hegykc

That would be an easy decision if this were Call of duty, or GTA 5. An iconic plane given for free is easy worth half a million in sales for the next 3 years. In this niche market that can be the difference between being in business and being bust. Belive me, we would like nothing more than a free spit and a 109. But is that a viable option for the dev team and the continued development of this series?

They're giving away a combat plane, so the trainer debate is off the table. I hope the backers choose the P-47 so that the most popular planes end up making a revenue for a very long time.

Yep, SDK changes everything.

There'll be problems like that with all of the other modules too. Not so long ago I was one of those "noobs". I remember being angry at Il-2 for not being able to catch up with a plane 3.000 feet above me. All the while not knowing what prop pitch or mixture is or does... Not to even mention energy management or real life tactics like "turn and burn" or "boom and zoom". Learning how to fly in a study sim is a topic and a project in itself. I think a big training campaign should be next on the priority list.

If someone would have asked me before kicstarter how much of the 1 million final goal it would get, I would have said between 10% and 20%. It's not that hard, just crunch some numbers. Il-2 sold 1 million copies, that's 1 million potentional customers. Let's say 1/3 of that is a viable number for our estimate, so 300.000. The team has split in two aftel the CoD scandal, so let's split that fanbase in half, you're left with 150.000. ThenThen since it's a kickstarter with only one month time frame, projects tend to make 1/12 of what they would in the first year, money wise / customer wise So you get 12.500 potential backers. Since the kicstarter was launhed on nothing but promises and all the other problems, only 10% of those potential backers are ready to part with their money on those basis and there you get 2.500 backers. With 40$ being the most interesting pledge, you get your 100.000$ minimum kicstarter result. If we count in best case scenario, we can double that, so 100.000 - 200.00$. Now you can take that number and go back to the begining to see what's the real number of potential customers. Many, many more than the 1700 backers it has now. Some more numbers to take into account: Hotas warthog must have been produced in more than 10.000 units to be profitable. If you look at some of the serial numbers, they're 17.000+. And those are used by the most hardcore of simmers. As I previously stated, Il-2 sold 1 million copies. There are 2.000+ privately owned 737 cockpits, with more than a couple being built every month. War of thunder has 3 million players, that are obviously interested in WWII and dogfighting, you think we can't get 10% of them interested in a more hardcore level of that?

There is a choice. Lock the 1$ pledge. Kickstarter allows for that.

You said it yourself. People are gonna say P-whaat? There are ten times more people interested in a cool type like the spit or a 109. Everyone wants to be an ace. Do the math. Say 5000 are would buy a popular choice like a spit or a 109. Thats 5000 x 39.99$ = 200.000$ for the developers if the don't make it free. On the other hand you can pretty much say one tenth of those would be interested in a payware P-47. That's 500 x 39.99 = 20.000$ for the developers if they don't make it free. In other words, P-47 would be the least financial loss for the devs. While still offering plenty of fun and advertisement for those trying out DCS WWII.

You both have a valid point. My thoughts are that a spit or a 109 would be the best choice, BUT those are planes you stick with for years to come. Something everyone wants. Is it wise for the good of the project to give away an asset like that. 1-2 years of revenue from a spit or a 109 could pay for a bigger map or a B-17. If the jug has a clickable cockpit, 6dof and is full p-51 fidelity, I say it is a great advertisement. Especially if you're trying to get newcomers into hardcore simming. The jug is "indestructible", has 8 .50 cals that can be forgiving for the not so great marksman. Is great for diving and getting away. Can do ground attacks and hold it's own in a dogfight and much more.

Alright, well kudos for giving the community a part in project altering decisions. And kudos to the community for not taking the easy way out.

I see your point. The charity comparison is stretching it a bit though :) I agree, changing it after the end of kickstarter would be cheating even in my book. I don't think that's even up for debate.

Those who pledged get what was promised to them. That is not up for debate and never was. Legally, there is nothing stooping him to change what was promised to non-backers. This! And what about the promise you made to the backers? Should they suffer lack of content after the release because you care more about the feelings of those looking to catch a free ride then the feelings of those who pledged hard earned money on nothing but kind words and past glory? You have about 1700 people pledging 70$ on average on nothing but a nice promise. You better take care of them first, forget about the non-pledgers, for now.

