When I first started sniffing along the trail of ProFlightSimulator, it appeared to be "owned" by somebody in Australia, at a bogus address along the Sydney waterfront. My original "whois" on the URL showed it registered to a known Internet scammer in New Jersey. Now it points to an anonymous hosting service in Los Angeles, California
This latest version, VirtualPilot3D Tee Em, hides its tracks very well. A "whois" query points to a P.O. box in Denver, Colorado. The disclaimer claims that VirtualPilot3D is "governed by the laws of Sweden".
Never, ever, buy from anybody online if you don't know who they are, and where they are, in the Real World. (Especially if they claim to have FAA Certification.)
Showing posts with label airplane games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airplane games. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2012
VirtualPilot3D: Same Scam as Before
Less than two months after they re-re-re-re-released their scam under the name "Real Airplane Simulator", the ProFlightSimulator people are back with "VirtualPilot3D™". I thought the was a particularly nice touch. It pretends to add credibility to the product. I mean, nobody would trademark a scam, right? That's right. They didn't trademark it. They just added the ™ to the name.
The VirtualPilot3D website looks just like all the other websites: bogus testimonials from people who don't really exist, screenshots swiped from FlightGear and other simulators; Ron-Popeil-worthy prose; a deeply discounted price (for free software published by somebody else and essentially stolen by these guys); a promise of free lifetime upgrades (which the free software also provides); and a 100% satisfaction guarantee which, according to the poor suckers who have tried to exercise it, isn't worth the paper it's (not) printed on. And just like all those other websites, it's a scam.
I've written about this scam several times on Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters. It's a pernicious thing that I know I won't be able to eradicate, but if I can save at least one person from being fooled and ripped off by these crooks, then it's worth the effort.
There's a flood of ads for VirtualPilot3D on Facebook. I encourage you to click on the "X" or "Hide this Ad" for each ad, and tell FB that it's "Misleading". FB hasn't figured out yet that it's a scam, but if they get enough feedback from their users, they might catch a clue.
In the meantime, if you click through on one of those ads, and end up buying VirtualPilot3D Tee Em, then good luck to you. I warned you.
UPDATE: I just reread the VirtualPilot3D webpage and noticed they're trumpeting the product as "FAA Certified." I'll be posting something else about that.
The VirtualPilot3D website looks just like all the other websites: bogus testimonials from people who don't really exist, screenshots swiped from FlightGear and other simulators; Ron-Popeil-worthy prose; a deeply discounted price (for free software published by somebody else and essentially stolen by these guys); a promise of free lifetime upgrades (which the free software also provides); and a 100% satisfaction guarantee which, according to the poor suckers who have tried to exercise it, isn't worth the paper it's (not) printed on. And just like all those other websites, it's a scam.
I've written about this scam several times on Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters. It's a pernicious thing that I know I won't be able to eradicate, but if I can save at least one person from being fooled and ripped off by these crooks, then it's worth the effort.
There's a flood of ads for VirtualPilot3D on Facebook. I encourage you to click on the "X" or "Hide this Ad" for each ad, and tell FB that it's "Misleading". FB hasn't figured out yet that it's a scam, but if they get enough feedback from their users, they might catch a clue.
In the meantime, if you click through on one of those ads, and end up buying VirtualPilot3D Tee Em, then good luck to you. I warned you.
UPDATE: I just reread the VirtualPilot3D webpage and noticed they're trumpeting the product as "FAA Certified." I'll be posting something else about that.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Real Airplane Simulator: Same Scam, Different Dress
I have written before about the solid scam that goes by ProFlightSimulator, Flight Pro Sim, and so many other names. Here's a new twist on the scam. On Facebook and other places, you will find ads and links pointing to http://realairplanesimulator.com/ . That webpage asks for your name and email address (don't do it!) as payment for downloading a document called "The Easy Guide to Choosing the Best Flight Simulators."
The website is very well put together, by the way. The footer includes links for "Terms and Conditions" and "Contact Us," and they sound absolutely legit. The top menu bar includes links to a couple of so-called articles, one of which includes a short video. I don't know for sure, but I think the video was recorded from a different flight simulator, not this one.
If you scroll further down the Real Airplane Simulator webpage, you will see that it's pushing ProFlightSimulator Suite and Flight Simulator Plus, two other incarnations that I've written about before.
But all of this is just for appearance. It's a tissue-paper-thin facade whose sole purpose is to make the whole enterprise legitimate. In other words, it's a sham covering the scam. Don't fall for it.
The downloadable document? Well, Cody Moya or one of his sock puppets (namely, Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti) ripped off a bunch of stuff on the Web, compiled it all with some of his own bogus literature about ProFlightSimulator, and published it in a PDF document, purporting to be the definitive word about the subject.
The definitive word about the subject is not found in this deceptive, self-serving, waste of bytes. It's found in this statement from FlightGear.org.
If you do fall for their hype and hand over your money, well, I feel sorry for you. But I told you so.
The website is very well put together, by the way. The footer includes links for "Terms and Conditions" and "Contact Us," and they sound absolutely legit. The top menu bar includes links to a couple of so-called articles, one of which includes a short video. I don't know for sure, but I think the video was recorded from a different flight simulator, not this one.
If you scroll further down the Real Airplane Simulator webpage, you will see that it's pushing ProFlightSimulator Suite and Flight Simulator Plus, two other incarnations that I've written about before.
But all of this is just for appearance. It's a tissue-paper-thin facade whose sole purpose is to make the whole enterprise legitimate. In other words, it's a sham covering the scam. Don't fall for it.
The downloadable document? Well, Cody Moya or one of his sock puppets (namely, Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti) ripped off a bunch of stuff on the Web, compiled it all with some of his own bogus literature about ProFlightSimulator, and published it in a PDF document, purporting to be the definitive word about the subject.
The definitive word about the subject is not found in this deceptive, self-serving, waste of bytes. It's found in this statement from FlightGear.org.
If you do fall for their hype and hand over your money, well, I feel sorry for you. But I told you so.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
ProFlightSimulator: Getting to the Bottom of the Scam
I think I might know who's behind ProFlightSimulator. I found some interesting clues in an independent statistical report about this blog.
In doing research for a June 7, 2011 blog entry, I found that the PFS website was registered to a Cody Moya, of Short Hills, New Jersey. I didn't think much about it, as a lot of people use bogus entities to register their websites.
