Railworks, Then and Now, The Community

[albionrail]

You are probably better at Maths than me Darpor, not that it would be hard.

But that figure only represents one sale, in the long term that figure can and will grow. Harking back to one of Vern's earlier posts he rightly pointed out that a £5 price can be put onto a "pack" that has taken a week or under to create but has the potential to net much more than the figures you quote. And this is bearing in mind I already posted my opinion that with Bandwith, VAT, reference material (in some cases) and other overheads to consider, it is somewhat impossible to guage what a payware author can 'take home' as it were.

Although I'm pretty sure you are in a better place to comment with your experiance of system, I should imagine you only get royalties from your creative works.

I wont be buying the E&G pack, but this is not because of anything to do with the topic at hand... I already purchased the Oxford-Reading scenarios, because it has more locality to me. And therefore represented what I consider to be value for money.

What is it they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I were a Glaswegian I would imagine that it would be this pack I sought to add to my collection.

[Acorncomputer]

Hi Darren

Some people would look at it another way and say £13.99 less VAT and other costs might give the creator of the rolling stock a net £10.00 per sale. With 5000 sales that is an income of £50,000 for 400 hours work which is roughly £125.00 per hour. If you can work a normal year then that might equate to £250,000 income per annum

If it only takes 200 hours to create an item which can sell at £6.99 then we are potentially looking at the same income.

In practice it is extremely unlikely that those figures would be achieved (otherwise I would have ditched my current occupation ages ago) but the possibility that this could be done might upset some people rather than just enjoying the cheap entertainment that an individual gets from the effort of the creator.

Ultimately we mainly spend what money we have left after the Government has had its share and essentials have been covered, on what pleases us most and although the argument/debate can go on for ever about payware V freeware, we can still all choose where to spend our money to give us the most pleasure.

(Hmm, I hope the figures are OK, I am not that good at maths either)

[albionrail]

hehe, you did better with the numbers than I Geoff.

Eddie.

[Acorncomputer]

hehe, you did better with the numbers than I Geoff.

Eddie.

The wonderful thing about figures is that you can make then do whatever you want them to. A bit like RailWorks really but in a nice way

[Kariban]

Darren if you're getting paid 3.5p per hour for your efforts, might want to check your contracts either that or shut up before the Inland Revenue wise up to your tax dodge...

You can't ignore sales figures when you're deciding if it's economical to build something. If you decide your RW time is worth £10/hr your piece of stock has ( in accounting terms ) cost £4000 to make, so at your standard £12 price you need to sell 330ish just to break even. ( Yes, taxes and so on are conveniently included in the 10/hr ).

So slightly more on topic, how long do you think it takes to make a scenario, and how many copies do you think a commercial scenario pack sells?

[Darpor]

Darren if you're getting paid 3.5p per hour for your efforts, might want to check your contracts either that or shut up before the Inland Revenue wise up to your tax dodge...

shhh

So slightly more on topic, how long do you think it takes to make a scenario, and how many copies do you think a commercial scenario pack sells?

Ref sales: I imagine AP don't want to divulge the information, same as RSC wouldn't want to with regards to the Black 5 scenario pack. It may well be reflected in the pricing or may not be?

In terms of time taken per scenario, it's impossible to even give a ball park figure given that all scenarios are different and length of testing can vary immensely depending on whether the dispatcher throws a wobbler or not. I have seen scenarios take as little as a couple of hours, to days, to never! I must admit that since the timetable view was introduced, life is easier though.

[AndiS]

Let me just say two things, and a footnote.

The footnote first: I am glad that people agree that they like civil discussion and they actually act out their preferences. Thanks to everyone!

1) Regarding community and payware vs. freeware, for me, the important thing is only that the belief in your own abilities is steadily growing. If everyone would believe that payware is mandatory, then that would be very sad, and also not good for the image of RW. This is why I consider forums like UKTS so important, to share knowledge about how to fix and create stuff for yourself. It starts with adding an extra link to a signal or creating your own trackrule and goes all the way to steam engines with external gear and complex particle effects. Most of the knowledge is hidden here somewhere, you just need to go and bang your head hard against a handful of walls, and you will be a happy man afterwards.

2) Regarding the price of payware, it is simply a free market. Payware vendors will not sell anything at high numbers which is freely available. Visibility might be an issue, but certainly one that can be solved. But by and large, I think all the maths exercises would be better used on creating some model, or calculating some timetable. No one knows any sales figures. Without multiplying price by number of sold items, the information level is nil. Divide that by the share that ends up at the producer, and that by the time needed for the creation.

