Ok, you say the developer's real world Job is 3D Modelling.Great, did his real world company pay for the software, or are they running 1 License on two computers.You see, the difference is this.A Lot of these payware developers expect us to assume an aweful lot.And then you question my assumptions, as if only the payware developers and their minions that run to their defense are entitled to assumptions and no one else. Kind of interesting isn't it?Sorry, but I disagree that we have to trust without evidence anything a payware developer says.Regards,Joe

Will,I've come in very late on this topic but it seems to me that the reason why FS software has increased in price so much (from the perspective of US-based simmers like yourself) is because of the relative weakness of the US dollar - not because of overpricing by the developers. With the Euro reaching record highs against the dollar and the UK pound also doing well the fault, IMHO, lies with the US Government's decision to keep interest rates low. Once the dollar recovers I'm sure the prices will seem more reasonable.Cheers,

I agree that $40 is about as much as I'm ever likely to spend on a plane for FS9. I don't see developers improving greatly on such products as the Flight1 ATR or the RealAir Spitfire so I expect we've pretty much maxed out the potential for FS9 now and the prices won't likely rise a whole lot as a rule.

>I agree that $40 is about as much as I'm ever likely to spend>on a plane for FS9. I don't see developers improving greatly>on such products as the Flight1 ATR or the RealAir Spitfire so>I expect we've pretty much maxed out the potential for FS9 now>and the prices won't likely rise a whole lot as a rule. I disagree.Everytime somebody thinks FS "can't get any better then this!" a new product comes out that trashes that theory (even if it is a small step forward).To Sonar,IMO, the "evening out" vs payware (etc..) is a very vaild comaprison.1. Both costs money.2. Both require a conscious decision to spend money on.3. Both provide entertainment.4. Both are effected by the economy. Cost vs Cost = Valid.Total time of enjoyment vs Total time of enjoyment = Valid.Decision to buy add-on vs Decision to pay for a movie = Valid.It's not like people have to make the decision of:1. Hmm....get this payware aircraft and fly around for long time.OR2. Go to the movies and improve my ability to attenuate light as recommended by my physician.I fail to see how you cannot make the connection. Although the "products" may be different, their purpose is the same....Entertainment.

JoeAfter reading all your posts I can't understand what the problem is. Is up to me to decide if someone deserves my money or not, is up to us to come to the foruns and speak if we think that someone is selling a bad product. A payware developer could deserve a "job well done" althought I agree that the thanks should go to freeware developers. However we should realize that payware provides some of our best things, correct if I'm wrong but it's payware that provides AVSIM as it is today. In fact only know one place that survives without payware advertising and that is the online networks. However I can't understand why I should care with the license is not my problem. The payware addons is a business like any other it's my choice to pay or not to pay, as simple as that. There is place for freeware and payware. When someone pushes FS limits or the amount of work/quality is what I expect for the money then don

Clay, Couldn't you could get by with a fairly small truck as you are only raising quarter horses....I'd expect raising the complete horse would call for a good size rig....You would want a nice plastic liner...that much for sure.B

Jose,Ian, don't let "Joe" get to you....he sounds like a very bitter individual...oh by the way....we haven't heard of one thing that "Joe" has produced for the flight sim community be it freeware or payware:-)

>>I think the other problem with that comparision is people>>don't see MSFS as the bargain that it is. MSFS is priced as it>>is because MS can sell close to a million units.>>>disagree with that. Unless you can show us some sales figures from Microsoft. Lets use a known number then....Aprox 3 million dollars. That is what was estimated it would cost to develop a Fly!III. We know this because the guys from TRI told us.On a 3 mil development cost it would take 50,000 units just to break even on the development costs. So TRI would have had to been aiming for somewhere above 200,000 units ballpark to keep the title alive.Any reasonable developer would be aiming for only a fraction of the market (say 25% or less). Which to me indicates MSFS likely sells close to if not exceeds 1 million units for an MSFS title, if TRI couldn't manage to keep the FLY! series alive spending approx 3 mil in dev costs.>>If add-ons were priced at $10 each as some people seem to>>think is fair, those add-ons likely wouldn't be produced at>>all. It simply would not be worth the trouble, at that price.>>You don't know that either. if one sells at $30.00, and sells 10,000 Units, that is $300,000.00. >>10,000 Units is only 1% of your GUESS at a Million MSFS sold.>Surely 1% is a small figure as to the total, whatever that total is.(The most recent Avsim survey indicates the median spending amount of software is likely between $100- $200 per year) I take from that the average customer is not going to buy more than 5 or 6 FS related software titles per year.By my cursory count (which I think is probably conservative) there's over 600 payware FS software titles currently to choose from.If you average it out per add-on title they would only average approx 3000 units each title for a market of 300,000 potential customers.Interestingly enough you'd have an MSFS market of approx 1 million customers to average 10,000 units for each payware title.Which can not possibly be true according to you.>Are all developer worker bees paid upfront to justify the cost of >development, or are they paid after release based upon >volume, and yes, Profit. First of all you seem to assume profit. There's no guarantee your product will sell as well as you think/hope it will. That's the risk every developer/producer takes.But tell me if you were a talented Graphic Artist who has a family to feed and an add-on developer asks you to work on his project. Are you gonna wait around for 6 months to a year till that add-on title you worked on is released and hope you get a cut of whatever profit there is ? Or will you take payment for services rendered and let the developers or investors take whatever risks there are of losing money on the product ?>maybe at $10.00, they sell 40,000 units thus making $100,000 more >than at the higher overpriced price point. And that >would be only 4% of a hypothetical MSFS market.Your assumption of an extra 30,000 sales for a reduction to $10 on the price may not bear out. The primary reason people purchase a product is because they are interested in it. It does not matter how cheaply you price a product there still will only be a finite number of people interested in paying 'anything' for it. What may happen is 50% of those interested may be willing to pay $30, that then means you can only attract an extra 10,000customers at any price. That only gets you 20,000 customers at $10 per unit. You're actually earning less money because you priced the product too low.>If you want us to continue to believe what you write with no >evidence, I am way past that point. Those words are Hollow, >IMHO, and only go as far as the keyboard.>>So I guess I am calling you out on your claims.>>The ball is in your and the other developers court now.On the one hand you want us to accept that each of the 600 or so individual add-on title could sell 10,000 units. On the other hand you refuse to accept that MSFS could possibly sell a million copies. Even if you finally come around and accept its possible MSFS can sell close to 1 million units, we still have to assume that a large percentage of MSFS customers won't buy any add-ons at all.It would still be very difficult for more than a handfull of the top add-on producers to regularly break 10,000 units sold on each title.Regards.Ernie.

