So Being A Loyal Paid Customer Gets me A Kick In the Balls?

The pricing for C3 is so out of whack. Basically what you're saying Ashley is that anyone that believed in C2, paid for C2 is now just an afterthought.

Having bought my personal license years ago now means upgrading to C3 will cost me almost TWICE as much as someone that didn't have faith in your product. No, you have to entice them with a FREE year! Handing them $99 while you turn around and give me a swift kick to the balls, and snatch $50 from my wallet... TRAGIC!

Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

You could gift someone else your license, then turn around and purchase C2 on sale.

In theory, you pay 99 dollars for a year of C3, and get C2 free.

Then the giftee gets a year of C3 for 50 bucks, and C2 free.

Yeah it's a no brainer for new users, but a head scratcher for us.

You bought C2 and used it, you "consumed" it all this years the price you paid, while a new user had less "value" (less time to use C2) for the same money. So from this point of view is understandable.

But from a developing point, this is bulls**t. You literally kick in the balls the current userbase, the ones who believed and invested in C2 from the beginning, the ones who made the community to growth, the ones that developed plugins and effects ... etc.

We're not snatching anything from anybody's wallet. You don't have to buy it if you don't want to. It's entirely your choice to opt in to that if you feel it is worth it. Our job is to make it absolutely worth it.

The problem is that no matter how amazing Construct 3 will be, it isn't worth it if you're going to lock us out of our own projects if we stop subscribing.

Think of it in different terms. An artist buys paints and a canvas and paints a beautiful picture. Because they've paid for the materials they can do whatever they want with the painting, it's theirs. They can hang it on the mantlepiece or sell it, or give it to a friend etc. I see this as kind of how Construct 2 license worked, you pay for something and then you create something with it and then it's up to you what you do with that creation.

With the new system (the way I understand it, and please correct me if I am wrong) it's more like. Scirra goes to the artist - hey I'll rent you a canvas and some paints, and you can paint a beautiful picture - and as long as you keep paying me every year you can do what you want with that. But if you ever stop, we'll take away the paints and the canvas, and we'll lock your painting in a room and you can't get it out again until you start paying us again.

This is very unfair for the users. I realise you have to be firm when you have a vision. And you have to take risks. But you absolutely don't have to remove our rights as CREATORS. It's either a huge oversight or a real dick move. No one is ever going to like the rental scheme, but it could be tailored to be acceptable by protecting users creative rights a little, a little compromise isn't a weakness it's pretty much a necessity if you're going to be successful with this.

The pricing for C3 is so out of whack. Basically what you're saying Ashley is that anyone that believed in C2, paid for C2 is now just an afterthought.

Having bought my personal license years ago now means upgrading to C3 will cost me almost TWICE as much as someone that didn't have faith in your product. No, you have to entice them with a FREE year! Handing them $99 while you turn around and give me a swift kick to the balls, and snatch $50 from my wallet... TRAGIC!

Am I the only one that sees a problem with this?

i might be out of loop but ... i see things like this... no matter what is the game plan or business plan... the end game is this... or situation... depends what you want it to call it... i look at it as follows...

some company releases a game... i buy it i play it for years.... after 5 years they decide to create a expansion pack ... do i cry about how i have to pay for it cause i wish would be free? no i buy it cause its their work in it.... but that was a game example ... now you are using C2 ... that means... somewhere along the line ... you made cash with it since your still present in the forum .... so 50 bucks or 150 bucks or 99 bucks a year is nothing. your a grown man do the math.

i do agree with the purchasing being a bit weird... and probably hard to comprehend... but it only makes sense.. scirra its doing another product... the fact that adds u the c2 version for free.. in the package... is a great generosity from them. i would charged each individual 300 bucks a year and deprecate totally c2. then u would cry about going to GM8 or other software where they ask you 500 bucks for 1 exporting module. but the engine license with splash and limited is 80 bucks.

im being a bit tired of this posts.

this is not a kickstarter we dont get to decide what becomes of the product, we are lucky enough and personally im glad and proud to see that scirra is taking our response/feedback so heartily(which might get people confused at times, comparing it with having some power over product development/sales). other people/companies would not do it. just chill, in the end everything will be cool, for sure scirra team will have discounts, and even a purchasing plan that will make sense for all of us. but this logistics things take time. your feedback i bet is one of the feedback that would mold the purchasing in future. but now we dont even know when C3 is releasing, we are arguing on a hyped situation.

signaljacker you could always use C2? nobody locks you out of that. C2 by itself will be a great tool for years to come.

so keep a hard copy of your copy for later

im being a bit tired of this posts.

Agree on that.

