45% price rise for 3dsmax subscription starts 2013 [UK]

[Anonymous]

45% price rise for 3dsmax subscription starts 2013

Just a heads up that Autodesk are raising the price of 3dsmax subs to fall inline with the cost Maya this means that it will go up from £360+vat to £520+vat.

I called my reseller today and asked exactly what do we get for the extra 45%....we get a bigger bill and the thrill of being charged the same as a Maya user on subscription.

If we were getting Vray i'd think that it would be quite reasonable for an additional 45% a year.

Autodesk do offer a discount if you buy 3 years in advance before 2013 in that they will allow you to buy all 3 years subs at the current price plus a discount of 10% however my subs is up for renewal in June...it's a lot of cash to find in about 5 weeks.

steve g

[Anonymous]

Also, Thinkbox has a notification which can be found here: http://www.thinkboxsoftware.com/news/2012/4/12/notification-deadline-max-2012-sp3-max-2013.html

speaking of 2012 SP3

[Anonymous]

called bluegfx just now to confirm pricing.
They are also contacting Autodesk to see if Autodesk are happy to push thru the 45% rise for UK users still.


"new" purchases of 3dsmax + subscription are NOW £520plus vat

on going contracts for subs are £360+vat but will increase to match new users subs as of Feb 2013 so raising to £520+vat
as outlined in the email i was sent Tuesday.

the 3 year deal has been in place for years...same with the 2 year deal...it's nothing new...i did the 2 year deal a few years back.

how this all works out is that currently Maya users in the UK have been paying thru the nose on subs for many years and we are going to match that price as of FEB 2013. as the directive from Autodesk is to make subs on max and maya the same cost world wide.

it's that simple, nothing has been told to me incorrect from Blue gfx....they unlike Freehand have given us the heads up /warning of the impending rise and are offering a way to keep the old price for 3 years using existing multi-year deals.

[Anonymous]

Steve thanks for the clarification,

Autodesk risks losing loyal users, while making more money from the price rises, it's a math equation for them it seems?
the price rise of 45% for potential new users is already in action in the UK, Ken this is a fact right now.

as you say MAYA users in the UK are already paying 45% more for subscription than users in the States, Ken this is a fact right now.

and by the way these are base Autodesk prices here in the UK, we also pay an additional 20% in tax

I love the way I am treated by companies like Pixologic, they have probably the most loyal user base out of any app, and I will stick with them for ever no matter what,
also looking at companies like Luxology, they enjoy the same kind of loyalty because users of Modo know that they are genuinely valued and appreciated by the company, I am amazed at how forthcoming, open and honest the Luxology management are,

they get it!, we live in an age where bad news travels at the speed of light and they have decided to change the way they do business.

[Anonymous]

sure, i think any more discussion on this subject is pointless, we need to give autodesk time to evaluate this unique situation in the UK and then respond once they have all the facts in front of them on the table.

they are now aware of their users feelings on this subject so let's give them a few days to come with a solution that increases the cost but not by that huge margin if at all possible.

stephen gilbert

[Anonymous]

Ok Ken fair enough, you must understand where this frustration comes from, we live with this "UK premuim on everything" idea, day after day, it gets a bit wearing after years of it paying through the nose compared to others (like your existing Maya subs in the UK)

we know from experience that if we don't make a noise nothing will change, there's a fairly overused expression that describes our situation, "Rip-off Britain" we have lived with it for decades

[jens.diemer]

Yes is 20% increase in germany. Old price: 525€, new price: 665€

[Anonymous]

Today I talked to my reseller here in Germany and they told me this year the subscription price for existing subscription customers stays the same as last year.

525€ + 19% VAT = 624,75€ = 824,11$ (1 year subscription)

But next year the price goes up for everybody by 26,7%

665€ + 19% VAT = 791,35€ = 1043,87$ (1 year subscription)

Autodesk are you kidding me? Prices have always been rediculous higher in Europe then in US and 3dsmax 2013 at current state is not worth a price rise by 26,7%.
If I would get 26,7% more value out of your software I would be willing to pay the next year price rise. If you want me to pay the next year price rise I want to get perfect working MassFX with all features Reactor once had as promised years ago including fluid simulations, a brand new PFlow 2.0 multithreaded and hardware accelerated, Nitrous without any excuses at full speed, IRay support for all existing maps, a reasonable update to all the subscription benefeds (Matchmover ...) and a fast working UI. But what really upset me is the fact that my reseller told me Autodesk is arguing the price rise with the upcoming cloud services and their higher costs! I don't need or will use any cloud service in the near future.

