Oh of course but there is a lot going on under the hood so while a private contract does skew things (oh that word "skew", thanks USAF for that one) a bit overall again... they got a lot to worry about (which included military contracts, etc.). So it's just them needing to stop for a moment and get things re-organized so there's a seemingly better flow of things. So you have to remember that this is what I observed and the reality could be slightly different (I'm not saying I know everything, I don't) so I may be a bit off, or have a skewed opinion myself. So... I haven't been involved with ED in a couple years so it's what I left with and what I see from the posts around the internets and general feel on how they operate as well as their forum monkeys (Staff and how they relate with the public is a good way to see how things are. They're getting better as more modules come out (less projects, etc.) but overall the Third-parties just overall (Belsimtek, CTD not so much) can do better since they have roughly one project to work with. Military contracts do add to the pile but again it's task management and it does get screwy with timetables, but again.. it's a view off of old data, but I think I'm hitting it on the head though.

ED: Contracts pay the bills, DCS provides the thrills.



The Jedi Master

Only problem is, contracts also can cost a ton of money to bid/RFP for. And if they don't win them, they've spent the opportunity cost on chasing a dead end, versus moving along the retail channel.

What's really keeping ED afloat, is they don't have an competition. A sad reflection on the state of the sim genre

ED wouldn't be working on DCS if it wasn't a major source of income for them, at least IMHO. I would say that the push to release more and more modules is also a sign of this.

And yet another ED sale is now on. Am I the only one who's getting a bit worried/paranoid about this? Don't they have enough customers buying at list price?

They've been having regular sales ever since they put DCS World on Steam. This has been going on for like, two years.

Ah, OK. Haven't really followed the sales too regularly myself so that's why I was pondering.

EDIT: But this often really?

Wouldn't wonder if this really was the case. Although DCS has got to be profitable too, because they're still developing it.

Profitable, yes. But how much actual revenue? Revenue without profit is useless, profit without revenue is irrelevant.
I could sell a pen that cost me 30 cents for 5 bucks, but if I only sell 2 a month it hardly matters what my profit is. Likewise if I sell a million pens for $5 but they cost me $4.99 I'm not really going anywhere.

If ED is still making money off both, but still needs both because neither carries the whole load...



The Jedi Master

Again, very possible. The thing is, we'll never know. So it remains to be seen how far / in what direction they're willing to take this.

Given that they're still doing sales is usually indicative of sales and getting money in. As a aelf-published author I rarely do sales of my books. Reason is most of my books are 99cents and my novels are usually at the most 8.50 (the most expensive Kindle book or digital) and I have seen a lot of authors do "Sales" to garner more customers at the expense of royalties. But on the other hand it's sometimes better to do sales of modules given that realistically they're the price of most games you can get, so buying a module at 50US (Okay to be technical 49.99USD on Steam) isn't what I call a good "cost benefit analysis" in sitting there in burning money for a module. So while ED doesn't set the price for the third-party modules it's better to realize that most people just probably don't want to buy full price (where you can get more content and play with a full game which may be the same price or cheaper) because it's just a module, not the full game either. So I would think that the 49.99 strategy. I mean if I could get a reliable team to do an FC level jet I'd probably want to sell it around the 9.99 mark because that's fairly reasonable to me for an aircraft at that level of detail. As a more defined study module I'd say around 20-30USD just to be more competitive. Sure you may (or may not) get the fidelity of say, the A-10C but then again more people would be a little more inclined to buy my module simply it works out to giving a good buy for their money. So it's not so much a flawed way, but if flawed it's the pricing versus the content that is the issue in my mind.

Hello DCS Hornet Drivers,

Since we are in an undetermined holding pattern for the DCS Hornet. Here's something to help during the wait.


https://www.youtube.com/embed/wfOD2y_AD_w?feature=player_embedded


Heat2151
USN Retired'08

Actually, you'd make $10K on those Pens

And "profit" is a tricky issue here, at least for the third parties. I'll bet a lot of these devs don't really track all the time they put into a project, which is arguably the greatest cost. So I suspect the "profit" model works something like Revenue less Base operating expenses (server hosting, cost to keep lights on, licensing fees, etc), and the devs pocket the remainder.

Plus, keep in mind that with most games, the bulk of revenue is taken in when the title first launches, so with the older titles like A-10C, it's possible they've already passed the break-even point, so any sale is essentially a profit.

LOL, 32 pages and no Bug. Bet we hit 100 pages before the Bug appears, even in Beta.

I say the number hits: 125 before the hornet is released. Any one out there want to place a friendly wager on this.

and by 125 this thread will be about why cigars not made in Cuba cannot be called cigars :P

Also, CTD's Super Bug on Hold had nothing to do with ED,

Lead Developer took promotion, and put Development on hold until he gets free time (according to a FaceBook Comment)

I think we'll probably hit 100 pages before we actually get an update, never mind a release.

According...hope that's the case and he gets some free time soon.