I think this may well be the time to bring back the question. What is acceptable as a price for a DLC? In TSW2020 / TSW2, a route was generally £25/€30/$35. Loco DLCs were typically £11. Now, routes are £30/€35/$40. Loco DLCs are now £13 (based on the 380) TSW4 Standard edition, for reference, is £30. But I, personally, view that as a 3-for-1 as opposed to a route being 1-for-3, so I don't mind a route being equal to it. But, at the same time, I get the complaints. At least they lower it for smaller stuff. Gameplay backs don't tend to exceed £9 although SimTrak and Dovetail (besides DLoGW*) have stuck to the £5 limit. *I don't count NTP Heavy Freight as a Gameplay pack. Some routes which were/are shorter will have the price cut down a little bit include Glossop Line, Maintalbahn or Goblin Line. All decent routes but not much to do on them. Glossop also includes a reused train, but at least you got a discount for that. And, of course, not every DLC justifies it's price tag, for the sake of quality, a lack of things to do, or something else. But, with the Expert 101 + Cab Car costing £30/€35/$40, are we really just beginning to lose it? Don't get me wrong. I recognise that TSG will have put a lot of effort into the Expert 101 and the Cab Car. But, the price of a route - the price of the entire game, which looks set to be replaced in a month or two, meaning you'll have to spend that much, or more, if you want any future DLC after this - really? I personally think it's too much. £25 - which is pretty much double of a standard Loco DLC is the most I personally would consider paying. And that's not because I'm a casual player. Sure, I am, no doubt - but I am willing to challenge myself. The main challenge here, though, is convincing myself to even contemplate paying 30+ for it, with TSW5/Rush Hour obviously on the way. Especially as doing so would render the existing 101 obsolete (well, except from the services which the £30 add-on doesn't seem to work with!) and this my previous purchase feels more like an early access buy. What's my point again? Ah, right, yes. I was excited by the Expert 101. I am no longer excited, as I do not want to spend £30 for an improved yet existing train + a cab car + less services and 3 scenarios (half of which is for a route I don't own). What do you think? I would do a poll but polls like this are annoying. Thanks.
Well it’s always going to be subjective and this DB 101 at £30 has certainly divided opinion. Already expressed my views on that specifically in other threads on the matter, but tl:dr it’s not just overpriced, it’s (sorry mild sweary) bloody overpriced. I baulked when routes generally went up to £30 particularly as they generally started coming with only one new train. I also regarded the SHG Scotrail 158 as overpriced bearing in mind they already had the original model which sold as part of the MML DLC. So going out on a limb here my personal view is… Route DLC with one new train, no more than £25 and if it’s short like Goblin Line £20. Route DLC with two new trains, no more than £30. An exception might be a particularly long or iconic route (such as the Kyle Line) or where proceeds are going to charity. Standard loco DLC £13. Expert loco DLC £18. Reskin or variant of existing loco £7. There might be exceptions where additional rolling stock has been produced, for example if we got a Class 87 (non expert) and set of Mark Two aircon coaches for a possible WCML I would go to £20. DTG do need to be very careful here as they will price themselves out the market. For PC players at least, TSC seems to be having a sale of some description every week (currently Swiss RhB) which is far more attractive than £30 for a tarted up version of a loco we already have.
The psychological barrier for me is, no TSW DLC has enough 'quality' to justify this price. The number of switches you can flick? The number of schedules, scenarios? The included cars? The number of trains it displaces on the route? I'll wait for a sale when the reviews are good enough, the dev corrects the inevitable bugs and perhaps drive it a couple of times before the next all singing, all dancing DLC appears in the next after sale.
