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Do you want DCS to change to subscription based payment model


skywalker22

DCS changes to subscription based payment model  

167 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you like DCS change to subscription service instead of current one buying each model seperately?

    • YES (anual fixed payment and cheeper modules, terrains, campaigns,...)
      13
    • NO, leave it as it is, its just fine
      146
    • Not sure
      8

This poll is closed to new votes


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Part of the problem here is that non of us have any idea really of what happens in terms of the bottom line.

Not only does the actual player base for any computer game fluctuate from hour to hour, day by day, but the responses to this post itself would fluctuate depending on the fictitious value being used to discuss it.

Using $50 as a subscription fee might work for the purpose of demonstrating a point in a discussion, but in reality it might take something more like $250 to make DCS a viable subscription service.

My point is that its pointless guessing the value of a subscription service when we have nothing factual about the finances behind DCS to go by.

I think there is only one question this type of thread can address, that being whether the user is willing to rent, or prefers to own his/her use of DCS. Personally, I don't see any value in buying into something like MS's subscription concept for its Office Suite let alone something like DCS. I buy the modules I want, and I spend the amount of time using them that I want. I rent a car while I'm on holidays because I need it to get to the beach. And when I get to the beach, I rent a Jet Ski. I don't know too many people that keep renting the Jet Ski after their vacation ends and they've gone home. 

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Maxon did this with zbrush and forger destroyed the smaller artists who couldn’t afford hundreds and thousands a month or year in constant fees. Now I use Blender and Nomad religiously and purposely avoid anything Maxon, Autodesk, Maya, Pixologic, care for the little people and we will care for you. Stay true to your fans. 

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What exists now not only works but is generous by industry standards; try anything and everything for free for two-weeks, and if you like it, buy it. If you don't like it, try it again in six-months for free for another two-weeks, maybe there have been improvements to the module, and if you like it, buy it. Not to mention the frequent sales where you can get stuff at 50% off.

 

You can get all the cool toys at once - Syria + Supercarrier + F-18 -  and beat the crap out of it for two-weeks to see if it's your thing. Or the Channel Map + P-51 + WWII Assets Pack, and fly all of that for free for two-weeks. That's a very generous and open way of introducing the customer to your products. Nothing hidden, no surprises, everything available.

 

I have exactly zero complaints about how DCS offers up the toys.

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Some of the planes, but all of the maps!

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8 hours ago, mbcarroll40 said:

Maxon did this with zbrush and forger destroyed the smaller artists who couldn’t afford hundreds and thousands a month or year in constant fees. Now I use Blender and Nomad religiously and purposely avoid anything Maxon, Autodesk, Maya, Pixologic, care for the little people and we will care for you. Stay true to your fans. 

That sums it quite nicely. Thanks!

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22 hours ago, MiG21bisFishbedL said:

No, it really isn't. In fact, that's a horrible solution. There's already complaints that maps divide the community, adding a yearly paywall that would place already paying customers behind it and declare them as 'secondary' to people who pay a yearly 50 bucks is going to drive away a lot of customers, me included.

Because, again, as an owner of most modules, where do I actually get more value out of this additional expenditure?  Instead of the $80 or so I spend yearly on modules, it's now going to be $130 to access features which had been freely accessible to everyone prior? This reads as nickel and diming the consumer. I now have to spend more money to access  the things I've already paid for

I really, really don't get where this idea that throwing more money at a problem is going to magically solve it. It isn't. ED has stated that they aren't tight on cash. If you really, really feel like throwing more money at ED, they got merch and you can always buy modules for friends. 

They'd be farther ahead ceasing DCS as a free product at that point, they might as well charge a $30 for the base simulator.

Quick math:
According to the DCS website, there's over 3,100 people playing DCS right now. It's not the whole base obviously and this figure will fluctuate as the day progresses, but let's assume it's the chunk of the player base that'd buy this pro subscription. At $50 a pop, that's $155,000 in revenue before you start divvying that up into profits taken by the company, into pay toward workers, support costs, etc.

