Today we are happy to be able to finally announce our future plans and how we want to start into the new sim cycle. Take a look at the graphic below to get a quick overview about how things will work out for our existing product KSGF for MSFS2020, and how the new simulator affects our future products. For those who want a more detailed insight about why we made certain decisions or how this affects you, the customer, sit down, get some snacks, and enjoy the read.
How Are We Moving Forward?
Well, since we only have one airport currently available, it is a little bit easier for us than other developers. That doesn’t mean we didn’t face problems coming up with a fair strategy for our current and future customers, though. We spent months trying to figure out prices and the inevitable upgrade pricing which are caused by all the new features and changes MSFS 2024 comes with; but more on that later. For now, all you need to know is the following: For SGF, the MSFS 2020 and the MSFS 2024 retail price will stay at 12.99 GBP excl. VAT. People who own the 2020 version of the scenery will receive a compatibility update (coming calendar week 48) for free! Because we also want to add native 2024 features to SGF, later in 2025, we will release a new and native 2024 version of SGF. Customers who own SGF for 2020 will be able to upgrade to the new and native 2024 version for 2.99 GBP excl. VAT. We thought that this is a fair price given all the workload required. We are talking 400+ hours of work here since so much has changed in the new sim. But again, more on that later.
For our next upcoming project, the story is a bit different. We are essentially focusing on finishing this scenery for MSFS 2020 now because we are so far into development that scrapping this for 2020 is not justifiable. And, in addition to that, most of the thigs that need to be re-done from scratch are already done. Also, since MSFS 2024 is currently not in a state in which it is even possible to develop native high-quality sceneries for (due to the sheer amount of core sim bug and also SDK bugs) we wanted to finish this product for 2020 first to also make it available for simmers who, understandably, don’t want to bite the bullet on 2024 yet. Since we always wanted to release for MSFS 2020 too anyways, we will first finish this in 2020, and then start converting and upgrading it to a native 2024 version after the 2020 version has been released. However, because of the backwards compatibility MS promised, you should/will still be able to use the 2020 version in 2024 until we are done with the native version. (There are known backwards compatibility issues present at the moment, but those affect all sceneries and need to be addressed by Asobo. This is also why the Marketplace is not available yet.) You might ask yourself now: “why should I buy the 2020 version now if I have to pay an upgrade price for the 2024 scenery later?”. Well, this is where this scenery and its pricing differs from SGF. Initially, this project would have been priced at 14.99 GBP excl. VAT for both sims. But, given the current situation, in order to not make you pay more, we decided that we will release this scenery for 12.99 and 14.99 GBP excl. VAT for MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 respectively.
This has 3 advantages: firstly, we can release the airport when it's ready and didn’t need to rush it out before the 2024 release; secondly, it means that if you only want it for 2020 because you are not switching to 2024 instantly, you will get it cheaper, and thirdly, which is the most important point in my opinion, if you buy the 2020 version first before we are done with the 2024 version, you will not pay more than as if you bought it straight for 2024. In fact, if you buy it for 2020 first, you will get it one full penny cheaper. Factoring in the 1.99 GBP excl. VAT “upgrade fee”, you will end up paying 14.98 GBP excl. VAT for both native versions of the scenery. Jokes aside: effectively this means you are only paying the difference to what the 2024 version costs. And to make it clear, we didn’t make the 2024 version more expensive, we lowered the 2020 price to make it fair for our customers as we believe good reputation and being fair to the ones who support you and make your who you are is far more important than money.
Next up, as some of you might have already known, and as mentioned on the chart, our next project after the one we are doing now will be LOWS – Salzburg Airport. My (Michael’s) home airport. This will be our first 100% 2024 airport and all future products will be 2024 only from there on. This has one simple reason: it is just not possible - and especially not for a 2-man team – to make products for MSFS 2020 and 2024 at the same time. I won’t go too much into the technical side of things, but in short: in order to do a version for both we would have to install and uninstall various things for every step in the development process (e.g. the blender plugin). Having said that, and as alluded to earlier, right now it is not viable or possible to do a scenery with the 2024 SDK. This means we will only start doing this once the new sim, its scenery editor, and the SDK as a whole has mature to a point where we would ditch 2020 as simmers too.
