MSFS Payware aiports price creeping up?

[fppilot 4,360]

6 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

3. Do you actually fly there often? No point spending double digits on an airport you fly to once in a blue moon.
4. Is the airport available on flightsim.to?

Spot on, on both! 

Funny, I just counted mine up after seeing this topic.  I have accumulated (41) MSFS payware airports.  From the flight log I maintain in Microsoft Excel of those I have flown to, only (16) of them four times or greater.  (12) of them I have only flown to one time.  (8) of them I have not yet flown to.  The handful of others I have been to 2 or 3 times.  I purchased more that half of them when on sale but estimate around $600 laid out.

I have now over 300 addon airports for MSFS.  All of the others are freeware, predominently from TO.  I always check TO before heading to a new destination, and when it applies I check the quality of any freeware against a payware offering.  I have now on a number of occasions decided for a lesser freeware addon, when well done, over a payware offering, if I will only fly there a small number of times.

[laserit 93]

There is an old saying in business “charge as much as the customer is willing to pay”

Personally, I do most of my Airport purchases during sales unless it’s a must have.

[superspud 450]

Increased costs aside, I would've thought the arrival of the Xbox may have changed attitudes towards pricing. That's a vast chunk of people with nowhere else to buy. 

You may turn off some PC users who have alternatives, but the extra audience will outweigh them. 

[threexgreen 3,139]

I'm guessing what plays a role is that the huge influx of new people buying stuff has worn off and addon sales have settled on a long term oriented level, which may explain why some of the prices are going up again. Lower prices may not return the revenue they did with a larger sales volume before and devs may be trying to keep that revenue level by making up for the lower sales volume with higher prices. The flip side is that higher prices will reduce the number of customers willing to pay for non-essential goods at the same time.

Or some devs may have noticed they're making a killing even with higher prices as enough people still buy stuff with the revenue from increased prices surpassing the loss from a slightly lower sales volume.

Or some devs just don't have a clue and diminish their own revenue potential by charging too much.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Nixoq

[ryanbatc 12,836]

23 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

I'm guessing what plays a role is that the huge influx of new people buying stuff has worn off and addon sales have settled on a long term oriented level, which may explain why some of the prices are going up again. Lower prices may not return the revenue they did with a larger sales volume before and devs may be trying to keep that revenue level by making up for the lower sales volume with higher prices. The flip side is that higher prices will reduce the number of customers willing to pay for non-essential goods at the same time.

Or some devs may have noticed they're making a killing even with higher prices as enough people still buy stuff with the revenue from increased prices surpassing the loss from a slightly lower sales volume.

Or some devs just don't have a clue and diminish their own revenue potential by charging too much.

This seems logical and is probably accurate.

I think I've only purchased about 15 airports but some are very small ga and cost less than 10 USD.  Ive flown to every one at least once and most I continually come back to.

[F737MAX 5,591]

8 minutes ago, Nixoq said:

what plays a role is that the huge influx of new people buying stuff has worn off

That's a good point. With prices as they are, people are much less likely to make an incidental purchase for a scenery that they don't have a connection with, especially so when it's mid-tier or lower quality.

Personally, I'm only opening my wallet for Jo Sund's ENGM, any big airport from Flightbeam and FlyTampa (e.g. KSFO and EHAM), and a high quality YMML, with the occasional exception for a standout scenery.

Otherwise, I'm happy with what I have already have, whether bought, free from flightsim.to or free as handcrafted 'default'.

[saifs 153]

Now you have the whole world to fly in so why restrict yourself to a few regions/countries (unlike fsx and xp11 where one would buy a few true earth regions from orbx + all airports available in that region and stick to flying in only that region/country) because outside of that region, the scenery sucked.

For me personally, these days I just pick and fly routes in Skypark and hop from one country to another, so hard coding myself buying an airport (which I would probably use just twice - arrival & departure) isn't a priority anymore. I would rather spend that money on aircraft and global enhancement mods (such as REX Airport Textures etc) which builds on the already decent default airports. 

