On Wed, Oct 16, 2013 at 2:46 PM, Mirko Jankovic <[email protected]> wrote: > > As I recall salesman is supposed to attract customer to gain their trust and > support. > Now it is other way around??? > Customers should give their total support and money in order to be treated > like customers?? > > Actually there is something similar happening with buying games as well... > Before there was always demo to show potential audience what is offered so > they can decide whether to buy. > Now it is all up to buy before seeing pre-purchase policy. > Is consumer market, both games and software that much brained washed??? > > With this rate soon people will be pre-ordering ideas and empty promises. > Oh wait that is already happening.. subscription? paying upfront for > something that you maybe will receive.. someday.. maybe?
In theory, it shouldn't be your problem to fund the development, but it has ended up kind of that way. The reason is that the market is low volume and difficult to address. So now, instead of paying 12k$ or more for softimage, you pay 3,500$ plus 850$ a year. (Note: people also paid thousands for the yearly maintenance plan when it was 12k$) In my opinion, it's best for your inner peace to consider this kind of software as enterprise, low-volume, software, or as a service, like electricity, rent, employee salaries, and not a one time purchase like consumer goods which work on high volume. Subscription has always been critical to Softimage. The user base is rather small and static, so it's difficult to count on new seats and upgrades.
