Pricing

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This thread can be deleted if it’s too divisive, but, I see people complain about the cost of the software and addons all the time.

  1. I just paid $60 - $120 for this, why isn’t it perfect??? That’s dinner for two at the Olive Garden or 100 Grill… Really? that’s expensive? You just ate it and now it’s gone. It really looks like this is going to be here for several years, improving all along the way. Yeah, McDonald’s is cheaper, but so’s the food… Asobo resurrected a software well beyond our dreams. They’re working as hard as they can on a complex piece of software. It’s going to be several months before your pet peeve is addressed, but, they’re doing the best they can, and also doing the best they can to improve their processes and redirect what they thought was important based on the best way they can read the market. Is addressing the loudest voices the best way to prioritize? No, but, if you look at their map, they’ve got the plan pretty far out for just about everything anybody could ask for. That’s not the only input they’re taking. Thanks Asobo.

  2. $30 is EXPENSIVE for an addon for a $60 piece of software!! MS/Asobo is going to sell multiple million copies of MSFS. Carenado is not going to come close to that sales rate. Are his products study level… no… but, to me and many others they’re fun… Just like all of us, he and all the other payware developers are trying to make a living. Those guys are actually teams of people, multiple families that are doing something for us so we can have some fun. I’ve got probably a few hundred hours in this now in the last three months between flying and developing liveries and airports. Personally, I’m sharing what I do for myself, and too me, that’s ok, I’d spend the time anyway, and I have a good job. Those guys are going way deeper, and have to invest in expensive tools. Think about how many hours of fun you’ll get out of it before you complain about the cost. Put it in some perspective. That’s two twelve packs of beer. Is it worth that?

  3. $80 for a study level plane??? That’s about half the cost of one hour of flight training where I live. And they just modeled all of the systems in an MD-80 from top to bottom. Heck, yeah, that’s worth it. Absolutely. My local shop wants $45/hour for simulator time, in a simulator, which, when I sit down in it, I ask myself "Why the heck am I here when what I have at home has all the systems this does? And a hundred times more of an immersive experience. And, as far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing special about that $3000 Elite simulator except they spent some time getting it certified. I get way more bang for my buck at home. Thank you Asobo and modders…

Rant over. Yell at me if you must… It’s ok, I’ll live.

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Hi
well said, I agree with you
I can enjoy the sim with a 6 yrs old computer with only 16gb ram (just updated graphic cards 2 yrs ago) with most graphics on ultra( I just avoid giant airports at the moment) and also I payed only 60 euro…works good to me never had generic aircraft that good and beautiful, vfr is fun and A320 is working fine as well as tbm,etc…sea is beautiful with some wind and I am also sure it will improve along years just like a good wine

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OMG … I just read this Great Post, gave it a LIKE, and then back to see who wrote it !!!

Nice One !!! You’ve been busy today !!!

$45/hour sim time – thats amazingly low … even without an Instructor…

Does that $45 include the two guy to make it move ??

1024×758

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That’s the price without an instructor. $76/hr for the instructor. $95/hr for a Warrior dry.
Oh, and that’s just the run of the mill Elite GA job, no motion or anything, and awful graphics. I think it has a GNS530 simulator in it.

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Out of topic, but I just wanted to tell you I have had an opportunity to fly a sim like the photo you shared. It was originally made for training fighter pilots during the WWII. Quite fun, actually.

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If you have flown 240+ hours, your cost per hour is $0.50. Where else can you find training, learning, or entertainment for $0,50/hr?

You mentioned that your FBO spent time to get their Elite simulator certified. Time is money! I think that some of the certified simulator hours can count to the total hours needed for a pilot’s license. MSFS hours don’t count to any pilots license.

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The fun would be in direct relationship to how much the two, jerking the plane around, liked you !!!

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At my local airport you pay £15 for each go-around (you don’t have to touch the runway) LOL

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What is ironic, is that fancy MSFS (or FSX) does not count, but my 1976 old Pacer II does !!

