5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

You can stay silent throughout the development period of a product.  But before you release the product, it's still optimal to do a promotional period to spread brand awareness and "hype"  up the product for release.

This is not new to 3rd party planes in flight simulators. This is a general marketing strategy for various industries.  I just mentioned the example of blockbuster movies as an example, who typically do a promotional period including heavy marketing and advertisement, about one month before the blockbuster movie releases.

No offense to everyone who thinks it's okay to just release a product without any promotional period, but that's straight up pretty d*mb.  There is no point of taking marketing courses or getting a degree in marketing, if you could just release a product like that, and hope to maximize your sales.  No marketing expert, worth their money, would do this as the product will not sell as well compared to a proper marketing/advertising campaign just before the release of the product.

I get what your trying to say and you do make some valid points but I would say the flight sim market is very niche, an within that market you have us the extreme niche market of “study” level enthusiasts. Most of us that are willing to spend upwards of £70/£80 on one aircraft are in the fewer numbers and also very aware of our market as it’s so niche. Unlike marketing at mass where your aim is to maximise visibility like a blockbuster most hardcore simmers are already waiting to book their seats.

Edited May 7, 20224 yr by Carts85

1 hour ago, Fiorentoni said:

Yeah no idea what their business strategy is, but I doubt developing the A320 NEO for P3D is going to be a good one...

I don’t think they have one and if this Fenix Airbus lives up to the hype FSLabs will have an extremely uphill battle for MSFS Airbus relevance. 

5 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

but that's straight up pretty d*mb

We're censoring the word "dumb", now? Where does it end? I do however, agree with what you said about marketing and promotion, though.

Guys, the video previews will probably come after the PMDG release. With all the new stuff in the pipeline, there really is no need to showcase and step on toes..Its a very sensible approach to a marketing strategy. 

Let's take it for what it is... PMDG announces release date, Fenix then uses the opportunity to unofficially drop a teaser re: imminent release after the SU9 hotfix as part of a response to the usual questions they get on their discord.  Very likely they'll do an official release announcement after or close to SU9 hotfix (once it's announced and put out for testing by Asobo)... after this a few days of promo material and lifting of NDA on beta-testers/reviewers/streamers will lead into actual release in mid to late May probably. All in all good marketing strategy I'd say with their unique and minimal kinds of communication.. just their discord alone with over 16,400 members and high levels of engagement is very noteworthy. Anyhow, just my $0.02 :)

Edited May 7, 20224 yr by lwt1971

10 minutes ago, Carts85 said:

I get what your trying to say and you do make some valid points but I would say the flight sim market is very niche, an within that market you have us the extreme niche market of “study” level enthusiasts. Most of us that are willing to spend upwards of £70/£80 on one aircraft are in the fewer numbers and also very aware of our market as it’s so niche. Unlike marketing at mass where your aim is to maximise visibility like a blockbuster most hardcore simmers are already waiting to book their seats.

I think Aamir hinted that the price of the Fenix A320 will be much more reasonable to the masses, compared to the P3D/XP days.  So I am guessing they will price the Fenix A320 at around $60 to $80 USD.  The issue is, there are still some people that aren't aware of the Fenix A320, that would potentially buy it at that price.

Yes, I was in Reddit in either r/flightsim or r/MicrosoftFlightSim (I can't remember which subreddit) and there were people unaware of the Fenix A320, but when they learned about it, they seemed very interested in it. So there are people out there that could be potential customers for Fenix, but are unaware of their product. This is why you do a promotional period before it's released.

First up is the streaming from beta testers.  That is absolutely free promotion for Fenix..  It doesn't cost Fenix a cent to allow the beta testers stream the Fenix A320.  Next, is the video series.  Assuming Aamir is competent enough to put together his own videos, then that's also free for Aamir to do, and it only costs him time.  So that's two easy ways to promote the Fenix A320, which doesn't really cost Fenix any money. If they do it in this way, they can potentially reach these people that are unaware of the Fenix A320, who would consider purchasing it.

 

Edited May 7, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

22 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

You can stay silent throughout the development period of a product.  But before you release the product, it's still optimal to do a promotional period to spread brand awareness and "hype"  up the product for release. This maximizes sales of the product - and Fenix, if they are a rational business, is in it to maximize the sales of their Fenix A320.

This is not new to 3rd party planes in flight simulators. This is a general marketing strategy for various industries.  I just mentioned the example of blockbuster movies as an example, who typically do a promotional period including heavy marketing and advertisement, about one month before the blockbuster movie releases.

No offense to everyone who thinks it's okay to just release a product without any promotional period, but that's straight up pretty d*mb.  There is no point of taking marketing courses or getting a degree in marketing, if you could just release a product like that, and hope to maximize your sales.  No marketing expert, worth their money, would do this as the product will not sell as well compared to a proper marketing/advertising campaign just before the release of the product.

maybe they arent marketers? Just doers. 

1 minute ago, wiler said:

maybe they arent marketers? Just doers. 

