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Cinema R25 Release


Guest Igor

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12 minutes ago, Cairyn said:

By now I wonder why people even read the other's posts if it aggravates them so much.

I like and respect everyone on this forum. And I read every message that is posted. I personally don’t have any other connections to any users in any other medium. This site is it for me. So I really enjoy the conversations here and see both sides of all arguments. So far this time round it has been quiet polite really. No overly aggressive comments, which is great to see. We are all professional adults here just doing our thing. And with COVID out there, and no real events to go to, this forum is a great place for people to come to. So everyone just keep on typing. Lots of us here are reading along and happy to discuss all topics.

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4 hours ago, kbar said:

 

It is a business. I hope they are caring about money. Money is what pays every employee their wages so that they can continue to work. And I highly doubt there are any managers getting bonuses. Also Maxon is no longer just a C4D company. They now have a very large portfolio of products. And all the business decisions now span a much wider market. I understand why perpetual C4D customers may not be that overwhelmed by this (and the previous S24) release. But for users on the subscription it means absolutely nothing. Just keep on working, use S24 or S25 if they have features you need and if you want to adjust your workflow, otherwise stick to S23 to R21. For the price of a new perpetual license today you could be on a sub for almost 5 years. I wonder how many customers would still even consider purchasing a perpetual these days. Doesn't make much sense. My last perpetual was R21 (and I own everything back to R17). However, I am a registered developer and do get access to the Beta versions. But for everything I would ever do R21 is perfectly fine for my purposes. I even do all my development in R21 (I only use newer versions to test compatibility). If I do leave the developer program I would loose my access, but then I would only get a sub if there was some feature that I really wanted to use. But in most cases there are other tools that already fill the gaps I would need anyway. Not sure what I am really getting at here other than to say businesses need to stay profitable and customers should do what is right for them. But for the past few years I keep seeing the same arguments and comments being thrown at Maxon every release. How much longer will people keep saying the same things? When it comes to business if something doesn't suit your needs then quickly move on. Although I have been annoyed at many companies for the direction they have taken, I understand it is just business, not a personal vendetta against me personally. Companies get bigger and have to get their big boy pants on and make hard decisions that will affect some of their user base, that is inevitable. But hopefully the decisions that Maxon has made will allow it to prosper and continue to expand, grow larger, get a bigger community and potentially one day dominate over their competition (Autodesk, The Foundry and maybe even Adobe). I say good luck to them and I am happy I could have helped and will be sticking around to take this journey with them until such time as my life takes me in a different direction. 

dear kbar,
i appreciate your contributions and your opinion very much. I am all the more surprised that you are of the opinion that one should please stop expressing one's opinion aloud after a certain time at the latest, because it doesn't help anyway. one should rather move on. I'm not sure if you expect the same from your own customers.
By the way, my post was mainly about marketing and the, in my opinion, tendentious communication with customers.

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8 hours ago, BoganTW said:

I've never understood the subscription hate. 

[..]

Everything should be on subscription.

If software customers were of the same kin, sure.
Please read my long post further up in this thread. Maybe you’ll get a more nuanced view regarding this. Practically, what you say is that software is only for those who have a steady stream of money coming in, for those who never retire. 
I will soon retire, professionally. So, the subscription model means no more multimedia for me, if I had chosen the subscription model. As it is now, I can continue using C4D for my non-profit projects, as long as the Maxon licensing servers are running.
Another example: I have purchased, and upgraded the Mocha planar tracker several times. Perpetual license. But in the meantime, Boris has acquired this product. And of course turned it into subscription. Now, I still have the perpetual license I paid for, right? Well, if I upgrade my hardware, there is no way uninstall and unregister Mocha in the old machine, and reinstall and register it again on the new machine. Because Boris does not allow this. And I used to like Boris and their products, have paid for some too..
Please consider this too, when you are so sure about the benefits of subscription.
-Ingvar

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5 minutes ago, ingvarai said:


Please consider this too, when you are so sure about the benefits of subscription.
-Ingvar

 

I'm very sure about the benefits of subscription to me. There will always be cases where circumstances have others getting a worse deal. You've explained some logical reasons why subs don't suit you, and fair enough.

 

Hey, at least you're not like IceCaveMan, going into full ATTACK MODE at people who hold a differing opinion.

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1 hour ago, BoganTW said:

Hey, at least you're not like IceCaveMan, going into full ATTACK MODE at people who hold a differing opinion.

I praised  your prescience and forward-thinking perspective. Is anything less than a wet kiss an "ATTACK"? 

 

You are perfectly tuned for the subscription/rental future and are happy with it. Roll on, BraveBogan. 

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47 minutes ago, Igor said:

Folks please, lets keep it civil! :cowboypistol:

Why can’t we agree on this:

* Offering subscription licensing only, will alienate some, if not a lot of faithful old customers. Especially those who do not have a steady stream of money coming in, but instead plan their business on a per project basis, or have a non-profit use of the software.

* Offering perpetual subscription licensing only will prevent occasional users to try the software in production, and will be less attractive to teams where artists are hired on a temporary basis.

* A software company offering both a subscription licensing and perpetual licensing will serve most, if not all customers.


