• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Prices going up and up... (rant alert)

Hi,

Why would older software be bad? FSX is there for quite some years now. So if an addon was developed 2 years ago according to the FSX standards, it is not necessary outdated by now. So I don't see why prices should always get lower with time.

Not sure why prices have changed that much. It might be exchange rates Euro vs Dollar also play a role. I am not sure how these developed over the years.

Comparing with the price for which you can buy FSX now is also not really fare. The developer of the addon has to regain his time/money invested, while FSX is a product MS does not develop anymore. So any sales they make is profit now. So you can't expect all addons to be cheaper than the platform anymore.
 
arno said:
Comparing with the price for which you can buy FSX now is also not really fare. The developer of the addon has to regain his time/money invested, while FSX is a product MS does not develop anymore. So any sales they make is profit now. So you can't expect all addons to be cheaper than the platform anymore.
Click to expand...
Since FSX was released, the cost has gone down slightly more than 50%, so using today's price as a "yardstick" is most certainly not fair...
 
Sure, I agree. But regardless, prices have jumped a significant percentage, old products have followed this trend, and many still command prices as high as new releases. I intended to provoke a discussion regarding this. Forget about that comparison;).
 
Perhaps the cost of living for pro developers has gone up the same as for the rest of us. We still have to eat, so I expect they do too.
 
Really, they have to eat? Inflation doesn't account for 30%. In all seriousness, I am just discussing some observations and trying to gain a deeper insight.
 
Surely, any commercial developer will set the price it thinks will generate as much revenue as possible. Why shouldn't it? FS add-ons are a free market "coordinated by supply and demand unhindered by external regulation or control by government or monopolies."
 
Milk the cow until it dies, then throw the remains out to the starving (freeware).
Or try to sell the cadaver as long as it doesn't stink too much, as there's always an idiot willing to buy it.


Then again...if I was a payware developer, I'd expect the result of my tedious work to generate just as much income as possible. Same for the publisher.



I'd love to try one of these modern payment methods for a FS project. Maybe a kickstarter* or incremental pricing**.


*Kickstarter: Collect money to, well, kickstart a project. If it takes off, it gets done, if it fizzles at one point, everyone gets a refund.


**As implemented by Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft. As the feature list gets longer, the price for new users increases. Hence ordering early and thus expressing confidence saves money.
 
Yes, it's a freemarket and people are in it to make money, it's why prices are increasing. I hear from many sources that sales are slumping to a worrying degree. Market forces usually dictate that demand is inversely proportional to price, so I'd have expected to not have seen prices increase so rapidly. Yet they have. I guess this is down to having to cover the development costs from a smaller quantity of product sales; more must be made on each unit sold, and more must be made off of the back-catalogue.

It's just a shame, more people buying FS addons would mean higher competition between developers/publishers which would be reflected in a more competitive pricing, which would mean more people buying FSaddons
 
Last edited:
Shaun said:
It's just a shame, more people buying FS addons would mean higher competition between developers/publishers which would be reflected in a more competitive pricing.
Click to expand...

And more starving developers, which would mean less products being made, which would mean less add-ons, which would mean greater demand, which would mean...oh lord, I've got to wait out the crash!

Customers, stick to MSFS! Payware devs, stop eating!

:D
 
Who's starving? I haven't seen anyone else's' wages jump up 30%. Obviously developers haven't if sales are decreasing. I mean that more customer demand = more products sold at lower prices. The profit made of of each unit is less, but more units are sold....
 
This is nearly as much fun as Macroeconomics - the Balls Model

oooops, non-FSDev subject material: sorry :o
 
Alas, the point is lost on some.

Shaun, I would point you to a great economics book, unfortunately it is written in Czech. There are some nice graphs and principles which would explain why developers dont think that lowering price will bring more customers.
 
I noticed that Carenado are now $32.00 average for their standard planes, where they used to be $21.00 and then $25.00. All of their planes are now up to at least $32.00, aside from perhaps 1 or 2, and they have a huge fleet. Some are over the $32.00 mark.

I wonder if they are doing this because most people are waiting to buy planes that are on sale, which can then make their average sales 'half' of what they request/need?

ORBX also have some high prices. They also say they will never have any more sales, so they are up there in prices solidly. I think their sales system and their various animation background programs and all their employees probably require such a price, and they are top notch in quality.

I suffer from the 'sales' purchases and have considered raising my prices, especially after seeing Carenado drastically bringing their prices up.

Its kind of funny. FSX is only about $22.00 USD?, while single addons average $25.00 USD+.
 
You're also missing two critical points. Three, technically.

1) The VAT you pay in the UK has been changed from originally 17.5% to 15% briefly, then to 20% since the last election.

2) Due to our complete lack of economy, the GB£ is now worth a lot less, compared to the €, than it was.

You're paying more, even for products that the prices haven't changed on.

The third one is that actually, a lot of costs (food and fuel, in particular) have actually increased by a lot more than 30% in the last few years.

I think you need to look into your rants in a little more depth before applying fingers to keyboard, sir.

Ian P.
 
Here's another pricing model idea:
Supported and unsupported products, with the unsupported ones costing (a bit) less*.

People being too inept to find their way around a product take the support option, people who aren't don't (and thus save money upon purchase).
 
Ian P said:
You're also missing two critical points. Three, technically.

1) The VAT you pay in the UK has been changed from originally 17.5% to 15% briefly, then to 20% since the last election.

2) Due to our complete lack of economy, the GB£ is now worth a lot less, compared to the €, than it was.

You're paying more, even for products that the prices haven't changed on.

The third one is that actually, a lot of costs (food and fuel, in particular) have actually increased by a lot more than 30% in the last few years.

I think you need to look into your rants in a little more depth before applying fingers to keyboard, sir.

Ian P.
Click to expand...


What? Inflation was 2.81% last year and 4% in 2011 I think; the time-frame that I am referring to. .

And I have been specifically talking about Euros, not GBP, and vendors not influenced by UK VAT changes.

£ is worth more than it has been on average since 2009, except for the last 6 months.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top