Yes, the 777 business model fits better my taste, but they also have an advantage that dcs not have, they not have a so complex requirements core engine (missiles, electronic warfare, radars, clickables cockpits, etc etc) and also not have 3rd party devs pushing the engine to the limits with their addons and requesting all the time adjustments and improvings on the core to fit their new systems addons needs.
Yes, but that’s not what I wrote though 
Only one version, but you don’t have to pay for it unless you want to install new maps. That would function like a demo mode that is free as long as you just want to play on the Caucasus map. It would be much like it is today, but ED would get paid something for every user who wants to take DCS further than Caucasus, so to speak.
But that was just an idea…
I do not want to go back to the 1.5 & 2.0 development cycle! 
Yes, me too… They update the core with every new “Battle” release, and everybody gets everything, but you can only use the content you have unlocked and paid for.
I mean, you can even fly on maps you don’t own, in multiplayer.
@taubkin and @stavka, all true. The “Big Package” concept with a high price tag would be just one part of the DCS ecosystem. They would also sell planes, maps and campaigns just as they do now. But from time to time there would be The Big Package. It would introduce a new map and new technology. Some of this would migrate to the rest of the ecosystem. Some would be exclusive. You could continue to enjoy DCS World without it. But you would also be a bit left behind. In all things there must be both a hammer and a carrot.
But this is exactly what we have now! DCS W for free and every map and additional bird or contents is paid. Caucasus is free and if you want other maps someone needs to paid as i paid for them.
Exactly, I remember the Thirdwire concept, was +/- like that and what we have in 777 too. You buy a package that includes campaign + aircrafts + map. But at the same time to have all that aircraft on the same level of deep systems that we have in good dcs dlcs, imagine how many decades we should need to wait for a single pack with a map with 8 new aircraft and campaigns 
Not quite, @stavka. My suggestion was that instead of having people pay for stuff that one could argue should be in DCS for everybody (like assets and the carrier) ED could get payment from ‘unlocking’ DCS beyond using Caucasus. If you want to buy and install a new map, you need to buy the map and unlock DCS. Or, ED could of course just increase the price of their maps. It was just a suggestion on how ED could earn money and reduce the amount of micro transactions.
Increasing the price of parallel addons (aircraft and maps) and give/gift to the core transversal and structural addons like atc/ai/crew/weather/carriers/… ???
Yeah its not a bad idea in the point of users view and in fact a good one. But in the point of devs/business view i think it will be worst for them. They will develop more for free and will increase more the diference between people that buy dlcs vs the ones that stick on the free side only forever because the dlcs costs increased. So more work for free and less sellings.
That same argument is used against the current business model too.
Some people use the old carrier and others use the new. You can’t fly all missions and campaigns if you don’t have all the assets packs. That splits the users too.
That depends on the price they set on the DCS core. Increasing the price on the other modules is probably not the best idea, since the ED add ons would cost more than the 3rd party developers.
It’s not an easy fix. And if the current business model works, why change it. It will probably never be perfect for everybody. I’m just throwing out alternatives
That is the monster astronomical big point! Is what i many times think in many things that in the first view not makes much sense but after you stop and think about it, you realize that the things are as they are because multiple reasons.
I’m engineer and that is the core business of engineering so i fully understand and live that situations daily, all things have their pros and cons and its the biggest diference between science and engineering. Engineering always need to live with the short blanket dilema (or you cover the feet or you cover the head).
For example in science if you parametrize a electric circuit and you only have space for 1 resistor (no mix) and in your calcs the resistor should be 4.56739428543 ohms the scientist report that you need that resistor with exactly that value, the engineer need to choose or 4.3 or 4.7 ohms resistor that is slightly the wrong value but are the ones that exist in the market!
1 Like
Indeed. Life is full of decisions about which is the lesser of two evils
As someone who graduated with a BS in physics in college, I can attest that is SOOO accurate.
We used to make fun of the engineering students for just being handed their equations and having all that free time! In the end, though, they got the last laugh as they didn’t work nearly as hard and got better jobs. 
Yep, agree. A lot of the ‘they have to do this this way’ is just people wanting to be at peace with how things are, a sort of ‘Nothing can change, why complain’ attitude that reinforces how they feel or spend.
Another example is saying that ‘They have so much to do, it must be very hard for them to work on so many different unfinished things!’ when that’s exactly a self-originated issue, by design as well.
I still really like the ‘tipping’ analogy. It’s not pure charity because we get something out of it, but it is a bit like Applebees including the 20% within the credit card bill at the end of the meal - the waiter isn’t seeing much of that and corporate are doing it now because it’s been normalized as the thing to do. Some people don’t like making a fuss so will pay it, others just like microwaved food or have nowhere else to eat.
Open ended EA with no end dates has been ‘normalized’ for DCS because it makes more money. You just have to keep repeating ‘the current business model works, why change it’ until people stop wanting to talk about it.
3 Likes
This thread is really just a waste of time you know. Even if they read it, wouldn’t change a thing.
I like the EA cuz I get to play early! But hate it cuz what I bought never gets finished…
Rinse and repeat…
btw, does anyone really eat at Applebees???-)
btw2, never underestimate a microwaved pizza at midnight.
6 Likes
Love it!
(just for old times sake) Did I win?
4 Likes
4 Likes
1 Like
I excel at justifying bad purchases!
Yeah. Just like micro transactions in game development, tipping is a system of payment, that if it would disappear would have to be replaced by another form of renumeration. At least the way it is practised in the US.
ED will want money for their products. They have elected the system they have, for a reason. At least I think so. It could be coincidence.
When I google revenue for ED and TFC I get around 0.6 M USD for each. When I google Gajin (Warthunder, etc. Russia based and about the same size as ED) I find almost 100 M USD.
I know the numbers for ED can’t be correct or they would’ve folded by now. But why can’t I find their revenue numbers, but others so easily?
And, I’m not defending them. I’m trying to understand them. Perhaps failing at doing so.
How can EA generate more money?
Say that they start developing their products behind closed doors and only release them when they are finished.
I would think that they would sell more or less the same number of products?
The difference is that with EA they collect the payment earlier.
The question is, how do they change the system they have?
And to what? Subscription? Go back to making confined study sims?
I think it would have to be at a major crossroads. DCS 3.0, perhaps. Everything is treated as a new start and all the modules are new and must be bought.
But how will they finance this? Do they set funds aside for future development? Or are they depending on continous sales to stay afloat? I don’t know. I just don’t think they can change the EA and continous Module development and sales system very easily.
Do we need to change this system? The way I read most people in here is that all we want is shorter and more predictable EA development cycles.
This would depend on their ability to delegate tasks and predict the work flow. It seems that they are a bit bottle necked in certain departments to do this with the required efficiency. At least when judging by their inability to set releasedates. That’s of course not unheard of in the software industry.
Unfortunately we know very little about what’s going on behind the doors at ED. That makes it hard to see how they could improve.
2 Likes