A Sad Day..... time to accelerate plans to switch to Blender?

[T0ofic]

Blender boyz.. yay
I was just comparing back then and now. Why are you sarcastic? Don't you understand my point?
owning stuff is a thing of the past only in the minds of those who gave up.
enjoy your "free" cosmos buddy

[JezUK]

Just received my Autodesk Indie subscription renewal...... £230.

V-Ray? Erm, £325 (per year)

How does that make any sense?

[piotrus3333]

Just received my Autodesk Indie subscription renewal...... £230.

V-Ray? Erm, £325 (per year)

How does that make any sense?

3ds max is just tiny side hustle for autodesk. they probably would not feel the sting if they made it a freebie.

[JezUK]

3ds max is just tiny side hustle for autodesk. they probably would not feel the sting if they made it a freebie.

Can you confirm how small a tiny side hustle it is for Autodesk? Any figures?

(Autodesk's total revenue, $913m, with $831m from Design products, which includes 3DS Max).

[piotrus3333]

Can you confirm how small a tiny side hustle it is for Autodesk? Any figures?

(Total $913m revenue, $831m from Design products, including 3DS Max).

12.6k of employees total and 3ds max team is around 100. tiny.

[JezUK]

12.6k of employees total and 3ds max team is around 100. tiny.

So because Autodesk's focus on 3DS Max is 'tiny', it's correct to charge more for V-Ray? Okay....

[piotrus3333]

quite ridiculous that it is me who is lecturing about bussines strategies but lets go.

can you afford a 85% discount on your images just to make it a bit harder for your competition to reach more of the market? probably not a good move. but you can definitely give freebie handshakes to your clients. doesn't cost you much at all. indie licence is a freebie handshake for autodesk.

let's say you produce best archviz products in uk. everybody is trying hard, but nobody can even get close. what is happening to your prices? if not rising, they stay solid. you are running a bussines not a charity. everything around gets more expensive? you adjust up. chaos is. but they still maintain the best value proposition there is. what would be your next option if you stopped using vray?

[dean_dmoo]

I'm not sure its a value discussion Marcin, but a price increase of 50% (in our case with perpetual WS & RN licenses) in 2 years from 5 to 6 seems excessive and not purely based on general rises in costs / inflation.

That combined with the mergers and bringing capital partners onboard means an inevitable shift in financial management. Something which I think is clearly visible with the new pricing and obvious shift towards subscription.

It all points to a more "Autodesk" future which I think nobody likes besides shareholders. And it will be a shame if in 5 years time we think of Chaos as we do about Autodesk now. People have seen this process before and are recognising the similarities.

[oglu]

An Arnold license is also 380€ per year.
Renderman is 250$ per year.

[piotrus3333]

true, perpetual licence does not make sense financially for consumers any more. what also does not make sense financially is to charge less when you can charge more. especially when competition is still behind. there is no progress without incentives. "autodesk future" is merely a reality of free market. we all still use their products so why expect a change?

companies exist to produce revenue. everything else is secondary. all you can expect is a product or service, all you can do is to buy or pass.

at least we have now, in 2022, real alternatives. open source or free. and with subscription model you are free to choose. every year or even every month.

[JezUK]

perpetual licence does not make sense financially for consumers any more.

Where did you get that from?

what also does not make sense financially is to charge less when you can charge more.

Greed is good.....

I'm no businessman, but I prefer/admire the "stack em high, sell em cheap" business philosophy ie. lowest price you can to make cost to entry accessible, maximising buyers, versus highest price you can get away with to gouge (loyal) customers (and which also encourages piracy/theft).

[T0ofic]

piotrus3333 you made me puke a little..
do you really think the whole world is like that?

[dean_dmoo]

true, perpetual licence does not make sense financially for consumers any more. what also does not make sense financially is to charge less when you can charge more. especially when competition is still behind. there is no progress without incentives. "autodesk future" is merely a reality of free market. we all still use their products so why expect a change?

companies exist to produce revenue. everything else is secondary. all you can expect is a product or service, all you can do is to buy or pass.

at least we have now, in 2022, real alternatives. open source or free. and with subscription model you are free to choose. every year or even every month.

The thing is though companies like Autodesk buy up competitors to minimise competition and then lock you in. I'm looking from an AEC perspective, not only 3d modelling. And you also aren't "completely free" to change programs when there is an ecosystem around it (plugins/libraries/asset subscriptions/etc). That also locks you in.

In the end it's a financial calculation whether moving everything to another ecosystem is worth the time and cost. For us it isn't, and the vray pricing also isn't an issue fortunately, but I also don't feel that a 50% price rise gives a positive signal and only means we will become more open to alternative software in the future.

[piotrus3333]

Where did you get that from?



Greed is good.....

I'm no businessman, but I prefer/admire the "stack em high, sell em cheap" business philosophy ie. lowest price you can to make cost to entry accessible, maximising buyers, versus highest price you can get away with to gouge (loyal) customers (and which also encourages piracy/theft).

dev cycle is getting shorter, perpetual is getting more expensive. things move fast and 5 year old engine is rarely cutting it anymore.

minimising prices to maximise user base works for amazon. chaos on the other hand has very limited pool of prospective users. very different scale.

[piotrus3333]

piotrus3333 you made me puke a little..
do you really think the whole world is like that?

the corporate part of world - yes.