DCS: F-14A/A+/B by Heatblur Simulations coming to DCS World!

[cichlidfan]

Just out of common sense there is a limit to what some will pay.

 

I would not pay $70 or even $60 for any module no matter how much I wanted it.

 

Well, for example, many of us, myself included, paid $60 for the A-10C. That was four years ago, too!

[Bob-68]

Well, for example, many of us, myself included, paid $60 for the A-10C. That was four years ago, too!

 

I paid below $20 for the A10C which proves the point about waiting for the sales.

 

To be honest, if I was a developer, I'd rather sell 1000 modules at $40 than 200 at $60.

 

 

Edit: Come to think of it, it would make more sense to sell modules at something like $25.99 and have the sales less often with a lower discount % than it would as it is now.

As an example, I paid $49.99 for the F86 but I bet the majority of people who own it paid the discount price.

Edited March 14, 2015 by Bob-68

[Flagrum]

I paid below $20 for the A10C which proves the point about waiting for the sales.

 

To be honest, if I was a developer, I'd rather sell 1000 modules at $40 than 200 at $60.

 

 

Edit: Come to think of it, it would make more sense to sell modules at something like $25.99 and have the sales less often with a lower discount % than it would as it is now.

As an example, I paid $49.99 for the F86 but I bet the majority of people who own it paid the discount price.

Well, and if I were a developer, I would rather sell 700 copies for 70 USD each than 2000 for 20 USD.

 

Hrm, one can come up with any combination of figgures that support their own theory, weired. ;o)

[King_Hrothgar]

Except actual sales support the other position, even if the specific numbers he used are made up. Wags himself has stated they do sales as often as they can since that's when they make the most money overall. Jason Williams over at 777 Studios has said the same in regards to RoF.

 

In any case, it isn't as simple as it's been made out to be so far. It isn't like people are only going to buy at the full price or discount price. If the full price is lowered, more are willing to pay it instead of waiting for a sale.

[Slipp]

But they charged about the same for the MiG-21 on which they probably lost money since they went out of their way to provide free copies to the original IndieGoGo backers (me included), but at least it was useful experience for them for future modules. Now, you honestly feel the announced F-14A/B package to be worth the same as the MiG-21?

 

We are getting really spoiled by these Steam sales and alike, IMHO. Personally, I will pay whatever they deem it's worth because they are bringing a module I've been waiting for ever since Fleet Defender (same goes if they make any Soviet plane more modern than a MiG-21, but that's OT).

 

Personally I would not pay above 50$ for any video game, that is as far as I am willing to go. Otherwise I would just wait for a sale.

 

As far as value, is there more effort required to make a DCS F-14 than it is to make a COD clone? Maybe.

 

Does that mean anything to my wallet? No.

[Flagrum]

Except actual sales support the other position, even if the specific numbers he used are made up. Wags himself has stated they do sales as often as they can since that's when they make the most money overall. Jason Williams over at 777 Studios has said the same in regards to RoF.

 

In any case, it isn't as simple as it's been made out to be so far. It isn't like people are only going to buy at the full price or discount price. If the full price is lowered, more are willing to pay it instead of waiting for a sale.

I think occassional sales with discounted prices are a different matter altogether. They probably work well after some time when the number of copies sold are starting to dimish. And it will most likely work at least as well for a F-14 which is sold for a bit higher price initially.

 

But that is no indicator that lower prices always will generate a higher net yield.

 

It all depends - as ususal. A way to high price will be counter productive, true. But a price set too low is also not optimal. What is the optimal price? We don't know. And tbh, I am glad that is not up to me to decide. :o)

[Bob-68]

Except actual sales support the other position, even if the specific numbers he used are made up. Wags himself has stated they do sales as often as they can since that's when they make the most money overall. Jason Williams over at 777 Studios has said the same in regards to RoF.

 

 

So it would make more sense for them to keep the prices at a lower rate to begin with.