I think the price is a problem, if the quality doesn’t improve with it. Routes being £30 has turned out to be an either or in my eyes. Most of DTG’s stuff is better than it was 2 years ago when we were at £25 a pop. The only issue is that you can pay the same for a very good route as you can for a very poor route. Goblin Line for example is pretty decent (I’m going off what I’ve seen here as I don’t actually own it), & costs the same as Maintalbahn which is just awful quality. That is where I have issues with pricing. Then you have the likes of Rivet, releasing Fife Circle for £30 is just a non starter for me. No way you line that route up against everything else in TSW and say it’s the same value. The class 380 was received very well, but then you get the 158 which is a slightly changed version of an existing model, with a minimal timetable & apparently that is worth the same cost as the 380? Generally speaking these price increases have changed the way I make purchases with TSW. TSW2020 upto some point in TSW3, I was pretty much buying anything that came out, building my collection & excited for what came next. Over the last year or so though I’ve pretty much stopped buying on release and waiting for stuff to hit 40% discount. Generally because the quality is inconsistent, the experiences within a route is largely the same as the last one & loco DLC’s have for some reason not getting decent gameplay options (thanks to Freeroam mostly). The other point is that TSW4 has basically shown that there is no point in getting DLC’s on release. They don’t come with features promised with the title updates & by the time you’ve bought 2 of them, you’ve paid more than you did for 3 routes and 2 loco DLC’s with a game launch. By TSW5’s release a lot of stuff will have suspension, be on regular sale & I’ll have 3 new long routes & 2 more new loco packs from TSW 5. DTG seem to be interested in pulling in a new playerbase once a year, churning them out throughout the year with pricy DLC’s & then getting their new round of customers with the next title release. I think this new Pro pricing is just going to kill that idea before it gets off the ground, the work needs paying for but ultimately that work is still stuck within the confines of TSW & TSW is not a product that is designed to keep a playerbase happy for longer than 12 months.
I don't have a problem with paying £12.99 / £29.99 for loco and route DLC. My problem is spending more time submitting bug tickets than actually using the things. I'm sure the Beta testers do a good job of finding bugs, but it's DTG's job to make sure they are actually fixed before release and not ignored. Forget "time limits" as an excuse, it doesn't wash anymore.
I simply ask for myself... do I value it enough to pay the price? It's just one more thing in life to decide to spend money on or not. What would you get for a nice dinner? Or a ticket to the movies? Or some music? I compare it to how long/how much I'll enjoy it. If it's something that will give me hours of enjoyment, then buy it. If not... then don't. *shrugs* Saying "routes" in general is meaningless. I don't WANT many of the routes or locos. Therefore, if I don't play them they're not worth it. However, if SOMEONE wants that route or that loco and will play it for HOURS....then that's arguably a better deal than a nice dinner at a restaurant, a movie ticket, etc. (I know I'm dating myself not just saying "Netflix and chill" but the idea still applies. If you don't watch anything on Netflix, why subscribe to it? Pay for what is worth it to YOU personally... ) One final thing...keep comparisons current. A route TODAY vs food costs TODAY for example. If EVERYTHING is going up 50% since COVID, then comparing TSW to pre-covid costs isn't fair. Make sure you're comparing two current things. It can cost $40-50 for a simple meal for the girlfriend and myself, and twice that for a "nice" meal. A quality video game can cost up to $50 easily. Is TSW THAT expensive? And can you get it on SALE too, making it even cheaper? I've picked up most things on sale for half off so with a little patience, it's really cheap. Compared to a 90 minute movie for $10-15 a ticket.... if I pick up a route on sale for that much and play it more than 90 minutes, I've gotten MORE value out of it. Again, it's what YOU personally think. Don't pretend that it's concern for "other people." They can make up their own minds. When people don't want to buy a video game, they won't. It's entirely a luxury purchase. It's not a necessity of live to play video games. Anyone buying it is choosing to spend their extra money on it, and it's up to THEM to consider what is fun or not.
