CoolP wrote on Oct 30^th, 2013 at 10:11am:

Since you've mentioned the licence types, Mark. I'm not that much in the P3D loop but are they planning to introduce those same types again in V2? If so, what's the benefit of the 199 USD licence over the 49 USD one?

I'm believe that the licenses will be same for v2.x as they are for v1.x. Unless it has changed, if you buy the Academic lLisence, you are only able to upgrade in the increments. i.e. I bought v1.3 Academic, so ican upgrade to1.4 (I already have), 1.5 (if it happens to be released). OR. if I buy v2.0 Academic License, I can upgrade to 2.1, 2.3 etc. IF I had bought the v1.3 Professional License, I get all upgrades for free. i.e. 1.4, 2.0, 2.1...3.0...etc.

I bought the academic Licence because $US199 was a lot of money to spend on P3D, without ever having tried it before (MS released a Demo of FSX, so I knew what I was getting when I paid $AU130+ for it). :D

As I said, it may have changed. But seeing as I haven't either been to the P3D forums, or read up on the licensing for the current version on the web site, for quite a while, I do not know of any changes in the licensing at this time. I guess I should check on it! ;)

Note: Last time I checked, there was no upgrade option from Academic License to Professional License, so it is (or was) a case of pay the FULL price to get the Professional License if you wanted it.