DCS Newsletter discussion 17th February 2023 - RAZBAM F-15E Pre-order

[NineLine]

14 minutes ago, Beirut said:

 

Oh come on.

 

I've been in business for 25 years and I know one or two things. Keeping the customer informed as to plans is part of good relations. You know full well that Steam customers were eagerly anticipating making their pre-orders today. But between RB and ED not one person thought to mention to that base of customers that they would not be able to pre-orders?

 

Poor performance on someone's part. 

You were informed when we were ready to share the information. It would not have made a difference if it was said a day ago or a week ago. 

[BIGNEWY]

15 minutes ago, Beirut said:

 

Oh come on.

 

I've been in business for 25 years and I know one or two things. Keeping the customer informed as to plans is part of good relations. You know full well that Steam customers were eagerly anticipating making their pre-orders today. But between RB and ED not one person thought to mention to that base of customers that they would not be able to pre-orders?

 

Poor performance on someone's part. 

this is what the pre-order announcement today was for.

Either way you have given your feedback 

thank you

[St4rgun]

Pre-order is great and all, but where to rush?

Last time with the AH-64 it took 5 months after pre-order to early access launch (ED product), while it was 6 months in case of the F-14 (Heatblur product)...

[NineLine]

27 minutes ago, St4rgun said:

Pre-order is great and all, but where to rush?

Last time with the AH-64 it took 5 months after pre-order to early access launch (ED product), while it was 6 months in case of the F-14 (Heatblur product)...

There is no rush, I am super happy that its been so popular though. Its great to see so many wanting to support RAZBAM this early.

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, NineLine said:

There is no rush, I am super happy that its been so popular though. Its great to see so many wanting to support RAZBAM this early.

 

I agree .. on my country we are still on summer vacations time and so I went with the no-rush option, and delayed my purchase as holiday expenditures have been high, tough I still intend to place my pre-order on March or even April ... but I'm glad for Razbam, the pre-purchases must have been quite a lot, to collapse the e-shop   good for them and for ED 

[Dragon1-1]

If only it was also released on a certain less brittle and perhaps more popular platform... 

I would have bought it. If it appears on Steam at any time during preorder, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I'll be waiting for a sale. Steam is too useful for me to ditch completely, which is what I'd need to do. 

[AdrianL]

2 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I'll be waiting for a sale

You liable to be waiting 2 years before the F-15 goes on sale.

[Dragon1-1]

That's about how long it takes to make a proper singleplayer campaign for a modern fighter jet (give or take, and considering it's not really coming out for a few more months), so I'm not too worried. By the time I have content to fly it in, it'll be going on sales. There are some exceptions, but even Jeff can regularly be spotted at 30% off by now. In fact, that might be my next modern module, now that it has its own campaign (and MAD). It's not BD, but if I want one of his I'll go back to the MiG-19.

BTW, Apache had a preorder on Steam. I think it was also at 30%. So it's quite possible. I understand wanting to milk the Mudhen for all it's worth, but some people only use Steam. I suppose some will cross over, but many will not. 

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Steam is too useful for me to ditch completely, which is what I'd need to do. 

 

I started my DCS hobby on Steam, back on 2013 ..  but on 2014 I chose to ditch Steam and moved over to stand-alone .. have not regreted it .. I prefer to not have Steam's overhead on my PC.

[Devil 505]

4 hours ago, Beirut said:

May I ask, in the most polite tone possible, why this was not mentioned weeks ago by someone and not left for customers to find out in a haphazard way at the last moment when everyone on Steam was expecting to be able to make their pre-order?

 

I think that's a fair question.

 

3 hours ago, gzj3401 said:

This is a bad start, if other third-party developers also do not pre-order on Steam in the future, DCS will undoubtedly lose many Steam users, and it is unfair to the existing virtual pilots who are used to start the game on Steam. 

 

3 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Are ED seriously saying lack of proper information doesn't matter?

The F15 Pre order was pushed back twice with this month with corresponding info from RAZBAM and ED. Adding info that it would not be able pre-order on steam would be an appropriate piece of information to be released during one of these two postponements.

 I think its fair to say and not needed every time an aircraft releases, that steam has always had these complications for customers and it has been well documented on the DCS forums.  If you are new to DCS world, maybe there should be a steam forum explaining all the complications of playing on steam.  I would venture to guess it would still not stop the complaining and the vast amount of people playing on steam would just start complaining on that forum to. 

If you have been flying DCS long enough, these comments are clearly emotionally driven because you chose to go the steam route instead of the dedicated route of running DCS as a standalone.  If you downloaded DCS and purchased your first module on Steam thats the way she goes.  Somehow you found your way to this forum which means you discovered a lot of us run the dedciated standalone version for a reason, aka not steam.  You and you alone made the call to play via steam, not ED or Razbams fault.  They are a business and make business decisions so they can provide the best to their customers.   

My suggestion, stop whining and go the dedicated route, or continue to abuse yourself and stick with steam.  If this causes you to ditch DCS because it was not on Steam for early access, your a failure in life.

[pii]

16 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

I started my DCS hobby on Steam, back on 2013 ..  but on 2014 I chose to ditch Steam and moved over to stand-alone .. have not regreted it .. I prefer to not have Steam's overhead on my PC.

Did the same and never regretted it for a second. 

[NineLine]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

If only it was also released on a certain less brittle and perhaps more popular platform... 

I would have bought it. If it appears on Steam at any time during preorder, I'll buy it. Otherwise, I'll be waiting for a sale. Steam is too useful for me to ditch completely, which is what I'd need to do. 

