New license model and options
by Ulrich Strauss
With release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 the licensing options and model will be changed, but before getting into the details, let me explain, why a change in license model is necessary.
I never expected SPAD.neXt to attract more than a handful of people, as it was mainly designed to suit my own needs and it is generally a good thing that so many flight simmers think I created something useful, but this also has a drawback.
In the past 12 months, since public release of SPAD.neXt, the amount of time that needs to be spent to keep SPAD.neXt up to date and providing the best possible support to you has been constantly growing. And there are still many things that have been neglected, e.g. documentation and the website.
SPAD.neXt is a one-man-show and up to now everything is done as a double challenge to my 8-10-hrs full-time job, which results in another up to 8 hours a day to be spend for SPAD.neXt. I did this for a while but have reached a point now, where it’s about time to make a decision about the future of SPAD.neXt. In its present state it seriously influences my health, my family and my job and I can feel how I start losing my motivation because of this.
This way I reached a point where I had to decide either to quit development of SPAD.neXt or to find a sustainable pricing model to continue development.
While a lot of options have been evaluated over the last weeks (e.g. Crowdfunding , Donations, Venture Capital) I have decided to give the product itself a chance to evolve into my main-job.
To support this and to give everyone the opportunity to choose the option that suits best, SPAD.neXt has been split up into editions.
Starting with the release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 (November 26th 2016) there will be 4 editions available:
For home use only:
- The FSX/P3D Edition, being able to be used for FSX, FSX: Steam Edition, P3D v2.5 and P3D v3
- The X-Plane Edition, being able to be used for X-Plane 10 / X-Plane 11
- The Complete Edition, as the name suggests, completely everything (see below for details)
For commercial use:
- The Professional Editition
All SPAD.neXt licenses purchased before November 24th 2016 will automatically be converted into a FSX/P3D-Edition license when updating. There is no need to buy a new license.
If you wish to switch the edition to the X-Plane edition, you can do so by opening a support ticket.
All SPAD.neXt licenses purchased before November 24th 2016 will get the opportunity to upgrade to the "Complete" Edition for a special price (25% discount).
As you have propbaly noticed there will be a commercial edition (see below) now. If you currently use SPAD.neXt in any commercial form, you will either have to update to the commercial edition or stay with Version 0.9.4.200 .
The SPAD.neXt complete edition will include
- all addons available now or in future with a price below 40 € (without VAT)
- exclusive special deals and features (e.g. customizable fip splashscreens)
- early access to new features
- priority support via ticket system/email
You can see this as an investment into the future of SPAD.neXt.
The professional edition of SPAD.neXt will be needed if you use SPAD.neXt commercially (e.g. running a rentable simulator).
It will include everything of the complete edition plus
- A remote control tool, to completly remotely control SPAD.neXt and to simulate hardware failures. E.g. the radio panel showing wrong number, knobs not working anymore , gear light malfunction etc.
- Telephone/Remote/OnSite support at special rates
- Dedicated technical support to craft aircraft profiles
- Support for certified hardware
Addtionally to the base editions addons can be licensed to extend the functionality of SPAD.neXt.
Please note, that a base edition licence will be needed to be able to activate an addon license.
The following addons are currently already planned or available:
- X-Plane ( as addon to the FSX/P3D edition)
- FSX/P3D (as addon to the X-Plane edition)
- vFIP : virtual FIP (Flight instrument Panel) to place gauges freely on your monitor or touchscreens. This addon will also include apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone as soon as they are ready for release.
- Q400 Training: Support for the Majestic Dash-8 Q400 Training edition. This will also speedup the readout-times for the Q400 Pro edition.
- Driving: Support for iRacing and SCS (European Truck Simulator 2, American Truck SImulator)
and for special interest:
- Gaugedesigner: Builtin tools to design and craft gauges without the need of editing XML files.
Due to the immense amount of time that has to be spent for updates and new features, all licences will come as a lifetime use license with one year of free updates.
This model has been chosen because I do not want to hold back any new general features or functionalities.
- All licenses purchased before the release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 will receive one year of free updates starting with the date of updating the license.
- All licenses purchased after the release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 will receive one year of free updates starting with the date of activating the license.
Will the new flight simulations being released soon be part of your license?
As there is very little known yet about Prepar3d V4 and the new Dovetail simulation, this cannot be guaranteed as of today. It directly depends on the time/development that is needed to support those new flight simulations, however it is expected that thos enew sims are SimConnect compatible. They will be included in the complete and professional license, of course. For the FSX/P3D edition license a newsletter will be sent as soon as details are known.
If you already own a license of SPAD.neXt nothing will change for you, apart from that you need to renew the update subscription once it expires. Remember that you receive one year of free updates.
Please also note:
If you own more than one SPAD.neXt license:
- Upgrading one of them will upgrade them all (open ticket to upgrade the additional licenses)
- One update subscription will be valid for all your licenses
The update subcription fee is not yet determined, but it will be well less than the license fee. It will be announced latest before the first update subcriptions run out ( November 2017 )