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  • Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.

    Post 16 Update

    Post 17 Warning

Payware sales/Donationware profits

S

Skittles

Banned
Hi there.

I was wondering if any payware/donationware developers could give me any insight into the sales they expect from a product? In terms of volume. I realise that different products have vastly different sales figures, but it will just help me get an idea of what happens when you release a product. I'm particularly interested in aircraft rather than scenery.

I'm considering making my first payware/donationware project (more than likely donationware, as frankly on my own I think I'd be extremely time limited in the amount of support I could provide for a payware product. At least with donationware you can see if it works first.)

It would take a good long while and frankly unless there is SOME degree of financial return it would be incredibly difficult for me to go ahead with the project.

I would make an aircraft, not scenery.

Thanks for your help.
 
Francois said:
How many aircraft have you made so far ???
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Complete? None. I've done several models, and have messed about enough with gauges and sounds, FDE's etc that I believe I can put together a good, simple aircraft. I wouldn't be making the next PDMG competitor, that's for sure. When I say simple aircraft I don't mean non-clickable, I just mean not complex.

If it WAS payware (which unless I staggered myself with the project, it wouldn't be), the price would represent my level of inexperience in completing entire aircraft. Something in the region of $10 perhaps.

This is by no means a commitment to making something, it just might make the differerence between churning out an acceptable freeware model, or working really really hard on a donationware aircraft.
 
That's what I was assuming, but wanted to make sure.

The proper answer I think is: just do it and forget about the money. You won't get rich, and chances are you won't even sell ANY past 10 or 12. This is a really tough market and it is not getting better currently.

But if you're good, and are able to do it all on your own (most aircraft designers don't, by the way), and people start liking what you made, you might get in on it at some point. Maybe even start selling past 150 or so on your 3rd or 4th model.. all depending on what you make and how well you make it.

If you only want to do it IF you have some certainty of making money with it, then better pass and find a more secure industry :)
 
It really depends. In this type of economy you really need to make an aircraft that people actually will want (which excludes a lot of obscure aircraft that otherwise would have been taken a chance on). It is really about trying to make sure people get the best deal for their $$, and making sure that they feel they have a good return on their investment. I think firstly you would have to think about what aircraft you would want to do, and then evaluate whether there is a want for that aircraft or not. I personally donate my time to Milviz promoting products and assisting in research and stuff because I want to advance the hobby. So I am not privy to the sales info and such nor do I think it would be good to disclose it anyway. I think a lot of other dev's will probably not want to disclose either. To me it comes down to whether this is what you enjoy or not, because until you are done with the A/C you never know what the community reaction will be. Just always have to hope you did a good job, and that it is a positive one.
 
You can work really hard on freeware as well. Just take your all-time favourite that didn't get a proper MSFS representation so far and work away.

Or pull a Lionheart. Do a few freeware models before moving on to payware. Or make all of your models donationware.

But don't start with payware. The risk of disappointment is too high.

Also, really pick an aircraft you've got an emotional, irrational attachment to.
If it wasn't for some fond memories I wouldn't be in my third year of making the Do-328.
 
Well the question about sales figures (the title in fact) wasn't in order to establish a benchmark, it was just out of curiousity, and to see whether there would be any room for a little donationware developer pushing out an aircraft every 6 months. I was never intending payware though, that really was just curiousity.

Don't worry, I'm not naive, I realise that it's a tough market and for a complete newcomer it's even harder. Whilst I am confident that I could build a good aircraft, it would take me a horrendously long time. I would be far more interested in some kind of collaborative effort, with one person modelling, the other person doing the flight dynamics, a paintkit release for the talented repaint artists on here etc. Obviously there are problems with communication and integration but there's nothing that couldn't be overcome. I love modelling and texturing, positively hate flight dynamics and gauges!

The other problem, as you rightly suggest, is that you've got to make something relatively new! What single engine pistons are there/basic jets which havn't been done to a high standard already!?
 
The subject of your model will always remain a 'hit and miss'. Amazingly the stuff that still sells are the airliners... even if there are a ton of them... sort of.

Personally I chose to focus on things I have a passion for in some way or other.... and just take my chances on the financial outcome. Of course, one cannot do that indefinitely.... it is a weird 'business model'.
 
Skittles said:
Such as!?

And I don't mean obscure little Avro's from the 1930's!
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Take your pick FSX is not saturated with freeware or payware at this moment. Its a developers dream.

Look just a few threads below and you will see one on the PA22. That would be a real good start. No one has done it in native FSX.

and you better get started or Piglet will have them all done. :icon_lol:
 
I'm usually the first to complain about yet another model of this or that airplane, but the bottom line is, dont worry about the airplane. Do what you love to do. Do the aircraft that attract you to them for whatever reason, and dont let anything keep you from doing it. If you want to sell aircraft, then go for it but thicken your skin up first because your gonna fall down a few times and its gonna hurt. Irregardless of what anyone says, take confidence in yourself and your abilities. Being a student at Miramar takes less confidence than here. i'll tell ya that straight out. This is a tough neighborhood. Fortunately it has some really fantastic people in it..
 
