The latest discussion around the DCS World community right now is focused primarily on the pricing of Heatblur’s now up for pre-order DCS: F-14B(U). The module release is an upgrade available for the previously released DCS: F-14 Tomcat (featuring the F-14A and B) and Heatblur are asking $49.99 USD for the update. Following last Friday’s announcement, discussions in the community have been ongoing on the price and value of the upgrade and Heatblur has responded to some of the discussion with a lengthy thread. Let’s have a look at the issue.

On pricing, value, and features

DCS: F-14B(U) has certainly stirred up a lot of community commentary and I’ve seen many comments on Facebook, Reddit, and here on the blog with varying viewpoints on the upgrade and on the pricing.

On Saturday, IronMike from the Heatblur team posted a rather lengthy response to a lot of community commentary. The response goes through some of the key points that have come up in discussion with response on nearly a point by point basis.

IronMike had a lot to say but I do want to zoom in one two aspects of the discussion because I think they are likely at the core of the various discussions. Value and price.

DCS: F-14 Tomcat featuring two (and soon to be three) variants of the F-14A and one of the F-14B as well as campaigns, an aircraft carrier, a soundtrack and some other items are currently on at a regular price of $79.99 USD. If you take that and add up the $49.99 USD and you get $129.99 USD. So assuming you bought the F-14 at full price and then the upgrade you’re paying $130. If you get the ultimate edition bundle which includes both the F-14A/B and the new B(U)… you pay $98.99. Obviously that’s $30 cheaper for new players coming in.

IronMike responded on that point with the following.

So you will have to please forgive us, if we search for ways to put older products on sale or into bundles to incentivize new folks joining the community and also expanding the market. Only a growing community is a stable community. I find it extremely selfish and bewildering when some ask that the Ultimate Edition price should have been higher, to even out what they paid. De facto complaining that others pay less. Showing so little solidarity to folks new to the community (or a specific product line), really makes me sad, guys. We always tried to treat you the same way, when you were new. This is why we kept offering sales and bundles, like the triumvirate bundle, etc., repeatedly, (and adding always so much for free) even if the size of the market does not allow us to hold as many sales and as steep sales as a AAA game could. 

IronMike on the DCS World forums

Of course, the difference between is a bit less if you did the original pre-order back in 2018 at $69.99 USD (only $20 difference now) or bought the aircraft on sale during one of the more recent discounts.

The other part I wanted to specifically quote and draw out was the discussion about what has been done with DCS: F-14B(U). I view pricing of a module as a function of “value to the consumer.” Does it offer enough stuff to be willing to pay for the update or not?

Here I think the core of the issue is not specifically the price but rather the understanding of value. Even with the feature list released, I was still very interested to hear from the developers about the kind of effort that they put in to make this variant of the F-14B. IronMike summarizes nicely what the F-14B(U) brings to the table right here:

We had to re-do the flight controls practically from scratch, giving you a completely new FM experience in the aircraft – it is definitely not “just a layer on top of the old FM” – we had to make enormous changes to the cockpit, almost starting from fresh, both front and back, the entire re-work of textures and updating the art, not to mention a whole – not only – change in systems – but philosophy of the aircraft in how systems interact; a completely new nav system, new animations, new models, new avionics, new RWR, PTID, new screens, new panels, new HUD communicating with all these new systems, full Lantirn integration, JDAMS, Mission Data Loader system, new effects, backporting select Jester 2.0 features, in game browser elements, in game manual, gun camera, imaging system, a completely new flight control system, and all of that for 2 cockpits and with multicrew and teaching it all to the JESTER AI, new character customization and who knows what all I forgot rattling this down, and then applying all of which is applicable of that to the A/B as well, again, for free, on top of it. Well over a year (and more) of dedicated work went into it, as always with the intent of raising the bar.

Reading about the F-14B(U) before and now, thanks to this summary, has me really curious about just how different the F-14B(U) will be. It’s certainly more than slapping a couple of screens in thanks to the new digital augmentation system, JDAM, mission loader, new RWR, and all of the other items listed. That’s “not nothing” and at the end of the day. I, and all of you, have to determine if all of that is worth the $49.99 USD upgrade or not.

For some, I suspect that none of that would move the needle for them while others are very much ready to drop the cash for everything that this adds.

There is also excitement to be had for current module owners. DCS: F-14 Tomcat is still slated to be getting a whole bunch of new features as it comes out of early access and into life as a fully released module. Flying the Tomcat has never been as good as it is right now no matter if you own the original release and are sticking with it or if you’re committed to learning a significantly updated variant.

The discussion on this continues! Read the full statement from IronMike here.