On the subject of Free-To-Play and MMOs

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles

but I imagine there are others who will say the same and I think it's important that we as fans/consumers make our preferences known.

Agreed..

And my preference is I want a 'good' flight sim..

And if I have to pay for it so be it!

On the note of what others will say..

Truth be told.. people will 'say' anything to keep flight simming free..

But truth be told..

If someone provided a 'good' online flight sim with a monthly fee..

AND there was no free alternative..

Flight simmers would buy and pay for a 'good' online flight sim with a monthly fee..

Why?

Because the truth is flight simming is a very small market relative to other gaming venues..

Hence the need to generate revenue..

As a mater of fact, that is the way it was for a long time up until about 10 years ago..

What with the likes of Air Warrior Online, Confirmed Kill (aka Warbirds) and the like..

Back in the early 90s I use to pay $12/hr to play Airwarrior Online..

Later Warbrids made that a little cheaper when they changed from an hourly charging model to a monthly charging model..

All of which were all doing quite well until a little 'free' to play online flight sim called IL-2 came out..

Which in essence killed off the online pay to play flight simming games..

Oh sure they are still around, but just a shell of what they once were!

The irony of all this is if 1C now came to realize that they have to do what the others were doing before 1C came out with IL-2..

There are good and bad aspects of charging to play the game..

One of the good things that comes from charging to play is it has a filtering effect on the people who do play..

That is to say that typically only 'serious' flight simmers are willing to pay to play..

Which in turn tends to filter out the non-serious type of flight simmers..

You know the types, the Quake first types who only take a break from Quake types of games to play flight sims

Than there are the kid-os..

You know the types..

Good news is most of the kid-os will have a hard time convincing their mama to pay for them to play!

A win win IMHO!