New video editing software?

[҉]

There is no much money involved in the production of software, no raw materials to process, sure a lots of work hours but that money is easily covered by the initial sells

This is the problem. If you really believe that, you're inhabiting a world that's different from the one everyone else here lives in. If that is the case, no amount of argument or evidence will convince you otherwise. You're starting from the assumption that things cost money because people are greedy. We're telling you that that isn't the case. Either accept that or don't, but understand that if you don't this argument is a waste of everyone's time.

[Iv121]

You gonna prove me that a piece of software that is an annual update costs 1000$ per unit to make? And what's about software much heavier such as a triple A video game which is at least 3 times more work than that costs 60$ fk lets even go all freaking out and get greedy even here, 100$ for a piece of heavy software, what happened to the 900$ difference LJS ? Im waiting for an answer ...

If you gonna asy "well triple A titles sell more" well perhaps if that soft wouldn't cost 1000$ it would sell better, there is a much bigger marker available for the same Photoshop if it was charging less. You can even go and ask someone from the industry such as frost, he will tell you that those products are overcharged for because companies want to make a cut from the purchasing company earnings using that soft (and not just pay for the production cost), that is natural and well acceptable just end users like us are not companies. It all goes to the argument I gave about people nowdays capable of creating stuff as high quality as a company, for free and for their pure enjoyment. You all start to do what you do all the time when you argue with me and ignore my previous arguments. Again if you wanna prove that there is no greed involved in it go answer par 2 in my prev Q honestly.

[҉]

I see you've chosen not to accept it. Very well; I can't say I'm surprised.

[Chairman_Tiel]

I have to say I agree with LJS on this - I can't see the discussion going anywhere, but you did ask me to answer your question so I will.

Lets assume for now that we are still in 2000 or something where Linux is not developed enough and used to offer a safe alternative to windows for which all programs are developed in an almost monopolist way and that mac is being mac and is priced double the windows no matter what price windows is. All set up ? Good, now Microsoft decided that today windows is gonna cost 5000$, I wanna see you buying it or I wanna see you finding an alternative for it, sure Linux exists but it is so incompatible with any other software that getting it is practically pointless, so what you gonna do now ?

I think the biggest mistake you're making here is that someone just randomly walks into the office and types in a few extra zeroes in the pricetag for good measure. No. This isn't about greed; companies don't just randomly pick a big number and pop it on their product. The price you see is the end cost they find optimum to maintain their profit margin while taking into account the amount of money they're pumping into making/distributing it along with your (pretty good) example of how willing people are to pay. If a piece of software, or really anything in life, costs over a thousand dollars, it's because either a) development costs are high, or b) the market is small and the cost must be correspondingly high to make a profit, or some combination of the two. Given that, there's no real reason for M$ to spike the cost of Windows up to some ludicrous pricepoint - it just doesn't make sense from a business standpoint, which is the primary consideration here. They have an absolutely massive market willing to pay the current price of 100$, which more than subsidizes what they put into it enough to maintain that.

By contrast, with something like Photoshop or 3DS the market is very limited to us that are familiar with it and the big dogs up in game development. It makes sense to have that kind of seemingly extraordinary price because those with the expertise needed to make the most of the software, the primary audience, are an extremely small group compared to AAA consumers, yet can pay upwards of a thousand to get the job done. You say if they lowered it further still it'd appeal to a broader demographic, but to what end? In order to keep their business sustainable they'd still have to go pretty high up, which means piracy is going to be just as much of an issue. In a way, you're actually preventing companies from picking lower pricepoints because the lack of volume caused by it means the price has to be jacked up to compensate. So if you can't afford it, just stay the hell away and leave it to the industry professionals, because that's who these programs are for. There are plenty of software devs that have recognized this gap and produced indie or even free solutions that do the same things, and don't tell me 'well I want moar features!'; that's what that large pricetag is for when put into context against the alternatives. Convenience and polish. You aren't entitled to those anymore than I am a hot wife, though I'd be equally willing to do anything for it, I guess.

Lastly, your concerns with iteration are something I can't really disagree with, but it's something that's logical given the state of the market. Consumers have made it clear they're OK with buying the same thing with a different skin on multiple occasions (see: iPhone) so it's only natural to exploit that. It is a business after all, not a charity. You see the same practice in pretty much everything from computer processors to airplanes.

[Prototype]

What's wrong with goo old MS paint?

