ED's planned price policy

[GhostDog]

I find it hard to believe that someone, ANYONE, cannot afford US $60 for a sim that will entertain for hundreds (in my case thousands) of hours.

 

Sorry, I do not buy that.

 

Guess things are really good in Canada if you can't imagine anyone not having $60 to spend on entertainment.

[Steel Jaw]

Guess things are really good in Canada if you can't imagine anyone not having $60 to spend on entertainment.

 

Are we really having this conversation? $60?

 

Am I missing a zero? Are you really talking about $600?

 

I cannot afford a new video card. But I can (and did) find $60 to buy into the beta.

 

Now, if you are a 14 years child with no job then you might be counting on the charity of mom or dad...beyond that I am perplexed by this.

 

I shall now depart this thread.

 

Flame on.

[Weta43]

Be careful of turning your nose up at simmers who are on a budget.

AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.6GHz, Asus Crosshair II Mobo, 4GB Corsair Dominator PC2 8500 @ 1066MHz, Radeon 5850 HD 1GB, Zalman 1KW PSU, Win 7 Ultimate 64

 

Echoing someone above's comment (& your's Mower, which wasn't there when I started) but the two quoted parts from the post above seem fairly typical of many of the posts on this forum complaining about the price point of E.D.'s sims.

People who spend many hundreds - and often thousands - of dollars buying computer's and peripherals to make their simming experience as realistic as possible, balk at the idea of paying a fair price for what is a high quality, (complicated) piece of niche market software that will probably outlast the computer they're currently using.

[GhostDog]

Echoing someone above's comment (& your's Mower, which wasn't there when I started) but the two quoted parts from the post above seem fairly typical of many of the posts on this forum complaining about the price point of E.D.'s sims.

People who spend many hundreds - and often thousands - of dollars buying computer's and peripherals to make their simming experience as realistic as possible, balk at the idea of paying a fair price for what is a high quality, (complicated) piece of niche market software that will probably outlast the computer they're currently using.

 

You're assuming two things:

 

1. I bought my computer solely for the purpose of playing flight sims
   
2. I think the price of the game is unfair
   

You're wrong on both counts. That said, I understand the thread creator's point. I have to make choices about where my family's discretionary income is going to go. There are lots of options to choose from, and at $60, my other options are reduced, and I need to decide if it's worth it, for me and my family. Other folks have already decided, and that's fine for them. Not everyone's circumstances, values and perceptions are the same.

[sofie_59]

I think that the price for SteeBeasts is 125$

And then you have to pay for "Upgrade" 20-30$

So 60$ is not much.

I have bought a new Pc for 3000$

Pre-order Hotas warthog( And have to have 500$ on my Bank-acount)

And service the car for 1000$

I bought Arma,Arma2,Arma Spearhead the last 3 weeks

So i say 60$ on this grate game is nothing

[My Fing ID]

I don't see the problem. $60 is how much a normal game costs now adays anyway so really it seems like the price they should release at, if not a bit higher. As for SteelBeasts that's a ridiculous price and I refuse to buy it because of that. The only reason they can get away with that is because they're the only thing I know of that comes close to a descent tank sim. Last one I tried wouldn't even let me set joystick controls lol.

 

Anyways selling this for the current price of video games is reasonable.

[sofie_59]

And you dont see Steel beasts on a torrent site because of the dingle

It has not been cracked,what i know

[Steel Jaw]

I'm back.

 

SB Pro SE rocks.

 

Worth the $125 if you are a serious tanker simmer.

 

Love that sim.

 

But, yeah, its expensive. But ya see, it's still being developed and supported.

[element1108]

Remembr as well it's not just a new airframe, there are major improvments to a10 that make it a entirly new entity . Call of duty changes the skins around and recycles maps from cod UO and cod 2 and charge $59 a pop for xbox. This is more than a skin change. On top of the fact they have highly specialized staff to deal with the engineering and aeronautical challenges doing a high fidelity flight sim, they're not getting paid 30k a year like the programmers on ea sports franchise.

