Allegortithmic is going subscription only-ish

Before you freak out,
You can still permanently own the software
In fact,

If you spent more than 12 months on substance live you can own any software(the current version only)
for only 49$!

Considering that Substance Painter 2’s updates are minor at worst and somewhat useful at best(so far anyway)

I think this is a great deal for consumers.

Here’s the full email

Dear Friends,
Starting in June, we will stop releasing major numbered versions and the Substance Live offer will become simpler with a simple name: Substance!
For you, this means an uninterrupted flow of new features and content, just as you’ve always had with Substance Live. For us, this means a drive to push forward and deliver all year long.
You always have access to the latest versions of tools and content, and you can still choose to own your products.

You get Substance for the same monthly price tag.For $19.90 per month, you still get the same products and services:

  • Full access to the latest releases of all Substance software: Substance Painter, Substance Designer and Substance B2M
  • 30 monthly downloads from Substance Source including .sbs files

You keep the ability to own your products.Even though major versions will no longer exist, you can still purchase a permanent license of the current release for $49 once you have completed at least 12 consecutive months of payments.

And whether or not you choose this option, you won’t lose your current accumulated paid months of Substance. The payments that you have already accumulated will remain valid when your account transitions to the new system.
Being able to get the latest releases of all software is an improvement over the previous system, where you had to wait for 8 months before the new version would be available.

Please visit our Substance information page for more details, or send us your questions at [email protected]

Thank you for your support!

– The Allegorithmic Team

I think that it isn’t a bad change, but people complain with all. The only problem for me is that when you work with other people, freelance, outsourcing,… you need the last version.

Well, at least it isn’t yet Autodesk or Adobe levels of retarded, but still… I don’t like it at all. They are starting to capitalize on their market position.

How so?
You still can own the software
I honestly cannot see the issue here

And why can not they make money with their software?

" For us, this means a drive to push forward and deliver all year long"

Why do people think by going to subscription, the software is going to get better? Every company that’s done this has pushed out at the same pace as when it was perpetual. What a bunch of Marketing BS.

For the development so far it meant that with every major release, there needed to be new shiny, marketing friendly features. Those had to be ready at a given time. That works for marketing, but can easily lead to weird development decisions just because it has to be finished.
With a subscription model, a new version can be published at any point. There is no need to wait before a finished feature is delivered and there is no need to rush features for the sake of hitting a date.
There is for sure the potential that the software gets better like this.

@dcvertice, @fdxd: It’s a step towards a subscription model. Subscription model is much easier for companies to make money on because the customer has to stop the subscription instead of having to choose to purchase instead.

Adobe takes this as far as baiting people with 10 euros per month when it’s actually 150 euros per year and half of that if you unsubscribe before the period ends. The incentive is to try an unsubscribe inside one month period to not have that cost. If you miss that period, the system automatically resubcribes you to the system and you have at least 75 euros costs remaining.

For a professional that’s probably not a big deal, but for a hobbyist that hasn’t used either Photoshop or Lightroom in months, that’s really annoying. Sometimes I might need either software, but those instances are far between.

The 10 per month is a lie to bait in hobbyists. At this point I would have been much better off paying 300 euro one time cost for Photoshop and Lightroom, if one would have been available. I feel suckered into this rotten subscription deal.

I personally find subscription models much more unfriendly for the consumer than deciding if I want a software or not, does it have new features that I want, and then paying for it. YMMV

Yes, companies survive on making enough money to pay for the costs and it’s in their right to use whatever business model they choose. It is also in my right as a customer to voice my complaint and choose to not continue my relationship with such company, and choose a competitor if one is available.

So far I don’t find anything particularly bad about Allegorithmics current decision. I do find it an indication on the direction they’re heading and I do not like that direction.

@ambi

Adobe Photoshop had a cost of 1000€ few years before, with 1000€ you only had a program with updates one year, the next year you needed pay more to have the new version. Actually you only pay 150€ every year, the change was really good.

With substance before you must pay a license every new version, for designer, painter and all. A lot of money, with the news system you will pay less.

This world is free, if somebody have better ideas and can pay the bills and salary to the workers all the months… they can do it. But actually the 3dworld is cheapess than ever, thanks to the subscription system. when a few years before only a company could make a videogame without use pirate software.

To make a game few years before, the cost for a indie developer.

3DsMax -> 4000€
Photoshop -> 1000€
Unreal Engine -> 100.000€? and a percentage of the sales.

And a lot of other little software.

Actually

  • Modo, 599€
  • Photoshop, 150€
  • Substance, 200€
  • Unity 350€

Subscription model is better, for all people.

@DcVertice, you may be right. It’s just not something that is my opinion at the moment, which may change as the future unfolds and reveals how the subscription model is a better alternative. So far, I have personally had mostly negative experiences with it.

I don´t know what to think of it but even with that coming change,
Substance painter is cheaper than Mari + Maintenance and still cheaper than Quixel + Photoshop.
The only price wise competition is 3DCoat.

Generally spoken;
Its always good to support similar products and/or be proficient enough in those
to get a softer landing when you decide to switch.

