Subscription system like Adobe CC

[don-jackimo]

Will you guys ever create a subscription system like Adobe CC? I really want to use your software but can't afford to pay $1500 outright!!!

[slowtiger]

It's 495.- € for the standard edition, which is all you need to start animating.
(Besides a good enough PC and a graphic tablet, that is. And a video editor.)

[Fabrice]

It's 495.- € for the standard edition, which is all you need to start animating.
(Besides a good enough PC and a graphic tablet, that is. And a video editor.)

Then if you want to go to the Professionnal Edition, you only have to pay for the difference (1180 - 495 = 685 €).

[don-jackimo]

I'm a freelance animator living in Adelaide Australia. I get odd jobs here and there and apply for small grants to do my own short films and work part time in hospitality to support myself. I use Adobe Creative Cloud because I can purchase it on a month to month basis to use when I get animation work. If I get a $3000 dollar grant to do a 3 to 5 minute film and have to fork out $700 Australian dollars upfront just for the animation software (not including editing software), I'm left with $2300 to cover basic living costs of a project that will take me a minimum of 3 months. With Adobe I would pay less than half that and that would include video editing software and anything else I would need for production. The only reason I am bothering to raise this issue is I have used TVPaint and think it's a far superior program for 2D animation but its grossly overpriced and therefore fails to compete with Adobe.

[slowtiger]

I don't know where you get your pricing information from.

The official Adobe shop on Amazon lists prices as follows:
Photoshop Standard 885 € - that's not Extended, which means this is without the Animation part.
CS 6 Design Premium 2.400 € - that's PS Extended, Flash, Illustrator, lots of other stuff, but no Premiere or AfterFX.
CS 6 Master Collection 3.328 € - this will have Premiere.

TVP Standard: 495 €. That's not my definition of "grossly overpriced".

BTW 3000 $ (= 2120 €) is not enough to cover the costs of a 5 min film. For 3000 € my clients get 1 minute of animation.

[idragosani]

I think he's actually talking about Adobe Creative Cloud, where you are essentially leasing the product(s) on a monthly basis (I think it's $50 USD per month). Not 100% sure how it works or how it compares to the older versions

[slowtiger]

I prefer to have my software installed locally and owned by me. Cloud only works as long as you're connected to Adobe's servers. Which means you're completely dependent on them. They may have technical problems, they may change their politics any time. Remember what happened to people who "bought" books for their Kindle, then deleted their amazon accounts? Right, "their" property was deleted from their Kindles.

[Fabrice]

I'm a freelance animator living in Adelaide Australia. I get odd jobs here and there and apply for small grants to do my own short films and work part time in hospitality to support myself. I use Adobe Creative Cloud because I can purchase it on a month to month basis to use when I get animation work. If I get a $3000 dollar grant to do a 3 to 5 minute film and have to fork out $700 Australian dollars upfront just for the animation software (not including editing software), I'm left with $2300 to cover basic living costs of a project that will take me a minimum of 3 months. With Adobe I would pay less than half that and that would include video editing software and anything else I would need for production. The only reason I am bothering to raise this issue is I have used TVPaint and think it's a far superior program for 2D animation but its grossly overpriced and therefore fails to compete with Adobe.

Here is the question :
Do you want to pay a bigger amount of money once for all, then keep your software as long as you need ? Or pay less every month (but much more if you add every month !) to get nothing but a cloud at the end ?

[User767]

Adobe's 'Creative Cloud' allows access to their main consumer software. You don't have to be connected to the internet to use it, just to download it and have it 'authorized' (which they do every few months). Theoretically, you could DL and authorize your software, then go work in the internet-free monastery for the next three months or so before the software wanted to be reauthorized.

Once you stop paying your subscription, the software stops working (because they won't 'reauthorize' it in a couple of months).

Advantage=you're always getting the most current version of the software, included in your subscription, as well as access to 'last year's version'. Depending on their software update schedule, it probably works out better cost-wise than purchasing, and upgrading every year or two. You also get access to a large pile of software, if you need it. I think their idea is that the typical user is basically using three different pieces of Adobe software, so they priced it competitive with that for normal use. You can also subscribe 'al a carte' (i.e. just Photoshop, for example) at a lower cost. Another advantage is that you can get the software when you need it, then 'let it go' after the project. You get some 'free' online storage in the deal, and it looks like they'll be adding fonts on demand in the near future.

So all that is for clarification. There are some things I like about the CC thing, and a bunch I don't like. Other 'professional' software that I use has service fees or subscription associated with it that works differently. It usually ends up with you owning the software forever more. You buy it outright, then pay on top of that. But, included in that service fee is free tech support, software updates, and 'special bonus goodies' (like plug-ins and add-ons and media). Stop paying your service fees, and you just don't get 'next year's version' and all the extra stuff. But what you have, still works. Note that if you use Toon Boom's Harmony, you expect to pay a service fee with it. But I don't think they have that for 'Animate' and lower packages. That's just an upgrade fee for the next version.

I believe that most of the financial attitude comes from perceived marketplace. I think most of us [animators] are 'small shops' or independent, freelance types. Naturally, the people who are selling software aren't in that magical world of 'job to job', so they don't understand it the same way. And, they also have a a different time frame for income. (sort of like farming, where you work hard on the crop for a long time before you have something to sell-and hopefully people are buying when it's ripe). I think Adobe just wanted some kind of income stream that was consistent. I usually skipped two or three versions before upgrading my Adobe products. I know I'm paying a little more than before now, but I do use their software, so I guess that's just the price I have to pay. Even if I don't like it...

[Sewie]

I absolutely hate the direction Adobe is going with this. It's just a new way to wring us out of a few more pennies.

I don't think I would be able to stand the idea of losing my tools when, for whatever reason, I'm without subscription for a few months. And if you do the math, it's way more expensive to subscribe for a year than just to buy the software. I'm fine getting an upgrade every couple of years especially since the last few updates haven't been that spectacular.

[Sewie]

For those of you who refuse to be treated like a walking wallet;

http://lifehacker.com/5976725/build-you ... p-software" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[idragosani]

I pretty much use open source software for everything -- TVPaint being the exception, of course! Gimp, MyPaint, Blender, kdenlive, Inkscape, Synfig (and that's just for the digital art & video, I use a whole suite of open source apps for audio work).

[Sewie]

So what packages can you recommend for audio work?

[idragosani]

So what packages can you recommend for audio work?

Audacity and Ardour (although Ardour is only available for Linux & Mac)

[slowtiger]

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/3/48000 ... s-affected

I expected this to happen eventually, but didn't expect it to happen this fast.