Very Pricy Addons

[Guest]

Well for over a year now I have had a moratorium on buying addons and I have stuck to it rigidly. I wasn't happy with my sim setup because of the fact that I was getting blurries in P3D V4.3 with Unlimited frames. Anyway, I decided to give X-plane 11 another go when I saw it on sale on Steam and promised myself  I wouldn't purchase any addons. Much to my surprise with only freeware in had a fantastic time with X-Plane 11. I figured I get back into the saddle with P3D once there was a viable VR option. Now I know that "viable VR option" is a subjective statement but that came along for me with the arrival of the Samsung Odyssey+ for CAD$449.

We are all in a position that there are some things we simply can't afford. But sometimes there are things we would like to have and despite being able to afford them we don't buy simple because we think its not worth that much to me. That's pretty much the way I looked at the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. I have to say I would not have bought the Odyssey+ for its regular price either.

Anyway, I stuck to my 'no addon purchases' rule until the last couple of days. I am loving the new VR setup and the only outstanding issue was that I didn't have any forces in my trusty old Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2. Not even a centering force in Windows 10 which is the minimum requirement.

So for XP11 I picked up XPForce for CAD$17 and for P3D FSforce for about CAD$50. CAD$67 just for a centering force in my joystick. Well a little more than that. XPForce was, I though perfectly reasonable for what it does. FSForce although I am happy with it left me feeling completely ripped off. Both addons do virtually exactly the same thing.

So I thought I'd start a tread that examines which addons we are happy with but at the same time feel like the seller ripped us a new one! 😆

Don't confine it to addons. Looking at hardware I see the same thing. Desirable product but the price is outrageous!

Edited December 22, 2018 by Guest

[John_Cillis 2,406]

1 hour ago, Avidean said:

Well for over a year now I have had a moratorium on buying addons and I have stuck to it rigidly. I wasn't happy with my sim setup because of the fact that I was getting blurries in P3D V4.3 with Unlimited frames. Anyway, I decided to give X-plane 11 another go when I saw it on sale on Steam and promised myself  I wouldn't purchase any addons. Much to my surprise with only freeware in had a fantastic time with X-Plane 11. I figured I get back into the saddle with P3D once there was a viable VR option. Now I know that "viable VR option" is a subjective statement but that came along for me with the arrival of the Samsung Odyssey+ for CAD$449.

We are all in a position that there are some things we simply can't afford. But sometimes there are things we would like to have and despite being able to afford them we don't buy simple because we think its not worth that much to me. That's pretty much the way I looked at the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. I have to say I would not have bought the Odyssey+ for its regular price either.

Anyway, I stuck to my 'no addon purchases' rule until the last couple of days. I am loving the new VR setup and the only outstanding issue was that I didn't have any forces in my trusty old Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback 2. Not even a centering force in Windows 10 which is the minimum requirement.

So for XP11 I picked up XPForce for CAD$17 and for P3D FSforce for about CAD$50. CAD$67 just for a centering force in my joystick. Well a little more than that. XPForce was, I though perfectly reasonable for what it does. FSForce although I am happy with it left me feeling completely ripped off. Both addons do virtually exactly the same thing.

So I thought I'd start a tread that examines which addons we are happy with but at the same time feel like the seller ripped us a new one! 😆

Don't confine it to addons. Looking at hardware I see the same thing. Desirable product but the price is outrageous!

Pricing is always based on what the market will bear, plus investment costs, which include time and labor.  Pricing is always initially high in some instances but comes down as the market settles on a price with the vendor.  Vendors who do not settle with the market usually go out of business or have little business.  Aircraft add-ons are really tough to price because they take hundreds of man hours to create.  Even my freeware trike and Landclass Assistant program for MSFS and now P3D, they took dozens of man hours to create.  I released them to Avsim because of the pleasure I found in them after they were created, I just wanted to share it.  I have worked for commercial vendors, that was my work life in IT Dev, my private life, just for my own pleasure and that I could give others.  My ex wife wanted me to sell two of my programs, but I did not want the legal fights that come with selling software, such as patents.  I figured in the end if someone wanted to sell my programs, fine.  Let them deal with angry customers if they found my work was not perfect.