Now, you might ask yourself: “Why Salzburg? We already have 2 payware and a freeware for it?!” And yes, you are right about that, valid question too. However, we are not in this scene to compete with anybody. All we want to do is do create top-teir sceneries for the airports we like. Moreover, because I live right next to the airport, I have an infinite number of references and resources at my disposal; allowing us to create the most accurate version of LOWS, if not even the most accurate flightsim-scenery in general.
Timing wise, as always, I will not tell you when we are releasing what. We are releasing when it is done, and it is done when it is done. But I can give you an insight in the order of development. Our primary focus now is to get SGF 2020 compatible with 2024. Then our full focus is to finish the secret project for MSFS2020. After that, we will immediately start with the secret project 2024 version. Once that is released, we will do the 2024 version of SGF, and start with LOWS. The 2024 SGF version will release at some point between the 2024 secret project version and LOWS. I hope this clarifies everything about our plans for the near future and we are looking forward to bringing you all this new content!
Why Upgrade Prices?
Well, now on to the difficult part, because I know most of you despise having to pay for the same airport twice. And, honestly, so do we in some scenarios. But there is a difference between paying for a V2 for the same platform and paying to get a new scenery with new features in a new engine for a new Simulator. Doing V2s for the same platforms is just fixing skill issues you had the first time when you made the scenery in our opinion. This is why we personally also don’t like having to pay for V2s even though we know how much work is required doing a whole scenery from scratch from a developer perspective. However, if you had done it right the first time, you wouldn’t have to re-do it all for a V2 and charge your customers for it. Anyways, I digress. In the case of 2024, this is a bit different. This sim offers a lot that we just were not able to do in 2020, which is the first massive increase in workload required to make a 2020 scenery 2024 native. This ranges from re-doing all the lights because 2020 lights don’t work anymore, to having to adjust all our LODs and re-export every single model because the whole LOD system changed in 2024. In addition to that, there are also thing that aren’t new, but need to be completely re-done from scratch – the groundtextures. I take great pride in my grountexture work and I always strive to create the most realistic groundtextures I can. In 2020, this was limited by the sim itself. This restriction is now gone, luckily, but this also means for 2024 I have to delete the whole thing and start from scratch to get the desired look I want. All of this results in approximately 350-450h of work. And, more importantly, all of this we couldn’t have done in 2020. So, in this case we are not charging for the skill issues we had like a regular V2 does, but for what we now add in order to make the scenery even better in 2024.This is also why we are not calling it V2, because it simply isn’t. SGF 2020 doesn’t require a V2 and we are more than happy with how it looks in 2020. All we are doing is creating SGF 2024. It is like having a 2020 version of an Audi A3, and now you want a better, more modern version with more features, and you buy the 2024 Audi A3 as a replacement. (I hope this comparison makes you understand why upgrade prices for new products aren’t just a flightsim thing and it happens all the time in every-day life). We tried to keep the price of this upgrade as low as possible whilst still making it viable to do (spoiler, it won’t be economically viable anyways, and it never was. But that’s not the point. We will do it regardless because we just want to have native and good-looking SGF in 2024)
So, I hope this RSR style essay cleared up all your questions regarding SGF, our next upcoming projects, and why we, as well as other scenery developers, have to charge small upgrade fees for native MSFS 2024 sceneries. Despite the rather miserable launch of the new sim, I hope you are slowly but surely able to enjoy it at least somewhat. Should you have any further questions regarding anything I just mentioned, please, do not hesitate to drop us a message on our Discord server, or contact us directly via contact@rwprofiles.com.
Best,
Michael and Reverentan
RW Profiles
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