I’m not the defender lawyer of Chaos but, just to better compare che cost of subscriptions Vs perpetual, I think that we should consider that the version cycle of life is 2 years.
So, the cost of the subscription should be doubled.
Am I wrong?
Yes you are 
Seriously, I simply think the solution is to have a Indie subscription.
Why?
if you are a small one man freelancer, earning small amounts from 3D renders, you will be paying £285 for 3DS Max per annum.
Does it make sense to be paying more for the renderer / extension to the hosting software than the cost of the host application itself? (the host is and has always been traditionally the most expensive element).
Whereas if you are, say, a company, employing staff etc, with a reasonable turnover, you will be paying the full subscription price for 3DS Max, which I think is around £1300 a year (I don’t know because I haven’t looked it up). For this category of customer/user, the V-Ray price seems reasonable and correct. It is ‘in-line’.
This has to make sense to Chaos.
in my position, I’m no longer upgrading my node licences, I will sell my ‘farm’, won’t upgrade Phoenix (can’t anyway), and maybe won’t even upgrade vray to 6. Why? Chaos pricing no longer works for me.
And I’ll say it here….. never in a million years did I ever dream that one day, Chaos would become how Autodesk used to be with regards to pricing (even Autodesk no longer seem so bad as they offer Indie)….
Rant over!
I once had a five-machine farm, and I pivoted once they started charging per node. I invested in one machine with many cores and a lot of RAM. I am working 100% on a laptop now, without any limits. I am not rendering 8K animations, but I am in a good place for my stills. V-Ray was complicated; I spent more time fighting the software than creating images, but that has changed. Now, with Cosmos, the assets more than pay for the solo subscription. So my point is, as long as they keep improving things, I’ll be content.
Each and every user is different (and you’re not an exception my friend..)
I think it’s time to put words on a symptom.
Simply Vray CPU and GPU should be different products. different prices. Time has proven it’s a different DNA at its root and more hardware sensible on the GPU side, sorry AMD
No? at least an option to buy old school Vray CPU and cut drastically the price. Even think about a small farm maybe 5 is a good number 
scans, cosmos, clouds, .. good but I already have clients and I just want to render what do I do?
cheers!
And I am just giving my opinion. I have been around since 2013 and have read the comments about every price increase; nobody is ever happy when the price goes up. If Chaos keeps improving the software, I’ll continue to support it by upgrading each time. If they stop, then I’ll weigh my options. People are jumping to Blender, and newbies are starting there. I can’t tell you how often I get asked what software to begin with. So I say if I were starting, I would create with Blender.
Sorry, probably I was not clear with my English.
When I wrote “So, the cost of the subscription should be doubled.” I mean that as perpetual still alive for 2 years (for around 750€), the subscription is around 415€ yearly, so comparing perpetual Vs subscription must be donw doubling the price of the subscription. Just this.
About an indie price, probably you’re right and one solution shoud be found.
i do agree with this sentiment.
Main base application costing less than addon is plain silly.
Just like ZIVA - their INdie sub costs double the cost of maya indie.
still, we aren’t where the money’s at.
INdustry licensing is probably more than 90% of revenue.
its a sad day that Chaos sold off, will not be recommending them to anyone. if they wanted to go scorched earth, so be it.
Did anybody complaining bothered with doing the math? annual V-Ray Premium seems just a bit more expensive than perpetual 1.5 with upgrade to 2.0 in 2010. how does perpetual V-Ray 2.0 for 3ds Max compares to what Premium’s value proposition is? and 12 years of inflation on top. V-Ray will pay for itself in a matter of days most of the time.
silly D5 is $360/year…
pointing others behavior as they jump off the cliff to justify questionable ethics will never bring salvation.
in 2010, buying Max (yes not renting it) and Vray (for his irradiancemap, RIP) coupled with one or three plugins (again no rent, just buy it…) would technically and legally grant you full production power in 2022.
think about this exact same situation in ten years.. I have a special feeling about this..
anyway I miss doing 8000pix in less than 3 hours in full production mode (don’t talk about denoise and GPU, please be polite)
and for your information using Vray in 2010 was cool, now a little bit less
true, I can produce content with max 2012 and V-Ray 2. but why would I? what circumstances would make it financially viable option in 2022? full production power? haha, good one, maybe I should pair it with core 2 quad to get the proper experience?
and what you call questionable practices is what moves the world forward. smart people grinding hard producing value to consumers. turns out subscription model is what makes it worth their effort. owning stuff is a thing of the past.
has anybody ever used monthly payed V-Ray? I did. very convinient. £50 I guess that was, good deal, got things done. and chaos cosmos for keeps, nice freebie. now I can render it in Blender to my hart’s content as long as Blender is going strong. Thanks Chaos.
and using V-Ray used to be cool in 2010 and no longer it? well, stay cool then. use the cool thing. but I bet most of us will just use the tool that just makes sense.
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
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.
Can you confirm how small a tiny side hustle it is for Autodesk? Any figures?
(Autodesk’s total revenue, $913m, with $831m from Design products, which includes 3DS Max).
12.6k of employees total and 3ds max team is around 100. tiny.
So because Autodesk’s focus on 3DS Max is ‘tiny’, it’s correct to charge more for V-Ray? Okay…
quite ridiculous that it is me who is lecturing about bussines strategies but lets go.
can you afford a 85% discount on your images just to make it a bit harder for your competition to reach more of the market? probably not a good move. but you can definitely give freebie handshakes to your clients. doesn’t cost you much at all. indie licence is a freebie handshake for autodesk.
let’s say you produce best archviz products in uk. everybody is trying hard, but nobody can even get close. what is happening to your prices? if not rising, they stay solid. you are running a bussines not a charity. everything around gets more expensive? you adjust up. chaos is. but they still maintain the best value proposition there is. what would be your next option if you stopped using vray?
I’m not sure its a value discussion Marcin, but a price increase of 50% (in our case with perpetual WS & RN licenses) in 2 years from 5 to 6 seems excessive and not purely based on general rises in costs / inflation.
That combined with the mergers and bringing capital partners onboard means an inevitable shift in financial management. Something which I think is clearly visible with the new pricing and obvious shift towards subscription.
It all points to a more “Autodesk” future which I think nobody likes besides shareholders. And it will be a shame if in 5 years time we think of Chaos as we do about Autodesk now. People have seen this process before and are recognising the similarities.
An Arnold license is also 380€ per year.
Renderman is 250$ per year.
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.