EDIT;
Here are the numbers and dates for perpetual licence holders;
Substance Designer 6 purchased license; free updates until June 30, 2018.
Substance Painter 2 purchased license; free updates until September 30, 2017.

After those dates, you can purchase 12 months of updates for the price of $75 at any time or subscribe to Substance.

Wait… so you sign into a subscription that says 10$/month with a runtime of at least one year, then you call it a “lie” and feel “suckered in”? You have no one to blame but yourself. You’re an adult, the legal system trusts you to enter contracts. If you don’t understand the terms of a contract, don’t enter it. It’s as simple as that.

Adobe takes this as far as baiting people with 10 euros per month when it’s actually 150 euros per year and half of that if you unsubscribe before the period ends. The incentive is to try an unsubscribe inside one month period to not have that cost. If you miss that period, the system automatically resubcribes you to the system and you have at least 75 euros costs remaining.

You can unsubscribe at any moment, your subscription will still run for the whole subscription period. If you unsubscribe right after you subscribe, it will not be renewed. Most subscriptions work that way, it reduces the churn rate. Generally, people are lazy to both subscribe and unsubscribe. Do you expect a company to make it harder for you to give them your money?

Adobe also offers true month-to-month (at a premium) for when you really only need a software for months at a time. Again, you have to be diligent to unsubscribe.

Yes, companies survive on making enough money to pay for the costs and it’s in their right to use whatever business model they choose. It is also in my right as a customer to voice my complaint and choose to not continue my relationship with such company, and choose a competitor if one is available.

Companies aren’t out to work at cost, they’re out to make a profit. They’re not your friends, they’re not looking out for your best interest, they’re looking out to make the most money.

You have nothing to complain about in this case, you have been offered a service on clear terms and you agreed to purchase it. You have buyer’s remorse, nothing more.

Good debate folks … Very good indeed … carry on … please carry on … till one crazy developer see this and inspired by you all and make an open source replacement for those … :smiley:

From personal experience, I’d say there’s nothing more uninspiring than reading what actual users have to say about software (FOSS or not) on these forums.

As for a FOSS “replacement” of Substance Designer: I’d guesstimate that for an experienced (and productive) Blender developer, it’s only maybe two months of full-time work to get the compositor extended and rewired into the rest of the application so that you’ll get maybe 80% of what Substance Designer does. It’s a low-hanging fruit, but apparently nobody cares enough to work towards that.

I have defended a paid version of blender several years…

IMO, subscription will make the software buggy, bloated & a marketing platform… same as with majority of services. If you’re good at what you do, once you really fix it, there’s no real profit anymore or at least for a long, long time. So companies started to create great, sometimes amazing products, had patent it and put in a drawer, until needed (car industry, digital film for analog cameras…). No one will ever strive for a final product anymore, instead the practice is - start to create problems, then provide a solution (advertising, virus-antivirus).

Secondly, no one should be punished for canceling subscription. Is as if you’re not allowed to return the product if not satisfied or is faulty. Do you pay for a stale beer? Since there’s no software developer providing any warranty.

Subscription shouldn’t be automatically prolonged but optional. Wonder who will pay the bill (with interests) after many go out & under or into the fire (cremated). We are pushing future generations into hell, making them guilty and in debt before they even exist. If there will still be a place to exist.

Finally, this will conclude in huge inflation, since the majority (subscribers) is feeding minute minority unproportionally. Prices of other goods & groceries will rise to such an extent that soon majority will literally eat shit and live in it! As is for many living in the Big City of OZpportunities a picture of today.

On the other hand, alternatives are more than welcome :wink:

PS.
Rather than defending paid versions, donate your wealth - if you got the strength, that is :stuck_out_tongue:

For anyone who is concerned that Allegorithmic will soon start abusing their monopoly in their respective field like Adobe did, the only real alternative I can think of is for someone to fork the code of Neo Texture Edit (no longer developed) and turn it into a competitive FOSS alternative.

Another possibility is to support the Pixaflux project (the thread about it being in the General Discussion forum), maybe even make an offer that would encourage the developer to Open Source it (if he is open to that).

As soon as Blender gets the node system sorted out (everything nodes), I’ll write a Substance Designer competitor with it. :wink:

It shouldn’t be even that hard to get the relevant parts from Awesome Bump, as it’s (IIRC) just OpenGL. Make it into a node.

The algorithms aren’t anything too complicated. You can just throw Numpy arrays around. What previously prevented me from continuing that particular project was I couldn’t grok the node system. The author of Sverchok wrote that one should only use the node system as a UI layer, and not store any data in it, which to me was at the time too much of a pain in the ass.

Why should a subscription based model lead to a situation where there is no final product anymore? The contrary is the case, because they can publish features and fixes when they are ready instead of waiting for the next huge release, the developers get feedback in a far more timely manner and can react to it. For users that means, they don’t have to wait very long when a bug they encountered has been fixed. That’s the reason why more and more software has shorter release cycles today compared to the past.

Subscription model enables companies to deliver only the bare minimum to keep people from unsubscribing. Releasing major versions requires extensive marketing campaigns and actual new, powerful and important features.

I don’t blame Allegorithmic on capitalizing on their market leader position. They have worked hard for it. They have built a solid reputation.