Black Friday....hmmmm

I'll second that motion.
Usually they give a much better 1st class ticket price and I always buy one.
Sadly not this time.

Dave
 
A bit cheesed off myself, having spent 20 euros to buy TRS2019 a week ago only to find it discounted to 10 now. Oh well. :D
 
According to https://www.workandmoney.com/s/coffee-cost-world-cities-8636e3c52b924cd7 a cup of coffee costs $US3.12 in New York. Buy a cup of coffee a day there for a week and that's $21.84. Buy one a day for 6 months and that's $US561.60.

An FCT for a week costs $US4.49, a bit more than one cup of coffee. An FCT for 6 months is $US19.99, which is less than a cup a day for just a week.

Giving up a few cups of coffee will benefit your health as well as pay for an FCT.

My thoughts.
 
Bought a Samsung 28" 4k monitor at Black Friday sale for 210eu
Don't forget to check your personal tickets page
if you bought an Auran/N3v product often you get a few days FCT free
here is mine lol seems I have 184days if I want, never used it in my life

alas, what I really need is not on there :)
 
Give away an FCT costs nothing material. No real money. It is a structured decision process based on sales projections (guesses). The projections are based on marketing formulas buttressed by marketing data. Will retention be improved, will sales increase, will there be no change? The Big Boss has to determine the impact on investors who may not accept the projections. Giving away an FCT to some lucky new customer might be a good idea but can you prove it. You can only come close. Adding the exercise room to the villa in Italy may have to be put on hold since the annual bonus hangs-in the-balance.

Oh, do not forget the reactions of competitors. Their reactionary lottery schemes may be more effective than yours. Revenue could suffer once you force competitors to react. Unless the projected result is significant, the status-quo sounds safer.:'(
 
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Give away an FCT costs nothing material. No real money. It is a structured decision process based on sales projections (guesses). The projections are based on marketing formulas buttressed by marketing data. Will retention be improved, will sales increase, will there be no change? The Big Boss has to determine the impact on investors who may not accept the projections. Giving away an FCT to some lucky new customer might be a good idea but can you prove it. You can only come close. Adding the exercise room to the villa in Italy may have to be put on hold since the annual bonus hangs-in the-balance.

Oh, do not forget the reactions of competitors. Their lottery schemes may be more effective than yours. Revenue could suffer once you force competitors to react. Unless the projected result is significant, the status-quo sounds safer.

What type of coffee have you been drinking? Because none of that made any sense to me.

The servers which store N3Vs DLS freeware (Amazon or so I believe) plus the bandwidth do cost money.
 
I doubt that the hosting provider for the DLS is giving N3V a Black Friday discount for the Server Rental. ;)
 
If people download without FCT, it is still the same amount of data that has to be send right?
it just takes longer.
 
You are right. It doesn't make sense. At least in the confines of a small company such as N3V. But you need to at least arm yourself with some of the top level info to justify your decision to give away an FCT. It is not a "let's see what happens decision".

N3V only has to deal with a "miniature" of this stuff. Pick and choose elements that are suitable, "toss the coin" and move on. Running a small business these days is a a risk. Around every corner there is someone selling a process that will give you the "real answer" for your business. "buy my package and improve after tax profits by ???%". If you are selling to a limited market there has to be a tension to take a look at some of that stuff which may advocate "give aways". It appears that N3V has resisted it and is not blindly creating schemes to boost revenue. While frustrating, at times, the N3V marketing process is working.

Oh, back to the "sense" of it all. An FCT only accounts for "allocated costs". No server or programmer is exclusively assigned to producing FCTs. Real costs do not materially change if you give away an FCT. Maybe .01 cent of allocated cost is for an FCT. My point is what other more esoteric impacts can a freebie have. The risk of ANY disruption to a small business is very significant. The margin for error is very small. There is no place "to hide" a mistake.

Yes, correct -- Sending the data by FCT costs more due to the larger bandwidth required. Now you get into the quagmire of allocating the bandwidth cost. There is an incremental cost to rent the bandwidth - do you do it on an "as needed" basis or by fixed amount contract. Freebies might cross a line in the cost equation. That could be a cost that far outweighs any "hoped for benefit". How much bandwidth do you buy to accommodate the new freebies? Hmmm, this is getting serious.:eek:
 
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It's sad. In this age of ME, not only do people EXPECT a sale on Black Friday, they expect a sale on the exact item they want.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. - Try giving thanks for something!
I'm thankful that in my "golden" years I can still enjoy running trains (Trainz) at a fair cost because I cannot afford the cost of N or HO scale equipment to setup a model layout.

Thank you N3V for all that you do!
..and there is so much in life to be Thankful for.
 
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Well said 1611Mac, and everyone have a great holiday. N3V has some great deals out there, and dlc downloads fast.
 
Well it's not just N3V being stingy, the Steam sales are nothing special. Most items for TSW2 only discounted by 20%. I picked up OMSI 2 (the bus sim) for 30% off but I have read it attracted much bigger discounts previously. The Yorkshire 3.0 add on map DLC had no discount at all, though it's so brilliant worth a full price purchase and the whole lot was subsidised by the refund I had on there from the abysmal TSW2 West Cornwall route/Class 150.

Maybe N3V will be more generous with the discount at Christmas time, mistletoe and wine... (sorry for song burst).

Right, off to drive a bus...
 
According to https://www.workandmoney.com/s/coffee-cost-world-cities-8636e3c52b924cd7 a cup of coffee costs $US3.12 in New York. Buy a cup of coffee a day there for a week and that's $21.84. Buy one a day for 6 months and that's $US561.60.

An FCT for a week costs $US4.49, a bit more than one cup of coffee. An FCT for 6 months is $US19.99, which is less than a cup a day for just a week.

Giving up a few cups of coffee will benefit your health as well as pay for an FCT.

My thoughts.


I just returned from a trip back to NY. A cup of coffee isn't anywhere near Three bucks a cup, unless you go to somewhere way overpriced like a Starbucks, which I do not go to. I think the highest I paid was 2 bucks for a medium at some gas station convenience store, which I thought was outrageous.
 
It's sad. In this age of ME, not only do people EXPECT a sale on Black Friday, they expect a sale on the exact item they want.

Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. - Try giving thanks for something!
I'm thankful that in my "golden" years I can still enjoy running trains (Trainz) at a fair cost because I cannot afford the cost of N or HO scale equipment to setup a model layout.

Thank you N3V for all that you do!
..and there is so much in life to be Thankful for.


Amen to that ! Happy Thanksgiving !
 
I just returned from a trip back to NY. A cup of coffee isn't anywhere near Three bucks a cup, unless you go to somewhere way overpriced like a Starbucks, which I do not go to. I think the highest I paid was 2 bucks for a medium at some gas station convenience store, which I thought was outrageous.

Yep, price and experiences will vary but the principle is still the same. Even at (an overpriced, non-Starbuck) $US2 per cup a 6 month FCT is still great value at the cost of only 10 cups of coffee.

Disclaimer: I am not a coffee drinker but I am an FCT user.
 
I noticed this with the FCT as well. Very disappointing as that's the main thing I'm really interested in.
 
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