When it releases on Steam for Early Access it will be 20% off. 

[pii]

3 hours ago, gzj3401 said:

DCS will undoubtedly lose many Steam users, and it is unfair to the existing virtual pilots who are used to start the game on Steam. 

There is literally no difference to starting a DCS module on Steam than it is to start it stand alone. You click on an Icon and, Poof like magic, it starts no matter what platform it is installed on. Support ED buy direct from them or their partners. 

[Dragon1-1]

1 minute ago, NineLine said:

When it releases on Steam for Early Access it will be 20% off. 

Yeah, I don't care by that point. By the time decent singleplayer content is out, it'll be back to 30% on a sale. I don't particularly feel like supporting the devs who intentionally leave half the community out of preorder.

If you really want people to switch, start pricing your products in something other than USD. Steam offers a whole range of currencies, which is helpful for everyone not in the US, because where I live the bank takes a big fat cut of every currency conversion. Also, it'd help to make your updater smarter, right now it's much more of a space hog than Steam, which is capable of downloading and unpacking stuff piecemeal. 

[NineLine]

Ok guys, please stick to the F-15E Pre-Order now. This isnt the place for pricing etc. 

[Dragon1-1]

This is about how I'm unable to pay for the preorder with legal tender of my country, and would have had to pay the bank a cut if I wanted to buy it on the store (and I don't, standalone just doesn't offer enough). So I'd say it's pretty on topic. And it's not just me, there's a lot of Steam users who had been looking forward to this, only to get left behind out of the blue.

[NineLine]

4 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is about how I'm unable to pay for the preorder with legal tender of my country, and would have had to pay the bank a cut if I wanted to buy it on the store (and I don't, standalone just doesn't offer enough). So I'd say it's pretty on topic. And it's not just me, there's a lot of Steam users who had been looking forward to this, only to get left behind out of the blue.

As stated if you want to stick to Steam, you will be able to get it in Early Access for 20% off. It was not our decision to not offer it on Steam so I cannot help you there. 

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

This is about how I'm unable to pay for the preorder with legal tender of my country, and would have had to pay the bank a cut if I wanted to buy it on the store

 

At least on my country, it does not matter if I purchase on Steam or at ED-shop, my credit card bank's always charges a small percentage for money exchange services, on both stores the same. (But ofc Steam some times has a lower base price than ED's ... but my bank still charges me if I purchase there.

[Dragon1-1]

Just now, Rudel_chw said:

At least on my country, it does not matter if I purchase on Steam or at ED-shop, my credit card bank's always charges a small percentage for money exchange services, on both stores the same. (But ofc Steam some times has a lower base price than ED's ... but my bank still charges me if I purchase there.

Not true for me, Steam shows prices in my own currency and there doesn't seem to be an explicit conversion charge. It used to be that way when it charged my country in EUR. As a matter of fact, base price on Steam in here is typically significantly lower than on ED store, too, they're likely accounting for differences purchasing power parity. Until ED starts doing the same, I'm not touching standalone. 

I imagine it's the case for most people who aren't lucky enough to use USD or one of the few stronger currencies. Either way, I can very well leave the Strike Eagle be until the first big sale after BD releases a DLC campaign for it, at least. I should get my 30% off by then.

[MadKreator]

I use steam, went to pre-order.. no preorder, saw it was not available after checking  discord.. result=bummed. not the end of the world I’ll grab it on EA. No sense in losing sleep over $8. I don’t blame them really after finding out what a chunk of profit steam takes right off the top. Thinking its time to switch to standalone just to better support the devs. More money for them, better products for us. Still excited for release either way! 

[Eldur]

I'm glad I got up late. Fired up my rig, opened my browser, opened the store page from my bookmarks, went through the whole process, done. No issues.

7 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

yes please be patient, the website is overloaded 

thanks

POV: It's late April 2020 and Aldi just got a new batch of toilet paper in...

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, Dragon1-1 said:

Not true for me, Steam shows prices in my own currency and there doesn't seem to be an explicit conversion charge.

 

OK, I understand .. will check my credit card statements to check if it is still the way I said .. my Eurotruck purchases are made at Steam so I should have data for it.

 

1 hour ago, MadKreator said:

 I don’t blame them really after finding out what a chunk of profit steam takes right off the top.

 

What chunk is Steam currently taking?  I seem to remember that their cut was 30% is that right?

 

59 minutes ago, Eldur said:

I'm glad I got up late. Fired up my rig, opened my browser, opened the store page from my bookmarks, went through the whole process, done. No issues.

 

Question .. did you use ED miles for the purchase?  If not, did the purchase accrued ED miles to your account?

 

[MadKreator]

21 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

OK, I understand .. will check my credit card statements to check if it is still the way I said .. my Eurotruck purchases are made at Steam so I should have data for it.

 

 

What chunk is Steam currently taking?  I seem to remember that their cut was 30% is that right?

 

 

Question .. did you use ED miles for the purchase?  If not, did the purchase accrued ED miles to your account?

 

30% is what I have seen/ heard. Whether that's 100% accurate, isn't for me to say.. anything in that range seems pretty steep to me, especialy over thousands of sales

[ngreenaway]

6 hours ago, AdrianL said:

 

Or they were expecting to be able to use their 'miles' and found out at purchase it was not available.

 

i dont care about not being able to use them, but i am irritated that a purchase didnt accrue miles

[Gierasimov]

I will be happy to preorder a day before it goes into Early Access. Looks really nice!