Can't blame a company for wanting to make money, PMDG is a profit-driven company, right? Not charity. It's not like PMDG charges pennies for their goods exactly. There's no hidden motives here, it's like saying Valve has a hidden agenda trying to make money through their distribution channel (Steam, the worlds largest games distribution client). It's like, duh! Yes, of course they all want to make money, that's why they exist, partly.
This is just like when FSX steam edition came out, all the nay-sayers crying that FSX was now under the "evil" control of Dovetail and Steam. Steam, the horrible CIA spy application that destroys your computer once it's finished going through your well-hidden p*rn collection. When Dovetail announced FSX:SE I almost immediately thought, why? why would this company just take old code like FSX and throw it out on Steam? Sure it turned out that they actually sold quite a few copies, to a lot of people that maybe wouldn't otherwise go through all the hassle of tracking down an old FSX gold edition DVD from ebay or something. I knew then already that they got the license from MS for FSX so they test the market for third-party add-ons through Steam. After all, FSX has a HUUUGE third-party market but it is extremely fragmented with tons of different developers selling tons of different stuff at tons of different online vendors. Dovetail saw the potential, which for some explicable reason, no one else had noticed of selling a lot of third-party stuff through their own channels. Taking the old FSX code and refurbishing it is a big investment for Dovetail but the payoff of getting third-party selling through their channels will be enormous.
Personally, I see this as a good thing for both developers AND consumers, why? I'll tell you why:
1. No more fragmentation, all the stuff you want or need will be found at one single vendor Dovetails store.
2. Updates for products will most likely be less of a hassle to track down and download.
3. Developers will no longer need to have their own costly websites, support sites or stores. They can focus precious time on developing instead of managing a whole business.
4. Rules and framework that will benefit both developers and consumers, no scamming or such.
5. A semi-new sim platform that will receive continued support and updates.
I get why some established developers, like PMDG, are getting a bit jittery. They have an already established infrastructure of development and investments towards that. For new or smaller developers though, I think this would be a good thing. They can just do the development part and let Dovetail handle all the boring stuff, that's what Dovetail will be charging for right? It's called publishing and it isn't actually a new thing within the electronic entertainment industry. Opinions may differ but the above is my take on things, so far.
Cheers!/Andreas