Timing is everything -
SkyUnlimited came out with their FS9 Texan/Harvard package several months after AlphaSim had released their models. The market had been pretty much satisfied by the time SU came along with theirs/ours. AlphaSim sales were like a flood, SU was more like a trickle. Things went better when we started coming out with the FSX version of the planes. They weren't port overs and took a bit of time to get FSX ready. When I was working on the second FSX volume I was keenly aware that sooner or later Warwick Carter would be finishing his T-6. I felt that the best way to compete would be to offer the buyer a whole lot more than just models of the planes. That's why I spent the extra time making ships, jeeps, howitzers and special effects locaters to go along with the planes, plus the ability to easily turn on and off different options. Sales were good for the first couple of weeks. Then Warwick's T-6 came out. Last time I looked, his model had well over 4000 downloads. It definitely had an impact on our sales, but how can I be mad at Warwick? He personally helped me in many ways getting our own planes ready. So much so that we included him in our credits.

Now we're facing a new kind of competiton - our own success. Judging by the many positive comments about the USS Monterey and the SNJ with a tail hook, there are a lot of folks interested in these models. But because of the success of the PCAviator Deal of the Day - a lot of folks are waiting for our product to go on sale. Great for them but a bit hard on us. But that's business.

You will have one advantage over us old timers if you should decide to start to develop a new plane. You won't have to keep looking over your shoulder, waiting for Microsoft to come out with the next version of MSFS. You also have available a vast amount of experience from other developers on at least two other websites to help you when you get stuck. One last bit of advice - if you should go visit some websites looking for advice on how to do something that isn't documented at all and the website being visited specializes in freeware, don't breathe a word that you are working on a payware or even donationware project. Not all freeware developers hate payware developers - but there are enough of them that do to make any open discussion at their forums very difficult.
 
Make whatever YOU feel like making. There's no point in me telling you to make a Tornado GR4, or someone else telling you to make a Piper Pawnee, if you've got no interest in said aircraft from the off. Why not draw up a list of aircraft you'd be interested in making, and have people vote for the one they'd prefer?
 
Think about specializing: not as a way to make money, but as a way to keep the hours down so that you don't have to justify them with money. For example, if what you really want to do is make exterior models for use as AI traffic, you can do that. You won't make money that way, but you can have fun and make friends. Ditto if you want to do sound.
 
Tweek said:
Why not draw up a list of aircraft you'd be interested in making, and have people vote for the one they'd prefer?
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Not a bad idea.:) Iirc there was a thread in this forum with a wish list for FSX aircraft. I'd like to see something from the former Soviet states eg. MiG-23/27, Su-17/22 etc.
 
Here's some figures for the Tiger Moth:

Downloads: somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 counting the numbers from aussiex, avsim, flightsim and simviation.

Donations recd: 39 averaging about $15 each with the range from $5 to $45. Most common amount would be $10 (a fair price I'd say).

Time taken: 3 months, maybe 2 or 3 hours a day.
 
Before going into payware, I suggest getting your hands dirty with doing freeware, dealing with building these, launching them, working with the public (complaints, handling of bugs, how to diagnose issues on peoples computers, walking them through installing when they cant do it themselves, etc).

Customer interaction is job 1 in payware. You are a 'humble servant', a service provider, and the people are your boss.

So, if you start in freeware, you can do anything you want, and learn, and no one yells at you for things not working, bugs, etc. You get to learn how the market interests work and think, you meet all the guys at sim forums and the big wigs of the industry, etc.

Then....... after say 3 payware, you will see where you stand with 'wanting to do payware' or not..

Successful planes will do well, but are sometimes far and few between. The work that goes into a nice payware with extreme graphics and all is immense. But it can pay off.. (sometimes). I have launched really big projects thinking it would be awesome, and they flopped big time, lol.. I lived and learned.

Another rule of thumb, dont put all your eggs in one basket. ;)



Bill
 
X_eidos2 said:
Timing is everything -
. Then Warwick's T-6 came out. Last time I looked, his model had well over 4000 downloads. It definitely had an impact on our sales, but how can I be mad at Warwick? He personally helped me in many ways getting our own planes ready. So much so that we included him in our credits.
Click to expand...
LOL 13000+ downloads....... 3 emails saying thanks,6 emails saying what a load of *** and why didnt you do this or that.... 0 donations,Id bet you prob 80% of the ppl that download the texan deleted it :D

Na the flightsim user base is dwindling and expectations are way to high,unless you have a fan base your not going to make much more than chump change, for all the dramas involved freeware is the best bang for buck for the hobbiest...

When I started the general rule or understanding was a few freeware projects to show what you can do and build a fan base,then move over to payware. That said these days quite a few go straight to payware a few have released one project and disappeared,others have come back for more and made some upgrade $$$$ but none are on par with what Msoft made on the orig sim :D
 
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