I generally wont pay 30 dollars for an addon. Too much money for a single airplane. 15-25 dollars I will pay and have done so many times. Generally, I support people whose work I have come to know and respect thru freeware or by enough people who have bought a product and said it was good. (avsim and other sites provide a real service by allowing us to see these kinds of user comments.)One also however should keep the idea of value of currency in mind. US Dollar has been weak this year and Euros have been much stronger. If I was a European developer, I'd be basing my pricing on conversion from Euros. Australian buyers have had this problem for years with weaker currency making US dollar pricing expensive.In any case, I will buy products in a certain price range. Above it, I wont buy, regardless of quality. As for Feelthere, they probably would be well served by releasing one version of a plane as freeware so people can appreciate their skills as new payware entrants who have to compete with the FSD's, Eaglesofts, Dreamfleets and others whose work is established and a known value. (not to mention Bill Lyons etc.!)Eric

Any site that says in bold NO REFUNDS, is a red flag for me.A company needs to stand by it's product. While many companies may have policies against refunds, these policies are usually negotiable. And as such, a company leaves the door open. Most good businesses honor their customers.Case in point. I downloaded 72m mesh from FSGenesis, and was not very pleased as it looked very "rough hewn". I contacted FSGenesis and mentioned this fact and Justin agreed that the 32m stuff was much better. I replied that I was feeling a little gun shy after spending the money for the 72m stuff. He gave me one of the 38m regions for free. I purchased the other 4 regions the same day. Companies that shut the door up front usually have something to hide behind it. I agree with others in this forum. It is the consumer who holds the keys. We are the ones who gives out our credit card number. If we continue to pay for substandard product, and voluntarily set ourselves up to get taken, then people will take our money from us.If a number of us would simply be patient, allow the sites like AVSIM and Flightsim review the product, let others who HAVE set themselves up, comment on the purchases. The consumer hands over his power after he makes the purchase. If we hand over our power prior to doing our due dilligence we risk the whirlwind.No one would think about just buying a video card for flght sim without research. Although the price is 1/10th of a video card, the same effort should be spent to make sure your $30.00 is well spent as well.my .02

>No demo, no sale. That simple.>>A good example of this is FS Navigator. I have tried it a couple of >times in the past >because I could. There's plusess and minuses to the try before your buy format. Security is riskier no doubt with try before you buy. Another negative of try before you buy IMO, is often people do not give your product a chance when trying it out and give up on it too easily. Whereas if they put down their money they would stay with it longer, contact support work through some initial issues you may have and give it a really good try out because they paid for it.My take on it is, if you do a good job of describing your product on the website with feature descriptions screenshots, etc and you put out a good product it is not so necessary to have try before you buy. Word of mouth will spread, you will have good reviewsand you will do fine sales wise.Most add-on developers are not in this for just one product. So that being the case it would hurt your future sales to put out a bad product and damage your reputation. You will lose lots of repeat customers.So you want that product to be a good one.The risk of not having try before you buy is you lose some potential customers like Ray who refuse to purchase most items without the opportunity to try it out.This is true, but I think most people who would prefer try before you buy method, will make the buy decision later on if that product has good word of mouth on the forums etc, and gets good reviews etc, etc. So in the long run if you put out a really good product it will be successfull whether or not it is try before you buy IMO.Regards.Ernie.

I am definately in favor of more "try before you buys". I'd like, particularly, to see commercial aircraft available with this option. I purchased around 5 GA add-ons in my search for my default aircraft. Most of those didn't live up to my expectations or performed horribely (huge fps hit) on my system. I ended up with the RealAir Marchetti, which is awesome, but I sure wish I had avoided paying for those other planes.I won't be buying any more add-on aircraft without a demo--unless the vendor has completely proven themselves to me in value and customer service. Right now, RealAir is the only company that has passed this test. I would buy anything from them without hesitation.I've had a fairly positive experience with some utilities, including ActiveSky and ActiveCamera. I was really considering FSForce yesterday, but I consider $33US to be way too expensive. I've heard all of the justification about "this is something you use every time you fly", but I just don't see a level of functionality and after-sale support to justify this price.Scenery has been hit-or-miss for me. I like the stuff like Emma Field and I was really salivating over the new Orcas Island scenery, but it's just so hard to justify the cost, especially with the US dollar so poor against the Euro. In general, airport scenery seems over-priced, especially when I get get all of the great mesh from FSGenesis so inexpensively, or things like MegaScenery are priced pretty well for what you get (I will probably purchase the Pacfic Northwest MegaScenery).So, my breaking points in terms of cost seem to be:Aircraft: $15-$25, depending on features, and I will only purchase from a vendor that has proven great performance and value. Too many disappointments for me with this! I understand there might be justification for a higher price with really complex airliner sims, but that's not my area of interest.Major Utilities (such as weather add-ons): $20-$25. I purchased ActiveSky, but that was at the less expensive upgrade price. Given the chance, I probably wouldn't buy it again, just because real weather under FS9 is such an fps hog.Minor utilities (i.e. ActiveCamera): $10-$15Scenery (airports or small regions): $15-20 (which is why I don't own many)In general, it seems like most payware companies are pricing themselves out of my comfort zone. I wish there was more goodies available at the "impulse buy" level of $10-$20. Maybe if/when the dollar gains some ground against the euro things will be more reasonable.

