Yes indeed! My current lineup of simulations, which makes up about 80% of my pc entertainment time is, in no particular order:
1) Orbiter
2) X-plane
3) FSX
4) A2-FS1
5) A2-3D1
6) Tower
7) DCS series
All of these elicit the same response of boredom by normal people. And you(me) immediately get relegated to "non-happening", resigned to irrelevancy, brushed off and pushed aside.
Sometimes something with good graphics can get the occasional wow, but that is short-lived and in the end MarioBros or Guitar Hero win out. O'hell, even Farmville and AngryBirds beat out DCS and Orbiter. Runman's Monster Fracas took the cake above Orbiter. When pressed and interrogated I find out that others think Orbiter is not real, its some stupid boring game, an unfinished shooting StarWars game. Unfinished because there's no laser guns. Slow, plodding, introverted, anti-social, gay, dumbass. Orbiter is not real like the movies are. Worse than 2001 and Solaris. Tedious, patience-trying. Not worthy of pc gaming status. I've heard it all. When I took a call-center job, briefly for a few weeks, years ago, as part of special project..when Orbiter first came out. I showed it to my co-workers and after that I was excluded from all "goings on". Amazing.. And Orbiter doesn't stand a chance against the facebookers and twitterers.
I am quite happily surprised, now that we have good hardware these days, that FSX is looking better than X-plane! 5 years after being published, do we 1st, now, have good graphics cards and the installed driver base and proper DX libraries to run FSX as it was meant to be run. I used to love X-Plane, but they got out of the desktop business and are now focusing on dumb iPhone and even dumber Android ports. Besides, X-Plane is seriously lacking systems simulation. Hell, even the Orbiter freeware ships are more complex than some of the payware for X-Plane.
Orbiter has good staying power if I set it up as a "screensaver" as background. We have the basement set up as a mod lounge and when we get Orbiter going, it's not too difficult to imagine we're in the observation lounge of a starship. Something like a smaller version of Ten Forward or the Mess Hall on Voyager. More realistically though, making it look like an orbital hotel room is much more within grasp. Ahh well..
People can actually be downright mean about it. Eventually you get excluded and labeled and what not.. Not that I give two-
about it. Though it is not shown at first. It shows up in the events you get invited to and social outings you get to attend. As is typical of psychology and interactions and stuff like that - The disappointment comes in trying to join the activities of normals. And that is not a problem until you get labeled a gamer. Orbiter is best kept a secret.
Sorry to be so harsh about our favorite sim, though I'd say I was treading rather softly!!