I've also made my opinion clear on the 101 thread so it's there for people to view. Obviously inflation will increase prices to a smaller extent over a set number of years. But I think it's more to do with the man hours involved in developing a 'expert' locomotive with far more interactive controls. The developers have to cover that somehow. The thing is, luckily, there are two Class 101s in the game it's down to the player to decide "I'd rather this one for XYZ reasons.. ". If this doesn't sell well I'd imagine it'll be a nail in the coffin for further 'expert' content in TSW. I sit on the fence with this one as I can see it is on the steeper side, but also, as mentioned already its not just your average add on, this has taken some considerable time and effort to develop compared to your average add on. If you're really into rail simulation and a really immersing experience I think it'll be worth it. But if you're just a casual player and this doesn't interest you simply stick with the old 101... I think that's the easiest way around it...
W-w-w-what? Now I know I have had a long day but in you're post I saw you say, and you're going to love this, that this expert BR 101 is going to cost 30 quid! I apologise, but initially my only words are bloody hell! On a more serious note I genuinely did have to double take at this as I haven't been following any threads related to this dlc so this is the first I have heard of the price and I certainly agree it is much too steep, I were thinking more around the £20 mark when it were announced. I may be wrong but isn't there already a normal version of the loco in the game already? What is there on this that gives reason for it costing as much as a route, just think of what BPO gave for £30. All this will do is decrease the overall sales, meaning DTG will assume that this is due to the idea not being popular, but in actual fact it were the delivery of the product which were at fault, and so there still remains a demand for it which isn't fulfilled. Surely a business wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot like this, oh wait a minute is that a kettle I hear...
Surely it is down to the value you personally put on something? I would pay £50 or possibly more if it was a comprehensive BR period route with a enough stock to run on it realistically. Many others wouldn't. The 101 expert is a niche release and this is TSG dipping their toes into the water, if it turns out to be flop sales wise then they will know. This place can be an echo chamber, like many online forums and comment sections and therefore we tend to think the majority here represents the majority opinion everywhere. The Crosscity line at £30 might be worth it for me but only be worth a sale purchase by A.N. Other next door. If you know you are going to get lots of use out of the 101 then it will soon repay the £30.
This kind of reaction is on all channels the same... Im curious tommorow what DTG is doing... They dont expect this sh*tload i think... I have since 2018 not experience so many negative reactions as tonight...
The expert loco features sooo niche (seriously, like 1% of the player base is going to bother with the realistic driving, and those players will be easily willing to pay that much). So I’m not really bothered by the high price since the DLC isn’t aimed at the normal player base. But what does annoy me a lot (and I’ve said this before) is the fact that they’re gatekeeping the IC cab car - one of the most requested German rolling stock additions - behind such a pack. 90% of the players who wanted it will be unwilling to pay this price. We’re going to have to wait for an 80% discount (which is extremely rare with TSG and might happen once TSW 7 is out) or hope for the inclusion of a simplified non-expert cab car with another DLC. It’s just so sad. Rule number 1 for expert DLCs should be that they can only be improved versions of existing trains and no highly requested rolling stock can be gatekeeped behind these niche and expensive packs! Don’t lose sight of the average players.
IMO, a price that is proportional to the time and effort put in. I'm going to assume that this price reflects the development budget + enough percentage for profit to make it worthwhile. I'm also going to make the totally unsubstantiated guess that the asking price was kept on the low end of this, both to fairly test whether people will in fact pay for the extra effort and in anticipation of the reaction they are in fact getting.
Exactly thats the biggest point and im one of they 1% but im also not a fan of this pricing trick....
I'll paraphrase what I already said in the main 101 thread regarding that. In short, I've really been getting into German content and I was so thrilled at the aspect of having such a major update to a train I already know and love. The expert aspect was even better, the opportunity to really study and master something in a field I'm so passionate about. When they said it would be priced more than a regular loco DLC, it made sense to me and I was fine with it. But to be priced over double? In short, this is the first time in my history in this game's community that I will be among those waiting for a sale. This train could have, and I'm sure will be, utterly amazing. But even I can't justify to myself paying the same as I pay for a route, for one loco and a cab car.
For a lack of better words, RIDICULOUS. I can get behind $30. $35 is pushing it but still too high, but $40 USD??? Where are the cameras...? Are we being punk'd??