>> NO REFUNDS <

"Now, I usually don't post in flame messages - however, this will be one of my few exceptios."Flame message?, just is not a flame message, I just wanted to get peoples opinions, I am pretty sure I have not seen any flaming.Dan.

>By not having a demo, the only people you are actually hurting>are the honest people who would actually buy the product. It>does not stop the folks who get it under the table, they would>not pay for it in the first place. Basically, you are hurting>the wrong segment of the market, those who actually pay for>things.I demo'd X-Plane for about six years before I finally bought it. I bought it because it was "cheap" one day, and might not have otherwise.I figure (more like fact) that if all these 3rd party software vendors had "demos", it would be demo this & demo that..... for most of us. And very little sales to compensate the hard work that goes into some of these products.L.Adamson

I think he means, "threads with so many msgs that the icon shows a burning flame on the front page."

Yes I did mean the flame icon message thing -- not a flaming thread...Sorry for the confusion!

I am not a stickler for demos... I certainly don't base a purchase decision on the absence/presence of one.With that approach - I have bought probably more payware add-ons for FS2002 and 2004 than I should've, and I can't say that I regret any of them. But, I tend to gather a lot of data before buying, and I base my $ decision on:- vendor rep- user feedback- Avsim reviews (as well as other sites, e.g. FlightSim)- reasonableness of price. $40 is very very high for my taste, which is why the PMDG 737NG isn't on my shelf. Yet. $30 is more palatable. (Actually, these are the same "budgets" that I use for PC games in general.)- vendor screenshotsSo, with these criteria, I've purchased (and I'm a bit embarrased to admit all of this...)- CaptainSim L39 Albatros- FSD 115TC- RealAir SF.260- Flight1 C421- Flight1 Meridian- FSD Navajo- Eaglesoft Citation X- T37 Tweet- RealityXP avionics (all titles except JL2)The only beef I could possibly have out of all of these is that CaptainSim never released an FS2004 update (or VC) for the L39 - but then they never promised one! And, I feel like I got my $ worth out of that product back in the FS2002 days. Other than that small nit, all of these purchases have provided tremendous add-on value to FS2002/2004.So - as stated, I don't insist upon a demo version (how would they limit it anyway? - the hackers are many, clever, and evil). I rely on the points I've listed, and also *try* to be patient and wait for user feedback/reviews. (I must admit to being spontaneous on at least the Navajo, but that was an entirely pleasurable experience nontheless (great airplane!).)Personally, I'm waiting on the Eaglesoft Citation II and the Flight1 PC12... I wish they'd hurry up and finish 'em!Dave Blevinshttp://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/h...ster_banner.jpg

And you do buy boxed products that you can't try before you buy?Or do you get a "trial" copy from a friend or download one from the internet?Anti-piracy protection getting a little too good for comfort for you?Just want to know what's different between downloadable products you can't try before you buy and similar boxed products...Refund is similar. At least over here you can't get a refund on boxed products even if the manufacturer states you can. Shops simply refuse to take back anything (unless there is physical damage to the CD or manual (what's that?) in which case you get another copy of the same product in return).I've had a refund only once in the last 15 years, and that was store credit when a product I bought wouldn't even install and I returned it within an hour of purchase (at the time CD writers were almost non-existent and took longer than that to burn a copy so they could be pretty certain I'd not copied the stuff).

I would like to see system requirements with some of these addons. I think it would definately help some make the choice of whether to buy or not.

Completely right on software pricing for add-ons... It

I disagree with a few of your "opinions" Daryll.;)

I'll buy what I want when I want. Price... that's for each consumer to value as he/she sees fit. There are so many great payware add-ons that for me it's about service (the best I've experienced is RealAir and FSGenesis... they are so good that I never think twice about buying their products). If I get bad service, I simply don't go back. That's the best way to get rid of the undesirables and egomaniacs.But if someone wants to pay $30-$40 for an addon and they think it's worth it, I say have fun! We each have the right to make that decision for ourselves.At this point in my simming experience I don't need demos... I know whose products I'll buy and whose I won't. And I know where I'll steer the newbies and where I won't. But I can see where demos would be good to gain newbies as customers. Not a bad marketing tool for persuading the newbies to buy.Greg