Desperate, greedy, short-sighted, stupid or all of those?
(No not the goose!) Our hobby and in Just Flight/Trains case livelihood is slowly being hurt, some may say being killed by having the products that we create being devalued by big ‘retailers’ who sell both the host simulation and our add-ons at some kind of ridiculously low price only in some cases a few weeks after they have been released. Take Rail Simulator for example – It was only released in Europe on October 15th 2007, around barely 17 weeks ago in the UK and on January 16th (4 weeks ago) for the USA and yet in some locations in stores you can literally buy Rail Simulator for 50% (half!) of its SRP (Suggested Retail Price).
Now I am one for bagging a bargain as much as then next person but there has to be some realism here. The facts are that as soon as a price is lowered it devalues the brand and the product. What does that mean in reality? It means the publisher and developer of the host sim and the add-ons earn less than if it was sold at a higher price as normally publishing deals with developers or publishers done on a percentage rate and not a fixed fee. Ok so what does that mean in turn then? Well basically less income for the publisher and developer and it has and will probably continue to mean that the developer and or publisher will view the add-on market as not tenable and that new host sims and add-ons will become less and less . It takes a horrendous amount of time, money, people, skill, organisation and effort to get any sim into your hands especially if it is a host sim like Flight Sim or Rail Simulator, something which I personally don’t expect the normal user to understand or need to understand after all its our problem not yours, but you cannot understand how we feel when we see forum postings from people saying things like “why does this add-on cost so much? It’s only a route”. Clearly that forum poster has no idea of what has gone into that route or how much its cost to bring it to him, but how does this blokes moaning fit in with the butchering of the SRP of the host sim? Simple. If you can buy the host sim for the same price or less than the add-on, then the logic (which is correct) of that ‘it takes more money to develop the host sim than an add-on, so the add-on should cost less than the host’ basically goes out of the window.
The trouble is that everything has its value and the add-on’s value is being radically devalued by this price butchering of the host sim by some of the retailers, so why not lower the add-ons price I hear you ask? Well the bottom line is that margins are so narrow now that it’s really not possible to do that in a decent real-world looking sense, yes reduce the price in time as everybody does but not a few weeks, months after the hosts release, it does not even give add-on developer and publishers time to develop add-ons before the prices are reduced! So taking that logic why do some retailers butcher the cost of the host sim? Well its quite simple really – they want to sell their stock and move on to the next ‘quick’ buck – trouble is that simulations are not fast moving products like the block-busting XBOX, PS2/3, Wii titles, they are brought by simmers who are not generally after a ‘quick fix’ but more of into simulation for building a long term on-going experience, but I think many retailers don’t understand that and we all get tarred by the same brush. Perhaps if they took the time to understand the simming market more they would understand, but you know what even if they did take the time I really don’t think they would change becasue I dont think they really care.
So am I asking you to pay more for your host sims and add-ons – no, but what I would say is that everything has its value and for that to be valued is a good thing. (On my soapbox) I am a strong advocate for retaining the BBC licence fee in the UK – I know its alien for the rest of the world to have to pay to receive TV pictures but the basic fact of the licence fee in the UK is that it is utter, utter, superb value for money for all the TV and radio stations that you can receive as well as the excellent BBC web site and all advert/commercial free and so in my case I am happy to pay more to get quality rather than pay less and go to the lowest common denominator that seems to be the be all and end all of so many things in life.
Are certain retailers killing the goose that laid the golden egg? Well maybe not quite that literally but they certainly are not helping its health with this price butchering policy. Thank goodness for the internet.
‘till the next time.
Keep safe.
Scotty.
Posted by: Scotty, in: Musings of Scotty
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