I am also amused by this view that scenario creation would be so much easier than 3D modelling. If you would give me the choice between spending a month to create an engine in Blender or to create a bunch of scenarios, I would go for Blender. Non-withstanding the significant improvements of the user interface, the lame logic behind it ("the dispatcher") still spoils it for me. I know that others have a more positive attitude, but if they were the big majority, no one would spend money on scenarios.

But then again, something under a £1 only needs to as much fun as a beer at home to be fair enough value for the price, and you cannot have your beer a second time, but you can play a scenario a second time. Maybe RSC should add this rating to the hard/easy one: Fun worth one beer, fun worth two beers, fun worth three beers ...


Adding 1 + 2, you also have my view of the light and sound modifications. You can do stuff yourself for free (I never spent a € or £ on add-ons), it takes energy and gives satisfaction. Or you can spend a bit on a finished solution with easy installation instruction and use what little spare time you got to enjoy it. It also gives satisfaction. It is everyone's choice, and I could not see the benefit of not having that option.

[Kariban]

In terms of time taken per scenario, it's impossible to even give a ball park figure given that all scenarios are different and length of testing can vary immensely depending on whether the dispatcher throws a wobbler or not. I have seen scenarios take as little as a couple of hours, to days, to never! I must admit that since the timetable view was introduced, life is easier though.

That's not the sort of answer an accountant would accept! ok then as an example - and as a fairly experienced scenario constructor - how long would it take you to recreate the Black 5 pack, or one of APs packs.

[Acorncomputer]

Fun worth one beer, fun worth two beers, fun worth three beers ...

A Brilliant idea

[Darpor]

That's not the sort of answer an accountant would accept! ok then as an example - and as a fairly experienced scenario constructor - how long would it take you to recreate the Black 5 pack, or one of APs packs.

No idea, didn't buy the Black5 pack and Richard's packs are all different. You are also not guaranteed of getting the same results within the scenario creation either.

I am also amused by this view that scenario creation would be so much easier than 3D modelling. If you would give me the choice between spending a month to create an engine in Blender or to create a bunch of scenarios, I would go for Blender. Non-withstanding the significant improvements of the user interface, the lame logic behind it ("the dispatcher") still spoils it for me. I know that others have a more positive attitude, but if they were the big majority, no one would spend money on scenarios.

Neither is necessarily easier than the other, the point I was trying to make was the view of acceptance that a person can regard one as value for money, but the same person can then regard the other as way over the top to the point of extortionate. It's fairly possible that the end user has no experience of either.

My personal opinion differs from yours in terms of which I would choose, I would go for scenario creation but thats where we have the personal preference again.

Top and bottom of, there are markets for all of these different items, there wouldn't be anyone creating them if there wasn't and full marks to anyone who does.

[TransportSteve]

Getting off payware and back to the original poster's comments. What a lot of .!~!
Most of you realise by now that I dabble in both Trainz and RailWorks. In the Auran Trainz forums there is plenty of robust, and at times very heated, discussion about a whole range of issues. Sometimes there is even rampart criticism of Auran itself, and even this is tolerated. It all bubbles and simmers along, and it's stimulating and informative, where many issues are debated; some are even resolved.
In fact, one of the most interesting threads running over there at the moment is "any opinions on Railworks2?"
Over here it's all tightly Moderated where any contrary views disappear very quickly. In fact in one Trainz thread the view was offered that the RailWorks crew that lurk here are very quick to press the panic button and the Mods jump immediately.
My suggestion is that this forum really needs to man-up. Criticism, even when aggressive, can be healthy; debate clears some of the air. Maybe the Moderators need to appreciate that the over-moderation that is occurring now is not healthy. The result I see is very sterile and, frankly, very boring.
But I suspect that this post will disappear very quickly too.

This is probably why so many Railworks ex-Trainzers don't go onto the Auran forum much these days, any fans of Railworks get slagged off at a moment's notice, I hardly call that healthy criticism, this must be the 999th thread regarding Railworks, all the others were locked by moderators, I suppose this one will be also, I hardly think screenshots with funny anti-Railworks sentiments will win anyone over, maybe folks on here would like to see how RW is perceived by Auranites - http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=71098

And this a thread I posted in, as you can see it got all bitter and twisted towards the end, which always happens - http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthre ... &highlight

I left Trainz last year, I still got hassled by everyone whenever I went back, that's why I got so fed up with the bashing from not only kids, but, folks who didn't even know who I was and had only just registered on the Auran forum, who the hell are they to be so flagrantly abusive, and they don't call it baiting or trolling over there, just being friendly......LOL

Being a railway simulator veteran of a mature age, I have no problems with anybody's points of view as long as they conduct themselves with dignity and grace, unfortunately, being on the receiving end of so much verbal shenanigans (I could insert other words, but, they'd be deleted by the mods) is just not on, so, I don't entertain the Auran idiots with my presence anymore.
You very rarely get diginity and grace from many simulator' forums these days, you only have to look at the Railworks Facebook pages to see what I mean, that's why I don't come on here so much these days, this was my pride and joy hobby, but, all that has gone now, all these simulator forums have been taken over by the inane, inarticulated, uneducated, verbally abusive members of society that we enjoy getting away from in real life, now we have to do it in our internet hobbies as well.

