MSFS Addons pricing model...

[Mir // Flightbeam 541]

46 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

Yeah, but that's not what you said.

Cynical? I got over 10 pages of purchases on simmarket.

You also probably have over 10 pages of anti-scenery dev posts here on AVSIM. Your simmarket purchases are grossly irrelevant. 

[cmpbellsjc 2,961]

2 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Nice way of insulting your (potential) customer base. 

What he said was not insulting at all, he was just pointing out the truth. It’s true that most people who pick up a flight sim on a whim or because it looks like it might be fun to try, usually have no idea how to fly a plane or navigate one. When I first got the oringal subLogic sim as a teenager back in 1983, I had no idea at all what I was doing, didn’t know anything about aviation or navigation. We all have to start somewhere. It’s understandable that a user like that, me at the time, wouldn’t want to pay a high price for addons either.

Please don’t try to stir the pot and make his comment into something that wasn’t intended.

[MatthewS 761]

4 hours ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

The vast majority of MSFS users are casual players, and not AVSIM members. Most of them have no skills in piloting or knowing anything about aviation. That particular market thinks $15 for a mega airport, which takes around 1 year to develop, is too much to pay. 

 

I'm not a casual user but I also think $15+ USD for a "mega airport" is too much.

For me, the interest in a single airport fades quickly, maybe I'll use it once in a blue moon, because the world in MSFS is too compelling to be stuck on the same routes.

Also, you got to compete against the upcoming freeware airports, or even just upcoming freeware mods to existing default airports, which I suspect will vastly improve the defaults to almost payware level.

@$5 USD I'd be happy to buy many "mega" airports... but @$15+ USD no thanks.

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by MatthewS

[SirKibble 16]

3 hours ago, MatthewS said:

@$5 USD I'd be happy to buy many "mega" airports... but @$15+ USD no thanks.

 

 Flightbeam does have generous sales and a points system. Maybe you can check around then. Might be a while till then though.

[CJ1045 469]

I am an inexperienced flight simmer but am gaining expereince rapidly. Am an engineer and came from a vast amount of driving sim expereince. I did find Mir // Flightbeams comment extremely arrogant.

CJ

[Christopher Low 5,354]

$15 isn't exactly a huge amount for a complex payware airport.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Christopher Low

[Scottoest 1,561]

18 hours ago, Akila said:

Does any one know why there is the trend of a new pricing model for MSFS addons generally being significantly cheaper than previous Sim platforms, such as P3D/XP?

!) Because they aren't producing widgets at a factory, that have costs which linearly scale with sales.  The potential MSFS customer base is probably an order of magnitude larger than XP11, and especially P3D.

2) Because they are probably trying to capture impulse buy territory for more casual users, who are likely a massive chunk of that customer base.

[pjs37 319]

It will probably take some time and experiments to determine the whole what is a good price for the market and what the penetration rate is amongst the more casual fans.  I think people will naturally want to look for their major nearest home airport first but there is the whole booming bush flying segment I think which has gotten more attention even and so those small grass strips will also fit a role and of course things like replacing the in game scenery files with things we are more used to seeing like the London pack I think will also be booming for people's home cities.  It is an exciting time I think but costs will take a bit of testing.  I think we will see scenery files settle somewhere between $5-$15 in general and aircraft will be roughly around $15-$35 for the most popular ones.  Not to say PMDG style crafts won't be higher but I think they will stay in the niche market. I am hoping we see some more utility style add-ons too.  I think there is a big market if someone can do a flight school add-on like FS Flying School.  I think that needs to come sooner then later in order to increase player retention.  We had a strong start because everyone wanted to basically fly the routes near their homes and things they are familiar with but as that novelty of that wears out the needs to be more to grab them the challenges we have are a good start but I feel like there is stil a slight learning curve there for even those.

