If you are an AvaStar user, you paid about US$22 for the program. It was supposed to come with lifetime updates. The developer had no idea what they were promising when they set that financial model. They are finding to stay in business they are going to have to make some changes. They announced those changes a couple of days ago.
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See: Avastar new Product Definitions
We now have two products; Avastar-1 (Infinite support) & Avastar-2 (Annual renewal). Sounds like AvaStar-1 is the way to go. But, realize that AvaStar-1 is what people have purchased up to this point. It is this product that is sort of coming to an end.
AvaStar-1 will continue to get bug fixes and be adapted to Blender changes. But, AvaStar-1 will no longer be updated with new features, it is going into Feature Freeze. So, we can continue to use it at no additional cost indefinitely. (Think about what has happened and what is happening. Indefinitely is not forever.)
AvaStar-2 is the version that will be getting new features and taking advantage of improvements in Blender. There will be an ongoing cost for AvaStar-2. There will be an annual renewal cost.
Why?
I was curious how long Machinimatrix could continue developing AvaStar without some form of additional income. We saw the change from free support to paid support and free tutorials to paid tutorials. Obviously they have discovered they can’t make it with just those changes. So, now we have this change.
AvaStar is more like Adobe software and SoftDesk’s AutoCAD. These are products people use to make money. They are constantly updated and improved. They have ongoing costs. So, I suspected AvaStar would eventually have to do the same. I couldn’t see how they could work for me for years for $22. Now $22 per year makes sense.
Of course if AvaStar were someone’s hobby and labor of love supported by a day job, I could see AvaStar and 10+ years of updates and improvements costing $22 or $2.20 per year. But, that is not the case. AvaStar is their day job.
I’ve already updated to AvaStar-2. They are making a deal for those changing over. Update for US$14.
While I am not using AvaStar right now, I plan to be using it. I have projects pending completion and I need AvaStar to complete those. I hope to build more things and sell them. So, this seems a good deal for me and I want to help Machinamatrix so they stay in business.
Yes, your article mostly describes our situation. We begun with a fun project created by enthusiasts who loved the idea of creating an easy to use toolset for animating with Blender. And we ended with providing satisfying support for Fitted Mesh. So it is now high time to step forward.
But please let me correct 2 points:
1.) The annual license renewal has been established in November 2014. However this becomes apparent only since the last 2 weeks where we see the first users with terminating support.
2.) Many users have complained about we are breaking the deal. But this is not at all true. We only promised to update the tool for free forever. This does not mean that we are going to add new features to the tool forever for free as well.
Actually we planned to begin with Avastar-2 about 2 years ago, when fitted mesh started to become a topic. But then we found it was a bad idea to cut the tool into with fitted mesh versus without fitted mesh. Although when looking at what we had to do to support fitted mesh after all, we should better have started Avastar-2 at that time.
Anyways, things are continuously changing and we only try to keep the product live. Let’s hope that annual license renewal turns out to be a good way to do it.
cheers,
Gaia
Thanks for the corrections.
How you are using the word UPDATE and how users have understood the word UPDATE are different. So, you’ll get some blow back. But, you’ll survive. I wish you the best.
I updated as well. I’m still very much new to mesh and Avastar has gotten me further than I ever would have gotten without it. I appreciate that enough to pay for it.
I’m with you on appreciation… 🙂