Thoughts on subscription-based software vs ownership?

[bennyboy]

All great points. And the length of people's comments makes me realize it's a passionate issue with folks (Autodesk, take note).
Here is my own observation:
The "major release" will be a thing of the past if the subscription model takes over long-term. In fact, companies who practice this model have much less incentive to innovate new features of their software at all. I've actually experienced this with my two year subscription of the Adobe CC....very little innovation across the board....especially in PS. Not that I care in Adobe's case, since what they have is pretty darn good...for now.
This could mean the subscription prices will drop dramatically over the next five years, since costs will go down (no more expensive software developments). However I could be completely wrong about this...there is always that open-source alternative biting at their heal...perhaps that'll be enough incentive to keep them on their toes...

[Booska]

One of the big problems is that companies like Adobe and Autodesk have the market cornered on the titles that most people use. If Autodesk decides to go 100% subscription with their products, it's not like there is much else out there that can take the place of Max, Maya, Softimage, etc. This seems like a repeat of the Standard Oil monopoly at the turn of the last century. If you own all the goodies, no one has a choice but to play your game. But individual users' voices might not be enough to disuade them. Hopefully, there will be some large studios that balk at these subscription plans too.

Workers of the CGI world unite!

[JezUK]

All great points. And the length of people's comments makes me realize it's a passionate issue with folks (Autodesk, take note).
Here is my own observation:
The "major release" will be a thing of the past if the subscription model takes over long-term. In fact, companies who practice this model have much less incentive to innovate new features of their software at all. I've actually experienced this with my two year subscription of the Adobe CC....very little innovation across the board....especially in PS. Not that I care in Adobe's case, since what they have is pretty darn good...for now.
This could mean the subscription prices will drop dramatically over the next five years, since costs will go down (no more expensive software developments). However I could be completely wrong about this...there is always that open-source alternative biting at their heal...perhaps that'll be enough incentive to keep them on their toes...

I'm still on PS CS6 and when I recently saw PS CC for the first time I couldn't see any differences (though I'm sure there are).

I have Production Premium so have goodies like After Effects and Premiere, plus I also have Acrobat and Dreamweaver and Lightroom (purchased individually).

Adobe's CC would be fine if they had something in the middle of "Photoshop and Lightroom" @ $9.99 and "Everything" @ $50 pm......

Say, "Choose any 4 products and pay $25pm". Then I'd be a CC customer (as I know I'll have to be *one* day).

[Shimakaze]

I hope that helps clarify the our licensing, but please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

I definitely agree that your method is better, but in a way it kind of doesn't make much difference. Because you don't provide legacy support for new versions of 3ds Max, which means any time there is a new Max refresh you HAVE to pay for the maintenance subscription anyway in order to install the plugins in the new Max, regardless of whether you want to upgrade the plugin versions or not. That way you end up in situations where it's been a year, and there hasn't been any updates you care about, but you still have to pay if you want to keep using it. Of course I don't expect you to provide support for older versions indefinitely, but the way Chaos group does it, where you pay for the main numbered versions has that advantage. Then, if you prefer to stay on the 2.0 release for a while they can keep a version of that up to date for a few versions of Max free of charge.

I don't really have a solution, but I feel like there could be a better way...

[3DMK]

Just thought I would add the fact that not keeping current with one software causes problems with another.
Example-. I was happily using max 2010 until Vray 3 came along with a minimum 3ds max version of 2011. Ohh well...I guess it was time to upgrade max anyway. I can see that software developers can't keep providing countless versions of their plugin software as things may have changed too much over time. Fair enough I think.
So faced with the new perpetual version or yearly monthly payment question I ended up choosing the yearly subscription model as it would take me 3 years on subscription to equal one perpetual license.. That's a long time & lots of new technology will arrive in this time that will be of great benefit...hopefully!
I didn't want to rent software as I am against that in principal, but the financial advantages won me over in the end.

Cheers
Jamie

PS. Thanks for an amazing upgrade from vray 2 to Vray 3 chaos team. Well worth the money.

[olly]

PERPETUAL LICENSING CHANGES - I am sure you have all seen this by now but it has made me incensed!

After shelling out thousands to buy seats of 3ds max, the maintenance subscription always felt like a kick in the balls. How Autodesk now have the gall to increase this annual cost with the Desktop Subscription model is beyond a joke. Adobe offered big subscription discounts for users who had previously invested in their software but I have seen no mention of Autodesk offering this. Hopefully someone will tell me I am wrong!

Unless the situation improves we will be sticking with Max 2016 - hopefully we won't be alone in making this stand!

