question for Flight supporters - what you do think of the DLC prices?

[dmaher 0]

The way I see it, someone thought a war-bird without a cockpit was a good idea*. Since the DLC model is a big feedback loop, they’re going to know imperially if it actually was. And If so, we’ll see more, if not the team will stop listening to that person ;) I suppose a lot of folks fear there really is a market for a commercial arcade style MS flying game…if that’s true we should worry. If not, we should have more confidence here. So show us the worst, let’s get on with it :)* The more likely reason is the cockpit simply wasn't ready....but the feedback idea still follows :)

[trevorbee 0]

I think that the prices we have seen so far seem reasonable - provided that the quality of the content is high.However, for me the prices are high enough to deter me from impulse buying. I will be sitting on my hands until the right stuff comes along. And I pretty much know what that right stuff is.I would expect that, at the end of the day, I will have spent more on FLIGHT than on what I have now (FS9) but that I will have a sim tailor-made for my own requirements because I will have chosen the content myself.

[Barnstormer1 0]

Seems it would take 20 yrs for Flight to assemble the DLC that is available for FSX and FS2004. The prices aren't that far out of line I guess. The complexity of the Vans and Maule, though graphicaly nice, aren't what I would expect in payware aircraft. I didn't wouldn't bother downloading an anti cockpit P51.My impression is, More than paying for scenery, your buying missions, jobs coinage etc. If thats yo bag!

Edited February 10, 2012 by Barnstormer1

[3-2-1-Now 126]

What kind of cost is the DLC then? 2 pages and no-one actually mentioned any figures. So... what items, and what cost?Best regards,Robin.

[corinoco 22]

In answer to the OPs question...The $20 for full Hawaii with missions & challenges seems about right - the scenery detail shown to date looks to be as good as ORBX quality, and if the same quality is maintained across the entire island chain then the price looks right to me.The planes are a bit trickier to tell, mostly because I don't have a good conversion from Xbox points to real money yet.The prices I had first seen - $20 for the Maule and $10 for the P51 look too high to me, especially if the P51 is exterior only.In the past 24 hours I've seen the Maule listed as $15 and the P51 as $8, which is heading in the right direction.Bearing in mind I haven't actually seen either of these models yet, my price point for these would be $10 for the Maule and $5 for the P51. Personally I wouldn't pay ANYTHING for the P51 if it was ext only, but that is simply personal preference - I like flying from in the plane as much as outside it, hence I would rather spend my money on a P51 with VC.That said, there probably ARE a lot of people who would purchase the P51 at $5. $8 still looks too high to me.My thoughts on DLC: I happily paid um.... about $160? ... for ORBX Australian Scenery - on DVDs. $81*-100 for all of Australia at ORBX quality... $150 with missions and challenges? The seems about right...I hope that DLC is available at multiple levels - eg. I probably don't want too many missions for Sth America, I don't fly there, but I may want the basic landclass and major airports. So I hope that 'basic' (landclass, 50m terrain, major landmarks / airports) for a continent might be, say $20, which would give you the whole world for about $120. Global 5m terrain, another $100.Detail airports / terrain / scenery / missions by region (much the same as ORBX regions) -$20 to $50. That would be say, $20 for NE US seaboard airports / terrain / scenery, maybe $40 to include missions.Aircraft I can see topping out at $30. Maybe get to $50 for ultra-high realism, groundcrew scenery, included missions & scenery. Standard good quality aircraft (eg, Virtavia Douglas F4D Skyray) should be about $15-20. Currently that's $24 at FlightSimStore. Maybe I'm aiming too low, but I'm basing this on my experiences with price / quality from the Apple App Store. I'll pay good money for something IF it is high quality, but what I want to pay drops off exponentially from that!If I were releasing aircraft though the store I would look at an ext-only or limited LOD model for FREE and a full-detailed with VC version for about $10, max. I'm not a professional aircraft maker, so $10 is about as high as I would every expect to earn on my very best efforts.If the marketplace is reasonably open I see no reason why DLC prices need to be obscenely high - I certainly think they would be LESS than current prices available online.I have no real concerns about re-purchasing scenery for Flight, especially if there is a marketplace I can sell my own designs on - it will help fund my addiction! I have re-purchased scenery a few times since my first purchase of Australian scenery for FS4 - repurchased for FS5 / 95, FS2000 and FSX, probably about $150 total each time. I have only purchased aircraft specifically for FSX, prior to that I only every purchased scenery and used freeware planes from Avsim / Flightsim.com. I have purchased REX and MyTraffic for FSX, I had never purchased addons like those before. I have no problem re-purchasing those for a newer system - backwards compatibility means being tied to the past.* $81 instead of $ because when I type I get a How do you turn off these bloody awful smilies?