So my feeling is pricing is pricing, the business of the businessman (or woman), and my business is whether I want to purchase or lay low.  Last year while shopping for a new PC I wanted a better, faster one but the salesperson at Fry's Electronics assured me that his choice for me would be fine for Xplane11, P3DV4 and other sims.  He was right, I liked his hustle because he knew what he was doing and did not talk down to me, the market.  Fry's is my favorite store, a giant Radio Shack without the Radio Shack sales hustle.  I bought my Logitech 3D Pro controller there, great choice on PC Hardware, $40.00 US.

In Canada I was treated to someone special.  My client was having problems with a CAT 5 cable run 100 meters in length, at the outside end of CAT 5 but still should have been doable.  I had made the cable per our office's hardware specialist instructions.  He said "just match up the colors on each end".  But the run to my client's housekeeping dept did not work.  So I called cabling specialist and landed on a French Canadian working in Edmonton.  He came over, told me I had the ends wrong, and he showed me the right way--CAT 5 is unshielded twisted pair, and it is important to maintain the twists on each end.  So per his instructions I recrimped both ends.  And the cable run then worked perfectly.  I asked him how much my client owed him.  He told me nothing, he wanted me and my client to have a good memory of French Canadians.  So I told my client to retain his future services in case they needed additional support.  That is how you make your business work, word of mouth, regardless of the price.  If the product works and does not break, the price is justified IMHO.

John

[stans 702]

I wish there was a Fry's near me, but the closest one is a 500 mile drive.

As for the cost of computers, components, accessories, and software, prices are what the market will support and provide the developers and retailers with some degree of profit.  The big rip off I see right now is in high end video cards, but that is driven by the demand from crypto-currency mining.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, John_Cillis said:

Pricing is always based on what the market will bear, plus investment costs, which include time and labor.  Pricing is always initially high in some instances but comes down as the market settles on a price with the vendor.  Vendors who do not settle with the market usually go out of business or have little business.  Aircraft add-ons are really tough to price because they take hundreds of man hours to create.  Even my freeware trike and Landclass Assistant program for MSFS and now P3D, they took dozens of man hours to create.  I released them to Avsim because of the pleasure I found in them after they were created, I just wanted to share it.  I have worked for commercial vendors, that was my work life in IT Dev, my private life, just for my own pleasure and that I could give others.  My ex wife wanted me to sell two of my programs, but I did not want the legal fights that come with selling software, such as patents.  I figured in the end if someone wanted to sell my programs, fine.  Let them deal with angry customers if they found my work was not perfect.

So my feeling is pricing is pricing, the business of the businessman (or woman), and my business is whether I want to purchase or lay low.  Last year while shopping for a new PC I wanted a better, faster one but the salesperson at Fry's Electronics assured me that his choice for me would be fine for Xplane11, P3DV4 and other sims.  He was right, I liked his hustle because he knew what he was doing and did not talk down to me, the market.  Fry's is my favorite store, a giant Radio Shack without the Radio Shack sales hustle.  I bought my Logitech 3D Pro controller there, great choice on PC Hardware, $40.00 US.

In Canada I was treated to someone special.  My client was having problems with a CAT 5 cable run 100 meters in length, at the outside end of CAT 5 but still should have been doable.  I had made the cable per our office's hardware specialist instructions.  He said "just match up the colors on each end".  But the run to my client's housekeeping dept did not work.  So I called cabling specialist and landed on a French Canadian working in Edmonton.  He came over, told me I had the ends wrong, and he showed me the right way--CAT 5 is unshielded twisted pair, and it is important to maintain the twists on each end.  So per his instructions I recrimped both ends.  And the cable run then worked perfectly.  I asked him how much my client owed him.  He told me nothing, he wanted me and my client to have a good memory of French Canadians.  So I told my client to retain his future services in case they needed additional support.  That is how you make your business work, word of mouth, regardless of the price.  If the product works and does not break, the price is justified IMHO.

