Expensive aircraft in Il-2?

[Howfly]

So this is something I quite often stumble upon while reading forum posts, facebook comments or reading steam reviews. People claiming that paying 80$ for 10 aircraft is too much and how it is preventing them or their friends from getting in to Il-2 (Great Battles Series). I have also seen comments from people who think that for example BoK even though it can be bought as a stand alone product and also offer just as much content as BoS is merely a dlc and should be priced as such. So I wonder what other flight sims do these people compare these prices to?

 

First off. What do you get for 80$ in a BoX title? You get 10 highly detailed aircraft with very accurate flight models that also come with several modifications and loadout options. So if we divide 80$ through 10 planes that would amount to 8$ per plane. But that is not how much they truly cost now, is it? Because in the 80$ price tag there is also a huge very detailed map included that comes with ground assets for that time period. You also get access to the career mode and quick battles. You can also play multiplayer on all other maps as long as one of the planes from your planeset is included.

 

Now let's look at DCS. In DCS a ww2 warbird will cost you 50$. You don't get any map for the that time period and you don't get any ground assets either. Those you have to buy as seperate modules. Also there will only be a few generic missions included for your plane. If you want a campaign you will have to wait until they make one and let you purchase it for your aircraft. Another problem with DCS is that you will struggle to find ww2 servers with a decent amount of players. I quite enjoy DCS and I think there's merit to the pricing for those modules as well, but for other reasons. I think overall Il-2 Great Battles Series is a way more complete experience and offers a lot more gameplay and immersion. Eitherway that's a discussion for another post.

 

Moving on to War Thunder. First of all War Thunder is no simulator. It has a simulator mode, but to claim that it is a simulator is a very far stretch. Sure it has more planes than any other flight game, but the quality of those aircraft isn't very good. They have sub par flight models, not very detailed cockpits and some planes don't even have the right cockpit. For example the Bf109E4 has the cockpit of a Bf109G2. It doesn't have any complex engine managment (it's optional) either and everyone is constantly flying at WEP. When flying your Bf 109F4 you will constantly fly against Russian 1945 or 46 aircraft for "balance reasons". So you are not even facing the right aircraft you plane should face.

The only thing War Thunder has going for it it is shiny 3d models and the quantity of planes. But wait.. You don't get access to all those planes, do you? You first have to grind them all and every time you unlock a new plane you will be at a disadvantage because your plane has stock modules. Once you get to the highest tier it will take you weeks to unlock new planes. Or you buy a premium plane to help you grind. But how much do they cost? Between 30-40$ for the highest tier ones. So please, tell me again how Il-2 aircraft are expensive.

 

So another sim people like to compare to is our old beloved Il-2 1946. But that is a game that has been in development for about 17 years now by countless mod teams. At launch it came with 31 aircraft wich is quite a good number, but back then it took far less work to make an aircraft for a sim. That was because the hardware limitations at the time simply didn't allow for as complex physics and flight models as we have today. You also couldn't make as detailed cockpits or 3d models either. That's my understanding of it anyway and if I'm completly wrong then someone please correct me.

Today Il-2 1946 has countless maps and aircraft and a ton of content and it is still very good. But you can't convince me that those aircraft have the same fidelity as those aircraft we have in BoX because that's simply not true. And if you think so, then why not just continue playing it then?

 

So in conclusion: I think the price for the Il-2 Great Battles products is quite fair. I don't think it's reasonable that the devs should price their products based upon products that were released about two decades ago considering how much work that has to be put in to reach the same level of expectations that people have today. And looking at the prices for premium vehicles in those other "free to play" games that usually amount between 30-40$ Il-2 is still very cheap in comparison. If you don't like the current price of a Great Battles product then there is always the option to wait for a sale.

 

On a final note I would just like to thank the devs for all their hard work on this amazing sim. It has come a long way since the release of BoS and I'm excited to continue supporting it for whatever comes next after BoBP. Many Thanks!

[wolfbojan189]

I think the price for the Il-2 Great Battles products is quite fair and you  got sales...

War Thunder -this is not sim it is a simple game not even close to il2.