Edited February 10, 2012 by corinoco

[3-2-1-Now 126]

You make the assumption MS ever intend to do anything complicated!!! Quantity over quality - they want a cash cow, not a decent simulator. Everyone is short-termist, even MS. Next week it is all old, so will require new DLC to keep it "fresh" (or whatever the current jargon is). Going forwards I expect it to regress into the 3rd quarter of last year, and hope it can re-sell for more than it is worth, at a cost less than its price. In other words: they're going to try and sell you cheap junk for more money than before, hoping you don't notice, and at less cost to them than previously.Best regards,Robin.

[DAD 2,650]

By the way after the update i just saw a few minutes ago , I feel even better about flight .

did I miss something over night? which update?

[fsxkitty 62]

For the quality of the scenery and aircraft I think the prices are fair - although I don't think I'll buy a plane which doesn't have a cockpit.

[ldsandon 0]

It looks you "enthusiasm" for Flight is due only to the fact it is free. The announced prices are in line - even cheaper - with add-ons for the previous versions. Most excellent FSX adds-on may cost more - and people buy them without problems. For example the excellent RealAir Turbine Duke costs € 35 (it's euro, not dollars, beware...) and it is worth its price fully.Do you really find $20 for a rich scenario too high? Or $15 for a plane? Probably the only real expensive item is the P-51, it is just an exterior model with no 3D cockpit and any real control, it should be given away for free. How much would feel it is the right price? $10? $5? $0.99? Nothing? And why?Beware the less the price, the more MS has to sell to make a profit. It also means they could restrict the number of available add-ons until they made a profit from the existing ones. There's an inherent difference in a totally controlled market compared to one where there is (almost) free competition. Because each add-on has a given development cost, if you control the market you will be tempted to "force" your customer to buy what you developed already before starting new ones, so you can return from the costs faster. It could mean cheaper prices (if customers are enough), but less choice to - and less choice may mean less quality also. But it could mean high prices also if an item becomes a "must have" and people are ready to pay a premium price.On the other hand, when there is true competition the only way to make a profit is to outsell your competitors. And to get customers you have to give them what they want - includign quality, not what maximize your revenues only.The new model is the Gilette one - give away the razor, then sell the blades at the price you like. Flight "enthusiasts" will find soon what "free" really means in a DRM controlled world with only one supplier.

Edited February 10, 2012 by ldsandon

[Mickel 42]

Fortunately, especially for a number of people here, the product demand is likely to be very elastic. So if the price gets too high it just won't be bought. If they slug the user with a charge for $150 for a 737, you could bet that (almost?) all FS9/FSX users would go off and buy the more than adequate(!) alternatives available for their existing platform. You still have to be competitive on the blade market, otherwise you don't sell enough to cover the cost of the 'free' razor. So too high a DLC cost will scare off the new comers, and the whatever existing market there is wanders back to the legacy platforms.'Good' a/c models sell for the other side of $40 bucks a pop. And people queue up for the things. Ditto for good scenery packages. But I don't think that will cut it for Flight - not initially at least. The reason I think that is because there is a lot of mis-trust about the potential quality. I don't mean 'build' quality - I don't think it would be too buggy, and there is no excuse for that. If there is even a chance that MS spit out a P-51 cockpit like acceleration one, I ain't going to buy it (and that's where I'm at now) - but I might be inclined to spend far more with a certain 3PD that makes very good warbirds for one of the legacy platforms. They need to be on the mark with the Stearman, Maule and RV to get traction.They don't have it their own way yet, but time will tell.Mike Dryden