John

Well that's one side of the story. Now back to complaining about the price of things.

2 hours ago, stans said:

The big rip off I see right now is in high end video cards, but that is driven by the demand from crypto-currency mining. 

Indeed what about that 2080ti eh? I see on Newegg.ca the cheapest (or perhaps I should say the lowest price since there is noting cheap about it) is CAD$1,679.99 which is from ASUS and its only got 3 eggs compared to the most expensive also Asus at $2,199. That's a difference of CAD$519. I'm pretty sure that whichever one of those cards you put in your system won't make a hill of beans difference! I don't see how a fancier piece of aluminum and an extra fan can account for $519 price difference. Funny thought that the most expensive one is out of stock and the "cheapest" (LOL) one is available. Is it perhaps the job of the most expensive one to make the least expensive look like a deal? 😜

Edited December 23, 2018 by Guest

[Anxu00 176]

Ah, the addons! Forget about addon, how about a sim that run well without asking you to invest in pricey hw? P3D v4 will probably be my last purchase as I contemplate the thousands I spent on addon over the years since 2010.  My PMDG are all expensive addons without use since the microstutters and DL performance mess.  My ORBX and other sceneries all suffer on delay loading and noticeable pause to kill immersion.  All tallied up, I spent too much money already and still not have what a true sim is about.  XP11 is good, but the lack of seasons, ATC, and the weather is a turn-off.  I am not buying anything since the beginning of the year, why add more when your total setup is a letdown.  My experience is hardly unique, what good are those beautiful airports when your sim pauses you as you approach? What made me mad is realization is that I should just forget about all the sceneries, focus only on the planes and add weather.  Then I just looked at all the money I spent on sceneries and see all the wasted spending.  Nothing wrong with the sceneries or their developer, just that the whole platform just buckled under all these stuffs.  When you spend money you expect to get something good for it, to me right now I don't see a whole lot of value for the money spent.  I will this hobby some more times before perhaps calling it quit altogether.

[Christopher Low 5,331]

Quote

Indeed what about that 2080ti eh? I see on Newegg.ca the cheapest (or perhaps I should say the lowest price since there is noting cheap about it) is CAD$1,679.99 which is from ASUS and its only got 3 eggs compared to the most expensive also Asus at $2,199. That's a difference of CAD$519. I'm pretty sure that whichever one of those cards you put in your system won't make a hill of beans difference! I don't see how a fancier piece of aluminum and an extra fan can account for $519 price difference.

What amazes me is just how many flight simmers seem to be able to spend huge sums of money on these top end graphics cards. I struggle to find enough spare cash to buy a £25 airport addon these days!!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

6 hours ago, Avidean said:

Well that's one side of the story. Now back to complaining about the price of things.

Indeed what about that 2080ti eh? I see on Newegg.ca the cheapest (or perhaps I should say the lowest price since there is noting cheap about it) is CAD$1,679.99 which is from ASUS and its only got 3 eggs compared to the most expensive also Asus at $2,199. That's a difference of CAD$519. I'm pretty sure that whichever one of those cards you put in your system won't make a hill of beans difference! I don't see how a fancier piece of aluminum and an extra fan can account for $519 price difference. Funny thought that the most expensive one is out of stock and the "cheapest" (LOL) one is available. Is it perhaps the job of the most expensive one to make the least expensive look like a deal? 😜

I paid $999 for my rig in the midst of $2000US rigs, (but I already had a decent monitor, ten years young--Samsung--they last forever).  I could have been duped into paying a lot more but I chose not to, and my rig, though my cpu is not clocked at the fastest, runs the sims out there very well indeed and it gets better with the sim updates that come along (at least Xplane11, No Limits Coaster 2, and P3D4).  Some prices are just outrageous, especially on the 2K "Gaming" rigs that can be hand built for a lot less.  My one and only hand built computer with Win 98 is 20 years old not, and still works, except for a flaky power supply I never replaced which had a small short--I would fix it by opening the case and jiggling the wires, then all voltages would return to normal for the next several days.   I used to network it in with my newer systems to get source code from it, do not do that any longer since I no longer develop any of my code, been years since my freeware users have sent me notice of any bugs.

