Download Stats

This morning I decided to check the download stats on the various versions of the Bristol F2B and received a few surprises.

FS X version - first released on 2 Feb 2007 - Total downloads of Part 1 - 5,108
FS 2004 version - 1st released on 18 Feb 2007- Total downloads of Part 1 - 1,835
CFS3 Version - First released 30 March 2006 - Total downloads (11 mths)- 6,103

I was really surprised at the CFS3 version numbers. However the CFS3 version stats are for 11 months. It will be interesting to see how the FS versions fare after a similar period of time. Almost half the downloads of the CFS3 version are from Simviation with Sim-outhouse a distant second. Also the best month for downloads of the CFS3 version at Simviation is the current month. Thus the FS versions have brought renewed interest in the CFS3 version.

I am really pleased that the FSX version has exceeded 5,000 in less than 3 weeks though downloads are definitely slowing down, and in the case of Avsim to a trickle.

These figures are very useful to me as an indicator of interest in WW1 Aviation and also show that interest in CFS3 is certainly not dead and will help plan future projects. It would be difficult to translate the above to payware success, as many variables would be involved and probably less than 10% of those who download a freeware aircraft would pay for it. In the case of CFS3 probably very few indeed. Of course a modern 'tubeliner' would attract 10 times the downloads but would require a significant team to produce.

Food for thought :)

Rob