How much would people pay?

[WilliamS 12]

Hi,

I am working on a photorealistic scenery package of 4000 sq km around Innsbruck. A lot of work has gone in to it, so I was thinking of selling it as payware. How much would people pay for such a product?

Cheers,

Will

[yidahoo 365]

When you say photorealistic, do you mean from satellite/aerial imagery? If so, presumably you had to pay a significant licensing fee to use it commercially. If it were me, I would be basing my pricing structure on how much the licensing and man hours have cost me, not asking the community. 

[anden145 2,273]

12 minutes ago, yidahoo said:

When you say photorealistic, do you mean from satellite/aerial imagery? If so, presumably you had to pay a significant licensing fee to use it commercially. If it were me, I would be basing my pricing structure on how much the licensing and man hours have cost me, not asking the community. 

Exactly that.. Well said.

[WilliamS 12]

oh no! Didn't think of that! How much d'you think it would cost?

[yidahoo 365]

Depends on who you are using for the satellite images but I would not be surprised if its 4-5 figure numbers in dollars. Ortho does not come cheap for commercial use and 4000 sq/km is a fair chunk of imagery. 

[charliearon 3,017]

Your last post was removed!  Don't do that!   So...you been working on this project for a while?  Where have you been getting the images you are using?

[WilliamS 12]

Sorry. Images sourced from Virtual Earth (bing)

[188AHC 2,138]

William, I suggest you read Bing's and Microsoft's TOS  before you go too far with this. In the past Microsoft has been very protective of their property. If they do license 3rd parties, I will bet the price would be extreme. 

[dave2013 1,123]

You can't just take publicly available satellite imagery from Google or Microsoft and then use it in a product to make money without their permission.

There are already a lot of photoreal sceneries in the AVSIM library which are freeware, so why should your scenery be payware?

Dave

[yidahoo 365]

Technically, you cannot even distribute them for free if you read the EULAS for most providers. You can download them for your own use but if you modify and distribute then you are breaking their rules. 

They tend to turn a blind eye to home users but if too many people start distributing even as freeware, they may well start clamping down hard on us. And that would be sad.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Indeed Dave - I think most of us agree to the first point regarding licencing - you don't want to mess commercially with those two giants.

On the second point - it's up to the creator if they wish to make payware and ultimately the user base who choose to walk with their wallets: For example I have shelled out to Just Flight for their first two volumes of their latest UK photoreal scenery - VFR Real 3D. It's worth it to me as I've lived in England all my life. 

[WilliamS 12]

OK guys, thanks. I will take a look. @dave2013 the reason I think I could sell it is because it is over 4000 square kilometres of 1m/px photos. And it includes an improved innsbruck airport.

[GCBraun 2,390]

Got 50% of the world for free using Ortho4XP. 

[WilliamS 12]

"Thou shalt not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, sublicense, transfer, assign, rent, sell or otherwise convey any information, software, products or services obtained from Bing Maps and MapPoint Web Service without the prior written consent from Microsoft."

-Microsoft, April 2011

Edited June 9, 2019 by WilliamS

[W2DR 1,859]

On 6/9/2019 at 5:20 AM, WilliamS said:

oh no! Didn't think of that! How much d'you think it would cost?

Somehow I get the feeling you're not quite ready to take this on...............Doug