1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

This is incorrect in the MSFS marketplace.  There is no additional cost to the 3rd party developer because Microsoft hosts the servers to download in the MSFS marketplace.

[snip]

In addition, the 3rd party developer can use a service that scales like AWS or Azure.  The cost to scale the service is pennies, with respect to each 3rd party plane sold, if they use a service like AWS.  Put it this way - if the a 3rd party developer sold just 1 plane for $50 USD, and only that 1 plane is downloaded for the entire month, the $50 can easily cover that one month of AWS service (go look up AWS services and the bandwidth you get, it's dirt cheap with respect to the cost of the price of a high fidelity plane, which would probably cost $50 USD or more).

I believe if you sell through the MSFS marketplace, MS takes a percentage of the sale price. That's a cost. 

Regardless of how much AWS costs, it's still a cost. So your original assertion that "... there are zero material costs for each additional unit sold" is not correct. There *are* additional costs. 

I may be picking nits here but, as someone who works for a company that is very involved in digital content delivery, my hackles go up when people make the argument that since it's just digital bits, there's no overhead costs associated with delivering that good and thus it should be cheaper.

As to whether or not developers are charging too much money for an aircraft model, well that's an individual decision. Any developer has the right to set whatever price they want for their work just as I have the right to buy or not buy that work depending on whether or not I feel the price is fair. 

15 minutes ago, Malaromane said:

I believe if you sell through the MSFS marketplace, MS takes a percentage of the sale price. That's a cost. 

Regardless of how much AWS costs, it's still a cost. So your original assertion that "... there are zero material costs for each additional unit sold" is not correct. There *are* additional costs. 

I may be picking nits here but, as someone who works for a company that is very involved in digital content delivery, my hackles go up when people make the argument that since it's just digital bits, there's no overhead costs associated with delivering that good and thus it should be cheaper.

As to whether or not developers are charging too much money for an aircraft model, well that's an individual decision. Any developer has the right to set whatever price they want for their work just as I have the right to buy or not buy that work depending on whether or not I feel the price is fair. 

Like I said, the AWS costs would be insignificant with respect to the cost of each high fidelity plane sold. Keyword here is "insignificant" because these high fidelity planes sell for over $50 USD per unit.

Even selling one high fidelity plane for $50 USD, that $50 USD can easily cover the whole month of AWS costs if only one high fidelity plane were sold at $50 USD for the entire month.

The main costs as @jrw4 outlined would be support staff costs.  But, in my opinion, even the support staff costs can be covered if the sales go really well for PMDG, Fenix, TDFi, Just Flight, etc (ie. they are maximizing their Total Revenue).

Edited April 13, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

17 minutes ago, Ilari Kousa said:

The MD11 is a significantly more complex airplane than any 737.

I meant complex to develop.  So is the TDFi MD11 that much more complex to develop, versus the PMDG 737?

1 minute ago, abrams_tank said:

I meant complex to develop.  So is the TDFi MD11 that much more complex to develop, versus the PMDG 737?

Well, the MD-11 has lots of FBWesque control augmentation logic, and in general systems that I believe take a lot of thought to replicate in-sim.

The costs to support customers do scale up with the number of customers, more so when you start selling complex airliner add-ons to a clientele with a much lower level of aviation sophistication, e.g. XBox gamers and others who don't have an understanding of basic flying, much less operating an airliner. 

The costs of keeping a complex add-on up-to-date and working on a platform that is continuously changing through a series of forced updates are also potentially significant.  The good news: your users will all be on the same platform.  The bad news: next week that platform will be different than this week's.

 

RR indicated in the recent radio/pod interview that the credit on the PMDG 737 is worth close to a $1 million to msfs2020 with 8900 customers qualifying for the credit in the short timescale the offer was valid, given that he is still looking to price customers happy and also previous comments on the rate and quantity of sales the DC6 achieved, it will be difficult for other developers of high quality products to qualify a substantially higher price to the audience and hope to sell to a larger customer base in any substantial quantity, once PMDG set out their stall in the next few days.