[honanhal 1,420]

2 hours ago, Scottoest said:

!) Because they aren't producing widgets at a factory, that have costs which linearly scale with sales.  The potential MSFS customer base is probably an order of magnitude larger than XP11, and especially P3D.

Yes! A point that is often overlooked on the disconnect between sales and costs -- which opens up a whole range of possibilities for developers, sadly almost entirely untried to date.

Ok, sure, tech support costs still scale up with sales. BUT, another underappreciated point, IMHO: the customer's expectation for that tech support also increases in direct proportion to the product price. If my $150 FSL Airbus falls short in any way, I expect fast service to fix it. If I'm having issues with my (hypothetical) $5 large airport addon? "A fix is coming" might well be enough to keep me happy.

In other words, your tech support costs may not increase as much as you think they will if your sales go up by an order of magnitude.

James

[carlito777 712]

11 hours ago, Mir // Flightbeam said:

That particular market thinks $15 for a mega airport, which takes around 1 year to develop, is too much to pay.

Interesting. I would have assumed that they are willing to pay $15 dollars for a mega airport. I think this will be a bit of trial and error to find out the price elasticity in this "new" market.

For me as an enthusiast simmer, $15 is perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, the price gouging in P3D was not acceptable anymore. I'm really happy with the decreased prices and will certainly buy more add-ons than before (poor wallet...).

[guibru 474]

Don’t turn a blind eye to the obvious. Flight simulation is and will remain a niche market no matter what you think.
Of the 1 million players at the launch, believe me half are casual players who downloaded MSFS for discovery and who will play for a few months, the simulation does not interest them.
I was invited last year to the X019 and I was able to speak with a person from MS who told me that he was looking forward to MSFS 2020 coming out and to the pleasure of future players from all backgrounds. Nevertheless they have it that this will not last.

[CJ1045 469]

Also bear in mind that it will be the same Marketplace when the XBOX version of the game is released and that is a very mature environment with respect to DLC pricing. Further if you thought there were a large number of new people playing the sim now that is nothing to the numbers when it is released for XBOX. Remember with the latter the Marketplace will be the ONLY place to buy new content.

 

CJ

[carlito777 712]

11 minutes ago, guibru said:

Nevertheless they have it that this will not last.

Let's wait and see. The truth is certainly somewhere in the middle. The niche, which it certainly is, was much larger back in the days when FSX and the previous releases of Microsoft Flight Simulator where widely available and still up to date. The niche became extremely small in the last couple of years with the resulting effect on prices. It's certainly a good thing that the market is bigger and certainly will stay bigger than it was before (even though not in terms of millions of users).

Edited September 21, 2020 by carlito777

[raymar 969]

3 hours ago, CJ1045 said:

I am an inexperienced flight simmer but am gaining expereince rapidly. Am an engineer and came from a vast amount of driving sim expereince. I did find Mir // Flightbeams comment extremely arrogant.

CJ

"extremely arrogant" huh.  then you must be one of those touchy-feely kind of engineers.  I found absolutely nothing even remotely arrogant in his assessment.  I think it is spot on factual, but, I don't find much of anything extremely anything nowadays.

[MatthewS 761]

Also "mega" airports tend to tank FPS. 

I'd rather be spending my FPS budget on "study sim" aircraft (like PMDG).

The last thing I want is a "stutter fest" landing (or taking off) at a "mega" airport.

$15 USD for a "mega" airport... No thanks, but good luck.

How about enhancing (ie "modding") the default airports with some region specific textures, ground objects, ground clutter, correctly named taxiways and parking. 

I'd happily pay $10 for an "enhanced airport pack", for example,  a "Philippines Enhanced Airport Pack" covering Manila, Cebu, Caticlan, Kalibo, Tacloban, Subic Bay, Clark, Baguio, Davao... You don't need to spend 12 months, probably just 1 month per pack.

Anyway, it wont be long before freeware authors are doing the same thing.

You'll never convince many "Xboxers" to part with $15 for a single airport, IMHO.