[Guest russellbdavis]

I'd like to offer a comparison of sorts. When I am not flying a sim, I spend a lot time drumming in ROCK BAND (so much in fact, I'm in the 6 percentile group of PRO drum mode! YEAH!--I had to brag a little bit! LOL) . I have bought a lot of DLC for ROCK BAND either in the form of single songs, or a track pack, as its called. I've purchased about 100+ songs over the last 2 years. I would imagine the level of effort to produce a song for ROCK BAND is on the level of say a new aircraft for FLIGHT. Harmonix charges $1.99 for a single, and about $6.99 for say 9 songs. The songs I've purchased are played over and over. I am very happy with this pricing scheme. But, if Harmonix were to charge say $10 per song, and $30+ for a collection, I'd never spend that kind of money. Harmonix also has the ROCK BAND NETWORK where users create original songs for ROCK BAND via Microsoft LIVE Xbox accounts and they are delivered via the same DLC connection. Even user created content earns $1.99 per song. This is managed by Microsoft as well.What I've purchased for FSX in the past has been the FSDREAMTEAM airport series and MyTrafficX. The amounts I paid for those were about $25 per airport. I was happy with that. But, I already had the base planet that comes with FSX, and those airports are great specialized enhancements. Would I have paid say $50 for them? No.So based on what I'm hearing about FLIGHT, it doesn't interest me to invest the kind of money that Microsoft will be charging for DLC. I'd rather stick to my FSX and the addons that I can purchase. I would agree to perhaps a $5 price for an addon aircraft, and maybe $10 for a large piece of real estate. But I'd rather spend my money on ROCK BAND. My money will go a lot further in that hobby. I think Microsoft is getting a little too greedy. Plus, the demographic that this is targeting (younger gamers, from what I've seen as a beta tester), do not have the amount of disposable income like us older simmers. So I don't think its going to bring about the kind of revenue Microsoft is betting on. Especially since it appears the majority of older simmers (40 years+) are not at all happy with FLIGHT and are extremely disappointed. I think Microsoft is alienating a huge fan base of FSX/FS9 users. That's just my opinion.

Edited February 10, 2012 by russellbdavis

[ldsandon 0]

I would imagine the level of effort to produce a song for ROCK BAND is on the level of say a new aircraft for FLIGHT

Are you kidding?And young gamers have a lot of money to spend. Games are expensive - some more than FSX was.

[gtrbarbarian 1]

Drumming in ROCK BAND is hellishly difficult ...kudos to you

[Rush1169 0]

I can see Flight sucking a LOT of money off my credit card if it goes in the direction I want. If there are a dozen HQ scenery areas @ $20 each, a couple dozen HQ planes @ $20, a dozen mission packs @ $10 each, and a couple dozen 'enhancements' (like ATC, RW weather, etc) are relased at $15 each - I could easily see myself buying every one of 'em over the course of time. Yep, easily over $1K in easy to chew bites. Then again, if it's never more than a carplane game, then I'll probably stop well south of $100.

[dmaher 0]

And young gamers have a lot of money to spend. Games are expensive - some more than FSX was.

As far as I can tell this has changed :)What I've seen firsthand is caution, cuts, cuts, more cuts - cancelations - studios closing - and reorganizing.The boon days in those expensive games are over....at least for now.IMO, big games aren't going to disappear, but the business is much more strategic now :)If Flight grows into the hobby I hope it will, it will be IMO because of some unpopular but strategic choices.