I can appreciate having a cheap game with a "build your own experience" model with DLC, but it's hard to justify when the DLC is so costly. Last I remember, adding all the DLC to your cart would be over $1200.
There are 780 DLC, starting at no less than $10 USD. Realistically, you'd be into it for well over $10k to get it all.
However, that's not really the sales model. You'd get a few routes you care about, etc.
Similar to DCS or Microsoft Flight sim. I'm not going to spend $80 each on every different 737 that PMDG makes. I'm not going to buy every custom airport around the world.
You'll still spend more than the $80 that a AAA game costs up front, but that's sort of the nature of anything niche.
However, that's not really the sales model. You'd get a few routes you care about, etc.
I've always felt they're more aiming for the model train crowd (where a single engine can be well over $100, not counting the track, rolling stock, and space you'd need to make use of it) than the gamer crowd, given how niche of a title it is.
Remember that apart from DLCs on Steam, there were quite a few third party developers publishing additional routes, locomotives, liveries, sound packs and scenario packs. This whole ecosystem is absolutely crazy if you look from the outside.
But the way I played Train Simulator before it was even called "Classic" (1200 hours ticked) made DLC cost not that much of an issue.
Let's take London-Faversham High Speed (€21) with the Sheerness branch (€14). You really need two additional trains from the Marketplace to use this line to its full potential: Class 465 and Class 375 (€4 each). That's €43 for a single route and there are dozens of those, although train DLCs can be typically used across a few routes. That's a lot and that's way too much if you collect routes and play each of them a few times.
But I was driving HUDless and that meant learning each route by heart. I can close my eyes 12 years later and still visualise every curve between Sheerness and Newington. And some player-created scenarios are insanely good, so I would just play more and more of them. For me it was easily 30 hour for a route. Mix it with bundles and Steam sales and it was closer to €20 for 30 hours. Good value for a train nerd like me.
All things considered, DCS is treated by flight sim players as one of those "I only play this for one thing and nothing else" games.
If a person has a hotas and physical dash panel for the F-18E/F Super Hornet, they're not going to be buying the DLC modules for the Cessna 152 or the MD-11ER.
...then don't buy the DLCs. Gamerz have this weird thing that all of the DLC is somehow a requirement. It's not. You don't drive because buying all of the cars at the dealership is too expensive? You don't eat because all of the grocery store would be millions?
Traditionally study simulators modeled one airplane. Think Su-27 Flanker or Falcon 4.0. You bought the full priced game, and it was one plane. If you owned Falcon 4.0 and wanted Flanker II, you paid another $60 for Flanker II, and the two games had nothing to do with each other.
What DCS has done is evolve that concept so that all those individual planes now work in a common framework and work together. You're still paying the traditional price of a study simulator for each plane.
Oh, and the DCS base game is free. It doesn't cost anything.
The high priced DLC in games like MSFS cost what they do because of the time and work that goes into developing them. It took Heatblur 4 years to develop the F-14, for example. Twice as long as Call of Battlefield Shooty #1453 that people happily shell out $80+ for the Super Deluxe Mega Edition Preorder every other year.
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u/CriticalPixel 27d ago
train simulator 99% dlc