As you no doubt are aware, the discounts on console are few and far between. I've been waiting for WSR to go on discount for nearly nine months now. It has been frequently discounted on PC during this time. Whilst you say you don't control the console sales (which I can understand), you do however control the preorder discount on PC. So why does DTG treat console and PC users differently? I thought you wanted all to be equal "to be fair", but this is very one sided...
So PC users get discounts on brand new DLC, console users get discounts on old DLC, and by the very nature of that, for routes they want to buy on release, nothing. Very odd discrepancy. Can we have a reason why specifically there’s no pre order discount?
As I believe some of you are already aware, when we offer a console discount we are required to wait for specific slots throughout the year that are offered to us, which is why sometimes it can feel few and far between. For pre-release discounts on console we are required to make the decision about the discount being offered a considerable amount of time before it's release, and unfortunately we can't always make that call in the timeframe we are given. This is why you are unlikely to see pre-order discounts on console. On Steam if we wish to offer a pre-release discount we are able to make that decision only a few days before the content goes live if we wish.
You still haven't answered why you're happy to treat PC users and console users differently. The excuse for the editor and other features has been due to console parity. Yet, when it comes to preorders, you don't demonstrate such parity, treating console users worse than PC users. I struggle to believe that a pre-order discount has only recently been contemplated, given that you often do them for route releases... Whilst this is only a 10% discount, it was enough for me to justify opening my wallet.
DTG Natster - While I’m happy with the price for IoW, it does seem pretty unfair to offer discounts to some of your customers and not others - especially on release day. If you can’t offer all customers a discount, you shouldn’t offer a discount to any.
I can completely see how it would feel unfair when it's new content being offered and I will pass along your sentiments. As explained in my earlier post you will get occasions throughout the year where console users receive discounts and PC users don't, so please keep an eye out for them.
Thank you. Obviously this is a different situation to sales throughout the year which do happen at different times, and whilst console has sales less frequently , it is more understandable. Obviously the new Munich route is coming soon. Please can I ask that if a discount is offered, this is offered across all three platforms?
Summary of the discount questions: Upset Console Players: "Why don't we get a launch/preorder discount?" DTG: "Because XBone/PS4 tightly control the windows that discounts can be offered in, and if we want to go outside that we need to give significant advance notice which isn't usually possible as we can't predict that far in advance when something is exactly going to release" Upset Console Players: "Yea...ok...but can we get a pre-order discount?" DTG: *facepalm*
So you're telling me that they had no clue they would be doing a preorder discount, despite doing a preorder discount on nearly every route since TSW was released? DTG have the ability to be consistent and offer the discount across the board, but they've chosen not to. So yes, we can ask for them to be fair across the board, especially when they like to blame console parity for not doing things...
Yes, they're saying there's not enough time to arrange the discount from the time they make the decision to have a discount. That means they need to make the decision earlier... Last-minute.com isn't an excuse here...
Maybe it isn't that simple, otherwise wouldn't they do it, especially if consoles are their biggest market? Maybe they have to have an exact release date when they issue the instruction to have a pre-order discount and maybe, for example, two months prior they can't give an exact release date? Just surmising but maybe last minute is exactly the reason. Without any knowledge of how these things work you can't be certain.
That's not how I understand it. I read it as, they need to give the xbox/ps4 marketplaces significant advance notice if they want a discount applied. The problem is they often don't know what the launch date for a particular dlc is going to be until much closer to the actual launch. So for example (just throwing random numbers around here), let's say they need to give 60 days notice before the launch for a price drop, but they don't set an actual final launch date until 30 days before launch...well that's a problem. What I think we've all seen with most DLC is a "it's done when it's done" attitude and while I'm sure they have their own internal projections as to launch dates, those are likely too fluid to lock in a specific date as far ahead as the console markets require. Whereas on Steam, they can probably just file for a discount 48 or 72 hours before they want it to happen or something.
If it’s so easy to sort the dates out for sales on Steam then they should ditch the pre-order discount and then align the Steam sales with the console sales. Everybody who wants a DLC at launch can pay full price. That would be both simple to arrange and fair. Next for me, rocket science, can’t be that hard.