 

13 minutes ago, Simple B said:

 it will be difficult for other developers of high quality products to qualify a substantially higher price to the audience and hope to sell to a larger customer base in any substantial quantity, once PMDG set out their stall in the next few days.

I think there is a good possibility that the PMDG 737 falls between the $60 USD to $70 USD price range.  If so, it would make the TDFi MD11 look very expensive.

I could be wrong and the PMDG 737 is more than $70 USD, perhaps even more than $80 USD, thereby approaching the price of the TDFi MD11. But I doubt it.  Randazzo seems to be very clever with his pricing because he wants to maximize his Total Revenue.

Edited April 13, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

10 minutes ago, Simple B said:

RR indicated in the recent radio/pod interview that the credit on the PMDG 737 is worth close to a $1 million to msfs2020 with 8900 customers qualifying for the credit in the short timescale the offer was valid, given that he is still looking to price customers happy and also previous comments on the rate and quantity of sales the DC6 achieved, it will be difficult for other developers of high quality products to qualify a substantially higher price to the audience and hope to sell to a larger customer base in any substantial quantity, once PMDG set out their stall in the next few days.

Did he?  Let's see, $110 x 8900 = $979,000 -- that's close to $1M.  Or $120 x 8900 = $1,068,000 -- also close to $1M

Actually the credit is $99.99, you can do the math there.

Edited April 13, 20224 yr by Simple B

2 minutes ago, Simple B said:

Actuall the credir is $99.99, you can do the math there.

True, and he did say something about being able to apply the credit across multiple variants, so maybe not...

37 minutes ago, Bob Scott said:

The costs of keeping a complex add-on up-to-date and working on a platform that is continuously changing through a series of forced updates are also potentially significant.  The good news: your users will all be on the same platform.  The bad news: next week that platform will be different than this week's.

Forced updates is something good, especially now with a beta process to squash some obvious bugs.

It ends up being positive for Developers as well, considering that they do not need to worry with version differences when offering support. Otherwise, MSFS’ add-on ecosystem would not be booming like it is. 

Isnt it so that it is not important what a developer asks for it's product but what the user wants to pay?

In the last year I bought 2 payware aircraft. The first one I dont like, the second one is so-so but I dislike the developer.

I'm not going to pay 100 euros for 1 aircraft in a game that cost me 129 euro. I'm not judging if its not worth it, I'm just not going to do that.

25 minutes ago, hansb57 said:

Isnt it so that it is not important what a developer asks for it's product but what the user wants to pay?

In the last year I bought 2 payware aircraft. The first one I dont like, the second one is so-so but I dislike the developer.

I'm not going to pay 100 euros for 1 aircraft in a game that cost me 129 euro. I'm not judging if its not worth it, I'm just not going to do that.

It’s amazing that people are willing to pay over $100 USD for a high fidelity airliner.  I have been absent from flight simulation for 10 years and when I returned because of MSFS, I was shocked to read about the prices for some airliner add ons.  When the add on costs significantly more than the base simulator, that raises some questions, IMO.

I hope those days are gone with the introduction of MSFS.  MSFS costs $60 USD, and even less if you buy it with a discount.  I understand some 3rd party devs need to make back the money for what they invested in developing the high fidelity plane.  I think the price PMDG set for their DC6 is a fair price. I also think the new price Just Flight set for their BAe 146 is also a fair price.

TDFI though, I think they set the price too high. They are going to drive away some purchasers if they insist on keeping it at $89.99 for their MD11.

41 minutes ago, GCBraun said:

Forced updates is something good, especially now with a beta process to squash some obvious bugs.

It ends up being positive for Developers as well, considering that they do not need to worry with version differences when offering support. Otherwise, MSFS’ add-on ecosystem would not be booming like it is. 

I agree with this.  With the introduction of the public opt-in beta, forced updates are becoming much less of a problem now.

3 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

It’s amazing that people are willing to pay over $100 USD for a high fidelity airliner.  I have been absent from flight simulation for 10 years and when I returned because of MSFS, I was shocked to read about the prices for some airliner add ons.  When the add on costs significantly more than the base simulator, that raises some questions, IMO.

Some people are willing to pay more for a graphics card than an entire PC. Go figure.