That's nothing. That's peanuts. After it's all said and done, that might not even be enough to get another programmer. No, you're not going to dump all that money into hiring another programmer, there's a lot of overhead to address as well. It's also key to remember that this is a generous assumption of how many would get pro. I anticipate few would. No matter where you outsource this work too, no matter which poor populace you exploit, you're not going to get a substantial enough hiring boom that it would make a difference in the rate we get core updates.

On top of that, it could actually harm income from modules as players upset with the pro subscription divide stop buying them. This would then hurt the third party developers the most. I'm not sure I'd like to give a financial middle finger to Heatblur right about now. Suddenly, module sales drop and are replaced by subscriptions, subscriptions that cost less than a module, they have a smaller take over all, and now those core issues are even slower to be fixed.

Revenue streams have to be thought out. They have to give the consumer some perceived value. Otherwise they don't just fail, they can risk damaging rapport with the customer base.

ED has stated no subscriptions and for a good reason; they understand they have a niche market and they understand how fragile it can be. They have a pretty appreciable grasp on how much stress their customer base will take before they stop playing, as they've been to that threshold before.

 

I don't think you understand how serious this is. People just are not going to be incentives to buy all the new modules. As you said it's a nich. Also longtime players are really really tired of some of the core games shortcomings. Just having a basic and functional ATC would be freaking huge. Now apply your profit model to modules creation. How much money do you think the Apache cost to create. If you 3000 player number is correct how much of that revenue went back to the base game? DCS has 2020 aircraft simulations running in a 2005 environment. Yes the graphics have improved some. But for a module like the Apache to really shine it's going to need a better environment to fight in. Also there needs to be a way for long time players, or players that are not interested in buying more modules to pay back into the product. Asset packs were an Idea. Super Carrier was an idea. The point is there is no free lunch. Everyone that plays DCS would benefit from something like multi core optimization, or truly dynamic wether, or better Ai behavior. But there is no free luch, and there is no free feature. 

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41 minutes ago, FlankerKiller said:

...Everyone that plays DCS would benefit from something like multi core optimization, or truly dynamic wether, or better Ai behavior. But there is no free luch, and there is no free feature. 

Aren't these things being worked on under ED current business model?

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11 hours ago, mbcarroll40 said:

Maxon did this with zbrush and forger destroyed the smaller artists who couldn’t afford hundreds and thousands a month or year in constant fees. Now I use Blender and Nomad religiously and purposely avoid anything Maxon, Autodesk, Maya, Pixologic, care for the little people and we will care for you. Stay true to your fans. 

Perhaps. Then again no for-profit company ever looks out for the little people: they are obliged to look out for their share/stake holders as best they can. If you think some company is looking out for you, then you are most likely overlooking something important. They aren't.  Maxon et al did not destroy smaller artists. Those who claim that their business was destroyed by something as ridiculously small as software license (less than two thousand a year) never had a sustainable business model to begin with. In any evert, we are not talking about productivity software, but entertainment here.

2 hours ago, Matchstick said:

Honestly the only thing worse than a subscription model would be ED getting into selling NFTs

Well, perhaps you have been lucky enough to not having been exposed to the truly bad stuff on the internet. One of the many bad things I can imagine to be worse than a subscription model (which I'm no fan of, and which we theorized about while asking how to finance fixing some of our pet peeves) would be free with pay2win microtransactions. Compared with that horror, I'd buy the original A10A's first screenshot as NFT sight unseen 🙂 

I think that ED regularly looks at subscription models regularly, and each time they decide against it, it is a good decision because they know why they aren't going that way. The problem with many opponent's arguments here is that they mostly boil down to 'I don't like it' while eschewing the business case from ED's perspective. Personally I'm happy that ED isn't going subscription. I do, on the other hand, also see that this lessens the pressure on them to fix the free base game, which has a lot of points that need fixing.


Edited by cfrag
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TBH, NFTs could be a cool way to supplement ED's income. Think of it as just another kind of merchandise. You don't have to buy it if you don't want to. They do know how to make cool screenshots.