Maybe PC sales need more of a boost as they seem to be behind console sales from what I can gather? Personally if I want a route I will pay full price anyway.
I’m not personally bothered about paying full price for stuff that I really want and I buy other stuff that I think will be okay in sales at a later date but I’m also all for a fairer system all round. The 10% saving isn’t much but it will eventually add up if you pre order every route. DTG are competing with their own TS stuff and others for PC sales I suppose.
Blame Microsoft and Sony... Your suggestion is handing power to the big boys rather than handing power to the end user
As previously stated, why blame Microsoft and Sony when other companies can manage a pre-order discount? The other option of course is for DTG to knock 10% off across the board. The current system isn't exactly fair. It's not like console users I getting a better product, as often console users have more bugs / patch issues etc as well.
As has been previously said, the issue is lead in time. Other companies may well pencil in their release dates months ahead, something DTG get accused of, but maybe that's untrue, or DTG are just less organised. I haven't looked into the ins and outs of how the MS store works with regards to sales and discounts, but the statement above of "align the Steam sales with the console sales" hands the control of pricing to MS and PS, something I would never condone. At least with Steam DTG can set sales and prices more freely With regards to fairness, console players choose to align themselves with whatever platform they buy, so then have to deal with the terms and conditions of that provider. If you don't like their terms, you can change platforms.
The discount is so small I can’t believe why they bothered or why anyone cares. It’s worth it’s price or it’s not.
Discount might be small, but it should be offered across the board... I think you'd be surprised by how many people would be tempted by a small discount.
So how would you go about this? set a release date which complies with Microsoft's store policy and put it out on that date no matter what the condition of the software only set a release date once the product is fully and utterly completed and then make everyone wait Microsoft's policy period
Under the current system as it's been explained, the latter seems to be the only way of doing it. Alternatively how about just setting the price 10% lower for maybe 2 weeks then increasing it? Could that be an option? Other companies seem to manage it, so it's not impossible.
Didn't ask for the "only way", I asked for yours Presumably barred by the MS store policies, otherwise more companies would do this You know other companies policies on software releases? I presume this was conjecture rather than fact
It's a valid point though. Why is this so difficult for DTG, yet other companies can manage? DTG even managed to arrange a launch discount for the TSW2 release, despite the release date being pushed back by several weeks. Given the quality of some of the recent releases, this appears to be the case anyways...
Apologies, in my opinion, the latter option would be the only way it could be done. I was purely stating that as other companies manage to offer pre order discounts that it was not a totally impossible thing to do. I have no idea what any companies policies are.
I would imagine they had a release date in mind, applied the discount for that date and could extend an existing arrangement (unlisted) easier than establish a new one from scratch All theoretical, but it makes sense On your latter point, seemingly the producer or director have little idea of "setting an end to NEW development" and working on making what used to be a "gold" version for output
This is the most fuss made over £2 since Mrs Edith Butterworth, 72, was accidentally short-changed in a Rochdale Spar in April 1992 after buying a loaf of bread and a pint of milk. It became her only topic of conversation until her death in 2006 and at the time the resulting gossip spread quickly around the town, even making it to the Rochdale Herald letters page, leading to a reduction in the shop’s profits and contributing to the early retirement of the shopkeeper, Mr Anwar. Mrs Butterworth’s grandchildren still won’t shop there due to this one isolated incident, despite the shop having been under new management since 2011.
As you no doubt know, the fuss is more over the principle of only discounting for certain platforms, as opposed to just being £2. That said, I spent £6 on a new third party loco for TS today, so three preorder discounts would have covered this.
I know. It may be on one of the other threads about the price of this route that I said the same thing. It’s not a particularly good situation and one that will probably continue. It’s always been that way with Steam pre-order discounts for route DLC and I can’t see them changing it, even if we continue to bring it up with every route DLC released. It may seem trivial for each route but it adds up after a while. I’ve only bought one route DLC at the time of release, this will be my second. Everything else has been in a sale. I’ve bought plenty of loco DLC on release and PC users don’t usually get a discount for locos, so that’s fairer. There will be a lot of console users who like to buy all routes when they come out, so eventually those missed discounts add up to the price of another route DLC, so it is a real issue.