I can't help feeling a sense of irony about this thread. The discussion is about a German locomotive. There hasn't been a discussion about an American or, for that matter, a British loco in a very long time. As far as price goes, why would you pay double the price of a " normal " loco to get the additional functionality which, in my view, should come with any loco dlc. The things that come with this loco: Fine detail modeling Screens with real information Engine room with access to breakers etc Sound improvements Newly refined physics. Shouldn't these features be standard in a SIM that is close to 8 years old?
That's what I thought when TSW came out, but things are different. Remember this is not a DTG DLC and is not based on DTG's policy. They would either have to pay their staff less money or raise the price to the Expert 101 level, which is highly unwelcomed as seen in the discussions here, which are largely against this concept as price seems too high for most players. This Expert stuff is only possible because of Maik's skills and experience, and being independent from DTG's decisions. If the EL 101 fails, it will not harm DTG (except for their publisher cut) but TSG.
An expert line dlc can be much more costly than the standard loco dlcs. Obviously the target audience arent the casual players, so i guess your thread should be named "why to paywall content of 2 entire different playing audiences"?
Making every train expert level with fully functional and simulated screens and buttons would be expensive. Trains would take much longer to make and use more resources which also has to be reflected in the cost so dlcs would get more expensive. It also means much less content and you would get players who say it's taking too long to get their country into the game. Sometimes the information and expertise is not available so how would dtg create an expert locos then.
Rivet below £5.00 DtG one handle EMU route below £12.99 DTG Dosto route below 12.99 USA route humble bundle TSG route or loco full price although it needs somewhere decent to run in the case of the loco. JT route full price based on first offering being excellent.
It all depends on what you are getting. Some refuse to name it a game and insist it is a simulator. For a simulator it's cheap. I want to give it a try but I'm waiting to see what TSW5 brings as I feel this game needs lots more core improvements (mostly performance related) to warrant such a high price for DLC. The game has way less stutter than it used to have but every stutter in the 101 expert will feel way too expensive.
I don't mind the expert BR101 (or any of TSG contents really) to be priced the way it is, because their content has always been almost flawless. On the other hand, when you compare it to some of the other third parties and DTGs content... These would be overpriced. Just buy on sale
Exactly my thoughts. And then: It's the first time an "Expert Level" loco DLC comes out of the oven. Nobody really knows yet what has to be understood under the term "Expert". How can we judge price worthiness here? Wait for it, it's from TSG after all! And yes, overpriced DTG DLCs, like Semmeringbahn-We ran out of time™, should get only attention when on sale.
When it comes to the pricing of DLC, I'm okay paying the asking prices IF the price reflects the quality of the addon. If we're going to pay £30 for a route, then I expect it to be high quality and free of most bugs. Bugs and just bad quality addons in general is what'll put me off buying DLC in the first place. Loco DLC pricing thankfully hasn't taken too much a hit from inflation, so I'm fine paying an extra quid for it. Regarding the BR 101 though, on surface level £30 is a lot of dough. But some people out there LOVE the 101 and would pay that money in an instant. Is it expensive? Of course, but I almost guarantee that if we got an Expert Class 91 for £30 that it'd sell like hot cakes. I'd certainly buy an expert Class 91 IF it's as close to reality as humanly possible and there are only minor bugs/none!
Thus you wonder into the issue of this pricing. £30 seems to be too expensive for more than a few people to pay for a loco that we’ve already had, combined with a cab car that should have been included with it in the first place. So do you A) Charge people £30 to rework existing rolling stock to a higher standard of simulation or B) you release new rolling stock at a ‘pro’ level & charge £30 a pop for it. I don’t agree that this pro pack in itself directly means pricing goes up across the board, however I can see how it could lead to that. The exact same thing happened with route DLC’s & the number of trains included. 2 new trains & a route turned into 1 new train, 1 slightly reworked train, which has now turned into 1 train with an existing train. Before you know it we’ve been buying £30 routes & then paying another £15 to get a second train, so £45 for content that used to be £25. Im not arguing that there haven’t been improvements to both train & route quality, but there is the fact that there’s a remarkable price increase that happens gradually, so people saying new trains are going to start costing more probably aren’t far off the mark.