As for subscriptions, well, I suspect people that make up ED hate them as much as I do. 🙂 It's not a customer-friendly business model, and a small company can't screw over their customers. ED does have a monopoly in modern flight sim market, but it's not an essential service. TBH, I really don't get why some people have to keep finding ways for ED to charge us more. If they really have an excess of money they'd like to give to ED, they can buy another t-shirt or a DCS-branded cup.

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10 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

If they really have an excess of money they'd like to give to ED, they can buy another t-shirt or a DCS-branded cup.

They can also buy any module as a gift to someone else, that way they can give even more money to ED.

 

My opinion is that I don't know what is best for ED and DCS in regard to payment model

I can only speak for myself, I like the way things are now,

subscription model makes me obliged to play the game, since I have payed for the month I have to play it otherwise my money is going to waste which in turn makes the game feel like work, I have to log in and fly I payed for it.

But then again if I find myself to have no time for flying this week, or for 2 weeks, I will stop paying the sub, cause whats the point if I'm not flying, then even if I want to fly today I know I wont be able to fly for few days after today cause of work and obligations etc... I will not renew the sub, since I have no time.

So if I'm paying the monthly sub for this sim I better fly or my money is going to waste... see where I'm getting here, the payment model is making me fly, cause, well read up... I become a slave to my game which should be a game, which should make me relax and enjoy but with this monthly sub model it is making me "work".

 

That's why I don't like subscription based games and I run away from those.

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12 minutes ago, Furiz said:

They can also buy any module as a gift to someone else, that way they can give even more money to ED.

 

My opinion is that I don't know what is best for ED and DCS in regard to payment model

I can only speak for myself, I like the way things are now,

subscription model makes me obliged to play the game, since I have payed for the month I have to play it otherwise my money is going to waste which in turn makes the game feel like work, I have to log in and fly I payed for it.

But then again if I find myself to have no time for flying this week, or for 2 weeks, I will stop paying the sub, cause whats the point if I'm not flying, then even if I want to fly today I know I wont be able to fly for few days after today cause of work and obligations etc... I will not renew the sub, since I have no time.

So if I'm paying the monthly sub for this sim I better fly or my money is going to waste... see where I'm getting here, the payment model is making me fly, cause, well read up... I become a slave to my game which should be a game, which should make me relax and enjoy but with this monthly sub model it is making me "work".

 

That's why I don't like subscription based games and I run away from those.

^^^ This +1

6 minutes ago, Coxy_99 said:

Lock the thread stupid idea.

There is a lot to be said about the ability to be concise and to the point. Thank you!

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On 4/16/2022 at 4:04 AM, Beirut said:

 

Coffee cup. Shot glass. 

Why didn't I think of this??? 

Set my whole dinner table. A different module on every plate... 

Make a Christmas themed one for good measure!

And BTW, the Ferrari coffee mug I got in the Ferrari shop in Milan, actually has a serial number, so why not make the merchandise collectable? 

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31 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Why didn't I think of this??? 

 

Because no one has brought you into the wonderful world of bourbon yet perhaps. 🥃 

 

31 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

Set my whole dinner table. A different module on every plate... 

 

 

That's funny.

 

31 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

And BTW, the Ferrari coffee mug I got in the Ferrari shop in Milan, actually has a serial number, so why not make the merchandise collectable? 

 

That's a good idea.  64 limited edition glasses for the Apache, 50 for the Havoc. You'd have to have a raffle for the Huey. :happy:

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Some of the planes, but all of the maps!

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1 hour ago, Beirut said:

 

Because no one has brought you into the wonderful world of bourbon yet perhaps. 🥃 

Well, I guess old Jack doesn't count, so no. And I'm not in the habit of chucking my single malt. 

Tequila on the other hand. 😊 

I do actually have quite an extensive collection of shots glass. Like every state I visited, Hard Rock etc. So that's why I am baffled it slipped my mine. 😊 

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3 hours ago, Callsign112 said:

Aren't these things being worked on under ED current business model?