But today's statistical report showed that someone had come across my blog by searching for the keywords "cody moya scams." Seeing that name for a second time, especially associated with the word "scams," got my radar buzzing. So I tried the Web search myself.
As the plumber said about the clogged toilet in the cathedral: Holy crap.
It turns out that Moya makes a living out of repackaging and reselling free software. His wares are advertised using websites with a tone and style frighteningly similar to the tone and style of all the PFS websites we've seen. He is not without his detractors or enemies, however. A lot of people have written a lot of stuff about him, none of it good. According to these writers, once he gets your email address, he will send you an endless stream of email trying to sell you more stuff - and once he gets your money, you will never see it again. There's also some speculation that "Cody Moya" isn't a real person - kind of like "Dan Freeman" of PFS.
Here are some comments left on http://www.imreportcard.com/people/cody-moya:
Two years before I ran across his name, an entry on The Scammers Manifesto reported that Cody Moya was nothing but a scammer. It's a short piece, worth reading for yourself.
And here's some of Moya's own advice, from one of his own blog entries called "Churning out eZine Content": (redirected from http://www.codymoya.com)
I haven't yet figured out the connection yet between Cody Moya and ProFlightSimulator, but the similarities are convincing: a loudmouthed huckster, carefully hiding his identity and contact information, repackaging free software, hyping it and selling it for as much as he can get away with, then running away with the suckers' money. It's a 21st-century version of a con game as old as civilization.
In doing research for a June 7, 2011 blog entry, I found that the PFS website was registered to a Cody Moya, of Short Hills, New Jersey. I didn't think much about it, as a lot of people use bogus entities to register their websites.
But today's statistical report showed that someone had come across my blog by searching for the keywords "cody moya scams." Seeing that name for a second time, especially associated with the word "scams," got my radar buzzing. So I tried the Web search myself.
As the plumber said about the clogged toilet in the cathedral: Holy crap.
It turns out that Moya makes a living out of repackaging and reselling free software. His wares are advertised using websites with a tone and style frighteningly similar to the tone and style of all the PFS websites we've seen. He is not without his detractors or enemies, however. A lot of people have written a lot of stuff about him, none of it good. According to these writers, once he gets your email address, he will send you an endless stream of email trying to sell you more stuff - and once he gets your money, you will never see it again. There's also some speculation that "Cody Moya" isn't a real person - kind of like "Dan Freeman" of PFS.
Here are some comments left on http://www.imreportcard.com/people/cody-moya:
"Products sold on his site are mostly owned by others and are of rather dubious quality. Give your Address mail to sign on as myself and I had to change my mail address because I was constantly bombarded with spam several times a day, otherwise your inbox will become a landfill of spam."
"I think this Cody Moya is not real, and you know everyday my email is full with his offers of spam email, and that is very disgusting. Also his product is a junky product and very, very worthless and I think this guy is a scammer. "
Two years before I ran across his name, an entry on The Scammers Manifesto reported that Cody Moya was nothing but a scammer. It's a short piece, worth reading for yourself.
And here's some of Moya's own advice, from one of his own blog entries called "Churning out eZine Content": (redirected from http://www.codymoya.com)
"Another little known and underused method in getting your own content is via public domains. If you are not familiar with the term “public domain”, “public domain” simply means anything that is NOT protected under US copyright law.
This includes ALL works published before 1923 and, under certain conditions, works published up to 1978. And in this case, we are referring “works” to written materials such as reports, articles and books. Republishing and repackaging public domain information can help you save time and effort from creating new ideas and content as they are readily available. On top of that, you do not have to pay royalties or copyright fees on that work.
If you fancy the idea of publishing content without any writing on your part, this method is for you."
I haven't yet figured out the connection yet between Cody Moya and ProFlightSimulator, but the similarities are convincing: a loudmouthed huckster, carefully hiding his identity and contact information, repackaging free software, hyping it and selling it for as much as he can get away with, then running away with the suckers' money. It's a 21st-century version of a con game as old as civilization.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Flight Simulator Plus: Proof by repeated assertion
If you want to find out the truth about Flight Simulator Plus, you may be tempted to search Google using the search terms "Flight Simulator Plus scam". What you will end up with is hundreds of search-engine-optimized webpages proclaiming that FSP is not a scam. This is what's known as "proof by repeated assertion" - the idea that if you say something often enough, it becomes accepted as truth, even if it really isn't. Politicians and their parrots use this logical fallacy all the time.
Look closely at some of the webpages pointed to by your search. They all use the same language, often the same bullet points, and even the same poor English. That points to one of two possibilities: either one person wrote a template and all these people are copying it, or THE SAME PERSON (OR SMALL TEAM) WROTE ALL THESE WEBPAGES. I've written about this before.
A hundred webpages proclaiming that it's not a scam doesn't legitimize it. It's still a scam, and it always will be.
For the gentle, honest, rational truth, start here: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Flight_Simulator_Plus .
p.s. My reporting tools tell me that the purveyors of Flight Simulator Plus (or whatever it's called this week) have been reading these articles about their "product" at Zyzmog Galactic HQ.
Look closely at some of the webpages pointed to by your search. They all use the same language, often the same bullet points, and even the same poor English. That points to one of two possibilities: either one person wrote a template and all these people are copying it, or THE SAME PERSON (OR SMALL TEAM) WROTE ALL THESE WEBPAGES. I've written about this before.
A hundred webpages proclaiming that it's not a scam doesn't legitimize it. It's still a scam, and it always will be.
For the gentle, honest, rational truth, start here: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Flight_Simulator_Plus .
p.s. My reporting tools tell me that the purveyors of Flight Simulator Plus (or whatever it's called this week) have been reading these articles about their "product" at Zyzmog Galactic HQ.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Flight Simulator Plus: Don't Waste Your Money
Don't fall for the scam that is Flight Simulator Plus.
Flight Simulator Plus is just ProFlightSimulator in a new dress - identical to the old dress, except that the tags have been cut out of the collar and new tags sewn in.
And it's still a SCAM.
The scammers are learning, though: the webpage http://www.flightsimulatorplus.org isn't three miles long like its predecessors, full of breathless Ron-Popeil-worthy prose. It's much shorter, and includes a few photos and videos.
(Ah, but the original three-mile-long page is still there, along with sock puppet "Huge Miller." ("Huge"? What kind of name is that?) You can see it by clicking on the "Discount" link on the FSP main page. It's fun reading. Just don't take any of it seriously.)