Autodesk have created a forum to discuss this on, so join the others and tell them how you feel.

Cheers,
Olly

[Donald2B]

The only "stand" that will make a difference is mass amounts of people dropping the services! It's really that simple. I have so much dislike for how the Adobe Cloud stuff works, it's just infuriating! Those introductory prices don't last forever and when they expire, expect to pay at least double, if not triple per month compared to what you were paying! It's simple to say, F it and quit paying for Adobe, but now over 2 years worth of files are rendered useless because you no longer "own" software to open the files and rolling back to CS6 is completely worthless.

I never minded the Autodesk Maintenance program because it's very similar to that of several other software companies. so I okay with it for now. Still not ideal, but not much you can do.

[Booska]

"After shelling out thousands to buy seats of 3ds max, the maintenance subscription always felt like a kick in the balls. How Autodesk now have the gall to increase this annual cost with the Desktop Subscription model is beyond a joke."

When I was a kid my dad's big joke around the house was -
"Why does a dog lick his balls?"
"Because he can."

Autodesk has a monopoly on all the big 3D titles. There is no real competition for them (though C4D seems to be gaining a lot of steam), so of course they feel they are in the clear to push the envelope. I wish Autodesk could be broken up so that competition for features could flourish. But instead we seem to be getting the brunt of corporate financial reorganization... in their favor, of course.

I don't think that individuals making personal stands to not subscribe will make much difference. It's the big production houses that will have to balk en masse. That would certainly get their attention! And having worked in the game industry for 12 years the timing of these Autodesk upgrades will almost certainly not be in sync with their production schedules. And unless they are in the very early stages of the project, they are not going to want to interrupt the pipeline with software upgrades and the inevitable kinks that go with them. It will be interesting to see how these issues are dealt with.

But I'm really hoping that the whole software rental scheme eventually blows up in their faces. Fingers crossed!

[ior=0]

Interestingly I had a survey from Autodesk this morning about this very thing.
It was however mainly semantics:-
Q: When we take you from behind, do prefer we called it; A. shafted B. 2016 C. subscription?
Q: Do you like being shafted by; A. a single-user B. multi-users C. our whole organisation?
etc...
Light-hearted (slightly off colour comments aside ;¬)
It does seem they might actually be genuinely be interested in how the whole subscription / maintenance / licensing issue is being perceived and from the questions asked, it seems like they wish to simplify it.

The survey actually "requires" user feed-back, so if you get a email survey from Illuminas, it might be worth making some "suggestions" like:
"Fix the Fing bugs and stop worrying about which word is more appropriate: user or individual, mutli-user or team." or
"I like being shafted but only after 6 months and/or ShaftPatch1 has been released otherwise my whole pipeline is screwed - I certainly don't want to be screwed on a monthly basis by bug releases"
[okay I'll get my coat now...leaves room with head hanging low]
:¬)

[Drawehn]

O gosh, that is terrible news. The rental prices are super hefty. I just renewed my maintencance subscription for another year and if no further renewal is possible I will stick to Max 2017 until the plugins force me onto something new.

[alexyork]

Well I just renewed my subs for 3 years, so AD must still be offering subs for that long at least.

[Donald2B]

Just to clarify, Subscriptions are NOT going away! If you are on subscription, you make keep your perpetual license. Nothing will change!

If you want / need to get a new license after the 2016 change over date, you will only be able to get the new licensing terms. I have repeated asked this very question to my reseller and this was her response. She also mentioned that many of her clients are excited by the new licensing structure because they could flex licenses in and out as the staff sizes changed in relationship to the amount of work going on at the time. So if you needed a few extra seats, you are not "stuck" buying full copies of Max/Maya etc, but instead can get in at a MUCH lower cost for those few months and then drop them after the project is over. It could save some companies a LOT of money that way.

[Drawehn]

My reseller tried to convince me to buy a three year renewal, suggesting that Autodesk most likely will stop offering subscription renewals in the near future.

No one knows for sure I guess until it happens.

[rikou]

No one knows for sure I guess until it happens.

As always with AD !

[glorybound]

Maybe, they are trying to get people who pirate, to actually lease a copy. Or, maybe they are planning for GB internet and people will simply stream in a few years and they are preparing for that. I read an article about Microsoft and how Steve Ballmer, and all the executive team, had no clue what was going on with Windows 8. Microsoft's leadership were spreadsheet people and cared very little about software development. Maybe, Autodesk really doesn't have a clue, and we'll get whipped around a little until things start to fall apart eternally.