The mindset of some people here seems to be that they want everything for free, or they don't really understand the value and cost of maintaining a product, and providing support, updates, new features, bug fixes. If you bought C2 years ago, it's about time you chip in again... and support the continued development.

The reason that they are giving Free C3 for ar year is because you recently bought a licence since announcement, everyone else with a licence get's a 50% discount, which is very generous.

jeffige

Just because you bought one jacket years ago and wear it every day, do you expect your next jacket, years later, to be free because you think you're a loyal customer?

Or let's put it this way. A customer bought a game you made with C2 years ago, and plays it almost every day, and he's expecting bug fixes, new features, updates, support, etc etc,.... and then wants your next game for free, because he already bought a game from you years and years ago and been active on the forums.... The other customer just recently bought this old game from you, even if you announced that the new game is coming soon... who would you give a discount and why?

The mindset of some people here seems to be that they want everything for free, or they don't really understand the value and cost of maintaining a product, and providing support, updates, new features, bug fixes.

I absolutely don't believe that's true at all, I believe my exact words the week or two before the announcement was "I'm ready to pay for C3 if it comes out on Wednesday". I can't believe they charged so little for the "lifetime" updates to C2, but the majority of people here just want to voice their dissatisfaction with a lock-out subscription, especially for what looks like mostly potential C2 tweaks that have been hoarded for Construct Cloud, and a bunch of bleeding-edge features that no-one really wants.

I'm getting tried of posts implying most users here want a free lunch. I love open-source, but I'd never expect to get the same experience as I would with proprietary software that costs, but fundamentally there's a problem with subscriptions charges for users, and I think that's something most developers haven't anticipated yet.

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tunepunk

I think you both didn't get what OP was talking about, he was talking about this :

[quote:3ks4ecmq]

Discounts

Existing and New Construct 2 Personal and Business license customers

Customers who purchase Construct 2 on or after 1st February 2017 (the launch announcement date) will be eligible 100% discount on the first year subscription price for a license of the same type or lower (where Business is the highest and Personal is the lowest).

Customers who have purchased Construct 2 prior to February 1st 2017 will be eligible to a 50% discount on the first year subscription price for a license of the same type or lower.

Users who bought C2 before 2017 (loyal users as OP refers to), won't get the 100% discount on C3.

I've explained this in another thread, but am happy to talk about it again.

From when we announce Construct 3 to when we release Construct 3 is a period of many months. During this period, a risk we identified in advance would be that everyone stops buying Construct 2 to wait for Construct 3. If this happened, we would be haemorrhaging money which would put a lot of financial stress on the business.

It's a risk we obviously wanted to avoid, so we decided to let anyone who buys Construct 2 get their first year of Construct 3 for free so that the buyer wont hesitate if they are wondering about Construct 3.

This is not at all a slight at our current customer base, we consider a lot of Construct 2 purchases now as basically pre-orders for Construct 3.

I've explained this in another thread, but am happy to talk about it again.

From when we announce Construct 3 to when we release Construct 3 is a period of many months. During this period, a risk we identified in advance would be that everyone stops buying Construct 2 to wait for Construct 3. If this happened, we would be haemorrhaging money which would put a lot of financial stress on the business.

It's a risk we obviously wanted to avoid, so we decided to let anyone who buys Construct 2 get their first year of Construct 3 for free so that the buyer wont hesitate if they are wondering about Construct 3.

This is not at all a slight at our current customer base, we consider a lot of Construct 2 purchases now as basically pre-orders for Construct 3.

So its free for the first year for me? Will I get the 50% off thing for C3 going for as long as I have the personal licence for C2 or is it only for the first or second year? I was going to pay the $50-100 a year anyways but this is already really nice. Also can you link me to something that shows the improvements from C3 over C2? The teaser website doesn't really show much.

Jut one last question, will you abandon C2 to work on C3 alone, or will you continue updates on both?

>

> The mindset of some people here seems to be that they want everything for free, or they don't really understand the value and cost of maintaining a product, and providing support, updates, new features, bug fixes.

>

I absolutely don't believe that's true at all, I believe my exact words the week or two before the announcement was "I'm ready to pay for C3 if it comes out on Wednesday". I can't believe they charged so little for the "lifetime" updates to C2, but the majority of people here just want to voice their dissatisfaction with a lock-out subscription, especially for what looks like mostly potential C2 tweaks that have been hoarded for Construct Cloud, and a bunch of bleeding-edge features that no-one really wants.

I'm getting tried of posts implying most users here want a free lunch. I love open-source, but I'd never expect to get the same experience as I would with proprietary software that costs, but fundamentally there's a problem with subscriptions charges for users, and I think that's something most developers haven't anticipated yet.

