PC Price Increase?

New routes now costing €35.99 instead of the usual €29.99. Is that a new trend we can expect to continue, or will it be limited to TSW3 base routes?

 

Its only because they are starter packs of TSW3 and not standalone DLC's

 

Is that an assumption or do you have a source of this information?

 

Just an assumption but 100% sure that's the "new base" for DLC route pricing (because inflation and routes maybe being a bit longer)

 

Assumption

 

I think the prices will return to normal because the extra money this time went towards the training centre.

New users will probably have to buy one of the three routes in the standard bundle if they want to access the myriad DLC that will come with it - similar to how we needed the base TSW2 game to run any of its DLC.

 

Those are standalone DLC. If you buy the US starter pack, you have to pay $39.99 to buy Spirit of Steam as a DLC.

Cheers

 

Let's just wait until dtg actually says something before making assumptions

 

New add-on announced and apparently the prices are indeed going up for standalone DLCs

 

It could be Steam's new dynamic pricing if that's something they've launched now?

 

I don't see a price on the DLC on Steam - where is the price information coming from?

 

I think there is an assumption because Cross City has been billed as a starter pack, it will go on sale for £29.99. However as that includes an element of charging for the core game I sincerely hope existing owners of TSW3 will not be expected to pay that, i.e. should be the regular £24.99 with or without the 10% off for a pre-order. If they do try and push this for thirty quid then there will be a lot like me sitting on the fence who will simply dismiss it as not worth the money and wait for it to go down in a sale.

Some confirmation from DTG as to their intentions would be appreciated.

 

I really just dont see the logic in offering BCC as a starter pack at £29.99

Imagine you are new to the game and never picked up a train sim (or atleast TSW) before, which is going to give you the greater variety and value for money? SHES - a route with 4 trains included, a mix of commuter, high speed and freight or BCC - a commuter route with 1 perhaps 2 trains and at best commuter runs and freight, at worst just commuter.

Atleast if BCC starter pack was £24.99 then DTG might entice some more sales for those who felt £29.99 was too big a risk for a style of sim they'd never tried before. The downside of offering it at £24.99 as a starter pack is of course some elements of the existing community would feel that as a DLC it should be cheaper for them.

 

Because routes aren’t all about how much of what is included?

Maybe someone will pick up TSW with BCC because that’s a route they want to play?

Sure, 3 trains and 90 miles of track seems like better value if you just look at the raw content, but is it really better value to somebody who has no interest in that route?

The pricing is static for a reason, it balances stuff out, if we had truly dynamic pricing then stuff like KWG would be more expensive for a route that doesn’t offer much in the way of exciting gameplay.

36 miles, 25 stations & a whole new train set certainly isn’t a ‘cheap’ route.

 

Starter sets have always seemed to me to be almost loss leaders - offer fantastic varied game play and hopefully hook newbies in, so they want to buy the more limited (but IMO still overall excellent routes) game play routes such as Cathcart, Harlem & BCC.
To me at least based on what we know, BCC just doesnt feel like a starter set.

 

Right - I already have the base game, so only interested in BCC as DLC only. I guess we'll find out soon enough, maybe in the Road Map stream tomorrow?

 

Steam/Valve have recently updated their Global Pricing Guide for Developers. Developers are free to set there own pricing but some may choose to use the guide to better reflect how inflation is offsetting profits/costs.
https://steamdb.info/blog/valve-price-matrix-2022-update/

 

I don’t know what all the confusion is about. The price of DLC has gone up. Forget about things being available as starter packs as that changes nothing about the standalone price. The price of route DLC has increased.

A quote from a news article about BCC coming to TSW3…
Birmingham’s Cross City Line will be available to pre-order from November 8th on Steam and will be released on November 15th for £29.99

 

The DLCs separately cost £30 without training centre.

 

Where did you read that? I must have missed it. Personally I've no issue paying 30 notes for a route I wanted on day 1. Although it may mean Im more selective over my purchasing - although in reality with next years month long rail adventure to plan and book coupled with the increase in living expenses, I'd probably be more selective even at the old price.

 

I saw that in an article in RailAdvent online. It comes up in my Google news feed if there is something about TSW in it. They must have got the info from DTG. It also says that the RHTT train can be used on the route but nothing much else of interest.

 

Actually, I never understood why TSW routes were cheaper than TSC routes.

Console players may not be aware that TSC routes have been $39.99 for as long as I can remember.

So, if TSW routes are to be priced at, say, $34.99, it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

How people actually value the dlc is, of course, a different discussion.

 

For the three packs I think that might be true, although it does kind of beg the question of how they were expecting to make money with Rush Hour if that were the case. But the TSW3 starter packs I'm more inclined to doubt that, one route at $10 over the old standard I'd reckon probably is making them some money for them, even with the increase in length.

Actually if you check Long Island & Huddersfield in TSC you'll actually notice they've actually launched at TSW's pricing standard. So funnily enough they might've swapped pricing standards.

 

I mean, everything is going up, inflation is up the wazzoo, the $ is flying, meaning the £ isn't doing so great, so it's hardly a surprise that things like DLC might follow the same trend.

 

Well if this is correct and there is no pre order discount then BCC can quite happily wait for the sale basket.

 

I guess with inflation and prices going up for pretty much anything, it shouldn't come as a surprise that DLC would also get more expensive. Lets not forget the price tag of a TSC/TSW DLC has stayed pretty much the same for over a decade.

But it'd be nice if DTG actually came with a statement, rather than us doing speculation with the bits of information we have. DTG JD anything you can do to clarify things?

 

Hopefully they will address it in the Roadmap stream tonight.

 

That's me out until a sale comes along. Unless the roadmap stream tells us more info than we're currently aware of, I don't see much value for money in BCC.