If you want something and the price is too high, try ebay, I have bought from there once or twice and have gotten new product at a third of its original cost.  Way back when, before the invention of money, we were a trade society.  Trading skills or cattle or merchandise.  If someone scammed you you just bopped them on the head with your caveman's club or had your wife cook a nasty meal for him (or her) until they got the message, no more scams.  Scamming has become so vogue in our society, especially out of Nigeria and India and Russia, I call it the unforgivable sin.  Sadly it also has moved into the "buyer beware" category.  My first real job was Montgomery Ward catalog retail.  My manager did not allow me to sell things she knew our customers would not like, even though her boss would get mad, she did not want me or any of my coworkers to be known as hustlers.  My job there was to authorize refunds and train our new employees, mostly young and very pretty and appreciative young women who would give me the warmest hugs for teaching them.  We were a true sales team that did not believe in the "Always be closing" sales hustle they tried to teach us.  We closed our sales, and me later as a hotelier, by being honest, explaining the pros and cons of what a customer wanted, and letting the customer's own free will and wisdom decide for themselves.

From your post you have a good head on your shoulders.  Use it and use it wisely, and you will not go wrong in this hobby or whatever your computing need are.

John

[W2DR 1,859]

As John says, prices are always determined by the market. The only thing that drives retail pricing is demand. Prices are what they are. If enough folks stop buying at a given price point prices will fall. As demand increases prices will rise. Such has it always been and such it will always be..........Doug

[Guest]

13 hours ago, W2DR said:

prices are always determined by the market. The only thing that drives retail pricing is demand.

Yeah sure. Nobody is disputing that. What I'm getting at is the phenomenon of the Emperors new cloths.

BTW Its supply and demand not just demand.

Case it point I think the 2080ti example is a good one. Lets just grant that everything is on the up and up and the CAD$1,679.99 GPU price is arrived at without attributing any stupidity to the market. That begs the question of how the extra $519 for the more expensive 2080ti comes from since your getting pretty much nothing for it. The same nothing that the Emperors new cloths are made off. It's hard to believe that the stupidity of the market is not being researched, measured and leveraged by big and small tech companies and every other kind of company out there. I'm just being the kid who says, "The Emperor has no cloths". The bottom line is that gouging is not a myth. And lately there is as I see it a lot of gouging going on.

[W2DR 1,859]

Been to Disney World lately?  😊

[Guest]

1 hour ago, W2DR said:

Been to Disney World lately?  😊

I was there a couple of Years Ago!😀

[ahsmatt7 1,199]

3 hours ago, Avidean said:

Yeah sure. Nobody is disputing that. What I'm getting at is the phenomenon of the Emperors new cloths.

BTW Its supply and demand not just demand.

Case it point I think the 2080ti example is a good one. Lets just grant that everything is on the up and up and the CAD$1,679.99 GPU price is arrived at without attributing any stupidity to the market. That begs the question of how the extra $519 for the more expensive 2080ti comes from since your getting pretty much nothing for it. The same nothing that the Emperors new cloths are made off. It's hard to believe that the stupidity of the market is not being researched, measured and leveraged by big and small tech companies and every other kind of company out there. I'm just being the kid who says, "The Emperor has no cloths". The bottom line is that gouging is not a myth. And lately there is as I see it a lot of gouging going on.

Gouging? Based off of what? Your own exclusive opinion?

 

Sad to say but people who are buying these products woukd most likely think differently. 

I never understood the rationale behind complaining about prices. 

Not that we aren't entitle to our own opinions....but the fact that it doesn't change a darn thing. 

 

It's just the way it is. Simple economics....not feelings....

[John_Cillis 2,406]

3 hours ago, ahsmatt7 said:

Gouging? Based off of what? Your own exclusive opinion?