Dcs world is jet era i have it and this is to overpriced for what you get..one plane for 60-70$  base game is free

dcs ww2 aircraft are nice but to far from il2   i quit dcs and go for il2 it is much better,prices are ok,frendly forum...etc

Anyway thank the devs   and his tim for this great sim.

 

[Finkeren]

DCS is a pretty fairly priced product for people who want a study sim with faithful recreation of entire aircraft systems, but don’t care too deeply about historical accuracy of settings and matching plane sets. 

 

The Great Battles series is an excellently priced product for people who want a complete historical flight sim experience and can live with some simplifications and slightly lower fidelity.

 

I know which group I belong to, but I think it’s great that we even get to make a choice in this day and age.

[=621=Samikatz]

Il-2's pricing is perfectly reasonable (and occasionally an absolute steal with sales. £22 for BoS deluxe is insanely good value), planes and campaign aside you are getting a constantly updated product with probably the best multiplayer experience in flight simming right now

 

I have multiple DCS modules (<3 the Mirage), including the P-51D, and while I think the Jets with lots of detailed systems are a reasonable asking price, the war birds I feel you don't get much more out of them than I would from IL-2's fantastic aircraft, which offer mostly the same engine control (sans start-up sequence, which I honestly tired of), but in a much more sterile environment. Another thing with DCS modules is with their half dozen developers you do have to do a lot of background research into which modules are actually finished and working, and which have been abandoned in early access for years

[Cybermat47]

The GBS games are pretty well priced in my opinion. Especially in today’s market, where you buy a game for $80 then have to spend more money on lootboxes 

[CrazyDuck]

Very well written!

 

Comparing number of aircraft in IL-2 BOX with 1946 let's also not forget that BOX has multiple versions of an aircraft available through the single aircraft slot with modifications (190A-8/F-8, Ju-87D and 87G, I-16 type 24/28,...).

 

 

[E_Davjack]

Lol, good point on lootboxes.  Likewise, there is no bunnyhopping in BoX...

 

I just want to say that when I got back into flight sims, I bought some DCS stuff on sale, and the only modules I regret are the P-51, Normandy Map, and Asset pack.  For starters, the Normandy map is a basic representation of the region.  Other than Caen existing, there is almost no fidelity.  Just a bunch of random fields and hamlets, no real atlantic wall... And there is no multiplayer base for the WWII stuff at all. So the P-51D module is just a fun thing that I stunt-fly around Las Vegas sometimes when I want something different than my Mig15.  I wish I had bought a Helo instead, for the price.  I find no reason to fly around Normandy, it's an ugly map.   Britain has no detail at all.

 

I believe BoX is reasonably priced, especially when some of us spend hundreds on physical equipment to make it feel right.   

Edited September 16, 2018 by EmerlistDavjack
whoops

[Art-J]

I admit I'm one of these considering this series a bit on expensive side for what it is (though it's mostly caused by lack of region pricing offer for my country). However, given the frequency of excellent, up to 50%  promo sales here, all one has to do it just wait a few months for next discount. I got my BoK, P-40 and BoBP during these, I'm happy with bang-for-the-buck ratio of my purchase and I'd recommend similar pattern to anyone who's new to the franchise and on tight budget for whatever reason.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Art-J

[E_Davjack]

To be perfectly honest, I kind of like the price barrier.  Sometimes it can keep the riff-raff out.  I'd rather play with a bunch of stable older folk who can afford the game comfortably than some Free-to-Play kiddies.  It's like we say at my local cat shelter: if you balk at the adoption fee, can you really even take care of an animal?

[DD_Crash]

The way to measure the price is $ per hour. I have a lot of hours so it works out rather cheap

[JonRedcorn]

31 minutes ago, EmerlistDavjack said:

To be perfectly honest, I kind of like the price barrier.  Sometimes it can keep the riff-raff out.  I'd rather play with a bunch of stable older folk who can afford the game comfortably than some Free-to-Play kiddies.  It's like we say at my local cat shelter: if you balk at the adoption fee, can you really even take care of an animal?

This is very true. Free to play games breed the most toxic communities. 

[SYN_Mike77]

The first flight sim for computers that I bought was called Red Baron. (yes for its day it was a flight sim)  In 2018 dollars it cost 93.66.  Considering that the whole game fit on 3 floppy disk means that any one GBS plane has many times the lines of code than the whole Red Baron game had means that GBS is a steal compared to Red Baron.  I can't see complaining about the price of modern flight sims.

