Why is a pro subscription necessary?

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I recently purchased IF for its usual $5 on the Google Play Store. I skimmed the description and didn’t see anything immediately screaming the need for a subscription. Most people see this app online via YouTube. It is often shown as multiplayer, and yet no statement in the description blaringly states the need for a subscription to “unlock” this feature.

Anyways, I suppose my main question is “Isn’t $5 enough?” I mean I get server upkeep costs an whatnot, but many games (and I mean like almost every multiplayer game) is able to run based off of new buyers to their product. If this means increasing the purchase price a bit, the go ahead.

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Hi,

A subscription is necessary only if you’d like access to the entire world, all aircraft, multiplayer and realtime weather. You’re not required to purchase a subscription. However, you will be limited to the solo mode and specific regions in which you are permitted to operate in.

Subscription fees are to help out the developers with server operating costs and development costs. By purchasing a subscription you’re helping the developers produce greater content for the next update.

Hope this helps!
-Matt

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The 5$ purchase states that you receive a limited amount of planes and a solo mode It also clearly states that to unlock the atc and further features like the entire fleet you are required to pay for a subscribtion since server and other develpment costs are simply too high for a high quality mobile device simulator to have a one time payment. The initial price is also so low for such a high quality simulator to atract to players searching for a simulator without needing a multiplayer.

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Its how they keep the game functioning. IF is a high functioning app and the top flight simulator game on the market. Subscription fees are useful to help people that run the app and operation of the game. With a subscription you have access to all aircrafts, global and weather. Global allows you to fly with other users and to fly to anywhere around the world.

Name: Infinite Flight Pro - Contains Global, Live, and of the in-app purchases. This means the timeframe is irrelevant to the content - everything is included with every subscription.

1, 6 and 12 month plans

1 months is $9.99 - $9.99 per month

6 months is $49.99 - $8.33 per month

12 months is $79.99 - $6.66 per month

Naturally, the longer the subscription the higher the price, but the better the value.

Here is a short list of the most notable features and improvements that are included in this update:

  • New and improved scenery with high definition imagery and accurate topography (see here for a map of HD imagery coverage, subscription required for full globe access)
  • New atmospherics with realistic sky, sun, moon and stars
  • New real time night and day cycle
  • Improved hundreds of airport layouts
  • Added engine startup and shutdown
  • Added fuel consumption with a fuel jettison option (on “Heavies” only)
  • Added autopilot NAV mode
  • Improved aircraft selection UI
  • New liveries for the A320 and 777-300ER
  • Fixed UI scaling issues on Samsung devices

This new experience comes with a new minimum device requirement:

  • Infinite Flight now requires iOS 10 or Android 5.0
  • Devices need to support OpenGL ES 3.0 (should be supported by most Android devices with at least Android 5.0 and Apple devices with at least iOS 10.3, but unfortunately this is not guaranteed by each manufacturer).
    Devices that do not satisfy those minimum requirements will not be able to update.

You can fly without a subscription however you will be limited to certain regions and aircrafts. IAP are no longer available on this app and you can only gain access to the aircrafts and the regions by purchasing the subscription or if you have previously purchased aircrafts before the global update.

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@Aeroplane747 is right. The subscription is needed to keep the game running

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I seriously beg my mom to buy me IF Pro, I’m too obsessed 😂

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One thing that gets me wondering about this subscription is that why do you need to have a subscription to fly the paid planes?

I know FDS needs money to keep their servers alive, to keep IFC alive, to pay their staff, etc.

A way FDS can make more money is to return to the original method of paying for an individual plane without having to purchase a subscription.

Let’s say I buy the B738 and B739 but I don’t have a PRO subscription. I spent $10 right there if the pricing was like the original. And then I decide to get a yearly PRO subscription. That is $80. That means I spent a total of $90.

With this current system, if I buy the PRO subscription, I would pay $80 only. Not $90.

This basically just ties in to how a subscription is necessary.

just my two cents

I’m still a happy Infinite Flight customer nonetheless but it gets me wondering why you would have to buy a subscription to get all the paid planes…

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Hi there,

The reason to move to a subscription model wasn’t made lightly. I see lots of good thoughts in this thread, but I’ll add something from a company perspective.

Server upkeep is definitely one thing that plays into this. It seems everyone is satisfied by this being a major component of it. Good… onward!

Next, we have improvements. There are many improvements that need to be made beyond new aircraft. We could continue to do IAPs (In App Purchases) which would allow us to keep adding new aircraft, however here are some things that IAPs do not cover:

  • Satellite imagery updates and processing. As you can imagine, we’re not launching satellites into space to take images of the earth, but someone is! This costs money.
  • Aircraft reworks: This is a major request that we get. It’s impossible to continue updating based on IAP and App purchase revenue. If we collect money once to cover the initial build of an aircraft, we’re reworking for free down the road when the simulator is advanced past that initial aircraft build. Not only could the company not move at the pace we are now with reworks, we would indeed get slower due to lack of resources.
  • Development you don’t see: We have a lot in the works and due to the nature of app development and managing customer expectation, we can’t always share it. As you can imagine, Laura and Philippe aren’t the only ones coding and working on these items. Developers (even the ones you don’t know exist) don’t come free and they don’t come cheap. We hear the cries from the mountain tops to “ADD CLOUDS AND 3D BUILDINGS!!!”, but we don’t hear pleas to continue the subscription model to fund those efforts ;)
  • Free-to-play games and apps are certainly awesome, however Infinite Flight is a subset of a subset of a subset of apps. You have to want to play a game on your phone or tablet, then you have to be into simulation, then finally, aircraft simulation. Free to play games (take a look at Warframe) make their money by letting anyone play, but if you want a more awesome experience (and arguably a winning experience), you can pay. With Infinite Flight, you can get the full feel of the simulator with HD imagery and even a brand new aircraft model (CRJ200) for $5. That’s not a bad deal. If you’d like to take advantage of our live servers and the continued work to bring new and reworked aircraft, you can pay for that.