I haven't watched the videos. But the photos? Six of them say they're copyrighted by FSP:
- One is a photo of a real Boeing 747, taking off into a real sunset.
- One is a photo of a real sunset under the wing of a real airliner, taken from about row 34, back in the cheap seats.
- One is a photo of three real F-18s, taken from the deck of a real aircraft carrier.
- One is either a screen shot of a WWII fighter simulation game, not FSP, or the picture from the box the WWII fighter sim game came in.
- Two are views of runways, one on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They're clearly taken from Google Maps, Google Earth, or Mapquest, and not from any flight simulator.
While the photo taken from the cheap seats could be a legitimate photo owned by the purveyors of FSP, I think that FSP ripped off all six photos from somewhere else, and their copyright notice is bogus.
The other photos are all screenshots from FlightGear, X Plane, or MS Flight Simulator X, and have been previously posted on the Web. If you do an image search for "FlightGear," you will find every one of them - and more. The FSP guys just ripped them off.
The program itself is a rip-off. FSP is a blatant copy of the free (and really, really good) flight simulator, FlightGear. Independent research has shown that they took all the FlightGear source code, and a lot of the copyrighted add-ons, edited them to try to hide the original authorship, repackaged the lot, and are selling it as their own work.
And they will rip you off, too. People who have bought it and then tried to return it under the warranty policy, have told their tales of woe here on Zyzmog Galactic HQ, the FlightGear forums, and elsewhere.
("They" remain carefully hidden, though. This version of the scam has no identifying information on the website at all. If that doesn't raise a red flag for you, the buyer, then you deserve to get scammed. NEVER buy anything online from a seller who isn't willing to reveal his or her true identity and contact information.)
Don't reward the scammers. Read everything that Zyzmog Galactic HQ has to say about this scam. Then go over to the FlightGear website, and download and enjoy The Real Thing. Or, if you can't stand to get something this good for free, and you're itching to spend real money, then buy XPlane or Microsoft Flight Simulator X instead. Both are very good, commercial flight simulators, and worth every penny. If you insist on buying FSP, then we'll be reading your regrets, here or on the FlightGear forums, in a little while.
But Flight Simulator Plus is a scam. Get it?
Postscript: You will find a lot of pages on the Web, insisting that FSP is not a scam. Go ahead and read a few of them. You will discover that they're all written by sock puppets, and most of them are poorly written. You will also find a lot of bogus "reviews" of FSP. They're all written by the same person (or persons), and posted under different names and using different URLs. For a scammer, URLs are cheap and disposable.
Postscript 2: I'm tickled that this article and its sequel are getting so many hits. I'm rather amused that so many of the hits come from Australia and New Zealand, whence the scam originates.
Flight Simulator Plus is just ProFlightSimulator in a new dress - identical to the old dress, except that the tags have been cut out of the collar and new tags sewn in.
And it's still a SCAM.
The scammers are learning, though: the webpage http://www.flightsimulatorplus.org isn't three miles long like its predecessors, full of breathless Ron-Popeil-worthy prose. It's much shorter, and includes a few photos and videos.
(Ah, but the original three-mile-long page is still there, along with sock puppet "Huge Miller." ("Huge"? What kind of name is that?) You can see it by clicking on the "Discount" link on the FSP main page. It's fun reading. Just don't take any of it seriously.)
I haven't watched the videos. But the photos? Six of them say they're copyrighted by FSP:
- One is a photo of a real Boeing 747, taking off into a real sunset.
- One is a photo of a real sunset under the wing of a real airliner, taken from about row 34, back in the cheap seats.
- One is a photo of three real F-18s, taken from the deck of a real aircraft carrier.
- One is either a screen shot of a WWII fighter simulation game, not FSP, or the picture from the box the WWII fighter sim game came in.
- Two are views of runways, one on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They're clearly taken from Google Maps, Google Earth, or Mapquest, and not from any flight simulator.
While the photo taken from the cheap seats could be a legitimate photo owned by the purveyors of FSP, I think that FSP ripped off all six photos from somewhere else, and their copyright notice is bogus.
The other photos are all screenshots from FlightGear, X Plane, or MS Flight Simulator X, and have been previously posted on the Web. If you do an image search for "FlightGear," you will find every one of them - and more. The FSP guys just ripped them off.
The program itself is a rip-off. FSP is a blatant copy of the free (and really, really good) flight simulator, FlightGear. Independent research has shown that they took all the FlightGear source code, and a lot of the copyrighted add-ons, edited them to try to hide the original authorship, repackaged the lot, and are selling it as their own work.
And they will rip you off, too. People who have bought it and then tried to return it under the warranty policy, have told their tales of woe here on Zyzmog Galactic HQ, the FlightGear forums, and elsewhere.
("They" remain carefully hidden, though. This version of the scam has no identifying information on the website at all. If that doesn't raise a red flag for you, the buyer, then you deserve to get scammed. NEVER buy anything online from a seller who isn't willing to reveal his or her true identity and contact information.)
Don't reward the scammers. Read everything that Zyzmog Galactic HQ has to say about this scam. Then go over to the FlightGear website, and download and enjoy The Real Thing. Or, if you can't stand to get something this good for free, and you're itching to spend real money, then buy XPlane or Microsoft Flight Simulator X instead. Both are very good, commercial flight simulators, and worth every penny. If you insist on buying FSP, then we'll be reading your regrets, here or on the FlightGear forums, in a little while.
But Flight Simulator Plus is a scam. Get it?
Postscript: You will find a lot of pages on the Web, insisting that FSP is not a scam. Go ahead and read a few of them. You will discover that they're all written by sock puppets, and most of them are poorly written. You will also find a lot of bogus "reviews" of FSP. They're all written by the same person (or persons), and posted under different names and using different URLs. For a scammer, URLs are cheap and disposable.
Postscript 2: I'm tickled that this article and its sequel are getting so many hits. I'm rather amused that so many of the hits come from Australia and New Zealand, whence the scam originates.
Friday, September 30, 2011
ProFlightSimulator - the Scam Lives On
In this newest iteration of Whack-A-Mole, the ProFlightSimulator scam is back. Now it's fronted by a website called GamerXtreme. GamerXtreme gives you two scams for the price of one: Pro Flight Simulator Suite (yes, that's right, Suite) and Flight Simulator Plus. Um, don't worry, they're identical. And they're still ripoffs of Flight Gear and its add-ons. I don't thnk the two scams use duplicate screen shots, but they both contain screen shots stolen from websites of FlightGear and its fans. You'll recognize every screenshot.
