On 28/04/2015 08:42 AM, scott wrote:
>> What, charge the customer the maximum amount of money they will pay?
>> Isn't that how business operates?
>
> If you can afford to have individual price negotations with each
> customer then yes, that is a good strategy, and is actually the one used
> for many things. eg when you buy a car the salesman's job is to get you
> to buy the car for the maximum amount you are willing to. This could
> result in the next person through the door buying the exact same car for
> £1000 more or less than you just paid.
>
> At the other end of the scale you have a tin of beans in a supermarket,
> the price of that is decided to maximise profit. They need to look at
> how the estimated sales volumes depend on price, and choose the best
> point on that graph. Of course in reality there are many complicating
> factors that would skew the price away from this (eg loss-leaders,
> promotions, "value" and "high quality" branded versions, etc).

That all makes sense.

> I have no idea how cryengine is sold (internet blocks most game-related
> pages here) but I could well imagine their big customers pretty much
> demand some level of negotiation on the price and terms etc. What
> business doesn't?

As I say, I would imagine the big customers are the *only* customers, 
and when you're expecting a game to make XXX million sales, you demand a 
big, fat cut in royalties.

...then again, maybe they aren't doing so well lately, which is why it's 
on Steam in the first place? IDK.

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On Tue, 28 Apr 2015 18:07:31 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

> As I say, I would imagine the big customers are the *only* customers,
> and when you're expecting a game to make XXX million sales, you demand a
> big, fat cut in royalties.

Indie gaming shops aren't "big customers".  But as I pointed to in the 
link, at least with the $9.90/month (or whatever it is) subscription, 
there is a *0* royalty paid.

> ...then again, maybe they aren't doing so well lately, which is why it's
> on Steam in the first place? IDK.

Software subscription models are very different than perpetual license 
models.  With a perpetual license (ie, you buy the software, it's yours, 
and maybe you upgrade, maybe you don't) don't provide stable income into 
a company, which makes it a lot more difficult to project future growth 
for the company.

Software subscriptions have the potential to make it easier to project 
future growth - unless you completely piss off your customers so they 
drop the subscription.  You always have some attrition, but most 
"schedule and forget" payments end up keeping people paying for things 
they're not necessarily using (though in some markets, that's not always 
the case - SaaS models that involve data storage or some level of 
incorporation of a customer's data tend to be easier to justify because 
you have a cost involved in migrating away from the solution).

I imagine for the CryTek, the subscription model is more lucrative than 
licensing to a few people - you get hobbyists who want to play with it 
who could never afford to pay the $1.2 million (yes, I looked it up - 
that was the cost reported in 2012 - so I owe you an apology, because 
while it's not "millions" it is > 1 million.  So my apologies for coming 
down quite as hard as I did.) licensing fee now have a professional level 
tool they can access for a reasonable price.  Lower price, larger market, 
increases revenue.  Instead of 10 people paying $1.2 million (netting $12 
million in perpetual licensing fees), they can get, say, 100,000 people 
paying $10/month - or $120/year - which is a net of $12 million.

Those 100,000 people keep paying into year 2, but they keep acquiring new 
customers, and now your year over year goes up past $12 million per year 
- you have recurring revenue that far, far, *far* outstrips the money you 
made selling perpetual licenses to 10 customers.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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> I imagine for the CryTek, the subscription model is more lucrative than
> licensing to a few people - you get hobbyists who want to play with it
> who could never afford to pay the $1.2 million (yes, I looked it up -
> that was the cost reported in 2012 - so I owe you an apology, because
> while it's not "millions" it is > 1 million.  So my apologies for coming
> down quite as hard as I did.) licensing fee now have a professional level
> tool they can access for a reasonable price.  Lower price, larger market,
> increases revenue.  Instead of 10 people paying $1.2 million (netting $12
> million in perpetual licensing fees), they can get, say, 100,000 people
> paying $10/month - or $120/year - which is a net of $12 million.

And if they were clever they would put something in the license of the 
$10/month version that prevented the huge companies using it, thus 
keeping the 10 people paying $1.2 million at the same time :-)

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On 27-4-2015 19:22, Stephen wrote:

> My point which I did not make is that constant updates can be a Pita.
> Every time I've updated Blender I have to go and change my preferences
> to what I've had before. I know, I know... But I'm lazy.
> I depend on the basic functionality although I appreciate all the work
> the community does. Although I sometimes get the impression that if you
> are not using the latest wizz bang version you are looked down on.
> Kids. ;-)

It seems to me that Blender does not /update/ but just /replaces/ the 
previous version. In fact there is no /update/ facility as I understand 
it, at all at all, or am I wrong?