My personal opinion is that Autodesk should have droped the subcription price for the time XBR takes to fulfill it's promises because everybody is doing the betatesting for Autodesk and is a great help for them! This would have been loyal. But instead Autodesk is doing the opposite!

I don't want to sound only negative because I'm relatively happy with max 2013 release so far but this info really comes at wrong times.

Maybe this is the last Subscription year for me - I have to see what value is in max 2014 and if it's worth the price rise.

My two cents...
cheers

[lightcube]

Everyone has made their point, some more harshly than others. Some use it to make other points. I’m simply trying to help understand the situation and introduce some facts into the situation. If that makes me part of the evil Autodesk conspiracy, then so be it.

Ken... my last point so you do not feel that we are stampeding.

I don't think there is a conspiracy, or that AD is evil. But everyone who lives in the real world knows that, generally speaking, companies tend to seek the most income they can get away with. That's just the nature of capitalism.

Whether this is a mistake, regional, etc is beside the point. If no one got upset, then it is likely that anyone making decisions about that would take that into account too. It's certainly better for those of us who are very small companies to let AD know that we simply might not be able to keep up indefinitely if that kind of pricing does indeed happen (speaking not as a US citicizen but as a global citizen who uses Max).

That's my final word in this thread.

[jens.diemer]

+1

[graham.hurst]

😞

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

Ken, it is outlined here:
Cost over 3 years: £1400 (First year at £360 + years 2 and 3 at £520) (+ vat)

So according to that e-mail he pays £360 now and next year and the year after that the £520.

-Eric

[PiXeL_MoNKeY]

re:"surely it would be simpler for us to just log in to an Autodesk account and pay online each year via credit card or paypal etc, it is 2012"

It was that way last year (forced to go through the website and couldn't do it through my reseller), and then this year when I went to renew I had to go through the reseller and the online wasn't an option. Personally I prefer to go through a reseller as the are local sales tax breaks I can get through them that are much more complicated doing online orders where the taxes are forced. However, the Subscription process needs to get locked down and stick with some consistency, or provide the user either option.

-Eric

[mail]

Here's a fun suggestion.
Based on the number of shares (230mil), share price ($40, although we could probably hit this with a mass subscriber strike) and number of users(2.3mil), we would only need to invest £1500 each to gain over 50% of Autodesk, and therefore take a majority ownership of the stock....

I'm up for it... so who's with me!

[mail]

Oh and here's their annual report where you can see where all those subs are going. 25% revenues going to R&D. It would be interesting to get a software breakdown of that figure.
http://investors.autodesk.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=117861&p=irol-reportsAnnual

[Anonymous]

Excellent idea! Since the shareholders are king, spend that subscription money on AD shares and have a real say. The bean counters would go into shock...the share price is through the roof, but the revenue stream would dry up. Do they pay a dividend?

[mail]

It's an interesting concept. Imagine if with each seat of max, you also purchase a share of the company. Eventually the company would be user-owned rather than investor/hedge-fund/pension-fund owned. Users would indeed be in control of the destiny of the product they rely on.

Of course, given the level of discourse here on the forums, I wouldn't like to see how the AGMs turn out!

[mail]

I do wonder how effective a buyer/subscribers strike would be on the shareprice. ... I doubt large corporate clients would hold off investing in software for a couple of years which would be what would be needed to have any visible effect.
one can dream...

[Steve_Curley]

Yes, new fixes to 2012 are being staged. Should be public soonish. Next couple of weeks (but don’t shoot me if I’m wrong).

Thanks for the clarification Ken.

[Anonymous]

I come from a former communist county and I must say there were good and bad things about it. Obviously the bad things prevailed and this kind of "economic" model was destined to fail. I can see the same pattern repeating in capitalism with obvious consequences. 3ds max was pricey from the beginning (back in the 90-ies), but at least you knew what were you paying for. There was an added value to every product you bought since new and improved versions came out every 3+ years. As I see it, the problem doesn't reside in the price itself, but rather in the frequency of new releases which are purely based on a monopolistic monetary gain. You can see the same behavior in Adobe, Microsoft etc... Who is really switching to new releases ever 365 days? Why would I ever bother to install a buggy flawed software over my "old" stable one? (that become stable only 2 years after its former release). To get a new fancy gui? This is ridiculous. If it weren't for people (clients) who upgrades every software packet as soon as it hit the shelves, I'd still be using max 9. As I'm still using windows xp!

[Anonymous]

Agreed. I think this form of "new" capitalism is no better than communism, but instead of an unelected government controlling everything (as in communism) we now have unelected corporations controlling everything (through lobbying and merging so that consumers no longer have a say). I am not saying Autodesk fits this new model, but it is something to think about.