Dan Freeman, the sock puppet that flogged ProFlightSimulator, is flogging PFSSuite. And FSPlus introduces us to a new sock puppet, Huge Miller. Yes, that's right: his first name is "Huge", spelled H-U-G-E. Either English is not his inventor's native language, or his inventor is just plain stupid, or Huge is a real person and that's his real name and his mama didn't like him. Hmm - which do you think is more probable?
Remember Ed Dale? His testimonial is reprinted for PFSSuite (word for word), but his alter ego, Wayne Mayer, is gone. Oh, both packages have some really beautiful bogus testimonials. They're almost believable. And there's no duplication. Some of the pictures looked like they were harvested from the scam-the-Nigerian-scammer webpages.
And, as with the previous versions of this scam, there's page after page of breathless, in-your-face hype about the products. Seriously, it's like reading a Ron Popeil script, complete with "NOW how much would you pay?", "But wait, there's more!", "If you order now, we'll give you a bonus", and of course "Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back." Don't believe a word of it.
It's still the same scam, mutated and bifurcated. Don't fall for it. If you're tempted to buy one of these packages, don't. Instead, go and download the real thing, the original, the non-ripoff version: FlightGear.
Also, please tell your friends about this. Seriously, say something about it on Facebook. Tweet about it. Put something on your blog. Click on the "X" in the upper right-hand corner of the Facebook ad, and report it to FB as "Misleading." If enough of us do this, eventually it won't be worth "Dan Freeman's" time to continue the charade, and he'll drop it permanently. Maybe.
Dan Freeman, the sock puppet that flogged ProFlightSimulator, is flogging PFSSuite. And FSPlus introduces us to a new sock puppet, Huge Miller. Yes, that's right: his first name is "Huge", spelled H-U-G-E. Either English is not his inventor's native language, or his inventor is just plain stupid, or Huge is a real person and that's his real name and his mama didn't like him. Hmm - which do you think is more probable?
Remember Ed Dale? His testimonial is reprinted for PFSSuite (word for word), but his alter ego, Wayne Mayer, is gone. Oh, both packages have some really beautiful bogus testimonials. They're almost believable. And there's no duplication. Some of the pictures looked like they were harvested from the scam-the-Nigerian-scammer webpages.
And, as with the previous versions of this scam, there's page after page of breathless, in-your-face hype about the products. Seriously, it's like reading a Ron Popeil script, complete with "NOW how much would you pay?", "But wait, there's more!", "If you order now, we'll give you a bonus", and of course "Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back." Don't believe a word of it.
It's still the same scam, mutated and bifurcated. Don't fall for it. If you're tempted to buy one of these packages, don't. Instead, go and download the real thing, the original, the non-ripoff version: FlightGear.
Also, please tell your friends about this. Seriously, say something about it on Facebook. Tweet about it. Put something on your blog. Click on the "X" in the upper right-hand corner of the Facebook ad, and report it to FB as "Misleading." If enough of us do this, eventually it won't be worth "Dan Freeman's" time to continue the charade, and he'll drop it permanently. Maybe.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Make a video game! Part Two
In my previous entry, I quoted one of the inventors of the PC as saying that the reign of the PC is over. Well, Forbes has been saying "The PC is dead" for years now, and the PC still refuses to die. I think what will eventually happen is that the PC will lose its cachet with household users, and go back into the office and the laboratory whence it came. But it will not die. After all, you have to develop all those Android and iPod apps on something.
(When I say "PC," I'm including "Mac" in the mix. Don't get your senstivities all in a twist, okay? I'm also going to throw laptop and notebook PCs in with the desktop ones - basically, any computing device that uses a keyboard and mouse for input, and a pixellated display for output.)
The latest wrinkle in video and computer gaming is 3D gameplay. You're all familiar with 3D movies, some recent notable ones being Tangled, Harry Potter and the Installment of Doom, and Captain America. I only saw Tangled in 2D, although I can imagine that it was spectacular in 3D. I saw Harry Potter in 3D, and to be honest, it didn't need it. Don't get me wrong: the movie was great, the 3D effects were great, but the 3D effects did not enhance the story. The story is very well told, and it can stand on its own, without the aid of 3D.
Nevertheless, 3D cinema is here to stay. The moviemakers are doing it right this time, and though I think it's just a recycled fad, I also think it's permanent. As my Harry Potter experience showed, not everything needs to be 3D, but for some movies, it really makes a difference.
Now 3D is moving out of the movies and into games. Kenneth Wong writes a thoughtful piece about it in the June/July 2011 issue of Computer Graphics World, called "Seeing Double: Stereo 3D Moves from Cinema to Game Cinematic and Gameplay." Okay, that's a long title, but Wong makes a good case for 3D. He says that it's kind of clunky right now, like the original Atari 2600's sprites were kind of clunky back then, but that it can only get better with time. The entry point for 3D gaming is "Nvidia's $149 stereo 3D kit, called 3D Vision." Think of that! For only a hundred and fifty bucks, you can get a glimpse into the future of gaming. That sounds pretty good. (But you'll need a PC or Mac to do it.)
He quotes Mike Roush, from Gaijin Games (developers of the Bit.Trip game series) as saying '"3D is such a young medium right now. It's just going to get bigger. Being in the first round of game deveopers to work on stereo 3D is an honor."'
Then he quotes Vernon Wilbert of Digital Domain. Wilbert notes that every breakthrough or incremental improvement in interactive entertainment (by which Wong means "games") is, as Wilbert puts it, "a push toward the holodeck." Star Trek fans will understand that reference. Says Wong, quoting Wilbert: '"It's getting you one step closer to the holodeck. Stereo is the gateway to something else."'
(When I say "PC," I'm including "Mac" in the mix. Don't get your senstivities all in a twist, okay? I'm also going to throw laptop and notebook PCs in with the desktop ones - basically, any computing device that uses a keyboard and mouse for input, and a pixellated display for output.)
