Autodesk increase Student Pricing Model for 2013 - by £4000
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I've just got off the phone with my local Autodesk reseller who's informed me of the new pricing for Student>Commercial upgrades on Autodesk products for 2013.
We were both in agreement that it's quite ridiculous, and he'd had a lot of complaints that he'd forwarded to Autodesk. I'm keen to hear some thoughts on this because it seems crazy.
In previous years (2012 and prior) a student could purchase the 'Entertainment Creation Suite' education version for around £250 here in the UK, and following graduation, could upgrade either Max or Maya to a full commercial license for around £600. I always thought this was a fantastic opportunity for both students to get themselves a legit copy of a primary 3D app, and also for Autodesk to secure some brand loyalty early on with graduates.
However, for reasons only know to Autodesk, you can no longer upgrade to individual packages, and must upgrade to the corresponding Suite.
So, you buy the Entertainment Creation Suite for £250, and then upgrade to the commercial version of the same suite... for £5000!!
Not only are students unlikely to be in a position to find $5000, they are also unlikely to need 90% of what's included in the Suite (Maya/Max, Mudbox, MotionBuilder, Softimage, Sketchbook).
I just can't see how they're going to sell any licenses to students now. I mean, if you've got money coming in, either as an experienced freelancer or indeed as an established studio, then of course £3000+ a seat is a cost that is recovered quickly, but for a graduate - I think it's pretty crazy to expect them to find that kind of money.
I for one cannot afford that in the slightest and will have to purchase an alernative like Modo.
We were both in agreement that it's quite ridiculous, and he'd had a lot of complaints that he'd forwarded to Autodesk. I'm keen to hear some thoughts on this because it seems crazy.
In previous years (2012 and prior) a student could purchase the 'Entertainment Creation Suite' education version for around £250 here in the UK, and following graduation, could upgrade either Max or Maya to a full commercial license for around £600. I always thought this was a fantastic opportunity for both students to get themselves a legit copy of a primary 3D app, and also for Autodesk to secure some brand loyalty early on with graduates.
However, for reasons only know to Autodesk, you can no longer upgrade to individual packages, and must upgrade to the corresponding Suite.
So, you buy the Entertainment Creation Suite for £250, and then upgrade to the commercial version of the same suite... for £5000!!
Not only are students unlikely to be in a position to find $5000, they are also unlikely to need 90% of what's included in the Suite (Maya/Max, Mudbox, MotionBuilder, Softimage, Sketchbook).
I just can't see how they're going to sell any licenses to students now. I mean, if you've got money coming in, either as an experienced freelancer or indeed as an established studio, then of course £3000+ a seat is a cost that is recovered quickly, but for a graduate - I think it's pretty crazy to expect them to find that kind of money.
I for one cannot afford that in the slightest and will have to purchase an alernative like Modo.
Replies
Yeah sorry, slight topic title fail.
Unfortunately I suppose it's just another case of Autodesks dominance, they know that ultimately, the students will end up with a license somehow, whether thats through a future employer who pays full price for it, or after raising enough capital they feel they need to get Max/Maya just to align with the rest of the industry (regardless of which industry that is).
As I said, the reseller has apparently had plenty of complaints already and exmaples of potential buyers going with an alternative package, so hopefully the message gets through... although I don't expect them to change it.
Eat3D should do a hard surface Modo DVD!
Such is life I guess.
Better than that; they allow full commercial usage on their student versions. As long as you are genuinely a student at the time of purchase, you have a completely unlimited, regular version. I bought Production Premium CS5.5 for £219!
love the overall well-thought autodesk approach especially since art-schools generally increase tuition costs every year, so fresh graduates would have even less pocket money to purchase their software
and yeah, looks like piratebay is the new black in the light of these news.
this issue only affects students (unless corporate licenses are going to be offered at over 9000 per unit)
I don't see the point for a freshman to learn modo if his future employer is going to be autodesk-centered, and there're many reasons why studios will not switch from AD products completely.
this pricing upgrade will effectively promote a) 2nd hand/outdated version licenses demand for good kids- which AD doesn't like for obv reasons b) piracy - which, I assume, is one step worse than re-selling.
http://www.novedge.com/products/3743?AFTK=FRGL&gclid=CIXK7vba168CFUFo4Aoda33_CQ
This listing is an exception. Most resellers have this, but don't put it on the site. Best to contact another reseller.
Hmm, that's interesting. I'd like to know how they're doing this. As far as I can tell, it's not so much that you can't upgrade Max or Maya for the old price, it's more that you just cannot purchase Maya or Max on their own as a student version, you have to buy the Suite. Once you have the Suite, you can then only upgrade to the Suite which has the big increase in cost.
This means if you bought a version of Max in 2010/11/12 then you can possibly still do it, but here in the UK, I just can't get hold of a license of just Max.