The interesting topic here is why we can’t have both? Seems like we eventually end up with just one of these options. Why?
The most serious case is when Boris first acquires Mocha, then stops the license server for Mocha, thereby preventing me from upgrading my PC. (I cannot move Mocha from old to new computer). Who in this forum supports such behavior?
I had hoped that you guys would be interested in this phenomenon in general, why on earth the subscription model is becoming so prevalent. Because it is hard to find any benefits for the customers, going for subscription only. As an alternative, definitely. But only subscription? No.

-Ingvar

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11 minutes ago, ingvarai said:

I had hoped that you guys would be interested in this phenomenon in general, why on earth the subscription model is becoming so prevalent. Because it is hard to find any benefits for the customers, going for subscription only. As an alternative, definitely. But only subscription? No.

-Ingvar

 

I can't imagine any human soul that would honestly dispute what you've written.

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9 minutes ago, ingvarai said:

Why can’t we agree on this:

* Offering subscription licensing only, will alienate some, if not a lot of faithful old customers. Especially those who do not have a steady stream of money coming in, but instead plan their business on a per project basis, or have a non-profit use of the software.

* Offering perpetual subscription licensing only will prevent occasional users to try the software in production, and will be less attractive to teams where artists are hired on a temporary basis.

* A software company offering both a subscription licensing and perpetual licensing will serve most, if not all customers.


The interesting topic here is why we can’t have both? Seems like we eventually end up with just one of these options. Why?
The most serious case is when Boris first acquires Mocha, then stops the license server for Mocha, thereby preventing me from upgrading my PC. (I cannot move Mocha from old to new computer). Who in this forum supports such behavior?
I had hoped that you guys would be interested in this phenomenon in general, why on earth the subscription model is becoming so prevalent. Because it is hard to find any benefits for the customers, going for subscription only. As an alternative, definitely. But only subscription? No.

-Ingvar

100% agree.

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@ingvarai I am not sure why you quoted me, I simply stated to keep things civil without anyone insulting anyone. I am reading pretty much all comments and I am also noticing a bit of fire in them, so my job is to make sure no one is attacking anyone personally and to keep things civil, simple as that. 

 

And I am most definitely against all subscriptions and only subscription bollocks. In my eyes both could be beneficial and companies should not make so much difference from a perpetual customers and subscription ones. My question would be for these companies that do that, why SideFX can offer so much options and others cannot, simple question, but what is the answer?! 

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Apologies to everyone for beating an old drum, but let me explain again why hobbyists hate subscriptions more than professionals.  And it all boils down to 2 points so it should not be that hard for anyone to grasp.

 

Point 1) The biggest downside of subscriptions is that it provides a source of locked in revenue for the software company.  You stop subscribing, you lose access to your work -- so you keep subscribing to keep working.  That is why you are locked in revenue.

 

Point 2) As a hobbyist I have a strong desire to continue to have access to my work.  That connection is not as strong for professionals because their connection to their work ends as soon as they get paid.  Should the client want to change it in the future, they get paid again.  So it is easy for them to jump in and out of a subscription model because they loose nothing.  But hobbyists want to revisit what they have done in the past in case they learn something new that will make that scene better.  Personally speaking...everything I do is a WIP as I am always reworking it.  That is part of the fun and learning process.

 

So here is why those two points make hobbyists unwilling to accept subscriptions.

 

Point 1)  If companies have a big percentage of their revenue locked in, there is less pressure to compete.  Software companies compete on updating features, fixing bugs, providing new features, staying relevant in the marketplace.  History has shown (especially with Adobe, 3DS Max and now R25) that companies are less concerned about what negative reactions they could receive from lackluster releases.  Now, this behavior will NOT increase market share but for mature programs in a mature industry, there really is not that much NEW market to grab - or certainly not enough to warrant the investments required to improve the program to capture that market.   But every company CEO still needs to increase profit year-over-year (his/her bonus depends on it) and therefore the best way to do that is to cut back on expenses.  Unfortunately, in the software world their biggest expense is people.  This all adds up to the conclusion that NOT only does subscriptions remove companies from the need to compete on features, it supports the means by which companies can layoff developers and increase profits.  Major point being:  Do not be surprised by lackluster updates once a company adopts a subscription model.

 

Point 2) So eventually, based on the reasoning in Point 1, there is a good chance that each new release within a subscription model will fail to meet the user's needs in one way or another.  Bugs persist and desired features get ignored.  Pretty soon all users realize that they are just renting the software to use it -- paying over and over again with no noticeable improvements.  They are not even renting to own.   For professionals, that may not be a big deal because their connection to the software is job based.    But remember that hobbyists have a connection to their work so if they are fed up with just renting and exit the subscription model, they loose everything or have to go through the additional work of exporting and importing in the painful switch to a new platform.  That is why we like perpetual licenses -- if the update is not worth our money, we don't buy it and keep going.  Nothing is lost.

 

Unfortunately, Maxon is even making holding onto perpetual licenses harder given that they are removing access to the executables for past versions so now our life with C4D is restricted to our hardware.  Is it just me, or do others feel that the old pre-subscription and pre license server model offered us more freedoms with our purchased software?  And are those freedoms slowing being removed each year?

 

Dave

 

Oh....and if you love freedom the way I do, then I cannot say enough good things about the Blender training in this course --- now on SALE again:

 

 

image.png.39e20fd6294ddc0ff9f62fa9b94c7fdb.png

 

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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