Is N3V Yearly Subcription Killing Off Sales ?

Say a kid asks his parents for the TS19 Game

The every year subscription costs between $100, and $150 per year ... and after 365 days the game shuts off, and you can no longer play it unless you pay another $100, and $150 per year, each and every year ...

The parents find that the household laptop PC will not run Trainz (but it does run every other PC game on Steam)
Requiring them to purchase a brand new $2000 Windows laptop PC (not an Apple MAC laptop)

It seems that N3V is shooting them selves in the foot, killing off sales ... as most parents would say to the child: "What ? $2,150" ... "You have to be completely outa' your cottin' pickin' mind if you expect us to buy a $2,000 Windows laptop PC, and spend $150 on a yearly subscription, each and every year, on a 365 day basis ... just to run a stupid Train down a track"

To most parents, that is like Microsoft saying: "Your PC will shut down after 365 days, until you pay for a brand new 365 day $150 yearly subscription, each and every year".

You can try to justify the $150 yearly cost of the subscription all you want, by saying a Model RR layout would cost you thousands per year ... and that you get hundreds of dollars of DLC for a fraction of the original cost ...

But it all boils down to the plain and simple fact: That you previously could buy a legacy Trainz game for $20 to $70, and it would run forever, and it would never automatically shut down after the 365 days expire

It just seems that N3V is self eliminating a HUGE chunk of the potential marketplace ... as 99% of people would say: "What ? $2,150" ... "You have to be completely outa' your cottin' pickin' mind if you expect us to buy a $2,000 Windows laptop PC, and spend $150 on a yearly subscription, each and every year, on a 365 day basis ... just to run a stupid Train down a track"

The purchase option is still there. It's only if you want to use all the DLC assets that the subscription model comes into its own.

Cheerio John

[h=3]OPTION 3[/h] [h=3]Purchase TRS19 the traditional way...[/h] The Trainz Store will continue operating just as it has in the past where you can purchase Trainz products including TANE, TRS19, DLC content and First Class Tickets.

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Self explanatory.

Or, say a kid says "hey this game costs $70 to buy, but I can get it for a month for $15 and get an extra $300 of DLC items to enjoy, and I can buy stuf from the store using my 25% discount code, and I get a free FCT, and first look at new DLC items, and each quarter I get to play with a ll the new stuff they're working on, and I can cancel at any time, so for $15 I may as well enjoy the game over the scholl holidays."

(This kid likes long sentences).

And....

Parents think nothing of doling out $100s for an iPhone that the kid will drop in the toilet, or get mad at their friends while chatting and smash on the floor. It's all about perspective. At $15.00 per month, or a bit less, it's a good deal. Heck even a dozen donuts costs about $14.95 here now, and that's not an everlasting treat. That really pains me and was quite a shock because a dozen donuts used to be $1.75 so many years ago.

Subscriptions are everywhere. You can no longer turn on the TV and just watch the news. You need to spend at the minimum of $40 per month for that luxury which used to be free and still get advertisements to boot. If you want the internets, well that's another $140 on top of that plus all the other subscriptions and costs for movies, channels, VOIP phones, the Sports channels, pay per view at $40 and up mind you, and so on.

The good news with the $15 per month N3V has the revenue stream coming in to support development and growth rather than sitting and waiting for the next big sale. There's probably a lot more to this than this simple sentence, but this is the gist of it.

i prefer the subscription and always bought the game, this time around i just did the gold subscription. it's more worth it to me, happy holidays.

You can try to justify it all the time, with a million excuses ... But the plain and simple fact is that: N3V is self eliminating a HUGE chunk of the potential marketplace ... as 99% of people would say: "What ? $2,150" ... "You have to be completely outa' your cottin' pickin' mind if you expect us to buy a $2,000 Windows laptop PC, and spend $150 on a yearly subscription, each and every year, on a 365 day rotating basis ... just to run a stupid Train down a track"

And if you "turn 99% of the potential customers completely off" of even considering buying Trainz ... N3V is losing a HUGE market of potential sales, buy making TS19 a yearly subscription based game

Sorry Cascade, but you seem to be making an assumption that the subscription is the only option - it's not. The only thing N3V could do though is having the one-off purchase a bit more prominent rather than option 3.

The $70 option is still available and that's a one-off purchase (until N3V release a brand new version I'd say).

Shane

The subscription, whatever colour, is not for everyone. I don't have a TRS19 subscription but I still have TRS19 - bought outright for $70 (or the local currency equivalent).

Only N3V could tell you with any accuracy how the figures, subscription vs outright purchases, are going but I would suspect that all the "extras" that come with the subscription would convince a lot of people to go that way. All the comments from subscribers that I have seen in these forums certainly indicate that those posters are happy with their choice. One poster has even switched back and forth between gold and silver a couple of times but has not dropped the subscription.

In my case I already have a lifetime FCT and I don't have much DLC so the advantages of the subscription did not appeal to me. But each to their own and we do have the choice.

Tony_Hilliam said:

Or, say a kid says "hey this game costs $70 to buy, but I can get it for a month for $15 and get an extra $300 of DLC items to enjoy, and I can buy stuf from the store using my 25% discount code, and I get a free FCT, and first look at new DLC items, and each quarter I get to play with a ll the new stuff they're working on, and I can cancel at any time, so for $15 I may as well enjoy the game over the scholl holidays."