 

This is why there should maybe be more selective pricing. A long route with 2 or 3 new loco/trains should go for more than a one trick pony like BCC which is a shorter route with one new train and possibly a recycled 66.

 

Yep, expensive business this. I bought three routes in the latest PS sale for £36 total and other than the standard TSW3 release package and SoS all the routes I have bought in the last year were bought in sales. It’s the best way to get value for money. If I was only buying a small number of routes instead of getting as many as I can for the sheer variety then £30 would be fine but I certainly can’t afford to buy every route at that price. Even buying mainly in sales I’ve spent a huge amount on TSW.

 

Put it this way, for £30 it (BCC) has to be spot on, not plagued with bugs and problems like many previous releases. That in particular refers to sounds on the 323 and I will be watching closely for the early adopter feedback in this respect and any other issues that crop up such as scenarios or Journey mode runs that cannot be completed.

 

How long until DTG look at some sort of Season Pass type deal where you pay x amount and that guarantees you to 6 routes per year (for example)?

 

That would be approx. 150 GBP.

With the inflation, I understand the price hike... but at the same time, the cost of everything goes up while salary doesn't = less money to spend.

 

From my point of view, I’d never buy it. You would never know what routes you’d get or what the quality level is.

I got stung with the Rush Hour Season Ticket. In my opinion Boston sprinter is still in a poor state. I just won’t take the risk again.

 

I love how you guys are all just realising this now. I posted about this back in September: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/dlc-price-increase.58634/

 

I wouldn't mind a higher price if the route contains more than one loco.

Personal dislike is for routes with just the one loco.
The lack of variety gets boring real fast.

 

I think we have all somehow been persuaded that one new loco per new route is acceptable. It's not.

 

I’d pay that much for bigger routes, sure. BCC? Not worth £30.

 

Personally I accepted the one new loco per route as a way to avoid a cost increase, and overall I’d say we’ve seen a big improvement on new rolling stock now that only one train is coming with a route.

The issue for me is that loco DLC’s have nosedived & now it feels like we’re lucky when we see a new loco or MU.

 

I'd be happy with one new loco per route but I do expect another existing loco to be included for extra gameplay. And by that I don't mean a dostro, a class 66 or SD40 everytime.

 

If I'm making a comparison between BCC and SEHS(X) there is a huge difference in the value of playing and the content you get. So asking the same price for both, this seems like it's not a good deal at all for BCC. Of course, SEHS extension is a reworked one bit still, the original one contained more than the new BCC Route with presumably only one new train. Remembering NTP ? We've got a class 45,47 and the 101 for that plus new passenger Wagons.

I'm really curious to see where the prices go for TSW add ons, sure there is inflation, but that means i as an player also got less to spent on games. DTG should really be careful with this as it could mean the number of day one / full price purchases could drop significantly.

Another example which i thought was a good pricing was the new Island Line by rivet, a reworked Route (with actually a lot of new stuff and scenery) and a completely new train with the pricing somewhere between a loco and a route dlc. That was very reasonable and could be an inspiration for DTG. Long Route with a lot of stuff : higher price and smaller one with maybe one new train at a lower level.

Let's see what they can tell us in the next steam.

 

This topic was created early September as well, but then everyone assumed the higher price tag was because of the 'starter packs' of the 3 default routes. Since we now get the first TSW3 route DLC having the same price tag, it made people wonder if this is the new standard, and the topic is relevant again.

 

QED.

 

sorry but for what we are getting with TSW at this pint we should be paying less because each release has got so bad over the past year we want all timetable services to be checked before release i for one would like to start seeing a beta stage like full release for dlc's before full release to the long time hardcore players so we can check for more bugs so we can start seeing a pure clean release not the dirt that has been dish over the past year also u guys had the chance to add unreal 5 but failed on that look at the bus its in beta and has it and now is so clean

 

So, you'd consider the new route to be of more value than, for exampe, Nothern Trans Pennine? I guess that means it either includes more content or more features. Do I understand that correctly?

So, this new price tag is in no way a new standard, and the next DLC might as well be at or below the usual price tag?

Does that mean we can expect the average price of DLC to go up?

 

Does your work pay you less if you get things wrong?
When you get a pay rise does your work say they want more out of you?
They don't, I know some people like to think that their hobbies are in some kind of fantasy land where the realities of day to day life don't affect it, and everything is candy floss trees and chocolate streams, but it's not, these people have lives and families like everyone does, you're literally asking them to do more for less.

I bet if DTG did a fiscal breakdown of the cost of them making a route and presented it to the forum, you'd be horrified at how expensive it is.

 

So they dodged the question in last night's stream, and said it would become clear once the DLC is available for pre-order (which I think they said was next Tuesday). There will be a full route preview in next Thursday's stream.

I'm guessing if it was good news (ie DLC pricing unchanged) it would have been a quick, easy win to tell us right away. But they've gone to quite a lot of trouble to go into detail on the route's authenticity and the hard work of Daisy and friends - so in light of this, I'd manage expectations that this route is probably at the higher price point.

To be fair, I can understand the change given the local (UK) and global issues at the moment, and with the detail and effort that seems to have gone into the route to get the accuracy high I'm more inclined to support the change - hopefully the article with details on the layers we can expect will be out soon, since that would offset a little bit the single loco issue.

 

Disagree on this route quality of all 3 TSW3 routes is up with the best, in real terms we have been paying less and less each year with TSW2, its overdue a correction and price increase.

Its been said many times over that UE5 isnt the magic bullet many think it is.

 

I don't know why it can't be openly stated exactly how much it will be. It wouldn't make things worse, I think, so it's much worse that everyone is guessing.