750×473

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I flew for a few months in the UK (Isle of Wight - Sandown Airport) – Talk about Sticker Shock, after flying in the USA.

Although I did fly into Southampton Airport ( quite a big UK airport – touch and go) and no fee !! - but that was quite a few years ago !!! I bet its Big £££££s now.

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That is true. But, I’ve already got my license, this recent round was just a few hours of rusty pilot training after 19 years away from the cockpit. I ended up doing 6 hours, but that was across 3 instructors, probably would have been 4 with a single instructor.

Next up is an instrument rating. You only need 15 hours of dual for an instrument rating… personally, while it’s more expensive, I’d rather get that as real time, especially when I can practice IFR all I want at home in a simulator of the same if not better quality. There’s nothing like “feeling” an airplane. But the simulator is GREAT for procedures and learning.

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Haha. No yelling from me I’m happy to say…

But I will say your argument [word chosen carefully] is not just wrong, it’s upside down and back to front. And only makes sense in a capitalist world gone mad!

When I charge someone for a computer repair, do I calculate the cost based on my best guess [and it is a guess] as to how much the customer might now use the machine and multiply that by an arbitrary number of pence. Of course not! I simply charge a reasonable hourly rate plus the cost of any parts. A rational methodology that is a reflection of the reality.

When a manufacturer, of say, switches, charges a premium for one switch over another, seemingly identical one, is he making it up? Again, of course not. He does so based on statistical information derived from ‘test to destruction’ runs. And Not arbitrary made up figures.

I will give you one further example, this time of capitalist skulduggery:
There is a famous [in some circles] model of transistor that you can buy. It is the venerable BC109.
It is notable in that it was [for it’s time] very low noise. And this property of being [electrically] quiet means that it comes in three flavours:

The BC109 A.
The BC109 B. And yes, you’ve guessed it,
The BC109 C.

Now, the C version is quieter than the B version, which in turn is quieter than the A variant.
So, not unreasonably [one might think] the C version costs more than the B version, which costs more than the A version. So good, right? Everybody here is playing fair, right?
Sorry, WRONG again.
These transistors, as far as the manufacturing process and costs incurred are concerned,
effectively identical. They were produced [per batch] at exactly the same time from exactly
the same substrate. All the manufacturer has done is to measure the ‘quietness’ of each transistor as it rolls off the line and designates it as a type A,B or C accordingly. The only reason that there are differences between them is due to quantum effects in the silicon substrate. Quantum effects that the manufacturer has no control over whatsoever, but which he chooses to exploit the customer with!

To finish then.
Microsoft has given everybody a lead here. They choose to sell a superior product for much less
[once all the addons are accounted for] than the products of any of the competition. They can do this because they have chosen to factor into the price, large projected volumes of sale!
And I believe that any third party produces who choose to ‘piggy back’ themselves to MS in
order to tap into this potential, should adopt the same ‘real world’ pricing strategy.

Stack 'em high and sell 'em cheap, and everyone wins! Is all.

Addendum:

THIS rant, as requested, has been delivered in a quiet [type C, then] manner.
Be nice all.
We’re all allowed a turn.

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No problem giving your opinion! lets change the bad vibes in this forum, don’t feel bad expresing yourself or whatever.

1- For many guys 120 is a monthly salary or more. Many people in the world pay their stuff during months/years. Not all of them use a 3070, in fact there are still many people using old 900 series GPU. I would go even further and say some gaming publishers charge their products depending on the country.

2- The problem is not the price IMO but how it relates to the quality of the product, the effort they made to create it, the sales projection they expect and the revenue they are getting out of it. Don’t get emotional, this is business for them, they are investing time and money, and probably some passion, but they are not thinking in you when pricing the product, they are not thinking in your family.

3- I don’t give a dam_n about the flight training in real life. I am playing a game, not training to be astronaut/fighter pilot/airliner. If I play Arma 3 is not because I can’t go to the Army school. If I play GTA 5 is not because I can’t go out and start stealing and shooting at everything. IT’s a game.

