Interesting Statistics

[Mick]

I just found some numbers that surprised me more than a little.

A while back, when FlightSim revamped their website, I wondered if that would put off others as it did me, and whether it would affect their traffic and download numbers. I thought I'd compare the downloads of the same airplane from the "big three" sites and see what I might find. I didn't expect anything definitive because I'd never compared such figures before FlightSim made their changes and I wasn't curious enough to go digging through libraries to find older figures. And I didn't compare numbers for the B-45 because the need to learn the procedures for the new FlightSim and for SimV, which I hadn't used before, and prepare the required "packaging", I didn't put the B-45 up at all the sites on the same day. The reworked T4M went up everywhere at the same time so I used it for my comparison.

I expected that the "big three" would get about the same number of downloads, maybe a little less from SimV. And I figured a lot less from here since we're sort of a "niche" site with a presumably lower traffic volume. So this morning I looked at the download numbers for the T4M at the "big three" and here. This is what I found:

AvSim: 44 FlightSim: 28 SimV: 98 SOH: 64

I was amazed to see that SimV had more than twice what AvSim had and more than three times what FlightSim had. And SOH beat both AvSim and FlightSim.

So... are we and SimV the "big two?" Or have we bumped FlightSim out of the "big three?"

Of course I have no idea whether this proportional distribution has anything to do with the changes at FlightSim. Maybe they were always this far behind AvSim and we just didn't know it.

I wonder how much of this is due to the test file being an FS9 airplane. There are a lot of us old fogies here who are still mired in the past with a twenty year old sim. Would the outcome be different if the test subject was a plane for a more modern sim and presumably a younger and more numerous user base?

I wonder, but I'm not curious or motivated enough to do the research so maybe we'll never know.

[TARPSBird]

The results would probably be a lot different with a more modern plane, like Hiroshi Igami's (TDS) Boeing 737.
I'm more into older planes, but the TDS 737 is a really nice jet in either FS9 or FSX.

[huub vink]

Interesting, but TARPSbird already mention, it is most likely very much depending on the type of download.

I hardly upload my textures anywhere else so I don't regard myself a real good example. But a fictional WinAir repaint did 1,291 downloads at Flightsim.com and only 153 downloads here. Most textures for vintage warbirds I uploaded have slightly more downloads here than they have at Flightsim.com.
I think all sites have their own audience with slightly different interests.

Cheers,
Huub

[AndyG43]

I think all sites have their own audience with slightly different interests.

Absolutely. There are some who will post mainly/exclusively at Avsim (for example, I'm downloading a lot of FSX Greek scenery by Angelo Tassoglou), some at Flightsim (Peter Watkins and David Molyneaux spring to mind) and SimV is a good mixture of many things, especially older files that prove difficult to locate elsewhere. SOH has a cracking file library (the aforementioned Messrs Watkins & Molyneaux among others) but it is also a veritable fount of information and very helpful people and, as those people include many of the best modellers, you can often get direct advice (as I had from Mick earlier this year re. the Flettner sounds). Horses for courses.