The latest wrinkle in video and computer gaming is 3D gameplay. You're all familiar with 3D movies, some recent notable ones being Tangled, Harry Potter and the Installment of Doom, and Captain America. I only saw Tangled in 2D, although I can imagine that it was spectacular in 3D. I saw Harry Potter in 3D, and to be honest, it didn't need it. Don't get me wrong: the movie was great, the 3D effects were great, but the 3D effects did not enhance the story. The story is very well told, and it can stand on its own, without the aid of 3D.
Nevertheless, 3D cinema is here to stay. The moviemakers are doing it right this time, and though I think it's just a recycled fad, I also think it's permanent. As my Harry Potter experience showed, not everything needs to be 3D, but for some movies, it really makes a difference.
Now 3D is moving out of the movies and into games. Kenneth Wong writes a thoughtful piece about it in the June/July 2011 issue of Computer Graphics World, called "Seeing Double: Stereo 3D Moves from Cinema to Game Cinematic and Gameplay." Okay, that's a long title, but Wong makes a good case for 3D. He says that it's kind of clunky right now, like the original Atari 2600's sprites were kind of clunky back then, but that it can only get better with time. The entry point for 3D gaming is "Nvidia's $149 stereo 3D kit, called 3D Vision." Think of that! For only a hundred and fifty bucks, you can get a glimpse into the future of gaming. That sounds pretty good. (But you'll need a PC or Mac to do it.)
He quotes Mike Roush, from Gaijin Games (developers of the Bit.Trip game series) as saying '"3D is such a young medium right now. It's just going to get bigger. Being in the first round of game deveopers to work on stereo 3D is an honor."'
Then he quotes Vernon Wilbert of Digital Domain. Wilbert notes that every breakthrough or incremental improvement in interactive entertainment (by which Wong means "games") is, as Wilbert puts it, "a push toward the holodeck." Star Trek fans will understand that reference. Says Wong, quoting Wilbert: '"It's getting you one step closer to the holodeck. Stereo is the gateway to something else."'
Want to make a million bucks? Make a video game!
Two interesting articles appeared this month in two different publications. One was about the eventual decline of the PC, and the other was about the glowing future of 3D video games. These two articles are related, although the authors did not intend it that way.
The first was actually an entry in the "A Smarter Planet Blog" on August 10, 2011, entitled IBM Leads the Way in the Post-PC Era. This article was written by Mark Dean, Chief Technology officer of IBM Middle East and Africa, who was one of the 12 original PC designers 30 years ago (released to the public on August 12, 1981) and a driving force in IBM's PC division until it was sold to Lenovo in 2005.
Dean says:
For another example (and a good segue into the second article), I was part of the start-up of two computer game companies in the 2003-2004 era. All of our development work was PC-based. All of the tools were PC-based. This made sense, because the target platforms for our games were overwhelmingly PCs. (Mac and Linux were Johnny-come-latelys in the gaming world.) If we were still developing games today, the world would be a lot different. Our development work could be done as easily on a Mac or Linux box as on a PC, and the target platforms would not be overwhelmingly PCs. In the intervening years, consoles have made an incredible resurgence, with the Microsoft XBox family, the Nintendo Wii, and the Sony PlayStation family. In a dramatic shift, more high-end games are played on consoles today than on PCs.
But the market is in rapid flux, and the consoles are now seeing their lunch money stolen by smartphones, iPods, tablets, and the completely ethereal and device-independent Internet. Okay, so the Internet existed more than 8 years ago - even Web browsers existed more than 8 years ago - but most users did not have a high-speed connection to the Internet. Now that has all changed. Even the aforementioned iPods have high-speed processors and high-bandwidth connections to the Internet, which make playing online games a cinch.
How big is the game industry? Well, it's grown immensely since I first stuck my toe in it. In the June/July issue of Computer Graphics World (see p. 26 of the print edition), Kenneth Wong cited the following figures:
Look at those numbers again. They contain two hidden statistics, which Wong bypassed because they were irrelevant to the thrust of his article. But they're worth noting. First, the $10.6 billion spent on console games alone in 2010 was more than the total spent on all console, portable and PC games ($10.5 billion) a year before. Second, that third piece of the pie which Wong lumped together as "the rest," was a not-insignificant 38 percent of game sales revenues, or $9.1 billion.
It's easy to look at the video and computer game industry and say that the pond is full, that there's no more room for the little fishies, what with big names like EA Games and Vivendi Universal swimming around. The truth is that there's still a lot of room for the little fishies, the indie developers. While much of the innovation goes on in the big companies, and up the road at Pixar and Lucasfilm, the indies are holding their own. Once in a while, one of them strikes gold (Angry Birds, anyone?). The gaming industry is still a good place to make a start.
Two companies are worth mentioning here, and I know that my readers can suggest others.
First: Nvidia. According to Wong, Nvidia has a $149 product called 3D Vision which, when installed on your PC (hey! I guess they're not dead!), allows you to play many of your favorite 2D titles in 3D. A list of the 2D games that work with 3D Vision is available at http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-games.html . There's a lot more to 3D Vision than just a 2D-to-3D retrofit: Nvidia is serious about their 3D offerings .
Second: GarageGames. This is the ultimate indie gamer resource, and the last refuge of the indie gamer. GarageGames, through their Torque family of game engines (game-creation software, basically) and their user community, has done more to promote indie gamers, on more platforms, than any other company out there.
The first was actually an entry in the "A Smarter Planet Blog" on August 10, 2011, entitled IBM Leads the Way in the Post-PC Era. This article was written by Mark Dean, Chief Technology officer of IBM Middle East and Africa, who was one of the 12 original PC designers 30 years ago (released to the public on August 12, 1981) and a driving force in IBM's PC division until it was sold to Lenovo in 2005.
Dean says:
It may be odd for me to say this, but I’m also proud IBM decided to leave the personal computer business in 2005, selling our PC division to Lenovo. While many in the tech industry questioned IBM’s decision to exit the business at the time, it’s now clear that our company was in the vanguard of the post-PC era.
I, personally, have moved beyond the PC as well. My primary computer now is a tablet. When I helped design the PC, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing. They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.
PCs are being replaced at the center of computing not by another type of device—though there’s plenty of excitement about smart phones and tablets—but by new ideas about the role that computing can play in progress. These days, it’s becoming clear that innovation flourishes best not on devices but in the social spaces between them, where people and ideas meet and interact. It is there that computing can have the most powerful impact on economy, society and people’s lives.It's an interesting concept, and a concept that gains currency when one looks around and sees the profusion of smartphones and tablets. So many of the tasks that used to require PCs (including laptops and netbooks) have abandoned that dependency. For example, it's now the custom, when one reaches the summit of one of Colorado's fourteeners (mountains higher than 14,000 feet), to pull out one's smartphone, take a self-portrait on the summit, and post it instantly on Facebook. That used to require a digital camera, a mini-USB cable, and a PC, and it couldn't be done until the climber came down the mountain and went home.
