make users’ lives more difficult.
For example, making offline profiles worse to get people to use cloud profiles is just going to frustrate users.