I contend that I am being realistic I can't see them doing another big airport next to CPH and SYD... Billy Bishop fits their portfolio very well.

Æhhh, as we say in danish, when you're in doubt of something : What is the VAS thing, that you're all talking about?

Jorn,

 

You may find this to be of interest:

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_address_space

Oh boy, that's way to "nerdy" for me :-), but at least I know what you're talking about. I haven't yet had out of memory issues with my fairly old system, so so far so good.

 

 

rather see 2 options with a reduced price for the airport

 

 

Been in this hobby for almost 30 years, seen many developers come and go and a LOT of people provide incredible scenery for free.  That said, I'm happy to pay a fair price for any FS product, and do.  HOWEVER

 

I'll badly misquote this, but I remember hearing a quote decades ago about good artists and inventors, doctors, etc. making terrible business people.  This seems alive and well in FS Scenery designers.

 

It doesn't make much imagination to see that reducing scenery prices to something, say around $15 to $20 would result in greater sales, less piracy, increased profits, and a lot greater exposure to the market (priceless in business).

 

Think of it this way.  Unless someone only flies the airport, most people are only going to use it a few times a year.  Even if this wasn't the case, $30 for a airport scenery is just WAY too high,

 

I wish the scenery develoers would try $15 (USD) for six months. I'm confident they'd see their sales and profits radically increase.

 

 

Just IHO

It doesn't make much imagination to see that reducing scenery prices to something, say around $15 to $20 would result in greater sales

 

 

I wish the scenery develoers would try $15 (USD) for six months. I'm confident they'd see their sales and profits radically increase.

 

You're missing a key point here.   A larger customer base, (for potentially the same revenue income) means a lot more cost in supporting all of those extra customers.

 

If a business makes $10,000 profit from a product they sell to 500 customers, that is naturally less expensive to them than a product that they still make $10,000 profit from, but from selling to 1000 customers.

 

The lifetime 'service' cost of 500 customers may be $1000.    For 1,000 customers clearly it will be double that.

 

This is why things do cost what they cost in the software world.  Service, sales servers, complaints, emails, etc, are real tangible costs to a business, and they will feed in to the pricing.

 

And that's why we don't get the PMDG 777 for $9.99 ..... (with them selling to 8x as many people).      :wink:

What is 30 USD ? - equivalent to McDonald meal.

Guys are working hard for whole year or longer...

Try to build scenery and then sell it for hamburger price, will u be happy ?

 

I am happy to support them by full price.

Been in this hobby for almost 30 years, seen many developers come and go and a LOT of people provide incredible scenery for free.  That said, I'm happy to pay a fair price for any FS product, and do.  HOWEVER

 

I'll badly misquote this, but I remember hearing a quote decades ago about good artists and inventors, doctors, etc. making terrible business people.  This seems alive and well in FS Scenery designers.

 

It doesn't make much imagination to see that reducing scenery prices to something, say around $15 to $20 would result in greater sales, less piracy, increased profits, and a lot greater exposure to the market (priceless in business).

 

Think of it this way.  Unless someone only flies the airport, most people are only going to use it a few times a year.  Even if this wasn't the case, $30 for a airport scenery is just WAY too high,

 

I wish the scenery develoers would try $15 (USD) for six months. I'm confident they'd see their sales and profits radically increase.

 

 

Just IHO

LOL! The more customers the more support has to be given. That translates into more time invested in the business. I don't know what your time is worth, but my time is limited.

 

Your theory will not only be ineffective, but it will certainly NOT prevent piracy.

 

In my line of work, there's a plethora of cheap DJs, but I'd rather charge more and do less events, than do more events at half the price. Why? My expenses would double.

What is 30 USD ? - equivalent to McDonald meal.

Guys are working hard for whole year or longer...

Try to build scenery and then sell it for hamburger price, will u be happy ?

 

I am happy to support them by full price.

 

LOL .....that's one expensive McDonalds meal! 

Please note that I have made extensive experiments with VAS and scenery config editor and found that as long as photoreal sceneries are disabled and You stay out of visible sight of other addon airports (the airports model and textures are not loaded) VAS is hardly affected.

 

+1. I've also done many tests enabling and disabling enroute sceneries and found absolutely no difference in VAS usage.

 

 I always have photoscenery deactivated. Exclusively flying pax jets makes photoscenery a very low priority for me in terms of resource allocation.

 

Edit: Forgot to add that there is one exception to this: flying into any of the 3 major payware NYC airports can be difficult given the complexity of the default FSX landside scenery and the proximity of the airports, so I usually enable only the destination airport. Of course systems are different and what works for me may not be the same for you.

You're missing a key point here.   A larger customer base, (for potentially the same revenue income) means a lot more cost in supporting all of those extra customers.

 

If a business makes $10,000 profit from a product they sell to 500 customers, that is naturally less expensive to them than a product that they still make $10,000 profit from, but from selling to 1000 customers.

 

The lifetime 'service' cost of 500 customers may be $1000.    For 1,000 customers clearly it will be double that.