(This kid likes long sentences).

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OK now what about having a low impact layout as one of the offerings so they can get a feel for TS19 without the $2,000 machine? Middleton for laptops is one example but another layout could be done. US stock is larger so you need fewer items and the layouts on Android are also geared up to lower end machines.

Cheerio John

We're working on a new mobile version - then they can buy Trainz for a few bucks.

most games/sims are going that way with a subscription, at least we the option for a subscription or one time buy with trainz. I went for the one time buy, better for me.

But, offering a subscription opens the door for people to try it at a lower price point, if they liked it and want to keep paying monthly/yearly or just buy it, they have that option.

without the subscription you don't get the free content or FCT from the membership, this thread was useless.

Some ships and narrow boats run quite well on lower end machines, the invisible track is light on poly counts and not having animated wheels helps as well.

Cheerio John

cascaderailroad said:

You can try to justify it all the time, with a million excuses ... But the plain and simple fact is that: N3V is self eliminating a HUGE chunk of the potential marketplace ... as 99% of people would say: "What ? $2,150" ... "You have to be completely outa' your cottin' pickin' mind if you expect us to buy a $2,000 Windows laptop PC, and spend $150 on a yearly subscription, each and every year, on a 365 day rotating basis ... just to run a stupid Train down a track"

And if you "turn 99% of the potential customers completely off" of even considering buying Trainz ... N3V is losing a HUGE market of potential sales, buy making TS19 a yearly subscription based game

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This is hilarious - did you do a poll of every potential buyer and determine that they would all need to buy a $2150 computer?

A bit of over reaction there I think.

From everything I've read, N3V has far exceeded expected sales, so obviously they aren't too worried about it.

cascaderailroad said:

You can try to justify it all the time, with a million excuses ... But the plain and simple fact is that: N3V is self eliminating a HUGE chunk of the potential marketplace ... as 99% of people would say: "What ? $2,150" ... "You have to be completely outa' your cottin' pickin' mind if you expect us to buy a $2,000 Windows laptop PC, and spend $150 on a yearly subscription, each and every year, on a 365 day rotating basis ... just to run a stupid Train down a track"

And if you "turn 99% of the potential customers completely off" of even considering buying Trainz ... N3V is losing a HUGE market of potential sales, buy making TS19 a yearly subscription based game

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.

The fact is you can purchase TRS19 for $70. Period, end of sentence. Some people, myself included, bought the subscription to enjoy some extra content and to help support N3V for the long term.
Its your choice plain and simple. Either purchase option will bring the same level of support and upgrade path to future upgrade builds of this version. The fact is regardless of the purchase option you can enjoy a great update to the Trainz franchise.

As stated I don’t understand the issue. Having both as options is a smart move, as someone who spends most time creating content wouldn’t care about all the new DLC. But would want a base install of the game. The $70 one-time is logical. If someone loves playing with each and every new route that’s uploaded, DLC or DLS, the $15/mo option is best.

Tony_Hilliam said:

We're working on a new mobile version....

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Along with TANE SP3 HF1 I strongly believe...

What in the world are you smoking?

First off, you jump to A) That everyone on here is a child and that's where you just fail and fall face first into LOL territory.

The avg age on this forum, is easily 40+. When I was at the NMRA East Coast region convention in Oct, I was the youngest man there by 20~ years easily. I'm pushing closer to 30 now than my 20s. This forum easily is avg ~40. By the way they post, their sigs, and sometimes exposing too much info like older folks sometimes do in a forum...

Secondly, who spends 2,000$ on a laptop, and who spends 2,000 on a gaming laptop...

Your post quite literally, comes off as a manic episode of some degree. It makes no clear sense, and your rant really goes no where. I'm still not quite sure what you mad at, that the $15 a month is there? Or that after a year your stuff goes bye bye if not active? $70? I can't tell what you mad at.

If you think people won't buy a monthly sub, than um, I got news for you... Millions of people have been paying $15 a month to World of Warcraft since 2004. Me. since 2008. Subscription services are the new thing in the world of iOT devices. Amazon, Food delivery, games, music apps, TV channels, netflix, hulu, etc etc etc N3V just jumped on board. To be honest I thought was dumb at first for $15 a month, but I already have $30-40 routes that I wouldn't have bought alone, thanks to the Vault. $70 is a pill to swallow, yes I agree. But $15 a month, or even $15 to try for 1 month to decide, is not bad. Having a jerb helps. Skip that Starbucks for 2 days, there, ya paid for Trainz.

Most adult parents assume that anything over $20 for a gift is highly expensive ... were you born rich, or were you born with a silver spoon in your mouth, being completely spoiled rotten by your parents, who immediately ran right out and bought you everything that you ever asked for ?

The prices are: TOO HIGH

And if you try to play TS19 on the average $500 household laptop, without an actual video card, it will crash to desktop and overheat

90% of the people in the world are staving to death (not you), and they don't even have a bag of rice to feed their family, and don't even have running water in their house, they have a non-flushing squatter toilet hole in the broken tile floor with no sit down seat, nor do they have any electricity ... let alone a computer

A large part of Germany (and most other Countries) still don't have window AC units ... all the while you sit in the lap of luxury