Train Sim World® 3: Birmingham Cross-city Line: Lichfield - Bromsgrove & Redditch Route Add-on

Hi,
I have just a question for futur add-on on steam:
- why such a price increase ?
- why is the dlc the same price as the pack?

Great ty for your response.

 

DTG tight lipped on why. One can assume inflationary pressures, staff/research costs etc.

However no denying it is a significant hike which many of us (myself included) are not prepared to pay, especially for such a short route with just one new train.

There is equal incredulity at why the Starter Pack is priced the same as just the DLC and indeed why there is no preorder discount.

Vote with your wallet and/or wait for a sale (assuming this new side of DTG includes their products in them anymore).

 

Because DTG wants more money.
Thank you.
Have a nice day

 

Yes, correct, but remember they are hiring new staff, and that cost money, along with the high inflation everyone is experiencing these days. An operation like DTG using a lot of electricity and, I bet, the price for it is going up in the UK just like it is here in the US. Computers cost more, expendable supplies cost more, it is just what we are currently living with and, I like most don't like it, but if we want to have games like TWS3, we have to live with it.

 

I have all the TSW3 DLCs because I love this license, but the price will be without me. Let's not forget that in the price of the game there is debugging included, except we are far from all that. In addition, pay more for a short DLC than some games... The price was already high at the base but okay, but the price is the same for such small content, it's a shame for DTG if it maintains these prices.

 

I always bought the game or the dlc I wanted with keys or on sale so actually the price increase is of for me but a lot of people buy day one so I can understand.
I prefer buying on sale, there are reviews, there are fixes and it's cheaper

 

I decided long ago that I would no longer purchase any preorders for any games after being disappointed and feeling exploited too many times by too many companies (especially looking at you "Frontier")
It's heaps smarter IMO to wait until the dust settles, avoid launch day headaches and wait and see what people are saying about the product. If it is reviewed well, I will usually wait until it is discounted. I have lots of games I can play in the meantime.
I see that many folks are trying to justify and excuse DG's pricing for this exp and all I can say is Seriously?
I don't begrudge any company from making a good profit but charging what is basically almost the price of a full release AAA title for a small, limited expansion is a little insulting,

 

50% increase in the price of DLC there would not be a bit of abuse on steam? Epic Games has lower prices but of course impossible to import

 

Inflation in the UK is ~10% at the moment, which is the highest it’s been for a long long time (40 years?). It is expected to start falling in the new year with an ordinary target of 2%. Conversely, the percentage increase in TSW DLC pricing (from £24.99 to £30) is 20%.

I asked not much over a year ago if DTG might consider increasing their DLC price to afford themselves more development time and therefore improve quality. We were told unequivocally that increasing the price would not lead to an improvement in either, and prices would be staying as they were.

So inflation temporarily at 10% with a stated target of 2% but DLC up permanently by 20%. I don’t have an issue with the price having gone up a bit, but double the highest inflation in the last 40 years? Inflation remember that is temporary and 5 times higher than the BoE’s target.

DTG can charge what they like, but it’s up to us whether or not we’re prepared to pay it. If the quality and scope of the DLC doesn’t improve concurrently then I think 20% is too much.

 

For me it's not a question of inflation, 50% increase is robbery, even if I suspect steam to still inflate the note on top because the other platforms only increased by 35- 40%. The prices not being the same everywhere is absolutely not normal

 

Add-ons have been £24.99 since the first release of TSW, so it's a 20% increase since 2018, which is equivalent to ~4.5% pa.

 

Erm, we aren't talking about just one year's inflation; TSW pricing has been static for five years. The aggregate UK inflation since 2017 is 22%, which means that 24.99 2017 pounds is equal to £30.51 today. So £29.99 is just about spot-on.

 

I think a modest price increase every couple of years since TSW was launched would have been more palatable than the sudden 33% increase in the US price all at once and pretty much unannounced.

A couple of dollars a year wouldn't have ruffled my feathers.

 

So let me get this straight in my head, you would rather have seen a $2-$3 increase every year over the last 4 years then no price increase for 3 years and then a $10 increase in the 4th year? Even though you'd have been paying more for the last 4 years? And now be paying roughly the same?

Way I see it is that year on year Ive been paying less in real terms for a DLC and now Im paying roughly the same (if not less) then had the prices increased year on year.

 

I may be stupid, but I am going to give DTG the benefit of the doubt on this one and say that it is a mistake. It is the same price as the expansion + main game, and more than the full game by itself. It has been out for less than 24 hours and they are probably trying to work with the sales partners to get the price fixed and how to deal with customers that have already bought it at the higher price. I think within the next 24 hours it will be pulled/fixed and we will get a message from them.

 

Yes, because that's how consumer prices generally trend., and people are used to small price rises from time to time.

