If you are someone who has spent any time looking at the store page for TSW on steam then you should have noticed that a lot of prices are very similar or (in most cases) the exact same, with only minor exceptions to this. Despite there being a wide range of different routes, which include different things, some of them are longer and have a few stations, whereas others are shorter but will sometimes include a lot more stations. I don’t think it makes much sense for DLCs to be priced the same when they include wildly different amounts of content. You have the Niddertalbahn (an amazing looking route) which is set at £29.99. But is the same price as a route which is much longer and includes a lot more unique rolling stock such as Southeastern High Speed, which is also set at £29.99. I find it odd how DTG does not have a formula which they use to price DLC's, based on their content instead of pricing all DLC's the same. Each route is different in size and what you get, and they should price them differently for that. I understand that some routes have been given lower prices for being smaller, but these are only with a few extreme cases where routes are much smaller than others and I can only find 2 examples of this happening with routes. Dovetail would probably know how to price their DLC's better, but at the moment they are simply choosing to price everything the same despite the wide variation in route sizes. If you have anything to add please do, I am interested in seeing people’s opinions on this.
Have you played Niddertalbahn? Its quality is on a different level to some of the other DLCs mentioned. In my opinion it’s worth just as much as some of the other routes. Besides that, DTG have made some routes cheaper. The Glossop Line and Isle of Wight for example.
I already mentioned that 2 routes were unique with prices, those are the only examples of exceptions to the same-price rule. As for the Niddertalbahn, while its quality is great, I don't think routes should be priced differently based on quality. I think every route should be built to Niddertalbahn standards, or as close to it as possible if unable.
The prices are there to settle development costs and ensure a profit is made. This calculation would probably leave some DLCs as a loss, and some as a profit, where they would nearly all be profits
The prices are the same no matter the size of the DLC though, thats the problem. If anything some sort of formula would make sure every route is priced in a way where its not just a massive loss to them. Larger routes wont cost the same as smaller ones. The example I used is just an example, dovetail would probably know better about what costs more and what it should cost on the store.
If you buy a route for £29.99, then if a DLC for said route becomes available at say £9.99, then isn't the overall price higher anyway.
I dont understand, are you saying that because people already payed for it at a higher full price, that it wouldn't make sense to change the price of existing routes lower? If so then I understand, maybe I should of written in my suggestion and title as a suggestion for future routes instead of changing existing.
I think I was trying to say that of you spend £30 on a route, then another £10 on DLC for that route, then the total cost of the route has become £40 - with £10 coming from the DLC. But I think you are right that older routes should probably have a reduced price. No one would buy an route from say, TSW2020, when it is clear that newer routes from TSW3 are better value for money - at the same price.
It comes down to inflation, wages of each employee working on the project/promoting it, licensing costs to use the livery in game and renewing it most likely, platform costs (ex: steam takes a percentage of the earnings), effort into creating each dlc, payments to the publisher and to dtg if a 3rd party is involved. Not all the money will go straight to the 3rd party dev. The publisher will always want their share. So with focus taking over, focus will most likely want a small portion of the money. Everything has gone up in price recently because of economical reasons and this is how dtg makes money. The benefit of older routes is that they go on sale and if they have been out longer, even bigger sales appear or you get the occasional sale that makes it extremely cheap.
Possibly but it should not be just about route size but rather how much it takes to develop the route. A large section of relatively empty mainline could potentially be cheaper to produce than a highly detailed short branch line.
They could still take the same amount of time. Longer routes take longer simply for being long. Shorter routes could take just as long if you want them to be really detailed.
I can’t believe someone wants the longer routes to be more expensive. That’s essentially what’s being asked for here. In no way would any routes be cheaper. I don’t want to be forking out more than I already do.
I had an issue with linking my legacy forum account with my dovetail live so i just got a new account
Aren't routes given a development budget first? Seems logical that a set budget would result in set pricing. Smaller planned routes got a smaller budget, and thus smaller pricing. Disclaimer: Guesswork.
Every route except 2 cases have been given the same price, despite all being different. Its either £24.99 for older tsw & tsw2, £29.99 for newer tsw3. You would imagine it would be different.
But that’s what would happen. The smaller routes (not the couple of really small ones) would be sold at the current price and the ones with more content would cost more. It would never result in any of the smaller routes being cheaper which is what you think you are asking for.
I mentioned how there were 2 examples of smaller routes being cheaper and how those were only two examples of it ever happening. Hoping that if they adjusted prices of more routes then there would be more examples of it. If I didn't make it obvious then im sorry.