I spoke to 3 resellers here in the UK who all had to call Autodesk to check what the deal was for 2013, and all came back with the same info. I'm keen to look into this though. The problem is nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer. Autodesk refuse to divulge pricing info as they 'only deal with resellers' and resellers seem unsure themselves.
So yeah, I'm confused as to why Autodesk would do this, they aren't doing too hot in the development of their own tools, and their saturation of 'buy this to get this, and get this to get that' is spreading them too thin in the market, plus, lack of 'standardization' in their own tools, and the almost fighting against other tools, they should be ashamed at the price they're asking.
Plus, with Government less willing to support 'art' school, after finding out they serve no purpose other then ego-boosting, this puts the consumer in a much tighter spot to afford things.
So yeah, I'm honestly worried that Autodesk is going to report massive losses in the next few months.
Some say you can upgrade to just Max/Maya, some say you can't and there doesn't seem to be concrete evidence either way.
It seems nuts that Autodesk would suddenly drop the option to upgrade one main package, surely they know a lot of customers only need one main package and not a suite.
The thing is, some of the suites aimed at other industries aren't too bad. I mean, if you work in BIM or M+E for example, then the Building Design Suite consists of packages you would likely make use of but with the Entertainment Creation Suite, I'm not sure who would use both Max and Maya, as well as Softimage, MotionBuilder and Sketchbook. It kinda seems like they've thought of the building industry and thought 'hmm well it works for these guys, let's just stick the other products together and called it the Entertainment Suite'.
They still sell Max/Maya standalone, so why can't we upgrade to one of them?
Ken Pimental if you're reading this can you do a bit if digging? I know it's outside your department but in sure you've got better contacts than we have!
Yep.
This is the problem. I currently work in architectural visualisation and as much as I would love to switch to an alternative package, it's just so difficult when Autodesk have had such a stronghold for so long. I mean, sure I could switch to Modo, or Cinema4D but then I lose mentalRay, all of the associated plugins, material libraries, shaders, scripts etc and the large majority of model libraries are produced for use in Max.
I also need to regularly swap scene files and CAD files with other employees and clients and of course 99% of them are using Max.
The thing is, there really is no solution as 'complete' for me as Max. There are better modellers, better renderers, better unwrapping solutions, but no single 'in the box' package that does everything as well as Max does in terms of overall ability. Its just unfortunate that Autodesk know this and know they can price their products to whatever the hell they like and people will be almost forced to stick with them.
I'd estimate that students make up such a minute part of their sales figures that even if every student decided to purchase a competing product, it would barely leave a scratch in their profits.
I definitely feel for the hobbyists though, or the students who just want to continue to use a package at home. Fortunately I should be able to recover any costs that I do spend on the software because it's my job, but I'm pretty sure those guys who just want to use it for fun or practice aren't going to be able to come up with £4000 or more just to keep playing. I guess they'll head for the torrent sites as people have said.
Just like Max, the only thing you're missing out from Blender is a 'fast' solution for rigging, but everything else is on par and even better.
Honestly, Autodesk should be ashamed. Their own programs, half of the time, fight between themselves in terms what they do and how they work, they're not standardized nor synchronized, hell, you can't even meddle with them enough to make it work with your engine properly, and the recent dick move of not listening what Normal Map tangents people want is abysmal to say the least.
All this, plus some more issues, not to mention half arse implementation of DX10 and Nitrous, broken switches, the fact that graphite tools 'change' everytime you change your object mode, causing lag, and they're asking for 3-4K from my money.
Yeah no, I think it's time I learned Blender and cut this part of the headache of my life.
There's no other render engine that comes close to mentalRay (other than VRay and to a certain extent Maxwell) for Arch-Vis, and Max's handling of DWG/DWF files is rock solid, which unfortunately is where other apps usually fall short in my workflow. And since CAD file handling and final render output are effectively the two most important parts of my job, I'm stuck with Autodesk.
I love 3DS Max, don't get me wrong, and I'd like to think I could recover the costs of the software in a realistic amount of time I just wish it wasn't going to cost me £4000 up-front that I don't have.
...eeh yeah there is, its called softimage xsi. I have been a big max user since the last 5 years, last year I switched to softimage and my worflow/speed improved drastically.
- it hardly crashes (almost never), the ui is not full of shit, passes are an awesome thing, also overwrites, uv unwrapping is a "mode" not a modifier!!! , mental ray integration is the best you will find (you can use a mix 8 colors to blend more shaders...etc), and for dealing with metric system,although not by default you could use a custom ice script for this. In resume in my opinion it does almost everything that max does, but more elegantly and with less hassle.
Not to mention that you have raycast selection and the ability to modify several objects at once, you also have ice....and now even vray for the people in archviz.