"I disagree.Everytime somebody thinks FS "can't get any better then this!" a new product comes out that trashes that theory (even if it is a small step forward)."You're probably right. I just look at something like the ATR and think what could possibly be added to it that would justify a significant price increase? I mean how much more detail could there be? Now, all bets are off for FS10 or whatever the next iteration will be. I just can't imagine cramming much more into FS9...

"because the eving out theory is brought out every single time this discussion comes up. It is irrelevant to the topic, and is a diversionary attempt to quell discussion"What the heck are you talking about? Why is it irrelevent to the topic if the topic is that a given add-on is too expensive? The point being made is that if a person doesn't raise an eyebrow at spending $30 or $40 for a couple hours of entertainment at a (usually not very good) movie, why do they raise an eyebrow at spending the same amount on something they are likely to get many many more hours of entertainment from? Its a completely relevant and cogent point to consider and is not "diversionary" at all. "You have used nothing but Guessing, and conjecture to opine about these poor, poor, payware developers. they keep using the same arguments about developing add-ons for years, and we the consumers are just supposed to trust them, right? Well, no, we don't have to trust them. And we don't have to buy from them either"LOL, you go brother, FIGHT THE MAN! :DPS - I'm not worried about what the sales figures are or how much of a profit the developer might be making (although I'm certain it isn't a huge amount). All I'm worried about is whether or not the product lives up to my expectations for the price and ftmp, becuase I do a bit of research and reading before clicking the BUY button, I haven't been dissappointed very often.

Ernie, Thanks for replying. My assumptions about sales were only in response to your assumptions about all the payware developers.It goes back to trust. We as Consumers have had the same debate pounded into our heads about the payware developers. And they are always the same arguments.No evidence ever posted.Just someone like the original author here inquires about cost, and whammo, same old arguments trotted out for all the consumers to just "Trust Us" We know better than everyone else, and if we say it's small units, small profits, high costs of development, etc, we as consumers must not question, but only listen.Your analogies about Fly! III don't apply unless you talk about the payware developers that produce for that series. We are not talking about a non-product, we are talking about current developers. My only refrence to Fly was in regards ot the community which still supports it, that is it. The conversation was not really about MSFS, but the Freeware payware comparisons and opinions of users here.And it is no surprise that some of the payware people here instead of debating just choose to take personal shots at me instead. Same old story. Some can't debate so they take personal cheap shots. Thank you Ernie for not going down that road. I appreciate that.But what I think needs to stop is all the payware supporters running around saying hypothetical things that can't be proven unless a developer releases all their data.To me, it is an integrity issue, which is why I responded to you line by line. I think you understand where I am coming from, and I appreciate your position, but it does not change my opinion that unless evidence is presented, I have no reason to believe what some say here.I just responded to what others here have said, and what they have said is simply the same old stories to stop debate. Personal attacks, unproven assumptions, and payware supporters defending using the same old words that have been used the last 5 years or so.It all comes down to hypothetical vs. Fact.In defense, the payware supporters want to define using ONLY hypotheticals and we are expected to take that as truth. I just refuse to do so. And that is my opinion.Regards,Joe

>Jose,Ian, don't let "Joe" get to you....he sounds like a very>bitter individual...oh by the way....we haven't heard of one>thing that "Joe" has produced for the flight sim community be>it freeware or payware:-)>Hi Ron,And that is the best you as a Payware Developer can do is take personal cheap shots at me.I believe the topic is about payware and freeware, not whether one contributes by producing something or not. And you have no idea what I have done here since I became a member, nor is it any of your concern.Well, I won't respond in kind to your attack on me, since it is beneath me to do so. Enjoy your day Ron,Sonar5

Joe, don't know you or any of your work:-) You just sound very bitter to the casual observer so I stated my opinion.The individuals you seem to be attacking would most likely have the same opinion.

Ray,I don't know about the rest of the folks, but you have hit my problem on the head. There are at least three add-ons I want very badly, but the US dollar - Euro exchange rate is killing me.C'mon, Greenspan - do something!(Oh, that is another cool thing about this hobby - I get to meet all kinds of interesting people from all over the world. I'd wager that no one in Oklahoma, USA is complainig about the exchange rates but the bankers and the flight simmers. :) )Best,Bill

Hah I keep forgetting the exchange rate because it's the other way around for us EU people - we essentially get a 30% discount on everything bought in US$ because of the exchange rate changed so quickly. It's amazing - I check the exchange rate every now and then and right now 1 USD= 6.6 Swedish krona - not long ago 1 USD was worth 10 SEK :-lol