 

So why don't they do that?? :doh:

[King_Hrothgar]

I think they have gone for the best of both. They get $40-60 from those who absolutely have to have it on day 1 and then let the rest of us buy it for a more modest price a month or two later. It's a sensible way to go about it. Whether or not it's optimal is a hard question to answer, one I doubt even the devs could answer with certainty.

[BlackLion213]

I would be willing to pay a fair bit for a really high quality DCS module of the F-14A/B, like ~$100 if it's everything that we expect.

 

That said, I am speaking for myself! I realize that most others wouldn't, nor do they care as much about the F-14 as I do.

 

One thing that LNS should consider is a series of subtle spin-offs/campaigns/liveries. Especially if they continue to emphasize theaters (which DCS really needs to expand).

 

There current plans are the F-14A from the 1980s (early-mid?) and the F-14A+/B (mid-1990s?).

 

There were lots of small mods to the F-14, like the F-14A avionic/ECM/gunvents upgrades of the early 1990s (to match F-14B standards) and the later addition of LANTIRN (which involved little-to no software or hardware upgrades).

 

They could later come out with an "Allied-Force" campaign that involves a Balkans map and an updated F-14A or "First Strikes in Afghanistan" (just after 9/11 with VF-14 and VF-41 F-14As), plus others for the F-14B (F-14B Upgrade version for Desert Fox). I'd pay another $30-40 for such an upgrade.

 

There are also A LOT of different F-14 markings and many of us are particularly fond of certain squadrons/markings/eras. They could charge $10-20 for a set of new textures to match different interests.

 

They could develop additional markings with themes (Pacific fleet markings 1984-1988 (hint..)), (Squadrons of Desert Storm), (First Bombcat Deployments), etc. These packs could also include a few small changes such as older style gunvents (the early 70s style that some aircraft had till the early 1990s). Heres an example:

 

These are all things that would be worth extra money and would allow them to stretch out the benefits of this huge development project.

 

Once they have a solid module with such a popular and multi-faceted aircraft as the F-14, they could really keep people entertained with new theaters, missions (TARPS would be fun if set-up well), scenarios, markings, etc. They might have more happy customers with a less costly based module (~$60) and lots of add-ons. Kind of like DCS itself!

 

My thoughts,

 

Nick

[ApoNOOB]

I think occassional sales with discounted prices are a different matter altogether. They probably work well after some time when the number of copies sold are starting to dimish. And it will most likely work at least as well for a F-14 which is sold for a bit higher price initially.

 

But that is no indicator that lower prices always will generate a higher net yield.

 

It all depends - as ususal. A way to high price will be counter productive, true. But a price set too low is also not optimal. What is the optimal price? We don't know. And tbh, I am glad that is not up to me to decide. :o)

 

I believe the problem with this thinking is that you leave out the many people who would never buy a product at full price but would do so at a disccount. As was said before here sales figures that we know from companys actually support this.

 

As somebody from the Steam crowd who follows the DCS-Steam Forums I assure you: People are mad about these sales and there is a very big & vocal part of the (potential)customer base that frequently will ask & even demand sales or they won't buy. :)

 

Most people that I personally know that bought DCS did so on some sale, and I honestly wouldn't know how to get somebody into DCS if they have to pay PMDG prices. (I wouldn't even consider buying it)

 

edit: This would probably change if maybe I could let another player (who doesn't own the Tomcat) into my cockpit, a very high price there would be acceptable for me and I am confident that way people would have a better time getting friends into DCS.

Edited March 14, 2015 by ApoNOOB

[SilentGun]

Just dreaming.....

 

 

oh man... that just looks awesome! cant wait!

[shagrat]

Personally I would not pay above 50$ for any video game, that is as far as I am willing to go. Otherwise I would just wait for a sale.

 

As far as value, is there more effort required to make a DCS F-14 than it is to make a COD clone? Maybe.