For another example (and a good segue into the second article), I was part of the start-up of two computer game companies in the 2003-2004 era. All of our development work was PC-based. All of the tools were PC-based. This made sense, because the target platforms for our games were overwhelmingly PCs. (Mac and Linux were Johnny-come-latelys in the gaming world.) If we were still developing games today, the world would be a lot different. Our development work could be done as easily on a Mac or Linux box as on a PC, and the target platforms would not be overwhelmingly PCs. In the intervening years, consoles have made an incredible resurgence, with the Microsoft XBox family, the Nintendo Wii, and the Sony PlayStation family. In a dramatic shift, more high-end games are played on consoles today than on PCs.
But the market is in rapid flux, and the consoles are now seeing their lunch money stolen by smartphones, iPods, tablets, and the completely ethereal and device-independent Internet. Okay, so the Internet existed more than 8 years ago - even Web browsers existed more than 8 years ago - but most users did not have a high-speed connection to the Internet. Now that has all changed. Even the aforementioned iPods have high-speed processors and high-bandwidth connections to the Internet, which make playing online games a cinch.
How big is the game industry? Well, it's grown immensely since I first stuck my toe in it. In the June/July issue of Computer Graphics World (see p. 26 of the print edition), Kenneth Wong cited the following figures:
... The total console, portable, and PC game software industry generated $10.5 billion in 2009. Of that, PC game software accounted only for $538 million. ... Total revenues spent on games in the US reached $24 billion in 2010. PC/Mac game downloads and retail box sales accounted for approximately 19 percent of that ($4.6 billion). By contrast, console games accounted for close to 43 percent ($10.6 billion). The rest was distributed among casual game portals, massively multiplayer games, social networks, and mobile devices.
Look at those numbers again. They contain two hidden statistics, which Wong bypassed because they were irrelevant to the thrust of his article. But they're worth noting. First, the $10.6 billion spent on console games alone in 2010 was more than the total spent on all console, portable and PC games ($10.5 billion) a year before. Second, that third piece of the pie which Wong lumped together as "the rest," was a not-insignificant 38 percent of game sales revenues, or $9.1 billion.
It's easy to look at the video and computer game industry and say that the pond is full, that there's no more room for the little fishies, what with big names like EA Games and Vivendi Universal swimming around. The truth is that there's still a lot of room for the little fishies, the indie developers. While much of the innovation goes on in the big companies, and up the road at Pixar and Lucasfilm, the indies are holding their own. Once in a while, one of them strikes gold (Angry Birds, anyone?). The gaming industry is still a good place to make a start.
Two companies are worth mentioning here, and I know that my readers can suggest others.
First: Nvidia. According to Wong, Nvidia has a $149 product called 3D Vision which, when installed on your PC (hey! I guess they're not dead!), allows you to play many of your favorite 2D titles in 3D. A list of the 2D games that work with 3D Vision is available at http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-games.html . There's a lot more to 3D Vision than just a 2D-to-3D retrofit: Nvidia is serious about their 3D offerings .
Second: GarageGames. This is the ultimate indie gamer resource, and the last refuge of the indie gamer. GarageGames, through their Torque family of game engines (game-creation software, basically) and their user community, has done more to promote indie gamers, on more platforms, than any other company out there.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
ProFlightSimulator is now Earth Flight Sim - and still a scam
Wow, that didn't take long. Thanks to the FlightGear community's hounding of ProFlightSimulator, and its subsequent exposure as a scam and a fraud (yes, a fraud- numerous cases of them refusing to honor their 60-day money-back guarantee), ProFlightSim has gone underground ...
... and re-emerged as "Earth Flight Sim." I told you earlier that trying to eradicate a scam of this sort was like playing Whack-A-Mole, and this is a perfect example. What makes this one noteworthy is the speed with which PFS disappeared and took on a new identity.
(Actually, PFS didn't disappear at all, and neither did its previous identity, "Flight Pro Sim". They're both still out there, trawling for suckers.)
Another thing that makes this one noteworthy, and insidious, is the similarity of the name "Earth Flight Sim" to "Google Earth Flight Simulator," which could cause confusion for Web users searching for the latter and finding a mess of links to the former. In the Real World, companies sue each other when product names get too similar like this.
This next point isn't noteworthy, but it's always worth remembering: Earth Flight Sim is nothing more than Pro Flight Simulator repackaged, which is nothing more than Flight Pro Sim repackaged, which is nothing more than FlightGear repackaged. And FlightGear is free. Why would you pay a single penny for something you can get for free?
Like its slimy predecessors, the Earth Flight Sim bundle includes many add-ons and extensions to FlightGear, without the original programmers' permission. Its website includes copyrighted images and videos which were recorded using FlightGear (and in some cases, Microsoft's commercial Flight Sim products) and have been appropriated and used by EFS, without permission.
Earth Flight Sim's "Contact Us" page is empty right now, except for the notation "Coming Soon ...". I would guess that Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti is trying to decide what to call himself this time. "Whois" reports that the domain name is registered to Cody Moya, of Short Hills NJ, but most domain names nowadays are registered to a third party, not the entity that actually uses the domain name.
Once again, my recommendation is that you download FlightGear for free and enjoy it. If you want to spend money on FlightGear, then buy FlightGear's own DVDs. Don't waste your money on scams and frauds like ProFlightSimulator and Earth Flight Sim.
... and re-emerged as "Earth Flight Sim." I told you earlier that trying to eradicate a scam of this sort was like playing Whack-A-Mole, and this is a perfect example. What makes this one noteworthy is the speed with which PFS disappeared and took on a new identity.
(Actually, PFS didn't disappear at all, and neither did its previous identity, "Flight Pro Sim". They're both still out there, trawling for suckers.)
Another thing that makes this one noteworthy, and insidious, is the similarity of the name "Earth Flight Sim" to "Google Earth Flight Simulator," which could cause confusion for Web users searching for the latter and finding a mess of links to the former. In the Real World, companies sue each other when product names get too similar like this.
