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BlackBox Simulations

falcon409

falcon409

Moderator
Staff member
Has anyone had any dealings with this Company other than purchasing? I've sent help tickets, posted on their Support Forum and tried e-mails and I get zero, zilch, nada. Their Forum has unanswered posts back to April (possibly even farther back if I had looked). They're located in Malta from what I see on their website and they only have two products, the A320 (and some variants) and the L-19 but most of their site is dedicated to the Airliners. . .very little on the Birddog. My biggest pet-peeve with developers like this is not answering customers in a timely manner. If you setup a support forum then be ready to get all manner of requests/complaints and be ready to answer immediately, not 3 or 4 days or weeks later. If you're too busy to answer then designate someone who isn't too busy. . .otherwise shut it down get out of the hobby and find something else you're more suited for like knitting or sitting in the park playing chess all day.

My second biggest pet peeve is someone who doesn't answer emails. If you post email addresses on your website then you should expect to get e-mails and when you get those, you're actually supposed to answer them. Again, why bother setting up e-mail addresses and then not answer? Too busy. . .no excuse! No one is that busy. I know people who swear they are constantly on the go, busy, busy, busy, yet they spend more time talking about how busy they are than actually doing anything at all other than imagining how busy they are, lol. On the road, "Laptops", "iPhones", "Wifi". . .sooner or later you've gotta stop somewhere. Work all day, tired when you get home. . .too bad, you've got a business to run, pay attention to it or shut it down.

Crap like this drives me nuts. . .no excuse!
 
Ed,
I had heard their support was sub-par and Bernt Stolle's opinion on the progress (lack thereof) in the successive updates were warning enough for me to totally avoid their products. Still, I truly hate when anyone get's burned on such things after paying good money into such products.
 
StormILM said:
Ed,
I had heard their support was sub-par and Bernt Stolle's opinion on the progress (lack thereof) in the successive updates were warning enough for me to totally avoid their products. Still, I truly hate when anyone get's burned on such things after paying good money into such products.
Click to expand...
Actually while not up to Sibwings standards on the L-19. . .the product itself is fine, no real complaints there, but I had several questions related to paint kits and texture corrections and that's where this company simply doesn't seem to care. It would take all of a few minutes to put an answer together for what I've requested and yet they can't seem to muster the time it takes to even do that much.
 
Ed, sounds like they missed the memo about how 3rd party repaints can increase sales of their product.
 
pilto von pilto said:
In 17 years of business,we have yet to see any concrete evidence that repaints increase sales.
Click to expand...

sometimes poorly detailed and mapped paintkits or models where alpha and spec mapping properties are different across the mdl could be a factor

just saying

as ive seen lots of posts from products with good paint kits where people have stated because of 3rd party paints by other they purchased the product

painters dont care if developers dont care

just saying
 
jeansy said:
sometimes poorly detailed and mapped paintkits or models where alpha and spec mapping properties are different across the mdl could be a factor

just saying

as ive seen lots of posts from products with good paint kits where people have stated because of 3rd party paints by other they purchased the product

painters dont care if developers dont care

just saying
Click to expand...

only interested in the facts.

just saying
 
pilto von pilto said:
In 17 years of business,we have yet to see any concrete evidence that repaints increase sales.
Click to expand...


In 8 years of flight simming I have purchased a number of aircraft due to one or more excellent repaints. It is not every time I buy an aircraft, but it has been the deciding factor on more than one occasion. The reverse is also true. I have passed on aircraft, which are not study sim aircraft anyway, if there are no interesting paints or if I think the paints I see don't look that good.

That is just me. I'm not going to speak for anyone else, and I definitely won't speak for an industry.
 
bazzar said:
only interested in the facts.

just saying
Click to expand...

Are there well established facts? Can you reference any sound market research? All here is anecdotal based on contradictory personal experience. But, as a painter, I feel disappointed developers represented here seem to regard free repaints as of such little significance or merit. A lot of research and effort goes into what I do and it frequently markedly improves (at least in my own, biased, view) what some developers have had us pay for. Still I do it because it's my hobby and for my own satisfaction.