I mentioned this in other threads as well. How is subscription a problem? If you decide not to pay it's not scirra locking you out.... (maybe if they ban you and forbid you to ever subscribe again) You're locking your self out...

C3 is an online service...

Have you ever played world of warcraft? Try subscribe for a while, then stop paying, and start complaining you're locked out of the game, all your character progress is locked, You can't access the game and play with friends anymore.... If anything, people will laugh at you for posting something as silly as that. WoW is an online service with maintenance costs.

C3 is also an online service with maintenance, server costs etc. You might not like the route they took by making c3 as a webapp, but any other payment model than subscription is gonna be tricky to juggle for something that has monthly upkeep costs, unless you figure out another clever way to monetize, maybe IAP (selling extra features) using ads or intentionally plan to stop supporting c3 once c4 comes out next year. You can pretty easily calculate when a costumer cost you more than they payed. If you bought C2 5 years ago and still using it, chances are you're probably costing scirra money by now.

Get over it,... it's business 101, income vs expenses.

The only surprising thing is that there seem to be so many that doesn't get that. And no one is locking you out if you stop subscribing, you're locking yourself out.

I just locked myself out from monthly adobe CC, and Autodesk Maya LT subscription, because I don't use it that much lately, but if I ever need to use it again soon I'll gladly pay up again.

C3 is an online service...

Yes. Just like people didn't expect. Or ask for.

Have you ever played world of warcraft? Try subscribe for a while, then stop paying, and start complaining you're locked out of the game, all your character progress is locked, You can't access the game and play with friends anymore.... If anything, people will laugh at you for posting something as silly as that. WoW is an online service with maintenance costs.

I don't play it. Never have never will. In any case, it's a mmorpg game not a software tool. Pretty big difference I think.

[quote:dsrfivg0]

C3 is also an online service with maintenance, server costs etc. You might not like the route they took by making c3 as a webapp, but any other payment model than subscription is gonna be tricky to juggle for something that has monthly upkeep costs, unless you figure out another clever way to monetize, maybe IAP (selling extra features) using ads or intentionally plan to stop supporting c3 once c4 comes out next year.

Yeah. Maybe they should reconsider that feature seeing as its reception so far has been pretty lukewarm.

[quote:dsrfivg0]

You can pretty easily calculate when a costumer cost you more than they payed. If you bought C2 5 years ago and still using it, chances are you're probably costing scirra money by now.

I agree their updates for C2 have been extremely generous.

[quote:dsrfivg0]

Get over it,... it's business 101, income vs expenses.

Yep. Two-way street, that business thing.

[quote:dsrfivg0]

The only surprising thing is that there seem to be so many that doesn't get that. And no one is locking you out if you stop subscribing, you're locking yourself out.

Yes, that's why some will be reluctant to lock themselves in in the first place.

People complain because they like C2 but don't like this direction. And because they waited a long time and expected something different. But that's fair. Scirra are not obligated to change course, and users are not obligated to sign up for C3.

In any case I'm grateful for all I've gotten out of C2 so I hope things work out for them, even if I'm probably not signing up for a sub myself.

> I've explained this in another thread, but am happy to talk about it again.

>

> From when we announce Construct 3 to when we release Construct 3 is a period of many months. During this period, a risk we identified in advance would be that everyone stops buying Construct 2 to wait for Construct 3. If this happened, we would be haemorrhaging money which would put a lot of financial stress on the business.

>

> It's a risk we obviously wanted to avoid, so we decided to let anyone who buys Construct 2 get their first year of Construct 3 for free so that the buyer wont hesitate if they are wondering about Construct 3.

>

> This is not at all a slight at our current customer base, we consider a lot of Construct 2 purchases now as basically pre-orders for Construct 3.

>

So its free for the first year for me? Will I get the 50% off thing for C3 going for as long as I have the personal licence for C2 or is it only for the first or second year? I was going to pay the $50-100 a year anyways but this is already really nice. Also can you link me to something that shows the improvements from C3 over C2? The teaser website doesn't really show much.

Jut one last question, will you abandon C2 to work on C3 alone, or will you continue updates on both?

• If you bought C2 on or after the date we announced C3 in the first blog post, you get 100% discount on your first year. This will be exercised when you decide to first start your subscription.
• Check all our blog posts for details on C3 that have been announced
• No, we will continue to provide updates to C2 as we have been doing for the last year or so.

When I bought Construct 2 I was happy with the Personal licence and all the updates which where for free. I found it indeed very generous all those free updates.

There are many models in the Scirra C3 subscription and surely you will find the right one for you. Only the sun comes up freely.

I really do not understand why people still make such problems about the subscription model. Take it the other way around, if you sell a game you worked on for more than a year. Would you like Scirra also give the next updates for free? Are you also working for free?