4- I know most of the answer the community learned to reply to these kind of discussion. Like “they can price whatever they want”, and “don’t buy it if you don’t want to”. So use this item number if you want to say something.

5- I think we, as a community, should start thinking more about it, we should start thinking we are a community. Revenue comes in many flavors. I can sell 1 copy at 140 US bucks, or 10 at 40, or 100 at 5, At the end price doesn’t determine how many copies you will sell, people decides if it sells or not really, the product quality, everyone’s taste and so on. I can’t really tell a guy who spent 1,2,3 years developing his little addon to lower his price, but I can’t mix them with the major companies in the market. At the end this is capitalism, they want the maximum revenue they can get out of us, and we are like “Yeah sure! charge us 200 bucks if you want”.
MSFS should be charging us 400 bucks if complexity means a more expensive product, but thanks God they are not.

6- Maybe I was a bit rude, everything should be taken in perspective. Everything has it own
seasoning. Not everything is the same, every case is different.

7- Selling software is not like selling a cake you eat and that’s it. Selling software is selling more than a product, you sell updates, you sell upgrades, you sell addons to your main addon/game. If you sell something people likes, you will be in the market for many years, you generate your own customers and everyone should learn to capitalize that.

8- For a real and mature discussion we need the real numbers, not just guessings on the numbers and how much they sell. Not saying you said that, I am just thinking out loud.

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Maybe life is just too frustrating in general at the moment due to all that stuff that’s going on which might be the reason for people’s tendencially short trigger travel.

On the other hand you can see that kind of behavior in the forums of most games. Maybe those rants mainly come from the gamer type of MSFS user.

I’m not the ultimate flightsim pro, actually far from that but I’ve seen some flightsims. And I’ve seen worse so I’m kinda relaxed about MSFS.

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Same thought here

… :thinking: MFS is a video game simulation genre :wink: :innocent:

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60-120$ is a huge amount of money. I’ve been saving for 6 months to buy it. Spending that much on a meal? I never did that and will never do because i’m not a millionaire. 10€ meal is enough.
30$ for cosmetic addon is way too much. You can buy a full game for that price. 30$ is not acceptable.
80$ for study level or not is too much. You can get two games for that price with much more effort and time put into them.
So yeah just because you’re rich doesn’t make it cheap.

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You should write a letter to Ferrari, telling them why their cars cost too much and then suggest what you’re willing to pay.

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Why would i? Those cars are made for billionaires. Games are made for everyone. And why the toxic attitude?

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Not a toxic attitude. It’s a fair statement. And games aren’t necessarily made for everyone. They are made for people who can afford them. If games were made for everyone, Microsoft would have subsidized the pricing platform to where it would cost little to no money if you lived in a 3rd world country.

I’m not a big fan of the pricing platform myself. MS touted that Dreamliner in front of us, like a carrot on a stick. Then they put it in the most expensive bundle. Then we find out it is barely operational.

So yeah, the pricing does stink. But the pricing is set to whatever the market will bare. Unfortunately the world doesn’t run off milk and honey.

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I’m not talking about third world countries, many people there can’t afford a PC so it doesn’t matter how much the game costs. And honestly they probably have bigger problems. I live in first world country.
This is a game and people compare the prices to other games and DLC. I would pay 30-40€ for a good aircraft, not necessary a study level, i don’t care about that. But i won’t pay 80€, i rather buy cyberpunk or some other games. If it’s 80€ on release i could wait for a 50% sale, no problem. It’s just when you see how much work and how many years a studio spent on making a game which costs 20-60€ and then compare it to a simple airport made in a week for 20€ it doesn’t make sense. Money doesn’t come easy so i decide to give it to hardworking people instead. At least we have a huge community of freeware developers. I rather donate 1€ to my favorite freeware developers from time to time than give 20€ for one airport.

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