-- 
Thomas

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On 29/04/2015 08:19, Thomas de Groot wrote:
> On 27-4-2015 19:22, Stephen wrote:
>
>> My point which I did not make is that constant updates can be a Pita.
>> Every time I've updated Blender I have to go and change my preferences
>> to what I've had before. I know, I know... But I'm lazy.
>> I depend on the basic functionality although I appreciate all the work
>> the community does. Although I sometimes get the impression that if you
>> are not using the latest wizz bang version you are looked down on.
>> Kids. ;-)
>
> It seems to me that Blender does not /update/ but just /replaces/ the
> previous version. In fact there is no /update/ facility as I understand
> it, at all at all, or am I wrong?
>

That is my understanding too.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 07:54:58 +0100, scott wrote:

>> I imagine for the CryTek, the subscription model is more lucrative than
>> licensing to a few people - you get hobbyists who want to play with it
>> who could never afford to pay the $1.2 million (yes, I looked it up -
>> that was the cost reported in 2012 - so I owe you an apology, because
>> while it's not "millions" it is > 1 million.  So my apologies for
>> coming down quite as hard as I did.) licensing fee now have a
>> professional level tool they can access for a reasonable price.  Lower
>> price, larger market,
>> increases revenue.  Instead of 10 people paying $1.2 million (netting
>> $12 million in perpetual licensing fees), they can get, say, 100,000
>> people paying $10/month - or $120/year - which is a net of $12 million.
> 
> And if they were clever they would put something in the license of the
> $10/month version that prevented the huge companies using it, thus
> keeping the 10 people paying $1.2 million at the same time :-)

I would be surprised if they did, actually - in the long run, the monthly 
subscription would generally net them more than a perpetual license would.

The larger companies might opt to negotiate for a perpetual license, 
though, in the event that the company went away (for whatever reason) so 
they could continue to maintain their product which depends on the engine.

What they might have, though, is something for corporate licensing that 
requires a license per developer or something like that.

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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>> And if they were clever they would put something in the license of the
>> $10/month version that prevented the huge companies using it, thus
>> keeping the 10 people paying $1.2 million at the same time :-)
>
> I would be surprised if they did, actually - in the long run, the monthly
> subscription would generally net them more than a perpetual license would.

There's a lot of $10's in $1.2m :-)

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On 29/04/2015 16:55, scott wrote:
>
> There's a lot of $10's in $1.2m :-)

Only a myriad @ $10 per month for a year. ^.^

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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On Wed, 29 Apr 2015 16:55:58 +0100, scott wrote:

>>> And if they were clever they would put something in the license of the
>>> $10/month version that prevented the huge companies using it, thus
>>> keeping the 10 people paying $1.2 million at the same time :-)
>>
>> I would be surprised if they did, actually - in the long run, the
>> monthly subscription would generally net them more than a perpetual
>> license would.
> 
> There's a lot of $10's in $1.2m :-)

Yes, but that's the beauty of subscription pricing - it builds because 
you have recurring revenue.

$120 per year per user.  Over the long haul, that can net you more than a 
perpetual license - and from a business standpoint, the revenue stream is 
more predictable, which makes the business more stable.

That also makes it more reliable to update the product being licensed in 
this way.  With a perpetual license, you have to support each version for 
a period of time regardless of whether or not the customer upgrades to 
the latest version, which increases your cost overheads.

With a subscription - particularly in a SaaS environment - you always 
have your customers on the latest version - so you only have to support 
the current version.  That changes the support overhead significantly (it 
does, however, add some complexity when it comes to providing backwards 
compatibility - how much depends on the development model).

Jim

-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 29/04/2015 07:54 AM, scott wrote:
> And if they were clever they would put something in the license of the
> $10/month version that prevented the huge companies using it, thus
> keeping the 10 people paying $1.2 million at the same time :-)

Might I suggest that when you spend $1.2 million licensing the thing, 
you're probably also paying for consultation services and developer time 
to tweak the engine how you want it and optimise your game to run better 
than your competitor's games...

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