We are getting ready for release and I have some things to share with all of you. Launch date will be the 2nd of April 2022. It goes without saying that if we run into major issues in the next few weeks, we might need to push the date a bit back, but I’m confident that we can wrap up development rather quickly from here on out.
What’s the plan?
The Wing42 Boeing 247D is an incredible add-on! The depth of the systems and the meticulous detail is currently hard to find on the MSFS market and if this was still the time of FSX and P3D, I would probably set a price at around 60 USD for it.
Let’s not do that, ok?
The Wing42 Boeing 247D will sell for $19.99!
My expectation is that this add-on will sell enough to keep Wing42 growing, while at the same time reaching more people than ever before.
On the other hand, I would like to point out that this is an experiment and as such I will retain the option to adjust the prices for our future products, if it turns out that the low price point is not economical in the long run.
Here are the reasons:
The Asobo’s Microsoft Flight Simulator opened the door for 3rd party developers to publish add-ons directly on the integrated marketplace. Many developers, me included, were amazed by the number of sales generated on that marketplace, where even mediocre add-ons sell thousands of times.
But for some reason, it seems that the prices for add-ons are still on the same level as they were on FSX and P3D. I think we can do better and I want to find out if I’m right!
It is always difficult to pick a price for goods and services you sell. You have to make a lot of assumptions about the number of units sold to make sure that the business can grow. But the price of a product also conveys a sense of quality – which is why an Apple or Samsung phone sells for almost double of what a comparable device goes for.
However, the flight simulator market operates very differently and it’s mostly due to the fact that the platform is still new and the market (especially for aircraft add-ons) is not even close to saturated. We end up with prices that are all over the place – you can find really decent quality add-ons at a bargain, and crappy, money-grabbing husks of add-ons for ridiculous amounts of money.
Over the past year, I gained some experience with the sale of the Wing42 Blériot XI. The Blériot can be considered a niche product in an already niche market, but I still think that the data gathered from her can be useful to deduct some information about the market.
Whether you sell 100 units for $10 or 10 units for $100 Dollars makes little difference for a digital product, but in the former case you end up with 90 more people enjoying your product and potentially showing it to their friends. The only downside is that you will have to deal with more support tickets the more units you sell.
I’m curious what you guys think, so please let me know! Meanwhile, it’ll be developer’s hell for the next two weeks for me…. Buckle up!
– Otmar