 

I believe they are. But because it's hidden away, not a direct part of a popular module development, people think it's not being done at all.  Also, once something appears, people may not notice right away, with the millions of distractions.

Thing is, these wants are not easily fixed and improved simply by waving cash in people's faces.  Time allocation for the programmer coders, needs to be balanced to best help  the company. In ways that we outsiders have no idea about.  Running a business well and effectively, ensuring you will still be in business 1 to 6 years from now, is a very different creature from demanding a wishlist be complete! 

 

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4 hours ago, FlankerKiller said:

I don't think you understand how serious this is. People just are not going to be incentives to buy all the new modules. As you said it's a nich. Also longtime players are really really tired of some of the core games shortcomings. Just having a basic and functional ATC would be freaking huge. Now apply your profit model to modules creation. How much money do you think the Apache cost to create. If you 3000 player number is correct how much of that revenue went back to the base game? DCS has 2020 aircraft simulations running in a 2005 environment. Yes the graphics have improved some. But for a module like the Apache to really shine it's going to need a better environment to fight in. Also there needs to be a way for long time players, or players that are not interested in buying more modules to pay back into the product. Asset packs were an Idea. Super Carrier was an idea. The point is there is no free lunch. Everyone that plays DCS would benefit from something like multi core optimization, or truly dynamic wether, or better Ai behavior. But there is no free luch, and there is no free feature. 

I don't understand how serious this is? Bud, I'm playing the same game you are. I have the same frustrations as you do, but a subscription isn't the cure. By their own admission. If a company is refusing more money, there's a good reason.

ED has not indicated they have serious money troubles. ED has even said they're not planning to adopt a subscription. Several times. And, again, a subscription model isn't going to change a thing. As stated in this thread, it'd have to cost a lot more than $50 a year. The potential reaction from their niche customers is why. 

And yes, there is no free lunch. It's a good thing we buy the modules, then! At least I hope I'm not the only one, I'd like to find out how everyone got theirs for free, evidently.

Core changes are happening, slowly but they are. The kind of cash yielded by subscription isn't going to change that.  ED needs better resource and time management, throwing more money at the problem isn't going to fix it. Because, once again, I've already put a lot of money into DCS. If they say they want to cordon off core updates behind a pay wall when I've already bought several products? They won't get much more from me and I have a feeling I will not be alone. There's not a lot of customers out there willing to put down that kind of yearly money. 

Never give up attitudes are good, but should be examined when they start to become Sisyphean.


Edited by MiG21bisFishbedL
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Reformers hate him! This one weird trick found by a bush pilot will make gunfighter obsessed old farts angry at your multi-role carrier deck line up!

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6 hours ago, Callsign112 said:

Aren't these things being worked on under ED current business model?

Yes.

Theyre slow, but I doubt ED going subscription (which they themselves aren't interested in), is going to significantly speed it up.

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Modules I own: F-14A/B, Mi-24P, AV-8B N/A, AJS 37, F-5E-3, MiG-21bis, F-16CM, F/A-18C, Supercarrier, Mi-8MTV2, UH-1H, Mirage 2000C, FC3, MiG-15bis, Ka-50, A-10C (+ A-10C II), P-47D, P-51D, C-101, Yak-52, WWII Assets, CA, NS430, Hawk.

Terrains I own: South Atlantic, Syria, The Channel, SoH/PG, Marianas.

System:

GIGABYTE B650 AORUS ELITE AX, AMD Ryzen 5 7600, Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200 32 GB, Western Digital Black SN850X 1 TB (DCS dedicated) & 2 TB NVMe SSDs, Corsair RM850X 850 W, NZXT H7 Flow, MSI G274CV.

Peripherals: VKB Gunfighter Mk.II w. MCG Pro, MFG Crosswind V3 Graphite, Logitech Extreme 3D Pro.

