What mad DCS film making chops!
Sweet Jaysus!
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Still missing that polaroid camera.
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I was looking up some stuff about this project and⊠I canât believe people are angry with heatblur over this? I felt we got a lot of value for our original tomcat purchase. The A-10 and Ka-50 updates were also partially paid and partially free. I donât really see the imbalance between the effort that was put into the module and the asking price. More than anything I am happy our nearly 10 year old modules are so well maintained and I love the idea of variants being made if they bring something new to the table.
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I agree, but the argument that people who doesnât own the original F-14A/B pays less in total, when they get the complete package is valid. OTOH, as you say, the original version isnât exactly new, even if it just came out of EA. People do buy modules on sale too⊠If you wait you will eventually get it on a sale. Thatâs just how things work, not unfair.
I think weâre going to see more of these discussions in the future. Module devs. will need to get new money from their old modules and resell them again, or drop support for them⊠They have mouths to feed too.
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There arenât many communities that feel more entitled than combat flight simmerâs apparently. Half the gaming console market strategy is release the same game with a roster update or slightly new skins every 12 months and charge $70, and they make bank. Iâm sure thereâs a happy in the middle here.
Saw a response from the Devs on EDâs forums, and if read it right, the price for new Tomcat is the same regardless, itâs the old A/B thatâs cheaper if you do the ultimate pack. Which makes sense when you look at it that way, the older version is cheaper.
Part of the issue is DCS has been around for something like 18 years now? And people still expect software they purchased for a 1-time licenses to be maintained. That is just flat out unrealistic. As much as I hate to say it, a subscription model would make a lot of sense for the module developers. If DCS had distinct versions that came out every 4-5 years, supporting a given module for a given version would make sense. Then pay the upgrade if you want it in the new version (or just donât upgrade).
With the current ever evolving DCS core, as a policy I think something like no free updates after 2 years of feature complete would be good. That would motivate studios to get out of EA, as limits the window of free work theyâre doing. It also creates a new revenue stream of keeping your modules updated actually makes you money, and for the consumer it would actually create incentives for the devs to update their modules.
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Yep. Completely agree.
But either which way, someone will be pissed off 
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All of this is rental. We should avoid using the words âownâ, âbuyâ and âboughtâ when talking software. Since I paid to rent the F-14A for an undisclosed period of time I am at the mercy of Heatblur and ED to provide value for the money spent. If I must pay more rent for more features and artwork, well, thatâs been kind of the deal for several years now. For this, Iâm OK with it.
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Purely psychological of course, but I think if they added some kind of â10% discount on the BU for previous purchasers of the original A/B tomcat!â it would have gone over better (even if in the end all they did was raise whatever they were originally going to ask for the BU by 10%).
Iâm looking forward to the campaigns most of all, for me that plus all the new stuff made it worth it.
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Good points by all.
IMHO, I want to support and motivate HB to keep doing what they are doing in such a niche market. If they inspire other devs to aim higher, while continuing the supply of high quality products, Iâll be happy. A recent work project motived me to explore the IFE/HB F-14 for Flight Simulator, and I was surprised how entertaining and satisfying the experience was, once I understand the few differences between how it operates (wing sweep) compared to the DCS version. Never mind the Phantom! I guess that you could say that Iâm a Heat Blur phan boy.
Iâm guessing that a Tomcat with a âHornetâ HUD and digital flight augmentation system will be a pretty formidable adversary.
This video discusses in detail the change made to the flight control system in the Tomcatâs later years. Really worth a watch if you are a Tomcat fan.
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Yup.
I think itâs ridiculous when you see that there are people complaining about 50 bucks when they have thousands of dollars worth of hardware in their forum signature. I would have paid full price again tbh. That upgrade seems like a sh*t ton of work to me and I think Heatblur have proven over the years that they develop quality modules, delivering years of support and new features with a one time purchase. If they say itâs worth 50 bucks I trust them enough to believe it
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I am quoting myself because I am not sure that I still agree that the F-14 upgrade is proper. Yes it is their product and they can price it how they please. What I didnât realize in my defense of the pricing structure is how theyâve chosen a new path. To this point we have bought a thing and then later bought and upgrade to that thing. The A-10, the Ka50 and the F-5 are the only examples of this that I can think of. But in all those examples a new user can choose to buy the latest or, if available, the earlier version. To this Heatblur might say âNo! This is not an upgrade. This a new Tomcat.â Thatâs terrific. So let the new user simply buy the newer Tomcat. What Heatblur has chosen to do is force all users to buy both. The two are each priced as separate machines but all users must buy both in order to fly the latest. Like I said, the âbuyingâ and the âpurchasingâ are illusions. We are renting. The current sale rental for the F-14B(U) is $105 for the new user. That is too steep IMO. Will they use this same pricing structure for the navalized Phantom? Will the user who had no interest in the land-based Phantom and never owned it now be forced to âbuyâ that before paying full price for the naval F-4 that he always wanted? If so, itâs a creative and, in my opinion unfortunate new way of doing business within the DCS world.
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When I started my company, diesel was below one euro per liter and I write twenty an hour. Games and DCS mods cost about 50 or 60.
Now diesel is two euros and I write forty. Games and DCS mods really shouldnât be expected to cost 50 to 60 no more.
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The market for software and the market for physical labor work differently though. You donât automatically double your income when the demand for your work doubles. For software, that (within limits) can be the case.
When I hire you, youâre probably going to tell me your hourly rates and youâre (I suppose) going to give me an estimate of how long you think itâs going to take. That is completely transparent to me.
Try achieving that level of transparency for any kind of software. Now Iâm not saying that HB are asking too much or too little, just that determining the price of software is more about the utility that it provides and how many people are interested in it than what it cost to make.
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Not that the US govt is always right (or ever) but inflation too. Heatblur F-14 initial release date and price..
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For my welding work, I rarely quote by the hour, as most people only care about getting the job done. Itâs on me to charge a price that pays me what I want/need to make, and that a customer will pay. This makes it simple for the client as itâs either worth that much to get the work done or not.
Iâd counter that what has sunk more dev/gaming studios and small businesses than anything else is not understanding the production costs. There may be a market for a product, the projections may be great, but if your production costs are too high it doesnât matter. One way around that is to price so that you can still survive with a worst case sales estimate or similar.
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Thereâs the Laffer curve, though.
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