I don't get the price discussion. First: DTG said it would come at a (much) higher price. Second: It seems to be a loco with a huge list of more features and details. If (thats a big if) the quality over all is good, there are just minor bugs and the new features increase the fun, then I think the price is totally okay if not needed to cover the additional cost to create it. I became extremely critical over the last 2 years of DTG but this product was requested and I think it could be one of the better ones. Did they cut some corners anyway? Sure they did, in the end it's a DTG DLC
I know it's TSG, but in the end ... well. Restaurant missing, still EBULA missing and the live stream will reveal some more I am sure.
Tell me, is there any developer, policy, project or dlc, no matter how poor, indifferent or expensive or otherwise flawed that you wouldn't defend or apologise for?
Is the 101 expensive? Yes. Is it overpriced? Absolutely not. I don’t think people are stopping to realise the amount of work and effort that will have gone into this loco. It’s not your typical DTG jank physics, set the reverser and go full throttle, it’s a study-level train (I would assume). The price is well in-line with TS classic trains that are high detail. If people want trains that are actually authentic and realistic, they will have to pay the price. I would say the locos DTG push out are a lot more overpriced than this is overpriced. They are incredibly simple and lack half of what they should have - but people don’t seem to care about that. Put 2 and 2 together… even twice the amount of effort is going to be twice the price.
This is very well and nicely worded, but DTG's main market seem to be the gaming consoles. How will those thumbstick players react to all those little switches, buttons, foil touches all over the cockpit, back wall and engine room? Having an 'escape' key and auto set-up sort of defies the apparent 'study level' controls, start up sequences and recovery procedures? ZuSi is already study level for amateurs, its pro version being used in real simulators for driver training? Time will tell how this experiment will turn out. Let's first wait for DTG's usual livestream and wish for it to run without hiccups at the studio's end and all questions honestly answered. Then there is the routes, wonky signaling, beacons not properly working, that poorly strung catenary with this bobbing pantograph loosing contact with the wire in curves? Will the pink cats ears feature again?
The implication being that there is no-one at DTG itself that has the skill set to build these " expert locomotives ". So we cannot expect this kind of expert loco except on the German railway? Of course, it's a moot point because DTG isn't currently building and has no future plans to build British or American locos* anyway. * locos being defined as separate vehicles pulling passenger or freight cars as opposed to emu/dmu trains.
We expected a higher price. Just not over double the normal train pack asking price, i.e. more like the £20 mark.
And for less than twice what this one loco and cab car costs (even more saving in a sale) Zusi 3 comes with 100's of km of driveable route and just about every conceivable DB and former DR train you could want to drive. the only thing which stops me using Zusi 3 more is the lack of a save game. Then you can bet your boots this TSG "Expert" loco will probably blow up the TSW save process meaning all runs have to be finished in one go. Could even explain why it's not gone on longer routes, authentic or not.
Yes, that's most probably correct since there are so many parameters to save, properly load back in to correctly reinitialise the physics in order to seamlessly resume a save. Would make a good demonstration on the livestream, a live save and resume without breaking the run or crashing the PC. Because like with everything TSW, Quality Assurance is the Achilles heel. The more complicated the product, the more thorough it's QA should be. And proper in house QA is time, time is money, etc etc. No matter TSG's best intentions, a product as complicated as this will be a QA challenge, since there is both a loco and a cab car. QA is therefor left to the gullible first day buyers, as within hours from release, bug reports appear, arguments and counter arguments, angered devs speaking up and so on, and so forth TSG's 'testing the waters' small DE shunter still has outstanding bugs IIRC.
If they want to prove its robustness during the scripted sales pitch stream, they should save game halfway through a run and reload it. Regarding the restaurant car, if it really is missing and should be present in normal BR101 formations, that makes the pricing even more of a travesty. My initial reaction was to not bother watching the stream at all, however I might just grab some popcorn and see what DTG have to say for themselves.
