The Pricing.

[Shad0wGeneral]

Ok so i need some help in telling a friend why Eagle Dynamics charge so much for each module of DCS...

[Chameleon_Silk]

because its not War Thunder or Ace Combat... because its the only modern simulation of this fidelity that we can buy... because the cost of creating authentic flight model and authentic cockpit is not cheap.

FC3 is cheap even at full price for what you get... even if they aren't full clicky modules, I really think anyone that is stuck on the price is in the wrong genre completley and just wont get it.

meanwhile he will probably buy GTA 5 for 70 bucks and think nothing of it....

this has been asked many times on here, the cost of the hardware is more then the cost of the software, besides just wait for a sale and buy the modules then if the pricing is to high for your friend.

15 dollars is not really that pricey in my books, nor is 20 bucks for A-10A, Su-25, MiG-29A/S/G, Su-27 and F-15C.

the real question is why does you friend think that the prices are to high?

[Shad0wGeneral]

Cause he thinks $50 for one plane is stupid, but i fully understand the pricing as alot of work goes into these planes and the licences needed to be able to make these can be costly.

[Piro]

As previously mentioned a significant amount of work goes into building these modules. Just as importantly it takes a significant amount of time to develop and the situation is worsened by having a relatively small team.

To make matters worse, the flight sim genre is an incredibly small niche at this point. Your average AAA game these days costs roughly $50-$60 on release and they sell hundreds of thousands of copies with a few lucky ones selling a million or two. The A-10C is one of the older modules for DCS World and I'd be very surprised if they've sold 30k-35k copies. At 30k copies that works out to $1.5 mil over 4 years. Sounds like a lot, right? That's approximately the salary for 15 employees for a year. And that still doesn't take into account things like licensing, support contracts, software, hardware, training, actual access to these aircraft, retirement funds (401k's and such), taxes, rent, business related insurance, lawyers, employee benefits, marketing, hosting costs and other business expenses.

Don't get me wrong, those figures are made with plenty of assumptions made but it gives you a general idea of the costs involved. They're so expensive due to simple supply and demand. Expensive to produce but an infinite supply with a very low demand.

[Chameleon_Silk]

I paid full price for over half my modules and don't regret buying a single one of them, either you love this genre or you don't.

I think casuals would be better off playing the free plane(s) or getting FC3 and stopping there.... the hardware to actually play it properly is expensive.

I never thought I'd have a HOTAS and rudder pedals in my life thats a big expense for me to buy these things and very hard to justify even for one of my fave hobbies.

if he thinks 50 is to much just tell him to wait for a sale and wait for a module to age and come down a bit first.... they are only that price when they first come out and not on sale.

the last sale most modules were 15 bucks and FC3 20 bucks.

thats pretty damned cheap price if you ask me!

[Shad0wGeneral]

I understand you with the HOTAS. The Warthog Thrustmaster HOTAS is over $500... So yea.

[Rcentrone]

This game is tops in the flight sim market. I still can't cold start even one of these planes from sitting on the apron. Lol! It isn't easy but that's what makes it so cool. The modules are expensive but worth every penny when you consider the detail that the developers have lovingly and painstakingly included in each. Just tell your friend to wait like me for the module he wants to go on sale as the others have suggested. I'm currently waiting for the MIG 15 to be discounted.

[Hadji]

Problems with real flight sims is that the market is small. Furthermore the companies that make plane modules are small. In order to exist they need to charge quite a bit of money to get the development costs back and make a profit so that they can continue making planes for us to enjoy. DCS is no different than X-plane, P3D or FSX in that sense.

I think many gamers complain about pricing of DCS modules because:

1. They aren't familiar with the flight sim market. They look at DCS (or X-plane, FSX) as just another Steam game (the pricing complaints always pop up in the Steam forums and very rarely in the dev forums).

2. They fail to realise what goes into these modules. A module isn't just a shiny 3D model and a script (like planes in War Thunder etc). They are modules that simulate every detail of the aircraft down to every hose in the engine and bolt in the fuselage. The armchair pilot flying these birds won't see this but it's all there and taken into the equation as you fly. Thats why these planes behave like their real world counterpart and thats why we can't have the very latest operational aircraft in DCS (the detailed data is classified).

$500 for a TM HOTAS Warthog won't get you all the way. I recommend MFG Crosswind rudder pedals to go with it. TrackIR isn't too bad to have either...

[mbar]

Flaming cliffs 3 will give you a very nice stable of 5 aircraft plus variants to have fun with. The other modules (the $50 ones) you can buy give you high fidelity flight models and interactive cockpits, any one of which people would pay to have as a single simulator game. DCS World is the giant sandbox and the modules simply add to that sandbox.

[Shad0wGeneral]

@Hadji I already have TrackIR that was $200 I need to get some pedals but yea still overly pricey...

[kazereal]

Another view is why does your friend think they should be cheap..?

If you compare to games something like GTA it has no real physics, engines, systems and so forth. It just looks somewhat like a plane but when you look further it is not realistic.

In a simulation like DCS, just doing the 3D model of an instrument like altitude meter can be more work than what goes into 3D model of a plane in something like GTA. Same with actual functionality of the altimeter.

And then there are all the other systems like engine thrust to be modelled: engine thrust is affected by air pressure, air temperature, humidity, fuel flow, temperature of the engine itself, RPM of the engine and various settings there are. So creating simulation for a jet engine is plenty of work and they can be very different things.

Size and complexity are two different things: creating a 3D model of a small instrument with many details is much more work to do accurately than something that is closer to single-step operation in 3D modeling tools.

[Pèpè Silvia]

They go on sale several times each year and it's easy enough to buy them for cheaper.

But like others said it's good to support such a niche market/hobby

[Firaga]

The flight simulator customers form a niche segment in the gaming market. This market segment can't really be compared to any mainstream game target audiences. The main characteristics of an average simmer are the enthusiasm and the willingness to get the best flying experience no matter the price. DCS drops to this segment just perfectly as it offers something that no other product can offer. So in a nutshell the answer to your question is: the prices need to be high to compensate the small size of the market and they can be high because the customers are ready to pay for the best available content.

[kazereal]

For interested: here's a video tutorial on how to make 3D model of F-16 in 3ds Max.

The general shape is pretty quick, all the rest of it is about detailing it.
It's 5 parts, each 40 minutes and it won't go to details like animating flaps or textures.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNyQC1okZJ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dcb8FYfbtQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4WBJbwk49Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8OHMkxLQ4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpzedfpEzw8

Also it won't go into accuracy expected in DCS, sizes and measurements are something "thereabout".

[M0rdresh]

Planes and choppers are no regular DLC, which are a bunch of artwork in most games. These are projects where developers work on for years to very accuratly portray the machine in every little detail. From a far I first too had the 'lol wut is going on there, €45 for a plane?', but once you know the work and simulation behind it, the price is very on par.

[Keeper]

He must imagine, that nearly every possible system is modeled in those full clickable cockpit planes like A10C, Mig, 21, F86 etc. I didnt like the price too, but after I bought A10C a fully understand. There must be tons and tons of programming. And it must take hundreds or thousands of hours to make it work with all those little details like a setting the rotation of cluster bombs, fully operational LITENING Targeting Pod, anti-radar rockets and hundreds another things

One other side, He can buy those Flaming Cliffs 3 planes like F15, SU-27-33 they dont cost so much and they are easier to learn, level of fun is same.