Please stop releasing updates that are isolated to a certain years edition of Max. Restructure how you upgrade the software going forward. For example, from the latest edition of Max or Maya, all future upgrades and updates get applied to that version. Everyone that has the latest (2023) version gets the benefit of the new features from a subsequent 2030 version...
Currently, many people are excluded from future updates because they can't get a license for a new years release. Either because the software is completely changed and older scripts and plugins are supported, or pipelines from the past aren't functional in a new version. You already are a subscription model product. Please stop leaving behind your loyal customers by only providing the good stuff to new customers and not upgrading older versions that many people use. The only upgrades older version customers get are stability updates, but half the time those don't even fix the bugs.
What I'm hinting at here is a complete restructuring of how you leverage your employees approach to future development of your 2 most important software's (Max and Maya). I don't know how you have your teams structured, but if you have separate teams working on various versions going back years just to accommodate people using those older versions. Then you're trying to do too many things at once. Consolidate your teams efforts towards developing one version of your software's (the latest versions) and allow people the opportunity to upgrade to a new version for free.
I realize companies have pipelines built up around older versions of Max and Maya, but in the long term this needs to be on the roadmap.