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On 4/15/2022 at 7:41 PM, cfrag said:

So let‘s talk about this. This isn‘t so much a subscription, as much as a „priority pass“ (which is a subscription, but subscribers are stupid, and I don‘t mind 🙂 ) 

  • You pay a certain price (say 50 USD) a year to participate, there is NO automatic renewal
  • Participants to the program always see what they get for their money (i.e. the features ALREADY EXIST in the priority version) before they commit
  • Participation is for exactly one year and then returns to standard
  • priority items are things that improve the base game: Vulcan, better AI, better damage, dynamic weather, you name it
  • After a certain time (one year max), all priority features are folded into the free standard version. So the standard version always lags the pro version by some time, but always receives all improvements given some time

This forces ED to provide incentives to pay real money for real advantages, and those who pay fund development for real improvements. These become available for everyone free after a certain max time.

There are many questions to be resolved before this can be anywhere near a production item, but at least it resolves the problem of funding (this people can invest in).

Cheers,

-ch

 

 

34 minutes ago, MiG21bisFishbedL said:

I don't understand how serious this is? Bud, I'm playing the same game you are. I have the same frustrations as you do, but a subscription isn't the cure. By their own admission. If a company is refusing more money, there's a good reason.

ED has not indicated they have serious money troubles. ED has even said they're not planning to adopt a subscription. Several times. And, again, a subscription model isn't going to change a thing. As stated in this thread, it'd have to cost a lot more than $50 a year. The potential reaction from their niche customers is why. 

And yes, there is no free lunch. It's a good thing we buy the modules, then! At least I hope I'm not the only one, I'd like to find out how everyone got theirs for free, evidently.

Core changes are happening, slowly but they are. The kind of cash yielded by subscription isn't going to change that.  ED needs better resource and time management, throwing more money at the problem isn't going to fix it. Because, once again, I've already put a lot of money into DCS. If they say they want to cordon off core updates behind a pay wall when I've already bought several products? They won't get much more from me and I have a feeling I will not be alone. There's not a lot of customers out there willing to put down that kind of yearly money. 

Never give up attitudes are good, but should be examined when they start to become Sisyphean.

 

It's not the OPs suggestion but did you even read the thread? That is a decent suggestion. To imply that a company that in the span of five years has mostly pulled off the Hornet, Apache, Viper, Mi-24P, Mosquito, P-47D multiple versions, and a FW-190A have a time management problem? No they have a put there time into what makes them money problem. And no I don't think putting the open Beata behind a paywall would break the community. I would suggest an annual payment equivalent to a single module. If they used that to make new features and could continuously improve the quality of the core game I bet a significant percentage of the player base would come onboard. It's a good suggestion. They could also just rename the game something new and you pay a onetime price to come over. But at the pace core updates are coming the player base will die of old age before we see significant advancement. And I'm not being facetious, the core of the game doesn't look that significantly different then it did when LOMAC released. Not as different as LOMAC was from Flanker 2.0 for sure. The ATC, ground combat mechanics, surface to air missiles implementation and weather are about the same. So clearly there needs to be some kind of incentive. Egale Dynamics will do what they are going to do. Buy it would be nice to see a decent ATC, or Dynamic Weather model, or Dynamic Campaign before I die of old age. Changing the pay model from LOMAC to DCS World gave us the list of modules we have today. Which are definitely the most realistic simulations of those aircraft ever on a home PC. Maybe another change in pay model could give us the most realistic world ever on home PC to fly them in. 

I'm totally against a monthly or yearly subscription to play. But I'm not against ether a onetime payment to upgrade to something new, or putting open Beata behind an annual paywall. Honestly Cfrag probably had the best idea I've heard to address thus issue. 

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I am happy that DCS does not charge a subscription fee.  I know that we do not get brand new jets, choppers, and new maps as we would like.  In the meantime, I use the planes, jets, and maps that are currently available to enjoy the virtual aviation.  DCS is a nice market company.  They offer very realistic jets and choppers from various eras, but not providing new products every week or so.  We wait for DCS to tell about scheduled releases.  Yes, we all want instant gratification in flying the new jet/chopper, trying out the new module, or flying in a brand new map.  Focus on what is currently available.  Many players in ED have limited budgets.