This next point isn't noteworthy, but it's always worth remembering: Earth Flight Sim is nothing more than Pro Flight Simulator repackaged, which is nothing more than Flight Pro Sim repackaged, which is nothing more than FlightGear repackaged. And FlightGear is free. Why would you pay a single penny for something you can get for free?
Like its slimy predecessors, the Earth Flight Sim bundle includes many add-ons and extensions to FlightGear, without the original programmers' permission. Its website includes copyrighted images and videos which were recorded using FlightGear (and in some cases, Microsoft's commercial Flight Sim products) and have been appropriated and used by EFS, without permission.
Earth Flight Sim's "Contact Us" page is empty right now, except for the notation "Coming Soon ...". I would guess that Charlie Taylor, Dan Freeman, Michael Ortiz and Eriz Cremonti is trying to decide what to call himself this time. "Whois" reports that the domain name is registered to Cody Moya, of Short Hills NJ, but most domain names nowadays are registered to a third party, not the entity that actually uses the domain name.
Once again, my recommendation is that you download FlightGear for free and enjoy it. If you want to spend money on FlightGear, then buy FlightGear's own DVDs. Don't waste your money on scams and frauds like ProFlightSimulator and Earth Flight Sim.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
ProFlightSimulator revisited: still a scam
It's been over six months since I exposed ProFlightSimulator as a scam. Today, in a brief moment of boredom, I did a Google search for "ProFlightSimulator." Wow.
First of all, the entity behind PFS has snapped up the .org and .net domain names so that nobody else could use them, and has used them to push the product.
Second, they have created domain names like "proflightsimulatorreviews" and "proflightsimulatorreviewz", where they have posted bogus reviews from bogus users, in an effort to spoof the search engines' rating systems and boost their ratings.
Ah, but third, Web Of Trust has branded the main PFS site, and several of their shill sites, with their lowest rating: a red circle. PFS (and the entity behind it) is now officially a pariah.
Web Of Trust is a browser add-on which rates every web page you visit and every search engine entry on four characteristics: Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, Privacy, and Child Safety. If WOT gives a web site low marks or a red alert, that means it's a dangerous website, and you'd best stay away..
Granted, not everybody in the world uses (or even knows about) WOT. Most non-WOT users will blindly click on the links and get themselves in trouble. But WOT's ratings are based on user input, and therefore they represent a good cross-section of Web users; therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that most of the Web by now realizes that ProFlightSimulator and all of its bogus reviews are nothing but a load of kangaroo manure.
First of all, the entity behind PFS has snapped up the .org and .net domain names so that nobody else could use them, and has used them to push the product.
Second, they have created domain names like "proflightsimulatorreviews" and "proflightsimulatorreviewz", where they have posted bogus reviews from bogus users, in an effort to spoof the search engines' rating systems and boost their ratings.
Ah, but third, Web Of Trust has branded the main PFS site, and several of their shill sites, with their lowest rating: a red circle. PFS (and the entity behind it) is now officially a pariah.
Web Of Trust is a browser add-on which rates every web page you visit and every search engine entry on four characteristics: Trustworthiness, Vendor Reliability, Privacy, and Child Safety. If WOT gives a web site low marks or a red alert, that means it's a dangerous website, and you'd best stay away..
Granted, not everybody in the world uses (or even knows about) WOT. Most non-WOT users will blindly click on the links and get themselves in trouble. But WOT's ratings are based on user input, and therefore they represent a good cross-section of Web users; therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that most of the Web by now realizes that ProFlightSimulator and all of its bogus reviews are nothing but a load of kangaroo manure.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
ProFlightSimulator: Where the reviews come from
ProFlightSimulator has an "affiliates" page for those who are interested in selling PFS. Here's an interesting excerpt from that page:
(I don't know how long those links will be valid. Probably not very long, now that I've posted them here.)
So Michael and Eriz have been busy copy-and-pasting these reviews all over the Web. They've never really played the game, and they don't care about the game. They're in it to make money. What they're doing may or may not be illegal, but it's still a scam.
5. Review Articles:
Product reviews are one of the most powerful ways to "warm up" your visitors before getting them into buying mood. Most reviews you see online are BLATANTLY one-side, showing only the good points.
If you want to MAXIMIZE your sales, you need to give a real, balanced review - showing BOTH PROs and CONs. This way your review will come across as genuine and honest.
Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer. When you read a review, you want the honest truth - so do the same for your visitors and subscribers. Use this pre-written review or modify it to suit your needs:
Click Here to view this sample pre-written review
(I don't know how long those links will be valid. Probably not very long, now that I've posted them here.)
So Michael and Eriz have been busy copy-and-pasting these reviews all over the Web. They've never really played the game, and they don't care about the game. They're in it to make money. What they're doing may or may not be illegal, but it's still a scam.
ProFlightSimulator: something just doesn't smell right
I saw an ad on the side of my FB page today for a new flight simulator game called ProFlightSimulator. I clicked on the link and read about it, a new product just released (today!) by what looks like a one-man company in Australia.
At first, I thought "more power to him." I still like to believe that indie game developers can make it big in a world dominated by EA, Vivendi, and their ilk.
However, there's just something about PFS that makes me more than a little suspicious.
When you click on the link in FB, it takes you to (how's this for free advertising? You're welcome, Dan.) http://www.proflightsimulator.com/index2.html, an incredibly long-winded advertisement for PFS: page after endless page of screenshots and hype about it. Lots of hype. It's like watching one of those Veg-o-matic infomercials on TV. It has all the sales tricks, like "Used by the pros!" and "But wait! There's more!" and "Now how much would you pay?" and "... all for the low, low price of ..." and "But you have to ACT NOW, or you'll forfeit this opportunity!"
Then, when you get to the bottom, you find out that you're getting $530 worth of material, including a full-sized book, for $49.99. Do you know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true?
Yeah. So then you start wondering about system performance and hardware/software requirements. The FAQ on the PFS webpages lists some very modest system requirements, but for performance like what is advertised, that doesn't seem like enough. The FAQ doesn't say anything about performance. I've developed computer games, and I've played a lot of different flight sims, first-person shooters, role-playing adventures and other game genres that really push the hardware, and I know what it takes to make something like this look good - and play well.
