I think it depends. Usually Captivate creates professional-looking demos and of course, it is time consuming.
And you need to tweak some tech knowledge to make things done.

In addition, you still have other simple choices, some screen recording tools which captures the operations screens of the software application. And you can view this sample
http://www.sameshow.com/democreator/create-software-demo-samples.html

hello,

unless you want to take the time to learn flash and actionscript 3.0 to create your simulations, I think you are better off learning Captivate since it exports to Flash but it is a simple program that you can learn without changing careers. Flash has a pretty steep learning curve, and it gets steeper every year!

check out headTrix Training, they are an Adobe Certified Training Provider. They teach Captivate and Flash depending on which way you go.

http://www.headTrixTraining.com/

The do group training, onsite training, corporate training, and live online Virtual Training too!