[Iv121]

Well you are on the same terms as me, who says you are the right one and Im the ignorant one ? Who says its not otherwise ? If you don't present your argument you never know, Im solidly convinced that CS 6 is overcharged:

let us assume that CS 6 was 2 years in development by a team of 100 people, those figures are exaggerated probably judging by the PS credits shown on launch. Now lets give them an average salary of 15,000 $ per month, in the whole course of development it will be 16,500,000 $ for 11 months of work per year (1 month being turned into vocational days annually). Now the current price of CS 6 standard edition is 1,300 $, lets divide, overall around 12,700 units are needed to be sold in order to pay those people their bills, judging by the mere subscription rates to the new cloud service coming with the CS6 there are currently minimum of active 900,000 copies of this software. Even with all the maintenance cost of all possible facilities and a raise of 5000 $ monthly they are still filled with money. The charts lower down detail sales reports that show there are much more than 900,000 copies out there. Even if my calculations are WAY off you will need to find a way to make my mistake bigger by at least 70,086 % , good luck.

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/enterprise/ ... er-numbers

The reason those prices are so high is again because they are mainly targeted at companies. Companies make money, and they make money with your soft, it is natural that you would like a share of that money, that is what the price is all about, not development cost or anything else. To charge a non-profit user the same price is greed, as proven above.

[Chairman_Tiel]

The reason those prices are so high is again because they are mainly targeted at companies. Companies make money, and they make money with your soft, it is natural that you would like a share of that money, that is what the price is all about, not development cost or anything else. To charge a non-profit user the same price is greed, as proven above.

Reading this made me reasonably confident you're not paying me the same courtesy. Yep. Done.

[Iv121]

? If you are complaining about the you I use it all the time to illustrate stuff, if you are not happy with it I can change it all to they as it was supposed to be before I changed it mid sentence -.- . Either way the figures are quite solid and again with 70,000% room for error.

[Chairman_Tiel]

I mean I've already addressed what you're saying there but you keep pressing the same point(s) phrased differently.

The only real reason I went into this as self-righteous as I did is because I'm doing a speech on the subject matter and it helps to hear all POV but if we're just recycling the same arguments I don't think there's much point in continuing.

[Saravanth]

And today, children, we learned that should we acquire industrial-grade products through dubious and illegal means, we better keep it to ourselves. Now be good boys and girls, take your pills and go to bed.

[CMA]

take your pills

What? Is that an Austrian mind-control thing?

[Archduke Daynel, PhD]

No mind control. Don't worry. Just take the pills and everything will be fine.

[Iv121]

Well I have no choice but to repeat them Tiel because you ignore them. For example LJS claimed that the price for the product is representative of the money put into it, I proved otherwise above, you say that its like a stolen car you should not have, I claim that first of all you didn't steal it from someone but rather created a new instance of that program, and because you were not paying for it no matter what simply because you don't have the money for it , it doesn't matter for the company anymore if you get it in another way, it won't see your money anyway.

If you again believe that I say piracy is good or that I support it you are wrong again, piracy can hurt a developer a lot and turn him bankrupt that's a fact, in the same time though as I said before I feel nothing for the companies who try to force ridiculous prices on simple users for their products. You argued here that perhaps I could have used another, free product for the matter, but unfortunately as a frequent user of such soft I can assure you that some operations will be quite hard to make with other software and some nigh-impossible, leaving you either the choice of abandoning your plans for whatever you plan to make with it or acquire the software in an illegal way. OFC sometimes you get free software in a good quality such as Blender for example (at least as far as I heard, no experience myself) but unfortunately paint.net couldn't become a replacement for Photoshop for me.

Eventually pirating that soft does little damage to the company, in fact none as again that business is oriented at companies, as simple end users we have (or were not supposed to have) no place in that system, that is both a problem and a solution in itself as that also means that the companies won't bother chasing you legally for stealing the soft. I see why they are not making a cheaper license of the same products, it will be hard to make sure the companies themselves are not using that software and differentiate between the both (although as a rule of thumb companies do stuff legally), especially for privateers who run their own private businesses. Eventually nobody is hurt and everyone leaves happy.

[Chairman_Tiel]

As I said before, I'm done. You don't seem to get it and likely never will, so going on is just a waste of my time and yours. Maybe when I make my speech I'll record it and you can raise issues with the points I make, but until then I have better things to do.

[Iv121]

In other words you run away again, well it is your choice, I didn't leave a single argument of yours unanswered.