Matt and team,

 

Great job and most of all, thank you for the updates and the long nights they surly took, this simulation is headed in a fantastic direction.

 

I was wondering if you would be so kind as to speak in the direction in which Flying Development Studio is headed in regards to In-App Purchases.

 

Updates to the base game engine will no doubt be given free to the players who have purchased Infinite Flight, although I still have some lingering questions.

 

1. Do you plan on releasing ANY graphical updates as a IAP? For example, I have seen the impressive screenshots of the very early terrain populated with buildings. Would it be possible that these are, if ever completed, released as a IAP as a kind of "extreme" region? This is something I hope FDS strays away from.

 

2. With the introduction of paid regions, how would this work for the medium term goal of having a fully "from point A to point B" world?

 

3. IAPs in a simulation such as this is somewhat new ground. Is the current formula, good or bad, something your studio plans to stick with for the future or are you still tweaking the best way to go about IAPs? Regarding Usage, content delivered, etc.

 

3.( B) I guess this would go with question 3, with flight simulation being a world of thousands of airports with thousands of aircraft and many flying styles, and with FDS taking the helm and paving the way for IAPs in mobile flight simulation, do you see your studio making any major innovations or overhauls to how IAPs will be presented and used in the future?

 

4. If I were to never use a IAP, what would I, as a "free user" expect in the future?

 

Two little off-topic questions.

 

In terms of where IF started, and where it is now, are you happy with the outcome and the current development process?

 

What has turned out to be the most difficult thing for the team in the development process?

 

Thank you for your time. I, as I hope most people do, understand that IAPs are what's going to keep the business alive. Although, a little more insight from behind the scenes has never hurt anything.

 

Thank you

Steve

Hello,

 

Thanks for your message

 

1: We have no plans to release features as IAP at this point (buildings, new textures, etc...) Only content is paid. When the new buildings, textures, etc... are available, we will update the paid content at no cost. This might change if we find that this business model isn't sustainable in the long run, especially since some of our users really frown upon paid content... (Not sure how they expect us to live...)

 

2: I guess you could only fly from the regions you have purchased. We don't know yet how this will work.

 

3: We're still experimenting... We don't have enough experience in this field to plan ahead. It's basically trial and error at this point.

 

4: You would get some free content every once in a while and new features that are part of the simulation itself.

 

Most difficult thing:

Not sure... it's a mix of finding the right pricing (we're nerds, we don't wear suits to work so it's hard for us and technical stuff (optimizing things to run on the slowest devices).

 

You are right though, IAP's are what we use to keep the business afloat. We're getting a lot of heat because of those, but hopefully, in time, people will understand that it's the only way for Infinite Flight not to become another dead flight sim... We've all lived through the life and death of too many sims we cared about... (MSFS, Flight Unlimited, Fly!, Pro Pilot...)

 

 

One thing that is different about us is that there are no talking heads (publishers, producers...) deciding things for us. We are in direct contact with our users and try to steer the development in the direction people want.

 

Thanks for your interest and don't forget to rate Infinite Flight in the app store

Matt