I noticed that there are two routes (Peninsula + one of the German routes) currently on sale on XBox store so with the above in mind was it a case of Microsoft saying "you can discount two routes only" or DTG saying "we're only prepared to offer two routes within our given slot" ? Given the infrequency of XBox sales and the obvious demand to buy older content at a discounted price it just seemed a little strange that the amount of items made available was pretty small.
This... This, my dear ladies and gentlemen, will be the reason why we will loose our Pre-order discount on steam eventually... Just be grateful that there's at least the option an incentive, as you will, to pre-order the content early at an discount. Okay, so there is a difference between PC and consoles. Big deal, there has always been and there always will be a difference. No need to upset people trying to bridge the gap that can't be bridged. Sure you are entitled to your own opinion, but don't.. And I mean do not ruin it for other people. Don't hate the player, hate the game. Go complain against Microsoft and Sony for not allowing those pre-order discounts and being these big mammoths when it comes to getting products discounted. But don't complain against DTG as their hands are tied in this matter. As for an off topic example; Cyberpunk 2077 got cut short because 'players' complained that The Witcher 3 was too 'long'... I can't even piece together how you would complain. IMHO the more content the more you get your money's worth... Edit: Clarified the part about the 'incentive' not being released early, but in the form of the 10% discount.
Most people have work, so staying up until midnight to then spend half hour downloading the content to get a hour or so playtime before work isn't really an incentive. I'd much rather have 10% off... That said, I hate to imagine the storm PC players would have if it was only console users getting 10% off..
I've edited my post to be more clear about what I meant with the incentive. Wasn't expecting it to be understood the way you described it. So, in a way, thanks! That's a whole other discussion.
I’m not liking the look of that hillside, as seen in Rivet’s latest pictures. Reminds me of the NTP route, with the bare hills and 2D trees.
Yeah that looks a bit weak. Will be interesting to see how the rest of the scenery looks like alongside the route. One thing I also noticed on the pier pics is that you can't see the land on the horizon. Even though the other side of the river(?) is clearly visible from the pier IRL. While this was acceptable in the old Train Simulator, I would expect a bit better from TSW.
Are you sure? The picture with the camera set up I can see a coastline in the distance... Or maybe you meant something else?
Well on this picture I don't see any land, it looks like a sea. Even though I think land should be visible from both directions?
In game screenshot with plenty of photoshop, I assume, as that's how the promo shots tend to be for TSW. But if the land is missing even from the photoshopped promo shot, then I suppose it's not going to be there in-game neither.
Do hate those bare hillsides with a few token trees. Really does give a fake feel to the image. Matts tree revolution is one of the best things to come to Tsw. I’ll definitely wait to see the live streams before I buy.
pffff... 10% isn't even worth making a fuss about. IMO it's not even worth making the pre-order. Should be able to get a higher discount in a matter of months. Perhaps we can even see the same 10% discount in the Steam winter sale. :P I know I'm not pre-ordering. Want to see gameplay footage and the reviews before I decide.
just to remind you how expensive this line was on TS when it was released in 2009 !!! It was 23 euro anyway, so the 2020 version of TSW2 doesn't seem that expensive to me, right?
Of course the original version contained: - The Electric Island Line - The Heritage Line - The Class 483 - Invincible Steam Locomotive - Various Coaches and Wagons - A Diesel Personnel Carrier and Trailer Over twice the content for less...
On another note, I'd like to apologise for the fuss about a pre-order discount. Not having the pre-order has allowed me to see the quality in this release, saving me £20 as opposed to just £2.
I'd note that in the same list Cajon Pass is noticeably cheaper than IoW though, and that's a pretty massive route. Or even in modern day IoW's pretty much the same price as the much more modern Corris Railway, or you could pay a small bit more for something like Sherman Hill which is not only longer but has tons of stock included. You can debate all day when it comes to pricing, it's a debate as old as TS Classic itself really.
My conclusion, having had a play with it tonight is that yes the price is right as far as I am concerned. A few minor niggles but overall a well detailed, enjoyable and atmospheric route.