 

Games have always been in and around $60 (in Canada anyway). In 1994 snes and sega games were $69-$89 a pop.

 

There is no backward conspiracy here to rob us, it's more expensive because that's most likely how the math adds up. I'm sure the national guard paid a lot more for their product no doubt, and ours is better.

 

This is the reason people don't talk about how much they make or who they're going to vote for. If you complain about price, it will be rebutted and in the end the ones that can afford the product get it.

 

It shouldn't be concluded that because a10 went up in price compared to black shark that the next module will go up as well.

[eurofor]

What's the value of a dollar? :D So $60 is nothing.

[Lio]

If you think that its about how many planes you get you missed the entire point of the DCS series i think.

 

Tbh im very excited about DCS: A-10C, i would have bought it even if they had a price like SB Pro PE which i also own. Bought for 125$

[sofie_59]

6.66 sek for one dollar:D

you can park your car for 4 hours for that!

[Moa]

ED said future DCS modules where to be offered at a reduced price for owners of at least one DCS module. I guess that is a thing of the past, things have changed a lot in the last two years (well, for all of us XD).

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=26101

 

Mate, building software is hard. It always takes longer and costs more than anyone expects. The most difficult part of software development is not the tehnical parts like coding but is estimation, almost no-one gets it right. The companies who are better at it have people whose sole job is to estimate software effort - although they often get it wrong (since such professional 'projetc managers' don't always know code anymore so they where the complexity and risk are so can't get the estimates right in every area they consider) - and keep track of where the time was actually spent so they better estimate the next project.

 

It is clear that building complex sims like LockOn FC2 (complex for a lot of reasons even if medium fidelity), BlackShark and Warthog is very arduous and difficult to estimate the effort required. While the intent of ED and TFC was to reduce price for you if the project allowed (a noble goal, how many other companies would even mention this?) I don't think the reality is shaping up that way - even with good developers it is harder than non-developer's think (for reasons non-developer's don't always understand). I'm also sure that ED&TFC are building these great sims with far fewer resources than you imagine, or are used to with $US 100 million Electronic Arts titles that are not nearly as innovative (I still can't get over night missions with NVG and flares - love it!).

 

While the ideal price for some might be $0 it turns out that US $60 is probably the minimum ED&TFC though they could charge without risk of making a loss. If they could charge less they probably would, since this results in more sales to Average Joe and possibly increased profit, but at increased risk that they make a loss if Average Joe decides it is not to his taste.

 

So, perhaps some of us have to go without going to the movies for a while, or fewer friday beers (gasp!), or wear last season's fashion, or hold our breath until to our next birthday or Christmas (here soon). All of this makes getting it all the sweeter (plus, everyone else has gone through the debugging process for you, so you see only the final fully-polished product).

 

I'm sure ED&TFC would like to make such a great profit that reducing the prices of additional modules is possible. However, economic realities are merciless and game development is risky and hard - the earlier ED post was optimism, not a deliberate ploy to mislead.

 

Imagine if ED built this product as Open Source and gave away for free (although charging for Open Source is perfectly permitted). Since no one paid for it there would be no money for doing the hard, boring stuff, like writing nice manuals with basics like landing. Only volunteers would do the work and if they couldn't be bothered doing something, or fixing bugs, or decided to go play StarCraft with all their time there is nothing you could do about it. With paying for the software they get money to make the next one (F-16 or F-18 pleeaaaze) and will monitor these threads and answer the same n00b questions again and again and fix bug with our weird hardware setups - and we get to play the game for as many hours as we want (some people have thousands of entertainment hours for a mere $60 bucks - Hollywood doesn't give that value, nor does the Madden series). Worth every penny methinks.

Edited October 7, 2010 by Moa

[Agg]

Actually, compared to the price of other games here in Norway, sixty bucks is quite cheap. Its a bit cheaper than a "normal" pc game, and quite a lot cheaper than console games. And considering how deep the DCS simulations are Im more than happy to pay 60 dollars for it :)

[BoneDust]

This is why I usually buy Russian versions. Their price is good and language is not problem for those who know "know how" convert it.

