darrenkarp Posted March 4, 2011 Author Posted March 4, 2011 You've fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the business & specifically this genre of product. Even in general terms... 1. You charge high for the first XYZ time period, to sweep up the "early adopters" and get their revenue (e.g. paid BETA). In marketing terms - INTRODUCTION 2. You acknowledge a small price reduction (5-10%) to attract interest and those people who have an aversion to "list price". GROWTH 3. Once the product sales start to slow, broad base marketing (like steam etc) to get casual/ad hoc sales etc, attempt to maintain MATURITY of product sales. 4. At the DECLINE stage a provider has the choice of further price reductions to eek out as much as they can from this product development, they can produce evolutionary enhancements to further profitise the original R&D, or move to another "product" to start the process again. Reducing unit cost will increase overall revenue, and therefore profit, but within 2 weeks of release is a little early. There are still plenty of early adopters to milk first, before necessitating a price reduction. Furthermore, if the patch and "pack" follows in a short enough time frame, can keep base product price as current etc. If you're so bothered about increasing revenue for ED then may I suggest... 1. Spend your time on other forums advocating how much you like DCS:WH...rather than waste your time on the ED forums on people who are already fans. 2. Buy many versions of the product, for your mates, as an incentive to get them started. You will therefore have contributed to EDs coffers. ack! A very intelligent response. I won't bother going into a long drawn out reply.
Arakahn Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) Personnally, and without shame, I must admit being an avid gamer, and having tons of game and, shamefully, almost never paying for them (yes, I admit it), except for a few PS3 games (like Rock Band that I cannot get enough of) and the rare FPS that I enjoy playing online with my close friends. Yes, I love FPS. They are games like any other, and there is no shame in it. It's not because one is a simmer that he should be an elitist and bash other game types. With that being said however, ED games (since LOMAC, which, along with Falcon AF, are the games that really got me into flight sims, then last ones I had really try being Gunship and Falcon 1.0 on my 1040STe), I have gladly paid for, and would pay all over again if I had to. I bought Lockon Gold, FC2, BS and A10 since day 1, and will probably buy the DVD version. This from someone who hates paying for games that I play with for a few days. 60$ really is a steal, considering that this is the same price I paid for the few FPS games I 'legally' own and only play 6-7 hours a week for 3 months, and DCS will last me for years. That is without mentionning the community which is much, much better than 'that popular FPS', full of flaming, retarded, l33t-wannabee pre-teens. Seriously, I love the sim community, this one here included. Hell, I too would have paid 100$ wihtout thinking. Games that provide you so many hours of fun are worth it (look at RockBand, I spend over 500$ in games, instruments and mods, without mentionning all the songs I bought, because it lasts me for years, and not jsut hours). Seriously, this game is made by a small team (compared to major titles that have usually teams of 15 to 100 poeple, a few of my friends working in such big studios), and has thousands of man-hours behind them spread over a few years. Now taking into consideration the niche market it sells too (not millions of copies like FPS games), they need to pay for that time they put into and feed their familly. I think 60$ is actually well under the value (offer and demand). As someone stated above, what would really help is better exposure (which unfortunately costs money, which is difficult to get when you have such a small pool of potential buyers. Sims are not for everyone). And for us to advertise it ourselves is how we can actually help, and not proposing ridiculous price slashes to and already extremely inexpensive (for what you get) product, and hopefully ED will continue making amazing sims for the few of us for years and years to come. Wow... writing whikle working on the phone is difficult, I think I lost track of my train of thought through half of that long and painful rant of mine. Apologies :P And apologies for the spelling mistakes: troubleshooting till technical issues on the phone as I type Edited March 4, 2011 by Arakahn
darrenkarp Posted March 4, 2011 Author Posted March 4, 2011 Good reply. For others, what differences can people expect between FC/FC2 and A10C?
BoneDust Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 I think you may have read me wrong. I'm not quibbling about the price, it is what it is, I'm simply making a statement which may increase their sales and therefore their profit. You see, I'm on their side not against them. Yes, I did misread it bud. Sorry :) Alienware New Aurora R15 | Windows® 11 Home Premium | 64bit, 13thGen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9 13900KF(24-Core, 68MB| NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX(TM) 4090, 24GB GDDR6X | 1 X 2TB SSD, 1X 1TB SSD | 64GB, 2x32GB, DDR5, 4800MHz | 1350W PSU, Alienware Cryo-tech (TM) Edition CPU Liquid Cooling power supply | Pimax Crystal VR
PeterP Posted March 4, 2011 Posted March 4, 2011 (edited) :P Hi all, I feel that the price tag of $60.00 is expensive especially with the current financial climate. This, I believe will prevent many people from buying. I propose that the price should be cut by 50% to $30.00, which in my opinion would actually generate more users and more profit for the company at the end of the day. What does everyone else think? thanks Darren Haha! Sorry to jump in lately - and i also didn't go through all the pots, But what I want to say is that I will go next morning to my bakery and introduce this great business concept to them. And than ask on top of it to get my bread for free because I have such great ideas for them. Hell no - Edit: Right now I will go in the next bar and introduce them also to this... Will tomorrow report the outcome. Hahaha never thought of doing it.. Thanks Darren - now I know what to do! Hahahaha hoho Haha. Great Idea ,relay! Hoho-Ha Last edit of the day: The Bar I'm heading to is near the red-light district and no, I will not tell you what I have also in mind when I will leave the bar to ask some employs in this district...never - but I have the felling that they eagerly waiting for a business genius like I'm right now! Thanks Darren -rep is inbound! Edited March 5, 2011 by PeterP
Squid Posted March 5, 2011 Posted March 5, 2011 Hi all, I feel that the price tag of $60.00 is expensive especially with the current financial climate. This, I believe will prevent many people from buying. I propose that the price should be cut by 50% to $30.00, which in my opinion would actually generate more users and more profit for the company at the end of the day. What does everyone else think? thanks Darren +1 . i7 880 | HD 7870 | 8 Gb DDR3 1600 | ECS P55H-A | OCZ Vertex 2 180 | Intel 330 180 | WD 500 AAKS | 2x WD 2T Green | Enermax Liberty 620 | CH Combatstick & Throttle | TrackIR 3 | HP ZR24W | Windows 7 x64
SmokeyTheLung Posted March 5, 2011 Posted March 5, 2011 Good reply. For others, what differences can people expect between FC/FC2 and A10C? A whole lot less fidelity in the modeled systems, i.e. to use weapons in DCS one might expect to memorize 10+ steps. In FC2 it'd be more like 2 steps. Still a great game, I highly recommend it, plus it's cheap compared to DCS :D System specifications: Computer, joystick, DCS world, Beer
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