 

Does that mean anything to my wallet? No.

I agree on that video game statement, yet I paid all DCS modules except the MiG-15 at the Beta release price, some more than $50, a few less.

The point is, I am willing to pay $60, $70, $80 or even over $100 depending on the quality and feature set. We talk about the mist accurate Flight Simulation aside from professional Simulator setups, well actually better than some "professional" setups...

If people pay $90 for a simple FSX add-on that hasn't even half the details DCS modules usually model, I don't think $50 to $60 for a single aircraft is too much.

If they add unique features or multiple variants, like the C-101 are actually two different planes, the additional $10 or $20 seems fair and reasonable to me.

 

In the end it is always a decision the devs have to make. Some people will say "Too expensive", some will wait for sale, most won't care and simply buy it as soon as it is out in beta release, to get their hands on it.

[VincentLaw]

but for numbers, how many people would buy a module only for the map included if it is not to expensive?

I bought DCS:A-10C beta specifically for the map because I wanted to fly the Ka-50 around Las Vegas.

[Flycat]

I bought DCS:A-10C beta specifically for the map because I wanted to fly the Ka-50 around Las Vegas.

 

Red Dawn?

:music_whistling:

[Dragunov]

I think 90$ would be a very good price for this module if the quality is very high and carrier operations are included. Besides the F-18C the F-14 is the module I am most exited for.

 

Has anyone checked how much people invest in Star Citizen? There are many people who paid more than 1.000$ and even a few that paid 10.000$.

[pyromaniac4002]

They're going to charge what they're going to charge. I'm sure it will be fair and I'm sure I'll have no qualms paying it, there's no real point in discussing it before LN says anything about it. Still I don't want to pay $100 if I don't have to, so if you people could stop getting yourselves in a frenzy, I'm sure a lot of sane DCS: F-14 buyers would appreciate it if you didn't arbitrarily drive up the price with hysteria. Though it's not like I think LN would actually listen and set their price according to it. This time would be much better spent talking about the F-14 itself and how it will fit in to DCS rather than speculating pricing points or saying how you want to spend $100+ so you can be the only guy in town with a Tomcat.

[McBlemmen]

If people pay $90 for a simple FSX add-on that hasn't even half the details DCS modules usually model, I don't think $50 to $60 for a single aircraft is too much.

 

 

I dont think we should base prices for ANY product on what buyers of similar products are willing to pay.

 

That said i do NOT think 60 dollars is too much , but it is definately the absolute max for me. I've always seen 60 dollars as the "standard" price for video games (or 50 euros)

[Yurgon]

...I should maybe clarify, that I was ironic.

Let's be realistic, DCS is a niche and the current price politics are veeeery reasonable.

I wanted to point out Leatherneck could easily opt to sell stuff like Electronic A...holes or Übelsoft. [...]

 

Übelsoft? Good one, gotta remember that. :D

 

And yeah, I agree, we get a niche product for the price of a AAA title that sells millions of copies and makes the publishers pretty amazingly rich. With prices like these, I doubt ED and the 3rd parties are getting a profit margin anywhere near what CoD and the like generate. I wouldn't have been surprised if ED had chosen to charge 500$ per module, but I guess we all agree that then there would be so few customers that in the end they'd make even less money.

 

Except actual sales support the other position, even if the specific numbers he used are made up. Wags himself has stated they do sales as often as they can since that's when they make the most money overall. Jason Williams over at 777 Studios has said the same in regards to RoF.

 

Careful. I think this whole sale thing is a self fulfilling prophecy. By now many people around here feel like they have been burned because they invested almost full price only to see the same product on sale shortly thereafter. Personally, I don't buy full price modules any longer unless I'm really interested in them.

 

The point I'm trying to get at is that people are more likely to wait for a massive price reduction when they know for sure that the next sale will only be a couple of weeks away.