Of course some airports you just have to get because they are close to your heart or are simply works of art, for the others, the sales are always there. 

Edited January 21, 2023 by saifs

[BrammyH 447]

On 1/21/2023 at 11:35 AM, fppilot said:

Funny, I just counted mine up after seeing this topic.  I have accumulated (41) MSFS payware airports.  From the flight log I maintain in Microsoft Excel 

I do the same thing, but I keep a list of where I got the airport from (one of the handcrafted in MSFS; flightsim.to, paid, or paid (don't have). I then do a VLOOKUP to I can see how often I fly into, or out of a given airport.

This way, if the default airport stinks, and the flightsim.to one is not a big improvement, and I fly there often (or would if the airport didn't stink), then I will get the airport.

I work as a data analyst, and sometimes that leads to me going bonkers on data collection.

[bendead 1,085]

On 1/20/2023 at 10:28 PM, jason74 said:

Ive noticed since the release of MSFS that payware airports have slowly been creeping up in price to what we where paying in P3D.

I also have the same feeling, mostly since I started using GSX and bought quite a lot of addons, the 10-15$ big airport from 3 years ago are now closer the 20-25$

I try to buy packages as much as I can, France VFR is a good exemple, 5-10$ per airport, quite cheap, but they overuse textures to replace modeling.

I would love to see a subscription service, where you pay yearly and select your region of interest, then you get 2-3 sceneries a month.

Edited January 23, 2023 by bendead

[F737MAX 5,591]

28 minutes ago, bendead said:

I would love to see a subscription service, where you pay yearly and select your region of interest, then you get 2-3 sceneries a month.

Nice idea in theory, though that model has been tried.
Didn't work out well for a lot of the late subscribers.
 

49 minutes ago, BrammyH said:

I then do a VLOOKUP to I can see how often I fly into, or out of a given airport.
[…]
I work as a data analyst...

That's dedication to data, using VLOOKUPs in your leisure pursuits!

I see spreadsheets far too often in my workday, so use Google Earth instead. Only need to see where I have scenery. Therefore, drop Placemark pins, name them after each airport and in the Description tab, put the name of the developer and store / flightsim.to location.

[bendead 1,085]

2 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Nice idea in theory, though that model has been tried.
Didn't work out well for a lot of the late subscribers.

The only time I saw this kind of model on MSFS was BMW and yes, it failed on so many points. 😱

But if there is the same thing, but a trimester or annual fee instead of life time, on a well known platform like marketplace, orbx or sim market, that could work

[WestAir 2,522]

It's because the newer airports all have undulated runways. 😄

[BrammyH 447]

1 hour ago, F737MAX said:

That's dedication to data, using VLOOKUPs in your leisure pursuits!

I am honestly not sure dedication is the right word, since I also use all this information in flight plans. My the time I am done creating a "solo" VA, I should probably just join one.

[PilotPete99 915]

2 hours ago, bendead said:

The only time I saw this kind of model on MSFS was BMW and yes, it failed on so many points. 😱

But if there is the same thing, but a trimester or annual fee instead of life time, on a well known platform like marketplace, orbx or sim market, that could work

Sorry to hijack, but has there been any word as to when the BMW "on hold" airports will be release to their subscribers? I am a bit perplexed that I subscribed, albeit for a very small cost, only to now be unable to have access to any of the newer airports. 

Cheers, Pete

[Farlis 2,287]

On 1/21/2023 at 3:39 PM, JYW said:

Same.

I was a serial airport buyer back in the FSX days; bought almost everything that came out.

I'm not happy with default airports. Yes they look better than they used to, but especially the ground layout is a joke, most of the time. And that stuff is too important.

I also was a serial airport buyer back in the day.

That has changed and I've become more dilligent. I don't buy airports across the globe anymore, only the ones that are in the portfolio of airlines that I regularly simulate flights of.

That cut my spending considerably and comes with the benefit that no matter what route I chose, I will most likely fly from one close to real life rendition to the next.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Farlis