Then that would make them pretty d*mb.  A business is out to make as much money as possible.  That's equivalent to them throwing money away, that they could have gotten otherwise.

BTW, there are d*mb business decision makers all the time.  Not everyone is making the optimal business decisions to maximize their profit.  People make really d*mb business decisions everyday and lose a lot of money because of it.

Edited May 7, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

Just now, abrams_tank said:

Then that would make them pretty d*mb.  A business is out to make as much money as possible.  That's equivalent to them throwing money away, that they could have gotten otherwise.

AFAIK this is the first product they will release, maybe its possible that they are more product focused then the other stuff that maybe they dont consider as important??  I wouldnt call it dumb and its unfair to do so. At the end of the day this is still a small community, word will spread like wildfire through discord/forums/facebook/reddit on the products value and quality . I doubt not releasing a bunch of teaser pics/rambling posts/hidden pricing/youtube streamers prior to release is gonna hurt them that badly. What will hurt them is a crappy product or something that isnt MUCH better them the FBW and at least on par with FSL a320, this is FOR sure.  IF the product lives up to the standards that are expected for 'high quality/study level' addon then they will be totally fine. 

12 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

First up is the streaming from beta testers. 
Next, is the video series.  Assuming Aamir is competent enough to put together his own videos.

 

Ok so firstly, beta testers streaming the Fenix could literally be announced as soon as tomorrow, Chewwy who has been on the beta team since it was announced would am sure love to do this. I agree this should be done an probably will so not sure we need to go over this much.

Your 2nd point, Aamir has already released a video series talking quite competently about the 320 and going into some deep diving into the systems and the simulation. Personally I don’t feel this is hugely needed. PMDG may have wrote the playbook on this method of launching but that doesn’t mean it can’t be torn up with zero affects on selling power. 

1 minute ago, Carts85 said:

Ok so firstly, beta testers streaming the Fenix could literally be announced as soon as tomorrow, Chewwy who has been on the beta team since it was announced would am sure love to do this. I agree this should be done an probably will so not sure we need to go over this much.

Your 2nd point, Aamir has already released a video series talking quite competently about the 320 and going into some deep diving into the systems and the simulation. Personally I don’t feel this is hugely needed. PMDG may have wrote the playbook on this method of launching but that doesn’t mean it can’t be torn up with zero affects on selling power. 

I think some of the videos actually generated a ton of hype for the 320 and reinforced those that might have been skeptical.  They're also much-much better than RSRs videos.

27 minutes ago, wiler said:

AFAIK this is the first product they will release, maybe its possible that they are more product focused then the other stuff that maybe they dont consider as important??  I wouldnt call it dumb and its unfair to do so. At the end of the day this is still a small community, word will spread like wildfire through discord/forums/facebook/reddit on the products value and quality . I doubt not releasing a bunch of teaser pics/rambling posts/hidden pricing/youtube streamers prior to release is gonna hurt them that badly. What will hurt them is a crappy product or something that isnt MUCH better them the FBW and at least on par with FSL a320, this is FOR sure.  IF the product lives up to the standards that are expected for 'high quality/study level' addon then they will be totally fine. 

So you are making conjecture and wild guesses.

You know what?  PMDG sold more copies of DC6 for MSFS than they sold the DC6 for FSX + P3D + XP combined, in the first 12 hours of sales of the MSFS DC6. Part of the reason why PMDG sold so many DC6 in MSFS for the first 12 hours of sales is because PMDG/Randazzo followed the typical promotion period that an intelligent 3rd party developer does before releasing their product.

There is no conjecture or wild guesses with the DC6 sales.  Randazzo played it smartly, and allowed live streamers to stream the DC6, did the series of promotional videos, etc. That's partly why the DC6 set record sales in MSFS in the first 12 hours.  Of course, the DC6 was also of high quality when it was released, and the next closest plane that came to that level of fidelity before the DC6 arrived on the MSFS was the CRJ, so those points played into it as well.  But it was the quality and fidelity of the DC6 (and reputation of PMDG) + the promotional period by PMDG before it was released, that lead to the record breaking sales of the DC6 for MSFS in the first 12 hours.

Edited May 7, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

1 hour ago, tweekz said:

Those two addons mark the adulthood of MSFS.

I like to remind myself of those "MSFS will only offer livery-quality addon-planes" quotes. 🙂

I guess I'll just wait for the 737-800 and go for the Fenix right now.

I think this is what I’ll do as well. I’d rather have the 800 and have no interest in having a 700 and 800 in my hangar. 

While this discussion is certainly interesting, just popping in to say we are going to be doing some marketing before we actually launch, and we're aiming for concise but not sparse. There'll be hours upon hours of media before a buy now button appears, you just won't be waiting weeks for that moment.

1 hour ago, tweekz said:

I guess I'll just wait for the 737-800 and go for the Fenix right now.

Same here. The 737 used to be my favourite plane in previous sims but thanks to the excellent FBW I‘ve grown fond of the A320. I think l‘ll stick to the A320 for a while and refine my knowledge about the plane before moving on to the 737.