 

Maybe it would make more sense to have a pre-scheduled, gradual price reduction where people could calculate "I'm going to buy in 10 months, when the product is at 60% of the initial price" or something like that.

 

Another point is that we have more modules available now than we had two years ago. I don't know how many people around here are proficient with all modules. Not too many I guess. So when something new comes out, do I really need to get it right away? I have a hard time deciding what I'd like to fly the most as it is, so why burden myself with yet another module I'll probably set aside after a few hours anyway?

 

Plus, the level of completeness of new modules has seen rather heavy variations. When there was only the Ka-50, I think we could easily forgive the fact that the A-10C was not finished when the Beta came out. But now, with so many modules out and some of them still unfinished after months, any developer trying to get people to pay full price would have to deliver something rather exceptional - and IMO LNS are the only ones to have achieved that recently.

 

Has anyone checked how much people invest in Star Citizen? There are many people who paid more than 1.000$ and even a few that paid 10.000$.

 

Star Citizen has one big upside. They haven't failed to deliver yet. In case they do, some people are likely to get somewhat vocal about their dissatisfaction.

 

Then again, if ED had as much money available as Chris Roberts does right now, I assume things would be progressing a mite quicker than they do now.

[ChoSeungWan]

The site and more info, including more imagery (including a FAQ compiled from common questions on the forum) will be launched by mid march.

 

:music_whistling:

 

 

 

 

 

;)

[captain_dalan]

A 100$ for a module? To be honest this is the module for the DCS that would make me INSTALL the sim. Not because it isn't any good (the sim), but unlike many people in the flight sim community, my free time is very limited. Even in the best of months, there are often weeks at a time when i don't get to fly at all. Recently i bought the F-14x from Aerosoft and i have not touched it for 2 weekends in a row. It's not like flew or played anything else.... i just didn't. Between work, training, social life, there is less and less time to fly. As such, when i do get to fly, i insist on AC that i love flying with. Aside from an F-14 and F-8, right now there just aren't any other jets that i would fly with.

 

Even if you offered me all the Flankers and Eagles for free, i just don't think i'd have the time for them. So i don't see how am i going to "return" those bucks per hour anytime soon it they price it too high. And right now, any module significantly above 60$ is probably just not cost effective to me, even if it's the only module i'd consider at the moment. 10 years ago i would have thought differently, but alas, the college years are over... :(

[-Vampire-]

LOOOOOLLLLL! Make it 500 USD....Looool. :megalol:

 

:doh:

 

No 1st day module above 50 USD for me. That is dead sure.

[dumgrunt]

I really dont get why people get upity about 40 bucks for a QUALITY simulation like what DCS offers. most games in this country get sold at 80-100 buck on release.

 

I paid $60 for a hard copy of A-10C in 2012, and in terms of bang for buck enjoyment. Its probably the best 60 bucks I have ever spent. And out of all the games I have brought over the years it has undoubtedly provided the best replay value. The only reason why I have stopped playing it recently is because I have had t make a concerted effort to get back into real life pursuits.

 

I would happily pay $200 for a full ASM PFM f-18, I would happily pay $400 for a full ASM PFM f-14, cause DCS is the closest i can ever get to flying one.

 

seriously, for the amount of work the devs put into these projects, i think at least $50 per copy isnt asking to much. I reckon DCS products are way underpriced as they are. And remember if they stop making a buck out of them, they will simply stop making them.

[Slipp]

I dont think we should base prices for ANY product on what buyers of similar products are willing to pay.

 

That said i do NOT think 60 dollars is too much , but it is definately the absolute max for me. I've always seen 60 dollars as the "standard" price for video games (or 50 euros)

 

60 euros is now pretty much the same as 60 dollars. Things just got way too expensive, very quickly. :)

[Bob-68]

For some, I think the saying "A fool and his money are soon parted".

[mwd2]

How will AAR work with the F-14? Will it be possible F-14 to F-14 AAR?