 

Sad to say but people who are buying these products woukd most likely think differently. 

I never understood the rationale behind complaining about prices. 

Not that we aren't entitle to our own opinions....but the fact that it doesn't change a darn thing. 

 

It's just the way it is. Simple economics....not feelings....

Shoppers are voters.  As my Mom used to tell me when I voted in my first election, just after turning 18, she said "Now you have your complaining license".  Those who do not complain are not being true to themselves, so afraid to express an opinion that they let others dominate them. 

These forums are for airing such complaints, as long as the complaints are based on truth and not out of some personal vendetta, which can be seen if someone singles out just one vendor and twists the knife in, (some vendors excluded).  Vendors that gouge in my opinion are vendors with subscription licensing fees, which make no sense in entertainment circles and make poorer sense in big business.  I terminated a vendor's contract, Mercury, the maker of our testing software Winrunner and Loadrunner, because I wanted to upgrade and they wanted to charge me more than they were charging new customers for the same software version. 

I shopped around for another software testing vendor and Mercury scoffed I could never convert their scripts, that I would have to invest hundreds of man hours to convert their C based code to the Basic based code of the new vendor, that did not have predatory licensing for businesses.  I proved Mercury wrong by writing a conversion program that took their C syntax and converted it into the syntax of the new program, only a week's investment on my part, and I used no other resources for it.  I saved my company more than ten thousand dollars in predatory licensing fees and proved to both the old and new company that the customer has a say in what they pay, and in the honesty or lack thereof of a vendor. 

Mercury stayed in business but they did not have my business, and as QA Lead and WAN manager, I had the final say given the power and trust by my company owner, Beau Brown, to do so.  I was sad when I left that company for greener pastures, a friend coaxed me to leave, but I did not burn my bridges with them and have remained friends with my former managers, Beau and peers there.  I even stayed friends with Mercury, recommending them for some projects I knew only their software could handle.  Word of mouth is the determinant in the market.  And let us not forget that corporations are a form of Socialism, anything citizen owned is.  Socialism is just capitalism anyway with a different name, economics have always been muddled that way, since economics give in to politics which I will not discuss, having lost my complaining license some years ago, a jaded voter, lol.

[Guest]

On with the complaining about gouging!😜

One addon aircraft I would love to have in P3D V4 is the PMDG Queen of the skies II.

I am never going to buy it though!

Its CAD$190! Now I know this is likely a superb addon Aircraft. I have the NGX which I dutifully bough twice and the 777 and I have and will continue to have hours of fun with them. But I am finished with PMDG unless they have a 50% sale at some point. I believe they promised that when pigs fly.

I remember all the blah blah blah when P3D V2 came along about law suites and professional licenses and liabilities and legal fees came along and for 'this reason we will have to charge you all double for the same addon😭"

Sorry I am not buying it! The TFDI 717 is officially licensed by Boeing and guess what it's US$60 compared to the now aging NGX which is still $90. That's 50% higher! And guess what TDFi had a black friday sale and if I remember correctly it was 30% off, so I think US$40. Man I was kicking myself I did not take advantage of that one.

In a way I think that PMDG are the original developer that opened the door on addon aircraft for FS costing $100+

I was looking at the CS 757 a couple of days ago as a result of the a post saying they where having an everything for $25 sale. (You don't actually think I would look at Captain Sim Website out of my own curiosity do you? 🤣). Anyway its a US site and the prices are in US Dallars. I added the 757 to the cart and went to check out to discover for for the first time ever on downloaded software form a US site that I was being charged HST (Canadian Sales Tax).

I'll eat my hat if Captain Sim are actually remitting that!

On the subject of Captain Sim the regular Price of their 757 is $75!!! Wake up folks there a lots of addon developers gouging. There are lot of companies in general gouging. Far more than there was in the past IMO.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Guest

[scianoir 610]

9 hours ago, W2DR said:

Been to Disney World lately?  😊

Another company that has perfected gouging!

Bill