Payware/Freeware

[tonywob 4,768]

I'll reserve judgement once I see some reviews of the product, but regarding the price, I have to agree, as an unknown developer, $70 is priced far too high. My guess is they've seen how desperate people are for better weather in XP10 (Just read almost every "Should I buy XP" thread) and have priced accordingly. 

 

Either way, it looks like some people will pay this to support a new developer which is a nice gesture, but it really makes me question continuing to write freeware 

 

Edit: This thread was split from this topic http://www.avsim.com/topic/496459-enviroweather-revolution-for-xp/page-2#entry3496845

[jcomm 5,890]

but it really makes me question continuing to write freeware

 

Specially when it is so high quality like your World2XP, without which XP10 would never look as it can... Same for Andra's mesh, and PilotBalu's OSM sceneries...

[alpha12125 213]

I'll reserve judgement once I see some reviews of the product, but regarding the price, I have to agree, as an unknown developer, $70 is priced far too high. My guess is they've seen how desperate people are for better weather in XP10 (Just read almost every "Should I buy XP" thread) and have priced accordingly. 

 

Either way, it looks like some people will pay this to support a new developer which is a nice gesture, but it really makes me question continuing to write freeware 

personally i have always wondered why you dont go premium.  leave the old version for free if you want, and charge for the current one. For that you can offer support and maybe write an installer/host the files. At the end of the day 30-40 dollars for something that i use on every flight is a bargain.

[jafferhussain11 34]

personally i have always wondered why you dont go premium.  leave the old version for free if you want, and charge for the current one. For that you can offer support and maybe write an installer/host the files. At the end of the day 30-40 dollars for something that i use on every flight is a bargain.

yup and throw in some photosceneries with slight color corrections () and we are all set , and you could charge happily and provide scenery better looking and more realistic  than that of ORBXs !

 

(you are right to assume i am only talking without actual knowledge of how to make sceneries for X-plane)

[propsfan 52]

I'll reserve judgement once I see some reviews of the product, but regarding the price, I have to agree, as an unknown developer, $70 is priced far too high. My guess is they've seen how desperate people are for better weather in XP10 (Just read almost every "Should I buy XP" thread) and have priced accordingly. 

 

Either way, it looks like some people will pay this to support a new developer which is a nice gesture, but it really makes me question continuing to write freeware 

 

I donated for W2XP and would gladly have paid a premium price tbh. I was discussing XP11 with a friend last night and we were talking about the new European/German autogen. The thought crossed that we would gladly pay for a regionalised scenery library for Ireland/UK, I'm sure others would for their regions. I imagine it would be easy enough to get pictures for the available housing stock in an area on a major property sale website and build models accordingly. W2XP and Ortho4XP are the best things to have happened in the XP10 run imo.

 

[Paraffin 2,197]

personally i have always wondered why you dont go premium.  leave the old version for free if you want, and charge for the current one. For that you can offer support and maybe write an installer/host the files. At the end of the day 30-40 dollars for something that i use on every flight is a bargain.

 

Freeware and Donationware have one big advantage though, in that you don't need to provide help and tech support to end users. It's always appreciated with free releases, but it's a requirement when you start charging money. There are some other things like an expectation to fix bugs, figuring out how far you'll go with a return policy and so on. But support is the big one. Some people can be unreasonable about support issues; expecting immediate replies to email from small one-person developers, getting angry when something doesn't work, etc.

 

Having done some tech support in a former life, I can understand not wanting to get too far into that, unless the financial reward would justify it.

[tonywob 4,768]

Sorry for making this topic go off-topic, that wasn't my intention with my comment. I tend to agree with Paraffin, these are all issues that put me off releasing any payware (It's bad enough with freeware), but I'm not ruling it out for future scenery packs.

[philmurfin 73]

Sorry for making this topic go off-topic, that wasn't my intention with my comment. I tend to agree with Paraffin, these are all issues that put me off releasing any payware (It's bad enough with freeware), but I'm not ruling it out for future scenery packs.

 

 I can't believe that your GBpro is free, when you look at the efforts of ORBX. you fly high above that!

I for one would certainly be more than happy to pay for your excellent work Tony!

Phil

[Desaix 235]

 I can't believe that your GBpro is free, when you look at the efforts of ORBX. you fly high above that!

I for one would certainly be more than happy to pay for your excellent work Tony!

Phil

I think that donation gets the same result...

[Denco 48]

 I can't believe that your GBpro is free, when you look at the efforts of ORBX. you fly high above that!

I for one would certainly be more than happy to pay for your excellent work Tony!

Phil

I think you mean this addon right?

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/34232-gb-pro-v2-detailed-vfr-scenery-for-great-britain/

 

Becuase it incorporates the work of others ( World Models, Open Scenery X etc ) and honestly when I was still using FSX and P3D having ORBX was a must. ORBX terrain is done really really well and looks a lot better than any terrain done for X-Plane. No offense meant to anyone. But having it for a sim that's riddled with blurries is pointless, to be honest. 

[propsfan 52]

ORBX terrain is done really really well and looks a lot better than any terrain done for X-Plane. No offense meant to anyone.

 

None taken but you might be doing XP scenery wrong.

[tonywob 4,768]

I've split this thread from the enviro topic as it went completely off-topic (and it was my fault)

[tonywob 4,768]

I really appreciate all the comments guys, but I'm not asking people to start paying, my original comment about questioning writing freeware was meant as a tongue-in-cheek remark to people handing out $70 to an unknown developer to support them  :wink:. 

 

 

 

Becuase it incorporates the work of others ( World Models, Open Scenery X etc )

 

Slight correction here, all the UK buildings I used from world-models are actually my own work. I use some objects from OpenSceneryX, but the vast majority of the scenery and work is done by myself (Unfortunately, as it's very hard to actually get other developers to help out). For normal W2XP scenery, most of the buildings come from various sources (Mostly R2 and FF), but again the majority were made by myself and users are free to use whatever they like. For Norway and Denmark, I also made all the artwork but I didn't add them back into the library for other devs because it's the third time this year that I've had to ask a payware developer to remove my models or W2XP from their payware scenery, and most don't listen or ignore it. 

 

Any future sceneries I do (including New Zealand) won't use any libraries at all. I hate downloading an airport or scenery and finding I have to download piles of libraries to use them.

[Denco 48]

Didn't know that Tony, sorry.

[jasonX 24]

 

 

Any future sceneries I do (including New Zealand) won't use any libraries at all. I hate downloading an airport or scenery and finding I have to download piles of libraries to use them.

 

Really with you on this one Tony. I am glad to hear you feel the same way as I do about this. Having to start looking around for libraries when I find gray boxes etc, finally annoyed me to the point of no longer adding scenery to my X-plane installation. I content myself with what comes with the updates from WED (a small number of which I added myself).

 

Regards