[=621=Samikatz]

1 hour ago, Art-J said:

(though it's mostly caused by lack of region pricing offer for my country).

 

This is another thing to think about. Income isn't the same all across the world, and for people in low income countries BoX games are a lot more meals and a lot bigger portion of someone's rent than they are for someone in a rich country. Kinda hard to solve without region locking or splitting the community somehow

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Very nice write up and I agree with it.  I did notice that IL-2 Cliffs of Dover Blitz is not listed and it is an alternative.  Howfly maybe you would care to address how it fits in.

[Howfly]

Il-2 Cliffs of Dover Blitz currently sitting on a price of 23€ is quite a bargain for those 20 or so planes it offers. The multiplayer in Cliffs is quite nice when you can get on a decently populated server. I used to enjoy CloD a lot back when I was flying on the Atag server. I'm not sure how populated the servers are atm though. I haven't really played Cliffs since about the release of BoM. The single player portion I never really enjoyed since the AI was quite braindead and didn't really respond to any of the commands in the game. Hopefully this is something Team Fusion will manage to fix for the release of patch 5.0. I would still recomment CloD to people who are really in to the Battle of Britain, but in terms of quality I would say that the Great Battles series offers a more complete experience.

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

The pricing is fine; it's in line with similar products. 

 

The only issue I can think of is that the structure might be a bit intimidating for new players. It's no longer as easy as buying a single product. This is shown by the frequent "Should I get BoS, BoM, or BoK" threads on the forum. Some people might get discouraged when they see the long list of $79.99 "Battle of..." titles and collector planes, especially if they don't know how each option relates to the multiplayer experience.

[MasserME262]

Well, I agree with everything you posted. But as others stated, for some people who doesnt live in "First World Countries", 70 bucks its a lot. I almost cried when I hit the "buy" button when buying BoBP.

Being my salary not even as high as the live cost in my country, getting 70 USD to spend in a game is kinda... how to say, painful; and often takes several months to save that money. I never put a game in my priorities also, which makes the saving of the money even harder.

[Thad]

Game Information

 

It shouldn't be intimidating to anyone that can read on the sites main page.

 

 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, SYN_Mike77 said:

The first flight sim for computers that I bought was called Red Baron. (yes for its day it was a flight sim)  In 2018 dollars it cost 93.66.  Considering that the whole game fit on 3 floppy disk means that any one GBS plane has many times the lines of code than the whole Red Baron game had means that GBS is a steal compared to Red Baron.  I can't see complaining about the price of modern flight sims.

 

That was my first as well. Did not even have sound card in my 386 machine lol.

It was a blast though.

[Ehret]

6 hours ago, wolfbojan189 said:

War Thunder -this is not sim it is a simple game not even close to il2.

 

The worst thing in the WT is the grind system - it's not just unblocking planes and modules for them, no... You have to grind crews' skills such as the G tolerance, too. Then, you have to earn the one of WT's virtual currencies just to afford flying in the matches with arbitrary/randomly set prices?!

 

This is the company way to "earn" money by irritating users to no end so some will have enough and buy "relief" from WT's shop. For interested in flying and history this is a totally unnecessary and wasteful cr*p.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Ehret

[JonRedcorn]

16 minutes ago, Ehret said:

 

The worst thing in the WT is the grind system - it's not just unblocking planes and modules for them, no... You have to grind crews' skills such as the G tolerance, too. Then, you have to earn the one of WT's virtual currencies just to afford flying in the matches with arbitrary/randomly set prices?!

 

This is the company way to "earn" money by irritating users to no end so some will have enough and buy "relief" from WT's shop. For interested in flying and history this is a totally unnecessary and wasteful cr*p.

Yeah I had installed the game to check it out, saw how everything worked and immediately uninstalled it. Good riddance.