It actually doesn't matter that much to me, I'm not exactly short of a few bucks. But it clearly matters to a lot of people who may have a hard time finding that much extra money in an economic downturn or feel that it's too much sticker shock all at once.

 

I'd bet that extra fiver that you're wrong on all counts. It's in DTG's interest to get you moved up to TSW3, so giving you the base package/Training Centre for 'free' while securing a full-price DLC sale at the new standard pricing, is good business.

 

Remember that inflation is compounded. I presume you mean that the excessive inflation is temporary rather than inflation being temporary? Because it has been quite a long time since there was no inflation in the UK (I think it dipped below 0% in 2015 and the last time before that was 1960). So each year that DTG isn't increasing the price of DLC they are earning less and less due to inflation. You can't just look at this year and conclude that they are ripping you off or whatever. If they didn't change the price since 2010 (made up example, I don't actually know when they changed the price the last time) then they should increase it by 40%! not 10 or 20%.

 

A modest price increase each year is beneficial to DTG, and detrimental to you (as long as the price increase just brings it up to inflation adjusted level). Be careful what you wish for

 

why not upgrade the old train simulator classic to dx 11/12
then we have the best and longest routes and customers are happy as hell
and if it would become real then we can also talk about the price increase which i would accept

 

All,

I’m basing my point on the fact that in response to my poll/question of roughly 18 months ago requesting a price rise for a concurrent improvement in quality, we were told in no uncertain terms that not only would a price rise not lead to that, but it was totally unnecessary and prices were perfectly fine as they were.

People have been saying that this rise is because of inflation. If prices were just fine 12-18 months ago then it follows that any inflation we’re talking about is what has occurred since then.

I have no issue with DTG rising the price, I asked for them to do so. It is up to us though to decide if the quality of their DLC warrants £30 a go. Plenty that they have released previously simply does not.

ps We’re not just talking about TSW here either. TSW DLC pricing has mirrored what DTG charged for TSC too, and that goes back over a decade. They can’t have it both ways, if they’ve been undercharging for TSW content that means we were being royally ripped off for what came before. Economies of scale plays a part here too remember. With console sales in addition to PC DTG will reap much more profit per DLC/amount of Dev time than they did before. That should have given them much more headroom when it comes to pricing.

 

The quality of DTG content/DLC needs a big increase to justify the new price. Otherwise these new DLCs ar something for at least a 50% sale.

I say this because very few DLCs in the past had the quality and content to justify their price to begin with.

Up until now I see no quality increase, its the same old story and many long standing issues (performance and stuttering and sound bugs) are still not fixed

 

Quite a lot has happened in British economics in the last 18 months. If you've not been following, it's a fricking shambles, even without Russia.

I'm pretty pleased with BCC for £30, yeah. If people don't think it's worth it, they should wait for a sale; that's what I've done with most of the routes that have gone before. I certainly wouldn't have paid full price for Cajon, or any of the recent German routes, nor do I feel the need to whale every item they release. My local route, built to this standard is – for me – easily worth the asking price.

These things are all relative. TSW is still very much a niche project with a tiny playerbase compared to many other (less dev-intensive) titles and there's a dev cost associated with maintaining it across several platforms. It's also fairly clear that quite a bit more detail and development resource has been lavished on the TSW version of the Cross City route than its TSC counterpart. People are quick to judge based on X miles of track and Y trains, but there's a staggering amount of detail in that route.

 

I have to go with this. BCC for the most part is nice and I won't refund, but it is not £30 worth of nice. The bug list thread is growing and the route has suffered from the same issues as all other titles, rushed to release in a somewhat unfinished state. The poor scenery on the Redditch branch, lack of lineside fencing. And as we touched on in the bug thread but I didn't want to clutter it with more general criticism, what the balludy heck have the beta testers been doing. Some of the issues like incorrect train length on the PIS were apparent on my first drive. Either they really are just a bunch of kids who want to get their hands on the software free and too frightened to speak up, or giving the benefit of the doubt they report the issues but DTG stonewall and ignore unless downright game breaking. I do suspect the latter.

For £30 they need to be doing much better, route already borderline with the short length and one new train but that should be offset by making sure the presentation is tip top. I will certainly have second thoughts about handing over that sort of sum on Day 1 for any other new release. As regards the beta testing, well maybe it's time DTG moved to an early access arrangement with the content, for a slight reduction in the price, let people who actually care about the game and have an eye for attention to detail, go through and find what needs fixing.

 

Found BCC in a couple of the usual places last night discounted to £24.99. Make of that what you will.

 

It would need a 60% discount for me to consider purchasing it, just the same old buggy released DLC. If they can't be bothered putting the effort in, I can't be bothered paying full price