I know I’ve mentioned this before, but as time goes on, many of the new sceneries being released have slowly crept right back up to the P3D prices. I think many of us were convinced that this wasn’t going to be the case. I’m not complaining, and it’s each developer’s right to charge what they want. I am, however, a bit surprised by this. In P3D, it seemed to take far longer for airports to be developed. With MSFS, it is either much quicker, or there are just modifications being made to the P3D versions. Full disclosure, I’m no expert on software development, but I’m just curious as to where everyone else stands with regards to this. It also seems that many of the folks that once said they’d never pay P3D prices again, are now biting the bullet and doing so anyway. This is just speculation, but again I am a bit puzzled. I tend to buy stuff only on sale, but I’m curious as to what others think.

Cheers, Pete

I think with the quality of default airports in MSFS, sales of ad on airports are probably much lower than they anticipated. I have only bought one airport in over a year, and I fly multiple times a day. The developers probably are seeing they have to raise their prices because of this.

 

29 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I think with the quality of default airports in MSFS, sales of ad on airports are probably much lower than they anticipated. I have only bought one airport in over a year, and I fly multiple times a day. The developers probably are seeing they have to raise their prices because of this.

 

That may very well be. I was thinking that since the great tubeliners were released, the market got much larger, so the developers were seeing dollar signs. I wonder how many of these airports are actually built from the ground up and are not just ports.
 

Cheers, Pete

I have two MSFS airport / scenery Ad-ons:

DrZewiecki Design KRNT $16.99 (US)

Return to Misty Moorings $Free

No current plans for any other Add-on airports.

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by vonmar

53 minutes ago, PilotPete99 said:

but as time goes on, many of the new sceneries being released have slowly crept right back up to the P3D prices.

4 reasons:

1. Less hyped and 'less exciting' add-ons not selling as well as the devs would hope.
2. Flight sim economics (a) - The typical buyers of add-ons still willing to bear those prices.
3. Flight sim economics (b) - Popular devs charging higher prices are still very successful despite price. e.g. PMDG. Again shows consumer can bear the higher prices.
4. Real world economics: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate-

I think I’ve bought two airports and…..that’s it.

 I’ve also installed around a dozen freeware g.a. airports that are relevant to my local area - thanks Superspud!

Aircraft? A must have bought a couple of dozen since the sim launched.

 I think Bobsk8 has it right.

 

I think prices will continue to rise if airport developers continue to focus on creating detailed models of the interior of terminals and the road signs and structures leading up to the terminals - 99% of which you won't notice airside in an airliner.

I have bought zero airports. At even £20 its not worth it for me with an entire world to explore that is in high detail.

 

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by sanh

53 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I think with the quality of default airports in MSFS, sales of ad on airports are probably much lower than they anticipated...

 

Agreed, plus there's a lot of excellent freeware airports available now as well.

Back in the FSX days, most default airports were very poor, but unless there's a specific airport that you'll be flying to / from regularly, a lot of default ones are more than passable.

I agree with a comment above. A high level of detail and supporting price for that detail isn’t what I’m looking for. Some basic upgrades with a sub-$10 price tag would open my wallet faster than a $20 ‘full main terminal and hanger walk-through’ would. The 3 airports I did buy were exactly that....  smaller airports with improved textures and a handful of realistic custom objects. 

 

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by Danno

Looking at my receipts for the handful of Orbx airports I bought in 2020, most were in the range of 20 - 25 AUD, and were all smaller/mid-sized airports. And that still looks to be the price today on Orbx, but now they have a lot more offerings of the larger and more detailed airports that are of course more expensive.

I don't remember there being a lot of the larger international aiports on the market right after launch in 2020. So perhaps it is only natural that more are available now that the developers have had sufficient time and experience to do those kind of projects, and they would be priced accordingly to the effort they take. So far I can't really see many examples of the smaller/mid-sized airports being priced noticably higher today on Orbx, but perhaps others could provide some examples?

I would like to see something like Worldwide Airports HD released on MSFS

3 hours ago, PilotPete99 said:

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but as time goes on, many of the new sceneries being released have slowly crept right back up to the P3D prices. I think many of us were convinced that this wasn’t going to be the case. I’m not complaining, and it’s each developer’s right to charge what they want. I am, however, a bit surprised by this.

Cheers, Pete

My guess is the demand is there for airports. Also as mentioned above, default airports, lack some features. e.g animated passengers and more. Many don't rate these. But the number who rate these, must be high too. The most popular games have this sort of thing.

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by icewater5

Just wait for a sale. 

Also, keep checking the market place. There are always great airports for sale, often from smaller developers or smaller airports. 

High-demand airports (Heathrow, Atlanta, etc.) are alway going to cost more. 

The narrower the focus is on areas that everyone flies in, the more expensive this is going to get. 

49 minutes ago, sanh said:

I think prices will continue to rise if airport developers continue to focus on creating detailed models of the interior of terminals and the road signs and structures leading up to the terminals - 99% of which you won't notice airside in an airliner.

Responding to customer demand.

People are vociferous in requesting more of this type of detail. Those developers that can add the detail, yet keep performance decent (e.g. Flightbeam) will sell more than the developers that produce scenery that lacks these details (e.g. TropicalSim).

Some folk will always be inclined to buy addons. Some won't.

MSFS is streets (air miles?) ahead of all the other sims scenery wise, and there's a mass of truly wonderful and mind-blowing scenery in the basic sim. But I've still managed to accumulate over 500 payware addons in spite of that.

Some I've bought in spite of the price (by which I mean I think they were overpriced but were places I really wanted to get), but most have felt to be priced acceptably. There's plenty of stuff out there I wouldn't touch with the proverbial barge-pole, but there's also some quite good stuff at reasonable prices, and as @Ricardo41 said, there are usually sale prices to be taken advantage of on occasion. I've only had maybe three or four disappointments with payware airports that I've actually bought, but there's have been plenty where I've thought "that's great, nobody's done that one in a sim before" when I saw it advertised but then when I looked at the sample pics I've thought - "pass".

Plus, I've probably got about the same number of freeware addons. Don't ignore that part of the spectrum. There's plenty of stuff out there that way outshines most payware - and don't forget, if you do find something like that, make a donation if possible!

Edited July 10, 20223 yr by andy1252
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