Starting Feb. 1, 2015, Autodesk will no longer offer its upgrade program for customers that own a perpetual license to a previous version of its software. - See more at: http://blog.shi.com/2015/01/27/how-autodesks-licensing-change-will-affect-you/#.VMpYI2jF98E
Subscription upgrades are still going. This is basically a response to all those people that said they’re going off subscription and will just upgrade once every few years. now you cant do that.
Technically you still can do that, I suppose, but it will cost you way more. We got the same thing with the Intel C++ compiler for a few years now - if you skip a maintenance fee, you basically have to purchase a new license for a lot more money if you want to use newer versions.
Best regards,
Vlado
It might bite them in the butt. People might chose never to upgrade, or wait even longer. Really, what has changed so much since R12, let’s say, that we would need to upgrade? We upgrade because we want to, for the most part, and not because it’s needed.
Soooo true. I’m still on max 2012
Only thing worth upgrading is Vray 
I’d only upgrade max if Vray stopped supporting 2012.
I think the future is bright for the next releases of 3dsMax.. hope you’ll change your mind on this!
Autodesk knows that; MAX and AutoCAD has matured, which is fueling the change in licensing. Same with Photoshop; really no reason to upgrade, but you can’t beat $9.95 a month. MAX is $150 a month, but in my opinion is still to high. If they drop it under $100 people will bite.
It is a mature product, but a lot of new stuff all the time.. The dev team is working hard.
Take a look at what Eddie posted as 2015 extension 3, nice stuff…
http://area.autodesk.com/blogs/max/3ds-max-2015-extension-2
Of course, it is not changing the world, but when I get in front of a 2011-2012 version, i’m missing lots of sweet toys!
I think it might come down to the principle of it. Don’t piss off the hand that feeds you.
None of these features are worth it.
I had heard some rumours about 2016 being amazing, which you sort of confirmed, but if it’s nice like this is nice then i’m not so excited anymore.
It’s nice like… a carrot. Dangling on the end of a stick.
I think I already posted about this here and maybe in other places : personally, I really don’t care if they don’t add ANY new feature in the next releases. The toolset is very complete and powerful as it is. Instead I’d be glad to know that the money of my subscription goes into refining, consolidating and polishing out the plethora of tools we already have. There is sooo much room for improvements, more coherence and optimization in almost every area of 3ds max.
I’d agree with that, get everything multithreaded, much more a performance release.
It is really is.