 

This is why things do cost what they cost in the software world.  Service, sales servers, complaints, emails, etc, are real tangible costs to a business, and they will feed in to the pricing.

 

And that's why we don't get the PMDG 777 for $9.99 ..... (with them selling to 8x as many people).      :wink:

 

 

 

Craig,

 

Your reply was terrific, thanks!  I'm in agreement with you, to a point.

 

For those who would take the time to read this, I will say that I truly appreciate your openmindness and giving my words consideration.  It is not my intent to challenge anyone, certainly not any developer, what I'm offering is not a challenge to anyone seeking profit, but rather I am attempting to demonstrate how profits could be increased by lowering prices, a win-win for customers and those who are responsible for brinring flight simulation to where it is now (that would be the developers). 

.

 

With the above in mind, if you'd like to skip this post then simply read the following post from FSDT (LINK) but again, please do so while understanding the position I stated in the paragraph above.

 

Professionally, I've managed and played other key roles in many complex operations and products valued in the hundreds of millions - which is only germane because the cost of planning errors and oversights was enormous. As a fluke, I also found myself directing marketing and product valuation of a decent sized small business for 11 years.  What I'm saying is... I understand and have professional, "career on the line" and "jobs of others in my hands" experience working all sides of the dice (support is only one side). In other words, I'm not relating something I've read, or regurtitating someone else's post.

 

The cost of support certainly has to be factored in, otherwise the entire venture could be lost. But there is A LOT more to this. On the humor side, but equal to just throwing out "cost of support" as justification for high prices, one could also say that if no products were sold then cost of support would be zero. Just some humor on this one.

 

On a serious note:

 

1. The number of people who require support does not justify doubling the price of a product, and if it does then the product is not ready for release. I'm NOT saying this is the case with this scenery, I've not purchased it.

 

2. The cost of support goes down with each related incident (for several different reasons), eventually zeroing out (for those who truly understand product life cycle).

 

3. Easily, half of the support people receive is from other users (sometimes not a good thing, but overall it certainly is).

 

So while I concur the cost of support has to be factored in, it's not (or shouldn't be) front loaded and is not nearly as much as anyone might think when looked at over the effective life of the product.

 

I could go on, but this darned post is already too long.

 

Bottom line, I believe, is that scenery cost could be RADICALLY REDUCED while also increasing sales, exposure, and PROFITS (when I use the work "Profit", I truly mean after ALL costs have been addressed, including that of support).

 

Though I don't believe any developer would take me up on this, I would be willing to perform a professional product valuation and restructuring plan, but I really don't believe this is needed - it's really THAT lopsided to these old, but fairly experiecnes eyes.

 

 

I wish everyone well, and thank you for taking the time to consider my words.

 

 

Respectfully,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Very fairly and well expressed points Dave.  

 

As a poor student, I'd love $15 add-ons but I just can't see it.

The price is up to the developer and the decision on whether to buy/not to buy is up to the customer. "Plane" simple.  

 

EKCH is not a large airport. When Aerosoft can charge $34.95 for Heathrow I am staggered that I should pay the same for a much smaller one.

 

Price is not justified. $25-$30 would be more appropriate. I know some may disagree with me but that's just my opinion.

 

Am also in agreement Ray. Unfortunately there is a degree of inflation creeping into the price of FSX addons lately where an increasing number of developers are asking prices which seem out of proportion to the size/importance/complexity of the airports they are selling. Although I used to buy almost every FSX airport addon, I am now adopting a more selective approach avoiding the ones where the asking price in my opinion is unreasonably high, but will consider these if they appear in sales in time to come. I think some of these developers may be 'shooting themselves in the foot' as their sales numbers would probably be significantly higher if the price was just a few $/£/Eur lower.

 

Bill

 

 

Am also in agreement Ray. Unfortunately there is a degree of inflation creeping into the price of FSX addons lately where an increasing number of developers are asking prices which seem out of proportion to the size/importance/complexity of the airports they are selling. Although I used to buy almost every FSX airport addon, I am now adopting a more selective approach avoiding the ones where the asking price in my opinion is unreasonably high, but will consider these if they appear in sales in time to come. I think some of these developers may be 'shooting themselves in the foot' as their sales numbers would probably be significantly higher if the price was just a few $/£/Eur lower.

 

Bill

 

It is not a recent thing. PMDG complained about a lack of sales for their MD-11

 

They never thought that most simmers who are not diehard MD-11 fans would never want to pay 90$ USD for an airplane.

 

So now they use that low MD-11 sales as an excuse to not make airplanes that are not very popular and guaranteed to sell well, instead of pricing the MD-11 at a more reasonable price and admitting they were charging too much for what the community wanted.

 

Sounds like this airport has the same problem. $40USD for a smaller airport that is not a major hub except SAS and Norwegian long haul is a lot. As people say $35 for Heathrow is a good price, so 25-30 is more reasonable I agree. I paid for 3 version of EKCH from Simmarket, and it is a good airport. I will wait until this version is on sale.