 

This is something I do not agree with. Charging North American and Europeans more money based on the false believe we are wealthier. This is simply not so any longer and it reeks of bias and discrimination based on social status and geography.

 

I have no problem paying $60 for A10. It is worth every penny, but we are no different economically today than Russia or other countries. The US economy is the worst I've seen in my life time and Canada continues to lose good paying jobs to other countries with lower standards and few labour laws.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to sound political. My point is this is a myth based on the past and needs to change.

[rweaves6]

This is something I do not agree with. Charging North American and Europeans more money based on the false believe we are wealthier. This is simply not so any longer and it reeks of bias and discrimination based on social status and geography.

 

I have no problem paying $60 for A10. It is worth every penny, but we are no different economically today than Russia or other countries. The US economy is the worst I've seen in my life time and Canada continues to lose good paying jobs to other countries with lower standards and few labour laws.

 

Sorry, I don't mean to sound political. My point is this is a myth based on the past and needs to change.

 

And just to give you an idea, I'm using racing wheel pedals for my Hog's pedals! That's how bad it is here in Canada. :smilewink:

[galagamo]

$60 is fair, in fact $70 might have been fair. What I don't like however is paying for the same thing twice. I have DCS BS, and every thing that entails.

But now I gotta pay for some of the same content again? That blows, and it's taking up valuable space on my HDD. All current and future DCS modules should share base content ie textures and what not.

Is that not possible?

[cctoide]

I'm pretty sure it would be $60 even with a combined installation option; you're paying for the effort it took to model the Warthog and upgrade the engine, not what's on the disc/download.

[galagamo]

That's fine with me, totally worth it. But How much content in DCS BS and DCS WH is common to both?

What I mean is a 4+Gb download could have been shaved down to say a 1.5Gb download.

I'm sure it's possible, not sure if it's likely.

[104th_Crunch]

I'm pretty sure it would be $60 even with a combined installation option; you're paying for the effort it took to model the Warthog and upgrade the engine, not what's on the disc/download.

 

Yup, think of all that goes into that A-10C in the sim. As much as some other complete games. Also, there are updates to the graphic engine, other models, other physics, AI, terrain, etc., etc. I think the price is reasonable. Especially considering that this is a small market. Let us hope that ED do well with sales so they can continue this great series.

[sinelnic]

Considering ED is a UK based company, one should consider that since 2007 the Dollar has lost approx 20% of its value against the Pound.

 

Considering the game is developed in Russia, one should consider that since 2008 the Dollar has lost approx 20% of its value against the Ruble.

 

Russian inflation averages 10% per year since 2007.

 

There´s your $60. Let me know if my data is incorrect, I took the numbers from the Web.

[RIPTIDE]

Considering ED is a UK based company, one should consider that since 2007 the Dollar has lost approx 20% of its value against the Pound.

 

Considering the game is developed in Russia, one should consider that since 2008 the Dollar has lost approx 20% of its value against the Ruble.

 

Russian inflation averages 10% per year since 2007.

 

There´s your $60. Let me know if my data is incorrect, I took the numbers from the Web.

Well, ED is based in Moscow. TFC is based out of the UK. :)

[Steel Jaw]

No offense to ED but BS was HIDEOUS.

 

I'd paid $200 for the A10 just to be rid of BS.

[Moa]

Yup, think of all that goes into that A-10C in the sim. As much as some other complete games. Also, there are updates to the graphic engine, other models, other physics, AI, terrain, etc., etc. I think the price is reasonable. Especially considering that this is a small market. Let us hope that ED do well with sales so they can continue this great series.

 

"Let us hope that ED do well with sales so they can continue this great series." ... with a multirole fighter-bomber. There, fixed it for ya :)

[GGTharos]

You and your chopper hate is going to have you pounced on by a heli flight while you're taxiing one of these days ... :D

 

There are some chaps here who can pull off some lengthy and demanding missions ;)

 

No offense to ED but BS was HIDEOUS.

 

I'd paid $200 for the A10 just to be rid of BS.