MFT

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2 hours ago, FlankerKiller said:

 

It's not the OPs suggestion but did you even read the thread? That is a decent suggestion. To imply that a company that in the span of five years has mostly pulled off the Hornet, Apache, Viper, Mi-24P, Mosquito, P-47D multiple versions, and a FW-190A have a time management problem? No they have a put there time into what makes them money problem. And no I don't think putting the open Beata behind a paywall would break the community. I would suggest an annual payment equivalent to a single module. If they used that to make new features and could continuously improve the quality of the core game I bet a significant percentage of the player base would come onboard. It's a good suggestion. They could also just rename the game something new and you pay a onetime price to come over. But at the pace core updates are coming the player base will die of old age before we see significant advancement. And I'm not being facetious, the core of the game doesn't look that significantly different then it did when LOMAC released. Not as different as LOMAC was from Flanker 2.0 for sure. The ATC, ground combat mechanics, surface to air missiles implementation and weather are about the same. So clearly there needs to be some kind of incentive. Egale Dynamics will do what they are going to do. Buy it would be nice to see a decent ATC, or Dynamic Weather model, or Dynamic Campaign before I die of old age. Changing the pay model from LOMAC to DCS World gave us the list of modules we have today. Which are definitely the most realistic simulations of those aircraft ever on a home PC. Maybe another change in pay model could give us the most realistic world ever on home PC to fly them in. 

I'm totally against a monthly or yearly subscription to play. But I'm not against ether a onetime payment to upgrade to something new, or putting open Beata behind an annual paywall. Honestly Cfrag probably had the best idea I've heard to address thus issue. 

I did.

Did you read mine? Did you read others? Did you read where others have stated that it would have a meaningless impact given the money the proposed charge would bring in? Or the part where the subscription would have to be quite a bit more? Did you read where ED has stated they've no plans for this and they prefer their current model?

And the core hasn't changed since LOMAC? There sure is a lot of code left over that could definitely stand to be disposed of and assets that need be updated, but we're getting AI revamps. We've seen map updates, fixes, new systems, and quite a bit more.

That's a negativity bias if I've ever seen one. Some of the things are frustrating, there's no denying that. There's absolutely no denying that ED has some really bad priorities on what gets developed and what gets backburnered. You'll not hear me deny that. That'd be absolutely crazy. But, this is not an issue of resources but more an issue of priorities. By that token, what will more money going in really accomplish? Not much. It also sets a bad precedent, it tells the company they can squeeze more money out of consumers. Given that ED tries to appeal to a global market in which it has to address very disparate levels of disposable income across its customer base, it says to consumers in markets with tighter margins on their hobby cash that they demand a premium that could very well be seen as way too much.

A pro subscription is not a good idea. For anyone. 

Let's throw all of the nice new stuff on a new branch or as an option that non-subscribers can't use. Even ones like me who own most of the content which I was lead to believe pays for their development in addition to money coming in from their government contracts. So, the people forking over the cash can enjoy buggy, incomplete features. Features that could even break the game, for subscribers and non-subscribers alike since we all play on the beta branch anyways. And, that's more software management that have to do, more coding they have to do, more work they have to do, and all to get a few thousand more annually?

That won't really get you more coders to make a dent in what is desired to be done and this is all done at the risk of alienating the majority of the player base since the majority has made it quite clear how they feel on the subject.

All that's left is for this thread to get locked, tbh. Then wait 2 months for the next one and watch the literal same conclusion be arrived at. A conclusion that, honestly, doesn't really matter since ED's made it pretty clear their position.


Edited by MiG21bisFishbedL
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Reformers hate him! This one weird trick found by a bush pilot will make gunfighter obsessed old farts angry at your multi-role carrier deck line up!

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Switching DCS to a subscription based game is a stupid idea and you should feel stupid. If you want to see DCS dry up overnight, make people pay for the audacity to play the game they've already purchased through modules.

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