The Jane's flight simulators, for one example, are visually exquisite, and masterpieces of execution, as long as you install them on the recommended minimum hardware and not the acceptable minimum hardware. On the acceptable minimum hardware, they are slow and choppy and tearfully frustrating. This is something you really, really want to know before you buy - even with a 60-day warranty.
I never buy anything anymore without looking at the online reviews first. I pull up my favorite search engine and search for "proflightsimulator review." Surprise, surprise: I find a lot of them out there, and they're all dated November 15, and they're all written (if they have a byline) by the same person. This is a variant of the "blogging for dollars" practice I wrote about in June 2009.
None of the reviews are real, objective reviews. They're just shills. They all have the same, Billy Mays-ish breathless tone of someone reading directly from the marketing literature. They pretend to be objective by listing a couple of negative points of the software, but even these negatives are spun: when the review says "There is quite a lot of data to be downloaded. The main game itself is already 300 megabytes," and suggests that you order the 4 DVDs, the average user thinks, "Wow! I get over 300 MB of stuff! And enough extra stuff to fit on 4 DVDs! What a deal!"
There is an alternative to PFS and all other commercial flight sims: it's a very capable, absolutely free and public-domain, downloadable package called FlightGear. FlightGear is a lot of fun, and a simulator that I've played with, on and off, for years. If you start reading up on FG, either on its own webpage or on Wikipedia, you'll begin to notice a lot of similarities between FG and PFS.
Uh-oh.
A lot of similarities. The list of available aircraft for PFS is a subset of those available on the FG website. Both lists include such off-the-wall flying objects as Santa's sleigh and a Willys Jeep. I don't think that's a coincidence.
And then you see this picture in the Wikipedia article on FG:
This same picture appeared in the advertising for PFS.
Uh-oh times two.
Then you go back and click the "Screenshots" link on the PFS webpage, and a lot of those screenshots appear to have been ripped directly from the FlightGear pages over the years. Anybody who's played FG for more than a day will recognize the yellow helicopter with the medical symbol on the side.
Uh-oh times three.
No wonder PFS is so generous with their licensing. Their webpage says that you can buy one copy and install it on as many computers as you like. And that you get "100% free updates/upgrades for life." That's because you can install FlightGear on as many computers as you like, and FlightGear gives you 100% free updates/upgrades for life. These guys are just selling FlightGear.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm all for indie developers going up against the big boys and winning - Marble Blast, for one notable example. (You can buy Marble Blast here, or you can download it for your iPod/iPhone/iPad from the App Store.) But I'm not too keen on entrepreneurs taking free and open source software, wrapping it up in a package and selling it as their own work.
Nice try. You almost got me.
At first, I thought "more power to him." I still like to believe that indie game developers can make it big in a world dominated by EA, Vivendi, and their ilk.
However, there's just something about PFS that makes me more than a little suspicious.
When you click on the link in FB, it takes you to (how's this for free advertising? You're welcome, Dan.) http://www.proflightsimulator.com/index2.html, an incredibly long-winded advertisement for PFS: page after endless page of screenshots and hype about it. Lots of hype. It's like watching one of those Veg-o-matic infomercials on TV. It has all the sales tricks, like "Used by the pros!" and "But wait! There's more!" and "Now how much would you pay?" and "... all for the low, low price of ..." and "But you have to ACT NOW, or you'll forfeit this opportunity!"
Then, when you get to the bottom, you find out that you're getting $530 worth of material, including a full-sized book, for $49.99. Do you know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true?
Yeah. So then you start wondering about system performance and hardware/software requirements. The FAQ on the PFS webpages lists some very modest system requirements, but for performance like what is advertised, that doesn't seem like enough. The FAQ doesn't say anything about performance. I've developed computer games, and I've played a lot of different flight sims, first-person shooters, role-playing adventures and other game genres that really push the hardware, and I know what it takes to make something like this look good - and play well.
The Jane's flight simulators, for one example, are visually exquisite, and masterpieces of execution, as long as you install them on the recommended minimum hardware and not the acceptable minimum hardware. On the acceptable minimum hardware, they are slow and choppy and tearfully frustrating. This is something you really, really want to know before you buy - even with a 60-day warranty.
I never buy anything anymore without looking at the online reviews first. I pull up my favorite search engine and search for "proflightsimulator review." Surprise, surprise: I find a lot of them out there, and they're all dated November 15, and they're all written (if they have a byline) by the same person. This is a variant of the "blogging for dollars" practice I wrote about in June 2009.
None of the reviews are real, objective reviews. They're just shills. They all have the same, Billy Mays-ish breathless tone of someone reading directly from the marketing literature. They pretend to be objective by listing a couple of negative points of the software, but even these negatives are spun: when the review says "There is quite a lot of data to be downloaded. The main game itself is already 300 megabytes," and suggests that you order the 4 DVDs, the average user thinks, "Wow! I get over 300 MB of stuff! And enough extra stuff to fit on 4 DVDs! What a deal!"
There is an alternative to PFS and all other commercial flight sims: it's a very capable, absolutely free and public-domain, downloadable package called FlightGear. FlightGear is a lot of fun, and a simulator that I've played with, on and off, for years. If you start reading up on FG, either on its own webpage or on Wikipedia, you'll begin to notice a lot of similarities between FG and PFS.
Uh-oh.
A lot of similarities. The list of available aircraft for PFS is a subset of those available on the FG website. Both lists include such off-the-wall flying objects as Santa's sleigh and a Willys Jeep. I don't think that's a coincidence.
And then you see this picture in the Wikipedia article on FG:
This same picture appeared in the advertising for PFS.
Uh-oh times two.
Then you go back and click the "Screenshots" link on the PFS webpage, and a lot of those screenshots appear to have been ripped directly from the FlightGear pages over the years. Anybody who's played FG for more than a day will recognize the yellow helicopter with the medical symbol on the side.
Uh-oh times three.
No wonder PFS is so generous with their licensing. Their webpage says that you can buy one copy and install it on as many computers as you like. And that you get "100% free updates/upgrades for life." That's because you can install FlightGear on as many computers as you like, and FlightGear gives you 100% free updates/upgrades for life. These guys are just selling FlightGear.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm all for indie developers going up against the big boys and winning - Marble Blast, for one notable example. (You can buy Marble Blast here, or you can download it for your iPod/iPhone/iPad from the App Store.) But I'm not too keen on entrepreneurs taking free and open source software, wrapping it up in a package and selling it as their own work.
Nice try. You almost got me.
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