Cheerz. Transport Steve.

[crumplezone]

Lets not devolve to far into the payware pricing discussion as it only leads to bruises *cough*, as I mentioned earlier the cost of DLC across the board of the gaming industry is still quite influx and for a certain degree people tend not to agree with the pricing, but this is what the situation is so there isn't a alot to go by.

I would counter the arguement about prices on a few grounds in the sense its entirely down to the individual preference, for example a addon/DLC might be what someone really does want and pricing factor may not even matter in one sense, to someone else it might seem to much in cost but its down to said person's preferences that the "value for money" factor comes into play.

Value for money is a funny topic as each and every individual has a different take on it, in my own case, I think a locomotive costing £11-15 is reasonable but it will also depend down on how many varients of said locomotive, its sound quality, its functionality ingame and what it introduces, I would even say I would go as high as £25 if its outstanding beyond measure, but in my mind that starts to push the price barrier for me personally.

One thing to consider for DLC and addons prices is that while the cost of it might be high in our eyes, beyond the amount of ours put in there is always going to be a considerable amount of overheads before profit comes in. Factors like hosting costs, agreements with RS.com, website aswell as all the business related fees and mumbo jumbo which is needed to be paid and you leave yourself with not very much. Also one thing to consider is the software used, if the developer of said addons is using some of the high class 3D modelling and graphics programs your talking cost of software between £500 upwards to 3000, for a small team of people or solo person the profits from selling the addon/DLC might not be as big as they seem.

There is another thing to consider and to compare with flight simulators which is the other big genre simulators which use addons, the prices of there addons is considerably higher than what Railworks is charging and not to factor in if you want a decent flight simulator session a fairly decent joystick with throttle control, HAT view, rudder controls and enough buttons to cover other functionality isn't cheap, Railworks in that area thankfully is more forgiving and you don't require a elaborate controller to run it, even though there is available the Rail driver console.

In the end we have the ultimate option of voting with our pockets, should this influence enough sales then developers will ask why and adjust according, its just right now, there is a market for Railworks DLC and your going to see varying prices across the board to a norm is established.

[Acorncomputer]

Transport Steve said

You very rarely get diginity and grace from many simulator forums these days, you only have to look at the Railworks Facebook pages to see what I mean, that's why I don't come on here so much these days, this was my pride and joy hobby, but, all that has gone now, all these simulator forums have been taken over by the inane, inarticulated, uneducated, verbally abusive members of society that we enjoy getting away from in real life, now we have to do it in our internet hobbies as well.

Surely not all of us Steve and others cannot always help the way they are and still deserve respect as there may be good reasons for their situations.

[albionrail]

Being a railway simulator veteran of a mature age, I have no problems with anybody's points of view as long as they conduct themselves with dignity and grace, unfortunately, being on the recieving end of so much verbal shenanigans (I could insert other words, but, they'd be deleted by the mods) is just not on, so, I don't entertain the Auran idiots with my presence anymore.

Well I hope this thread bucks the trend, In my opinion the more 'mature' contributions only enhance my enjoyment of this sim. Unfortunately as in every walk of life there will always be the loudmouths and attention seekers, on the pther hand we have the people who are prepared to listen and respect. Of course the occasional joke doesn't go awry!

[220389]

Got to say an intresting thread.

But i have noticed since the days i joined 2003 sometime, should be under my avatar, the community spirit has seemed to have degraded a bit, rather just pure moaning about release dates being missed (one reason i don't regulary go on the railsim facebook page). The payware & freeware debate will always go on, and you have to remember freeware is a gift and not a right, for payware people will buy it if they want it, which is perfectly fair in my opioin.

Some things that are getting me down on this forum, and starting to make me want to post less is the lack of gratitude that is sometimes shown, or really may be a bit petty lack of thanks sometimes, especially i've found on the screenshot bits only a few will ever get some words said about screens etc.

For the auran forums i have been on their as intrested in it, but the whole attuitudes towards anything else part from trainz is very off putting and makes their community seem incredibly rude and hostile, just as the steam forums have been previously, but believe they have improved though recently?

Overal this is one of my main hobbies and one of a few forums i will actually visit and post on due to the main community spirit is great, and is nice to see other peoples work. Just got to remember to treat each other with the respect they deserve and be helpful

Chris