We realize a subscript model isn’t for everyone and that’s okay. We’ll never find the perfect model to please everyone. In our case; is a pro subscription necessary? Yes.

Happy landings!

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Welcome to Infinite Flight!

Here’s what other multiplayer games doesn’t have:
Online link to real time real world data.
Heavy reliance on expensive high quality 3rd party suppliers.
Commitment to constant, timely improvements.
Vibrant community expecting online gameplay related content, and that requires constant human attention.

All other serious games out there contains, besides initial purchase price, expensive in app purchases with different incentives such as more weapons, easier progress, etc.

On IF you get the full experience for periodic fixed payment. I prefer that over having to separately buy different things like ATC services, liveries, global access, etc.

I think this pricing system is perfect as it is.

Edit: See Jason’s answer above. ^^

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Some great comments by @royfr83 as well. Consider that a great addition to my post :)

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Yes, I agree with this. But my post above talked about how you could keep in-app purchases along with the subscription.

See this example:

@jasonrosewell

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Subscriptions and in-app purchases together aren’t possible for technical and forward compatibility reasons. There has to be a path of least resistance or your subscription money goes into maintaining a very difficult pricing model.

Subscriptions are the answer to that.

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Are you asking for a retroactive refund for a plane you enjoyed before the subscription model existed?

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What I think he is saying is he bought the planes, FDS gets $10, then he buys a year sub, and FDS then gets another $80, making the total that FDS gets is $90, rather then if it’s only a subscription system, where FDS only gets the $80.

key word there is think

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Not what I am asking. I was giving an example of how FDS could make more money if they kept both individual in-app purchases and a subscription plan.

Like stated in my example, let’s say if I buy a B738, B739, and a yearly pro subscription, you guys would end up making more money rather than just keep the subscription itself. Making more money means you guys can continue to move forward with more updates.

Also, there are people who can’t get a subscription but still want the planes. You guys would end up making around $5 for a plane itself rather than nothing because that person can’t pay $10 a month.

I mean, this was a thing in the past before the 18.2 update can’t remember which one exactly. Did you guys run into any issues with this problem?

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Doing both isn’t possible. It’s too difficult to maintain, and IAP’s just by themselves took too many resources to maintain. We’ve never had subscriptions and IAPs both available for purchase at the same time.

You’re also making some assumptions in your comments. We can’t assume that having both (if it were possible from a technical standpoint) would generate more revenue. As it stands now it’s all moot as this isn’t an avenue being considered. 🙂

Thanks for the thoughts. For anyone looking for the answer to the OP’s question, please see above.

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Some things to keep in mind;

  • Being a Developer (not of IF) myself, having apps on the App Store is expensive. We’re talking USD$99 per year
  • Servers aren’t cheap either
  • Satellite Imagery was mentioned by phillipe in the global release announcement as quite expensive too
  • FDS have to pay their staff
  • And, this is one is based on a bit of assumption, but I think they have to pay for this forum as well, unless they installed it themselves. Not sure on that one.

–
Hope this helps!

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I will quite happily pay more, £79 a year is a bargain for what FDS provide

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Ok, I had a nice discussion with @jasonrosewell in a PM just now.

Why a subscription is necessary:

First of all, whether the subscription is necessary or not doesn’t matter to me. I am still a happy customer of Infinite Flight and I am looking to purchase PRO again once it expires on my birthday. Get it? IF PRO will be my Birthday present :D XD I am happy to spend $80 for this as this is the best flight simulator on mobile.

Now, to answer your question, a pro subscription is necessary in order to allow the developers to continue to move forward. If you only paid $5 for the app itself, that money will soon run out for the developers.

You pay $5 one time, but the developers have to keep on paying to keep their satellite imagery updated, pay their staff, pay for Discourse (which is IFC itself), and pay for the app to remain on the App Store and Play Store. This basically means that soon, they will no longer be able to afford to pay all this and Infinite Flight as we know it would shut down! D:

A subscription ensures: the developers get a constant income of revenue to keep their updates going, the app is able to remain on the App and Play stores, IFC to remain alive, and the satellite imagery is to be up to date.

Regarding IAPs

If you are wondering why IAPs were removed altogether, as I did, the answer was simply that there was no point in keeping them alive. When that beautiful update called GLOBAL came out in October 2017 and PRO came out, all airplanes were included in the PRO subscription. Since people wanted to fly globally and not get stuck in regions, they would end up getting a PRO subscription. That means there is basically no point in keeping IAPs as everyone is purchasing PRO instead. It’s basically like a nightmare for the developers as they are keeping something alive that absolutely has no point of being alive.

Everyone has PRO. They have all planes. Those that don’t have PRO might not play IF at all since they would rather enjoy global than getting stuck in regions. That was before. Today, NO ONE would want to get stuck in a region.

I would like to thank @jasonrosewell for clearing that up as it has been a curiosity of mine for a long time since the 18.2 update. I am a happy customer for IF and will be for at least another year.

TL;DR

No subscription = No Infinite Flight

Have any questions?

Reply to me below.

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