How to get masses into hardcore simming is not a topic for a brief kickstarter campaign nor something you should burden yourself with in the earliest stages of pre-development. That being said, I believe your "making them fun to learn" is a groundbreaking idea, and something that might not only save the genre, but change it for the best. But it is a project in itself, one in which I would include everything this community has to offer. Film makers, mission designers, history buffs, the works. There is plenty of time for that. What we need to deal with right now is, weather this community will hold it against you if you go the "one free" route. If you look through the posts you can see hardly anyone against that. That should tell you that this is a very mature audience that can take the hard decisions and care more about the genre then a few $$ in their pocket. I believe you should leave all the pledges as they are and lock the old 1$ ones. Forget about the 1$, it matters if there's thousands of backers. There's not. So there's 38 early birds that will get the thing for 1$. We can all live with that. Announce to all the non-backers that there will be only one free aircraft. You are not cheating anyone out of anything, you don't "owe" us anyhing for free. I would go further and make the free one similar to the Su-25, no 6-dof and no clickable cockpit.

Do not compare this to an arcade game like War thunder where you have dozens of planes and after a couple of days you're looking to trade up. A single DCS module can keep you busy for years.

And with it's radial air cooled engine it can be shot up to pieces and still survive. Almost anyone would want to trade "up" to more unforgiving planes after they master the P-47. So it would be the wisest choice for a free one.

I'm helping him realize the dangers of that path :music_whistling:

The trend is showing already. It was sitting at 36 one $ pledges for days, now it is up to 40 in under an hour.

Yeah that would work wonders for the stretch goal, AND for further revenue. So lock that old 1$ pledge before it's too late :) A little confession though, I immediately pledged 1$, but I'm changing to 40$ as soon as the man wakes up :) On a side note, I used a Visa debit card with 0$ on it, or I should better say a slightly negative balance, and it worked without a problem. And in order to have a team making those extra modules, they need money. Money they're not getting with 3 free planes. One is plenty. Even on a Su-25 level, so no 6dof, no clickable cockpit. Man oh man, I knew that all the secrecy about the announcement was gonna come around and bite him in the ass. I hope it's a lesson for all the future teams. Come out as soon as possible. Discuss the plan with the community, take the guess work completely out of the picture. Where else are you gonna find customers complaining about stuff being free...

Oh. So lock the old 1$ pledge, sort of an early bird special? Make the new 1$ with 1 free flyable. Yeah I can see that working. Thereby loosing only 36 sets of planes.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. It doesn't say that in the description of the 1$ pledge. It says 3 free planes in the goal description, and that can change as far as I understand? To make the planes payware, and then make them available for a 1$ pledge would be another shot in the foot.

Wrong! Everyone who pledged gets exactly what was promised to them. Those who didn't pledge, get one plane for free, pay for the rest Spend $ on what?? As it is now, you get everything you could possibly spend time on for the next couple of years, for free.

You are correct. Hold him to that promise, and the team loses hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Dollars that could pay for development of many, many new modules and features. Do you want a free game lacking some critical features, and the team unable to continue development at a certain rate and quality because they have no means of revenue? Just because they promised something for free based on an assumption that people would give them money anyway? It was a nice gesture, why punish them for it.

That can never be. IL-2 sold 1 million copies. There are studies that show for every 1 posting member of an internet forum, there are 9-10 lurkers. There are a few thousand active members here, you can multiply that by 10 to get an approximation of people interested. And with this kind of fidelity you can count on all the proffesionals, and semi-professional aviators and aviation personnel. History buffs, aviation buffs... who wouldn't want to get into a study sim level WWII simulator, even if just for looking around and clicking a bunch of stuff :) If you combine those numbers you can easily come up with tens of thousands that would be interested. The only thing left to do is marketing, which would require some content to show. About the plane choice, a P-47 would probably be the least popular, therefore it would make the smallest dent in their revenue if it were free.

Nowhere. It was a promise made in the earliest stages of development, on a prediction that there would be thousands of pledgers and supporters. There's not. The goal is to have a free option to explore the game with some limitation. Not have a full WWII scenario that would keep you busy for years to come.

Spitfire, 109 and P-47 is the premium stuff. F2P with only one playable side is working perfectly for DCS world for quite some time now.

Pay for all planes. Think about it. You can bet your ass there will be 10.000 people worldwide buying WWII modules that have WWII environment and ground units to go with. At 40$ per module that's 400.000$ you're giving away with a DCS level module. That money could pay for a B-17, a bigger map, better core features development. And we're in a niche market, if it goes away for free it will never get back.