Subscription prices comparison.

[samehbijo]

Hi , 

I just went through SideFX Hudini Indie Subscription price , and its brilliant and so cost effective and suitable for freelancers 399 $ for 2 years , 2 licenses for 1 user with limited commercial license.

So I wanted to do for fun comparison between 3ds Max subscription price and choices with other apps :

Cinema 4d  Starts from 210 USD for 6 months , with option of rental for 3 months ,option for perpetual license for 1270 USD ( Windows , Mac)

Modo                           599 USD annual subscription ,option for perpetual license 1799 USD + 1 year maintenance plan  (Windows , Mac).

Lightwave                     995 USD perpetual license.(Windows , Mac)

Blender                         FREEEE  (WINDOWS ,MAC)

While 3ds Max              1400 USD ANNUAL Subscription, NO option for perpetual license ,NO less than a year subscription (at least in my region ) ,WINDOWS ONLY.

Not mentioning Adobe CC subscription's VERY VERY fair Subscription cost ( 750 USD 2 Licenses 1 User for ALL ADOBE APPS + Mocha AE + Lite Version of Cinema 4d) 

Looking at this comparison , I am really wondering , why people (Especially Freelancers ) would even consider 3ds Max (same applies to Maya), 

I think that Autodesk should:

-Either consider giving a choice of  lower subscription price for a limited commercial license ( like Houdini Indie ) ,as an option for small businesses or freelancers .

- Or give a stripped version of 3ds max for lower price ( Without Physics , Particles Flow, IA Render engine ) for lower price , knowing that most people are buying third party plugins Like Vray or Redshift , and many will never use Particle Flow.

- And Team Up with Cebas and Sitni Sati and Chaos Group , to sell Max VFX Bundles for a discounted price(3ds max + Thinking Particles + Fume FX +Phoenix ) to compete with Houdini ( which if they did they can easily win ,because of Max's users base ) or 3ds max with Vray and Multiscatter for example as an Architect Bundle ...

For me those kind of decisions make total sense ,it reduces the cost of trying to develop new built in lousy Fluid or Dynamic systems, and will definitely reach more 3d artists from lower range sectors, and will also reduce piracy .

I wonder why Autodesk Marketing team is not making similar moves before 3ds Max drops the ball ..

what do you think ?

[-niels-]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I wonder why Autodesk Marketing team is not making similar moves before 3ds Max drops the ball ..

what do you think ?

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I know this isn't entirely related, or even viable for existing companies / freelancers, and i'm also not familiar with the details of this program but:

https://www.autodesk.com/sustainability/entrepreneur-impact-program

It offers 2 software collections, that also contain 3DS Max, for free if you meet the criteria.

That does not take away the points you raised with your comparison, but it might be interesting for some people...

[spacefrog_]

You post contains some very useful suggestions and i agree wholeheartedly that 3ds Max subscription prices are all way out of any sane dimension. The prices MIGHT fit into the CAD and construction sector ( but i really doubt that too ), but in no way they fit into the broad base of 3d indie freelancer ( visualisation, games , VFX etc... ) space.

A suggestion that i want to make would be , not splitting/limitting the product, but introduce a subscription pricing scheme that is depentent on the yearly revenue you as freelnacer/indie or company generate. Unity does this with their 100k and 200k per year limits . Surely everyone who creates 100k per year would be able to invest the 200 per month. But most starting out indies or freelancers, and - let's be frank - in reality many other people will not be able to generate that much money. Even more so in different regions where incomes are a lot less than the ones in the USA  ...

So i think the subscription prices should reflect all of that mentioned above