So the cardiff city network route has been released it looks amazing it really does but the £29.99 price I think is incorrect pricing for a route that's only 20 miles yes I know it's got multiple lines and the quality and graphics looks fantastic but the price doesn't make any sense to me
A lot of companies are still reeling from COVID, and are trying to recoup monies. I get the price, I'd pay the price, if it was a quality product, and that is (IMO) the issue.
It does seem rather overpriced when Mildmay went on sale for £25, we recently had Mittenwaldbahn long scenic run with super detail and the excellent Krokodil for £3 more. Next week we get the 107km Dutch route with two genuinely new trains again only £3 more than this Cardiff route. IMHO if it had been put on sale for between £20 - £25 with a 10% discount for prerelease purchase its reception would have been much more favourable. But either someone at DTG is starting to get greedy, or they dropped the ball but decided to leave it there.
If it was between 15-20 would bought it straight away but it seem like they got greedy considering other routes better and longer are few quid dearer or cheaper and the more reviews I read about how short the jobs are the less I want now it looks very half baked route .
Agreed I used to be on the train sim community discord and got told some of the dtg board members are ex EA
I was wondering if this would come in at a lower price point than standard. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the overall approach to the route, a collection of short incomplete lines. Something maybe I’d take a look at if it was quite a bit cheaper. Or maybe if there hadn’t been a release in some time. But not now with the recent releases I’ve bought and the Dutch route coming next week. I assume DTG’s year end must be March 31, why else would they release so many routes back to back? Seems like a bit of market saturation.
If the route actually held up and was of a high standard I'd have no issue with paying £29.99 as it includes 2 units, one completely new, and one completely modified. My issue is paying premium prices for mediocre content as I've said a million times... £29.99 is a fair price if the content holds up, but where it's bland and has no edge I won't be parting with my own money.
Yeah definitely not worth the 30 quid even though I got in the end 24.99 would of been a significantly better price
Most of DTG's founders are ex-EA. TSC was first published by EA (I think you can still get the original version on Origin or whatever it's called now).
To the best of my knowledge EA have never had anything to do with TSC. Paul Jackson, who was CEO of DTG was an ex-EA executive (which doesn’t make him the devil) and he retired from DTG a number of years ago now. DTG is now owned by Focus Entertainment which has nothing to do with EA.
The original Rail Simulator from which TSC grew was developed by Kuju and published by EA. When Matt P and myself were invited to Godalming back in 2007 or whenever it was for a sneak preview, the EA mindset was quite obvious. Notably Kuju were keen to have all creativity and discussion groups etc. where they could keep an over watch. Of course that didn’t quite work out for them! However the moment I put a slightly negative comment on my web site about RS (I think I said it looked a tad cartoony or Trainz like), they slammed the door pretty quickly on sending any further PR material and stopped replying to my communications.
I paid £30 for it. Its not worth it. Not by a long shot. I'm genuinely wondering what the thought process behind the pricing was. Because I'm stumped
I understand that to be factually correct, so which bit have I got wrong? Look up Kuju and DTG and you will see no mention of EA Kuju was formerly Simis and owned by Eidos and produced MSTS. According to Wikipedia; ‘Dovetail Games (DTG), a trading name of RailSimulator.com Ltd (RSC), is a British simulation video game developer and publisher established in 2008 by former Electronic Arts executive Paul Jackson, Fund4Games backers Tim Gatland and Charlie McMicking, and a development team from Kuju Entertainment’. When Microsoft pulled the plug on MSTS DTG took it and developed it from there. Jackson was an ex-EA director but didn’t work for EA at the time. He has long since retired. Which bit exactly is rubbish then? ps Cardiff is too expensive for what it is.
However, if you look at the Wikipedia entry for Rail Simulator it confirms EA were the publisher, as those of us who were around it at the time have said... "Rail Simulator is a train simulation published by Electronic Arts (EA).[1] It was produced by Kuju Entertainment. After release of the EU version, EA's support and further development of the title was taken over by Rail Simulator Developments Ltd, who continued to provide updates, fixes, official expansion packs and new content to players. RSDL has also released a sequel to the first game called RailWorks." All of which of course is off at a bit of a tangent here from the real issue, which is DTG having the nerve to charge £30 for a poor quality tiny route!
To be fair I’m not sure what price would be appropriate for this route. Even if it was 10/10 on the quality front, I still don’t see where the gameplay is. Most runs are around 20 minutes, 10 of those would be traversing the low speed Cardiff curve & there isn’t many service patterns which allow you to keep hold of your train. The playability of the route suffers from there not being much at all in terms of a real route. From what I’ve seen this DLC has a significant level of menu hopping. Ultimately I think we’ll get both the 150 & 153 appear later on in a more fleshed out Welsh line, either included with said route or layered in, the latter option likely being cheaper in the form of sales anyway. On top of that a recent update appears to have borked the in game service menu, so if you stay in the world you can’t really tell what service you’ve taken over. Seems like something that should have been sorted out when releasing a DLC which is going kick you out of the train every 20 minutes.
As I asked in the Feedback section thread, 20% off provides a very slight incentive to buy this but still a bit overpriced. Not helped that most of the YT reviews are from ambassadors like DadRail or Richy wotsisname who have received their copy free. How unbiased are their opinions, really? The 150 still doesn't sound right to me, just not that gravelly raucous roar though the 153 looks and sounds nice. The forthcoming JT 142 will add interest but still doesn't change the fact this is a very short and in places poorly made route.
I saw tsd's preview stream and he did infact point out the issues that he saw in the route and other streamers (not ambassadors) have also been quite fair on their opinions on CCN. "What's a route worth" is a very subjective thing and unfortunately this costs $55aud which is a VERY hard sale when Preston to Carlisle and the Zwolle are $60aud - for substantiality more KMs
Hoping they are listening and will extend it. I've had it a few weeks and kinda bored of it already. A bit like Cathcart, just needs a slightly longer run elsewhere.
Think I will leave it for a more substantial discount, either in the summer though more likely autumn or winter sales thus sticking to my original intentions.
Will probably be around 40% off in the Winter sale, I still don't think that would be enough for me, I'm prepared to wait for 60%+, may even wait until 80% off
Watched a couple more YT clips while on the exercise bike. I really can’t understand the commentators brushing over the 150 which still doesn’t sound quite right. To be fair, apart from needing to be a bit more throaty the 153 Dogbox looks and sounds okay but wasted on this short route. So, given the German E94 pack and the JT Class 86 etc. add ons have moved up into the 0 - 3 month category on the release schedule think they are more worthy of my Steam credit. The Frankfurt S-Bahn also looks a far better go at a network style route than Cardiff. So think I will at least hold out and see if Cardiff gets a better discount in 7 or 8 weeks time during the Steam summer sale. I would probably bite at 40% off, i.e. around the £18 mark.