It's never been DTG's modus operandi to produce expert level stuff, that's just the reality (and they never said they would - and you probably can't with 200 employees or more). In TSC, you have VirtualRailroads and Armstrong Powerhouse to name two for that, that's always been the business plan. Release "ok" content for the masses, and for the small group of enthusiasts, 3rd parties provided the enhancements / self built stock. These expert level DLC were always done by small developers - if DTG would produce that inhouse they could not cover the development costs for the prices people demand. It just wouldn't work. And on the matter of third parties, seeing the ever growing demand for super low prices, I don't think producing addons for a train simulator is very attractive anymore for most developers, unless they have other sources of income and are very passionate about trains. There's no money to be made, the revenue is hardly enough to survive. Console market development was crucial for DTG to enlargen the customer base, therefore being able to keep to a retail price limit, to catch those who were interested in trains but weren't on a PC platform.
Yeah, because much of the german payware community has completly shifted to TSW. There is basicly no one left in TS Classic besides RSSLO and Bahnjahn with his Berlin content. Unlike UK and American Content... where many are still doing TSC classic (espacially concerning steam).
I think the Cab Car is the bottom line, yes. It was requested from the day the original 101 was announced and now it's confined to a "level" above and a price bracket above any other loco DLC. Slightly off-topic, but I wonder if the recent leaks have caused any issues to the 101? It should have been coming the conclusion of it's preparation anyway, but I do wonder, would the sudden closure of QA tester access have impacted it?
The thing that I don't understand, is people will willingly pay similar money for an AP improvement pack for TSC, but not the asking price for this? Although maybe £24.99 would of been a fairer asking price.
Not necessarily. I buy my AP stuff in a sale. Likewise most of the Bossman and Victory steam locos I've bought for TSC have been in a sale. In fact I buy very little at full price for TSC or TSW these days. Must be a tight fisted old git.
I stick to a rule of routes being bought when they go under £10, locos when they go under £5. The newest iteration of the base TSW gets bought when the ultimate version drops under £15. I have plenty to do on TSW and TSC to not bother with new releases. And yes, the price of the expert 101 is outrageous, even if it is one of my favourite locos.
So by that logic... If DTG make a DLC route on the same quality level as Just Trains Blackpool Branches, we should be expecting to pay £50 for it. Because we already happily pay £29.99 for broken trash like WCL without asking questions, so that's fine. I see where this is heading...
It isn't heading in that direction at all! One piece of one off DLC is released at a more expensive price, to quite a backlash and suddenly the conspiracy theorists are having a field day. I question what is their motivation? These forums are beyond parody at times!
If you want to resort to name calling then are you really any better than what you’re rather vocally thinking of this forum? In any case, I would say that one part of the motivation is questioning what is actually going on with pricing? Midnight makes a point, is WCL really worth the same money as Blackpool Branches? Is MaintalBahn really worth the same as Goblin Line? Is the 465 the same quality & value as the 187? £12.99 for a re-livery of a 158 vs £12.99 for a ground up built 380? You know why it sells & gets mostly accepted? Because that’s the economy DTG have built for TSW, the expectation that patches don’t come out in a timely manner & some bugs don’t get fixed. You pay £10-15 for some rolling stock & £25 - £30 for a route, you know the caveats & ultimately make a decision that you’ll probably get the gameplay value for a few hours. Regardless of the ranting & raving going on 90% of people buying TSW content knows what the deal is. Then you end up here, release content for more than double the cost & already we’re seeing signs that it’s just gonna fall into the same issues as every other piece of content. Preview Delays because of build issues, a week after it should have been shown & a week before release? Personally I’m not all that bothered about the £30, I’ve paid about the same for worse content in TSW than this 101 will be, but I find it pretty funny that people are surprised by the backlash it’s getting, because like I said, there’s an economic structure DTG have built for TSW, and content at this price takes a sledgehammer to it. Of course it’s shocking people.
