i'm with you on that, 45$ is a lot, but mind you these people spend a lot of time

>designing the aircraft
>desiging the cockpit to look realistic
>adding special features not found on default aircraft
>going through real aircraft to figure out how to design the FS aircraft
>throwing in other ammenities
>testing it

they need to make a profit for the hard work they sell

freeware is good, but in freeware, your bound to have a lemon. payware automatically tells you that someone put in the effort to make the best aircraft out there for the FS world.

mabye if they dropped it at least 10$, i'd make wiser choices.

As big as the "virtual flying" market is........ it is still pretty small.  The "payware" market is really only a smaller subset of those that use the basic simulator.

All that programing time has to be paid for out of relatively few units of sales.  Along with the comments above....... that results in a high price per unit.

best,

..................john

GaryR,

Here in NH fs2002 was being discounted in places like CompUSA well before fs2004 came out.  And with the US ecomony currently in rough shape...... lots of things are now discounted far more than they have been in the past.

Oh..... and when I originally bought fs2004 at Circuit City not too long after its release....... it came with a $10 or $15 rebate card in the metal box.... and also a $10 Gift Card from Circuit City....... making the effective real price about what it is selling for right now.  My guess is that the average "yield rate" per unit that Microsoft designed around was about the price it is selling for now.  Kinda' like the "sticker price" on a car  .

I think that it is the very, very rare person that can afford to put in the incredible amount of time that it takes to put out sophisticated freeware anymore.... what with the cost of just "living".  Talk about "labor of love".  More power (and thanks) to them.

As much as some folks tend to complain about payware prices....... I think for the most part they are a bargain for what goes into them and how few units they likely actually sell.  Look at the price of many other types of commercial software that sell HUGE numbers of units.  In that comparison.... a good payware aircraft should cost hundreds of dollars.  None do.

Yes, I've had "bad luck" as far as quality goes with some payware........ and I've also had "bad luck" with some freeware.  Nature of the deal.  It's simple....... I don't buy again from payware companies that have poor value and poor customer service.

best,

......................john

Too bad Microsoft doesn't yet put out ads for the awesome addons such as PMDG and LDS like the ads for King Schools and Jeppesen maps. Maybe it puts to shame too much the stock FS jet planes which have been about the same since simulator 98. Or the addon developers aren't big enough to deal with MS yet.

Just my opinion, that if a plane like PMDG got bigger exposure there would be at least a doubling of its sales by people who've never heard of it. There would probably be Brady strategy books and whatnot appearing in Borders as well and exposure in the computer gaming world magazines.

Have you tried simmarket.com? There are some lower priced sceneries there. But be careful some of the products may not be more than a step above shareware. There are personal reviews(if posted) on each product displayed too.
I like Simflyers' stuff, but they're only airport sceneries so far but well done.

35 - 40 dollars is a lot! Imagine how much these payware developers make when they get customers from across the globe!

Surely there are some payware that are questionable on weather or not they are worth it, if you compare them to some higher quality freeware you can get as well (seen my share  ).  Some I have to say are probably worth the money because it really does make the sim as real as it gets.  The hobby gets a big expensive, but some of these developers turn this sim into studysims, and thats what I like to see.  Nowadays, FS prices has dropped to the bargain bin... i guess it balances out. 

In my opinion, this payware market is a bit shady in terms of being trustworthy, ya gotta watch out for customer feed back... and as JBaymore says, value and service.