I signed up just to comment. As someone who was looking at Construct as a viable solution to make mobile games, this price increase did not drive me to buy C3. It actually drove me away from C3 and Construct completely.
If you think about it for a second, if a company is willing to increase the price of a product no longer getting features that is already full of bugs according to the bug reports then it is only a matter of time before they jack up the price of C3.
With the announcement of the new C3 runtime, you bet the subscription cost is going up in the near future.
A very shady tactic. It is encouraging alright, encouraging people to go with alternatives.