[Howfly]

As some of you have pointed out, not everyone lives in a first world country. This is something I forgot to take in to consideration while writing this post and it wasn't my intention to blame any of you who have a hard time affording these products. The intention of this post was more to discuss how the pricing of the current Il-2 Great Battles compares to other current and previous flight simulations or flight games and whether or not the price tag is justified. I can certainly see how living in a non first world country would affect your opinion of the price and it's very much unfortunate that a cheaper price isn't available to you.

[Thad]

Fortunately, computer flight simulation games and computer games in general are a luxury not a necessity. ?

[Guest deleted@103832]

Back in the pre-IL-2 1990s when Air Warrior and Warbirds dominated the online combat flight sim scene, I recall it costing anywhere from $2.00 to $5.00 an hour to play depending on the year, and my monthly Warbirds bill was around $250.00, which would be almost $400.00 in inflation-adjusted 2018 dollars. And of course the flight models and graphics were a joke compared to what we have in IL-2 now, but it was 20+ years ago. Plus, neither game had much of a SP feature because there was no money to be made on that aspect. Adjusting for inflation, the price of every IL-2 module and DLC would be less than the monthly bill I paid to fly online 20 years ago. It was MSCFS, and a few years later, the original IL-2, that introduced free online servers. I know many people weren't involved in the online scene 20 years ago, but from my perspective the modern IL-2 Great Battles is an unbelievable bargain. 

[Hoss]

I can see where the price for a IL2GB package would be prohibitive for some folks, no one has even gone into the crazy amount of money we spend to have the best computer system we can afford to play the game or a descent monitor..... $1,500.00 to $2,500.00  Now you're going to go out and spend from $75.00 to $500.00 dollars on flight Sticks, HOTAS and rudder pedals.  Depending on how much money you have to spend you'll spend $200.00 to $400.00 bucks for TIR or VR experience. So I'm not about to complain about the $75.00 to $80.00 bucks on the game.  I'm like HvB I've been playing flight sims for 20 years, and I'd hate to even consider how much money I have spent on flight simming equipment.  The game was insignificant in comparison!

 

Cheers

 

Hoss

[PatrickAWlson]

It's a commitment.  If you are into WWII sims and you  want multiplayer and single player campaigns then this is really the only game in town.  Other products offer other things.  WT offers easy access but it is all game and no sim.  DCS is on the opposite end but it is all sim and not much game.  For what it is, IMHO GBS is a very good value.

DD_Crash said it well: by dollars per hour this is a great value.  I personally do not buy lots of games.  I buy a few and then get the most out of them.  

[ShamrockOneFive]

It's expensive if you want to buy everything all at once but otherwise, for this generation, it seems like the best bang for the buck in terms of getting the aircraft, a medium systems fidelity and high flight model fidelity, and a complete package that includes the map, vehicles, buildings, and missions.

 

Other sims are more expensive for often what is a less complete package.

[Lusekofte]

6 hours ago, DD_Crash said:

The way to measure the price is $ per hour. I have a lot of hours so it works out rather cheap

 

What I think also, I take this into account when I buy hardware too. 

 

For a flight simulator enthusiast I think one have to just buy the goods as they come, if you can afford it. Just so you make an effort that they stay in busyness. I really lost intrest for this game, but that does not mean it is a bad product. I still think it is the best WW2 sim out there

[P51DMatt]

Here's what $250 gets you in both sims

 

IL2 BOX: 30 Flyable aircraft, 3 maps, Career modes, Scripted campaign, multiplayer, etc...

 

DCS: 4 Flyable aircraft, one historical map, multiplayer

 

You tell me which one is the better deal.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by P51DMatt

[=FEW=Hauggy]

I believe the full price is more than fair for what you get out of it, the devs and the community are great and everybody gets the maps for free so the community is not divided even if they are worth a lot of time and efforts that aren't free.

Also there's sales very often.

Considering the 2000 hours of fun I've had (well not taking into account the few hours I spent trying to join a full server), I think it's well worth the price and pretty decent compared to other sims and you get good content without (it is true) the mostly useless button pushing simulation, but at least you get the full experience and devs don't try to sell you ground vehicles to strafe, or maps by themselves, and more importantly the planes and maps all fit in a complete historical context.

I know 1C is in Russia but game devs have to live from their job and the company has to make some profit to be able to exist, I think the content and customer service/interactions we're getting is worth the full price and more.