I am not trying to bash max as I still use it for some stuff (like uvpacking and for textools) Because I agree that xsi's uv sucks, besides unfold which is great. But I would seriously consider it as an alternative package for those of you who are still unsure.
You ll definetly hardly come back to max.... except of course for the hundreds of awesome plugins like soulburn scripts, textools, rock placer...etc ... (that in the end could be achieved with some ice knowledge)
yeah that fu#$%# sucks man, I know.
It's only the interface and shortcuts that change.
Although I guess as you mentioned, the problem are the clients and workplace, if they don't use anything else other then Max, CAD, etc, then using XSI, Maya, 3DC, etc will be out of place, which is unfortunate to say the least and Autodesk has you by the balls.
If your a big studio maybe, for an individual probably not...
Some might say its almost the same and they do the same in the end and this might be true, although my point is not what but how is it done. And all this is coming from someone which first time that looked at xsi said the interface had ugly big buttons that look childish...ha
and I like my 3d max with all its plugins etc etc.... well, 9 months and 3 projects after,
I feel like I ve done a good choice leaving max behind as a main app. Last time I really enjoyed max was version 2009 - 64 bit... simple but tight. and as I cant have that anymore in production well I had to look for something else.
I could definitely add more points but they wont probably make much sense here as I work in the film industry and they would be towards a render based workflow, also its obvious that max has some awesome benefits for the game community... such as good viewport shaders (xolioul, 3 point studios..) I can't definitely take that off from it. Xsi does not have that kind of viewport shading quality as far as I am concerned.
Now there are still lots of stuff I like from max... and I would really like it to get simpler as in 2009 but looks like it is too much to ask for atm.
XSI is great, but the issue is that alot of the people using it don't use it's full potential. Everyone was giddy about ICE when it got implemented, but when it came out, a large number of people never spoke of it again, so yeah, XSI is kind of the Unsung hero in many cases. Wish it was more used in all industries, I mean between XSI and Blender, XNormal and 'insert render/engine here' is pretty much all you need.
And don't remind me about Max's corruption issue, I once had an entire scene become 'uv' corrupt, so my entire scene which had a small bunker and ship in it lost all the UV's for some odd reason, for around 5 revisions of the file. It was nightmare checking each pieces and laying them out again, Max's issues also cost a friend of mine his job
@Frell: Dude, I will just be happy if we could go back to Diffuse only.
Not sure I follow. The reseller I listed confirmed you could purchase the $250 student suite, and then upgrade to the commercial version of just Maya for $1300. True, you can't purchase just the Maya student version for $50 or so, but an extra $200 is a small price to pay for a discounted future upgrade.
Ah sorry yes you're right. That's exactly how it used to work here too; you buy the Suite but then upgrade to just Max/Maya. Did you actually speak to them about this? I know that sounds odd since they have it on their website but I'm being told explicitly that you cannot upgrade to just Max/Maya yet Novedge are saying you can do just that.
I need to get to the bottom of this because if I spend £3500 on a new license of Max this week and then find out that the resellers were wrong I'm going to be pretty annoyed.
But Autodesk products are tools not engines. It's pretty easy to track down who's not using a licensed UDK by the fact anything the publish carries the engine with it. Admittedly the student version of max would flag it as student when exporting, but not with a render in your folio, or in your movie, or in the assets in your game.
lol don't worry I did say "wish"
The guys at WETA for example, during downtime use Blender, but not for 'real' projects since then many of the other peeps in the pipeline wouldn't know what to do without spending a couple of months in learning everything.
That's pretty much the reality anyway lol just not an Autodesk authorised reality.
Yup over the phone. I don't know of anyone that's tried it so I can't confirm. Also not 100% sure on their return policy in the slim chance it doesn't.
Also, you can look into the Autodesk Unemployed Training Program. You have to be unemployed and able to prove it. And I only think the license lasts for 12 months (unconfirmed), but it has the same benefits as the Student versions ie $1300 to upgrade. The price for the AUTP commercial upgrade you have to call every vendor about though. They don't list it on the websites at all.
Ok great, thanks. I'll give Autodesk UK a call tomorrow and hopefully get some straight answers direct.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I won't qualify for the AUTP. I'm still a student until June though so hopefully I can still go that route.
I asked the same question on AREA and apparently resellers are notorious for setting their own pricing/upgrade paths so it wouldn't surprise me if they're just pushing sales of Suites, and playing dumb to upgrading to a standalone seat of Max.
Weta use Blender? Where did you read that? In what capacity do they use it? They ever put stuff up online?
hu what? as a student you can get their full portfolio for free no need to download any warez version, just go to their educational platform.
They don't use it officially for work related products, just personal stuff, but many would love to have the option in the pipeline.
Only issue is, as said, it would take several months for people to actually transfer the project to it, not to mention years in revamping the entire pipeline from Maya/XSI/Motionbuilder to the final project.