Just saying.....

DaveQ
 
Following the logic that the success of an addon depends on the availability of repaints/paintkit e.g. Alabeo/Carenado would out of business since quite some time now.
 
Good topic....And one that is a factor in this hobby on a daily basis.

I have no experience with BlackBox. That said however, there are certainly behavior patterns and attitudes on display from some payware developers that seem to reflect either a lack of business acumen, or the influence of a particular ethos/ideology/mindset that is more of a hobby than a business mentality. Other developers are fantastic in the support and communications arena...It seems to be a case of "YMMV" - Your Milage May Vary".

While this is occasionally annoying, I tend to chalk it up to the "artist" factor...since the gorgeous aircraft being produced today are often nothing short of art.

Kent
 
bbrz said:
Following the logic that the success of an addon depends on the availability of repaints/paintkit e.g. Alabeo/Carenado would out of business since quite some time now.
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how?, theres heaps of paints for the both of them, maybe nothing you like but there are more than enough painters like Jankees, Ron Attwood & Dirk just to name a few have done dozens, actually more than whats out there for AH

I can recall a post of "Whats wrong with my Dc3 package" from a certain dev,


just saying......
 
In real life I have a profession where we verify everything what is said or stated has evidence to support this.

When the Aeroplane Heaven company states that they haven't seen any evidence that repaints promote sails, than they are correct. Just because because there is no evidence. This however does not imply that repaints not contribute to sales, but the fact is, that nobody ever did any specific and solid research on this subject.

My personal feeling however is that repaints significantly add to how people enjoy models. For the repainters (like me), because it enables them to perform their hobby, but also for the "virtual flying" customers who choose their favourite livery. When I see how many request I have had over the years, I think I have enough evidence in my mailbox to prove that its important enough for people to fly their "own" favourite livery to write en e-mail to somebody they don't even know.

And also for myself, I often also prefer greats repaints by the people here above the default liveries.

For a company I can imagine sales are more important, but for me, I enjoy it when I can provide somebody the small pleasure of flying his or her own livery.

No evidence to support this, but just my personal, somewhat biased, opinion.

Cheers,
Huub
 
More than one time i bought an aircraft just because works of repainters here at SOH like Jankees, Zsolt, Rick, etc. Thinking again, MANY times! So, yes, this happens a lot but logicaly there is no evidence to support it.

About the OP question: stay away from Blackbox products. Just issues after issues starting with their 737-200 wich sells thru JF store. I did a complete feedback to them about this plane and sent to BB. The only answer i got: "It´s not our problem. Ask JF to pay for the corrections". Ok, goodbye!
 
I must admit that the availability of repaints does effect my decision. I am usually not interested in the repaints themselves, its more a vote of confidence in the model. If lots of people think its good enough to make repaints for it, its more likely a good model. But would never not buy one because repaints are not available, unless all the stock paints are very ugly that is, I am usually happy if there is one that looks nice.
 
jeansy said:
how?, theres heaps of paints for the both of them, maybe nothing you like but there are more than enough painters like Jankees, Ron Attwood & Dirk just to name a few have done dozens, actually more than whats out there for AH
Click to expand...
I do stand corrected! I always read the complaints that mapping of Alabeo/Carenado planes makes them basically unpaintable and that there's no layered paintkit either.
Just found out that there are more than 800 at Avsim only for Carenado planes!

Never noticed that because for me, IRL as well, pure white planes are always the most elegant ones.
 
As far as I know, Blackbox is just a two-man company and not even run full time. And Graham, one of the devs, answered Ed's inquiry just yesterday.
 
Of course there is no doubt that re-paints enhance the hobby, of course they do. That is not the point. The point was, do they increase sales? We have no evidence or facts that they do, based on our 17 years of business operations.

Bjoern, many developers are just a couple of people, and that is another misunderstanding out there.
 
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