This sim might not be 100% perfect but I love it and i'm positive it's worth every cent of my money and every minute of my time.

[Donik]

3 hours ago, StG77_HvB said:

Back in the pre-IL-2 1990s when Air Warrior and Warbirds dominated the online combat flight sim scene, I recall it costing anywhere from $2.00 to $5.00 an hour to play depending on the year, and my monthly Warbirds bill was around $250.00, which would be almost $400.00 in inflation-adjusted 2018 dollars. ......but from my perspective the modern IL-2 Great Battles is an unbelievable bargain. 

 

Oh man.  I remember playing Air Warrior or Warbirds on AOL as a young kid..  Maybe 12 or 13. My first month playing as an obsessive teen i wracked up a massive bill due to going over the hourly limit, plus long distance phone charges, etc.  Dad put an end to that, real quick.  I ended up having to "settle" for offline games like X-Wing, TIE Fighter, Aces over Europe/Pacific and Red Baron.  Later it was Air Warrior 2, Janes stuff, etc.  

 

I've actually got an old 486 still sitting at my parents house with Aces + Red Baron installed and working, to this day.  Though it's been many years since I've fired that up when visiting.

 

Thanks for the nostalgia trip! 

[PatrickAWlson]

@Donik

Did you ever play the western front patch for RB3D?

[Donik]

@PatrickAWlson

No, have not.  I only ever played the original (?) Red Baron from early 90's.  For one reason or another I missed out on RB3D.  Though I do own it via GOG presently.  Maybe I'll install and check it out if it's feasible.

 

What are your thoughts on it?

[PatrickAWlson]

WFP is what I did before BoX.  Kept it up for years.  We found a way to swap planes in and out.  In the end we had 100 planes in RB3D.  

 

At this point I wouldn't bother.  It's 20 years old and looks every minute of it.  But back in the day it was a blast seeing planes like the Pfalz EII, Fokker EIV, FE8, etc.  We even found a way to make two seaters flyable.

[Donik]

Huh, sounds like I missed out! Sure would have been of interest to me had i been flying it.

[Enceladus828]

17 hours ago, Howfly said:

So if we divide 80$ through 10 planes that would amount to 8$ per plane

I don't necessarily think that each plane costs $8; I believe that the $80 is for the highly detailed map(s), features, (FM, visuals, etc.). The aircraft are probably much cheaper and take much less time to develop than all of the other necessary stuff.

[Cybermat47]

11 minutes ago, Novice-Flyer said:

I don't necessarily think that each plane costs $8; I believe that the $80 is for the highly detailed map(s), features, (FM, visuals, etc.). The aircraft are probably much cheaper and take much less time to develop than all of the other necessary stuff.

 

He mentions this immediately afterwards in the post.

[TheOldCrow]

54 minutes ago, Novice-Flyer said:

I don't necessarily think that each plane costs $8; I believe that the $80 is for the highly detailed map(s), features, (FM, visuals, etc.). The aircraft are probably much cheaper and take much less time to develop than all of the other necessary stuff.

 

I think the at least $15 is fair. Every plane is done with an immense amount of detail and care. Compared to something like CLOD blitz where you have a larger gallery of planes to start with. And, while they're decent in flight model and realism they aren't to the standard Il-2 bos has had, at least in my experience with the games.

[LeLv76_Erkki]

To quote someone, Il-2, DLCs, premium planes and flight controllers are cheap as hay compared to the so called "free to play" games and all the consumed beer...

[[PFR]Sarpalaxan]

The problem doesn't lie with the flight sim crowd but with, for lack of a better term Normal Gamers. You go to Steam, you see an old game still at full price and a gigantic load of DLC Attached to it. Then there are those games that shove extra characters in for 5-10 dollars. I Have tried multiple times to explain the businesmoddel of il2 to fellow Gamers but never really seemed to crack the wall. Just look at the reports of some fsx module containing Spyware as so called drm. Most reports focus on the fact that people arc racy enough to pay over 100$ for dlc and that I contain just one Plane. War thunder on the other hand gets you suckered in with free to play and those players who dare to like flight "sims" then are made to pay. You can see the Priorities of WT just by the fact that 90% of the Bombers have placeholder Cockpits.