New Vengeance synth in the works

[DrGonzo]

But surely they would be able to reduce the price, not raise it, if their product wasn't cracked?

Why would they if it sells well?

To sell a lot more copies and thus make more money...

You mean if it sells well they should reduce the price to make it sell better? Wicked logic man. You're not much of a salesman, are you?

Don't be too hard on him. I don't know how many times companies deliberately are spreading the myth of if-piracy-only-were-lower-we-could-have-lower-prices-too bs. I think the first time I heard it was back in the day of the Commodore 64 and little has changed since then

What always continues to irritate me is the modern interpretation of being a salesperson. No moral. The only thing what matters is sales and you can do what ever it takes to get there.

But now we're getting deep into OT-land. I miss Meffy. KvR is not the same without him.

/C

[chk071]

Of course piracy has an impact on sales. The impact will be pretty hard to measure though, as you can't know how many of the warez users would have really bought the product. I would say it's about 10 % at highest, still it has an impact. Depends on the product too of course. There is a statistic saying that 62% of the Photoshop users used a warezed copy. That's why they've moved to a subscription system and cloud solution with Photoshop CC. Bad news for a lot of their legitimate users.

[Pyrotek45]

if the software is good, piracy should help. Look at fl studio. Adobe was pirated becuase it costed way too damn Much and people did not think it was worth the asking price. They fked themselves.

[chk071]

if the software is good, piracy should help. Look at fl studio. Adobe was pirated becuase it costed way too damn Much and people did not think it was worth the asking price.

Many professional designers seem to think it's well worth the asking price. The gros of warez users are people who want to be professional rather than being professional. Actually it's amazing what Photoshop offers, but for the simple mind it's of course nothing special, and has to be available for a tenth of the asking price for everyone. Gimp or Photoshop Elements are absolutely enough even for ambitioned semi-professional, but naaaah, it has to be the real thing, even if you only use a 1/1000 of the functions available. Coz it's pro. And stuff.

That's also the reason why many would prefer a warezed copy of Cubase. Reaper and the best freeware plugins would give them all they need to start with, but neeeey, it has to be Cubase and Sylenth1. Coz it's pr0. And stuff.

[Pyrotek45]

Well i bet that the majority of the 62% that pirAted it are just 10-17 year olds making memes. They've not been around long enough, or care to know about all the good freeware alternatives. I doubt they would have bought it if they couldn't have pirated it.

[chk071]

That's the question I'm asking myself too every time, how many would have really bought it. Not sure really. But I don't doubt it has an impact. The question is how big is the impact. In the audio app business with all those very small companies, the impact should be bigger because there are much less sales.

[Pyrotek45]

Also people don't pirate stuff because its "pro". They do because its the first thing that pops up when you type in vst, daw or photo editer on torrent sites. Thats also lends itself to free marketing.

[chk071]

Also people don't pirate stuff because its "pro". They do because its the first thing that pops up when you type in vst, daw or photo editer on torrent sites. Thats also lends itself to free marketing.

Price question: What leads to that software turning up as the first result on torrent sites?

[Pyrotek45]

Because they're easier to crack. The devs didn't waste their money on copy protection. Also, there is a high percentage of people who eventually buy the software they pirate. Fl isa great example of this. Now you could say that they show up first because they're popular, but then ask yourself this. Why are they popular? Is it because they're easier to access and word of mouth hypes them up? Probably. Even famous people pirate and that helps market the plug even more tbh. When i used to pirate, therewere a lot of plugs i never heard about untill i seen it on thepiratebay. To me, copy protection only hinders the dev and the buyer. Its a watse of money seeing that you could have more potential buyers if your software was easier to crack

[Phorous]

Not all products target the same market. The FL Studio market is very different than the Cubase market. I would be willing to go out on a limb and say that Steinberg and Image Line both understand their target market and how they expect things to be priced.

Of course, armchair experts on KVR may know better than them as often as I hear this line of thinking

What's the difference between the users of Cubase and the users of FL Studio then? Do FL Studio users have less money?

FL Studio has always had strong appeal to bedroom producers wanting to make dance music and hip hop. Cubase tends to target more of a pro audio market with its MIDI, mixing, tracking, and scoring functionality. That type of audience is willing to pay more.

I am not discounting FL Studio at all btw, its a fantastic DAW that is built from the ground up to do well in its target market

[2ZrgE]

if the software is good, piracy should help. Look at fl studio. Adobe was pirated becuase it costed way too damn Much and people did not think it was worth the asking price.

Many professional designers seem to think it's well worth the asking price. The gros of warez users are people who want to be professional rather than being professional. Actually it's amazing what Photoshop offers, but for the simple mind it's of course nothing special, and has to be available for a tenth of the asking price for everyone. Gimp or Photoshop Elements are absolutely enough even for ambitioned semi-professional, but naaaah, it has to be the real thing, even if you only use a 1/1000 of the functions available. Coz it's pro. And stuff.

That's also the reason why many would prefer a warezed copy of Cubase. Reaper and the best freeware plugins would give them all they need to start with, but neeeey, it has to be Cubase and Sylenth1. Coz it's pr0. And stuff.

And let's not forget the fact that pro's can set the price off against their tax liability (at least where I live).

BTW the company I work for has a full Adobe licence, but we use less than 10% of it's possibities.

[basslinemaster]

But surely they would be able to reduce the price, not raise it, if their product wasn't cracked?

Why would they if it sells well?

To sell a lot more copies and thus make more money...

You mean if it sells well they should reduce the price to make it sell better? Wicked logic man. You're not much of a salesman, are you?

No, I mean they reduce the price to sell more copies, and thus make more money...

[2ZrgE]

If things always were that easy!

Let's not forget we are talking music software here, a market much smaller than let's say office software.

I doubt that sales would double if a company like U-he would sell a synth for 70 instead of 140 bucks as an example.

Personally I don't buy dongle products, so Vengeance (and some other companies) don't get any money from me - but that's not a sufficient reason to drop that protection for those companies it seems, as long as enought people do not care about the protection scheme and buy nevertheless.

Still interested what they would come up with synth-wise.

[chk071]

But surely they would be able to reduce the price, not raise it, if their product wasn't cracked?

Why would they if it sells well?

To sell a lot more copies and thus make more money...

You mean if it sells well they should reduce the price to make it sell better? Wicked logic man. You're not much of a salesman, are you?

No, I mean they reduce the price to sell more copies, and thus make more money...

Yes. No salesman would ever do that. It would be totally contradictory to lower the prices for something which sells well.

[chokehold]

No, I mean they reduce the price to sell more copies, and thus make more money...

And that logic is based on what? A thin wallet?

So they sell their stuff cheap and collect an overwehlmingly huge amount of new customers that their team can't handle and their customer service quality plummits. They will have to deal with an unreasonably high number of unhappy impulse buyers, leading to lots of license transfers that keep the support guys too busy to help the customers with "real" issues. This leads to long response times, automated replies, and ultimately a bad rep in public. Which makes the company try to find ways to keep people from transferring licenses, maybe by punishing transfers with unreasonably high fees or disallowing transfers in general. Which, obviously, will lead to an even worse rep in public. The impulse buyers are unhappy, the convinced buyers are unhappy, the developer is unhappy, everybody rants and nobody buys anymore. So jobs have to be cut to stay afloat, leaving less manpower to do the same amount of work as before, everything takes longer and quality has to be compromised, leaving users with unfinished and buggy software with paid yearly bugfix updates. "Creative" ways of keeping the buzz alive have to be found, like monthly subscription models and aggressive marketing, both of which chew up even more money just to organize and handle, which will lead to more price reductions and sales. And in return an even more overwhelmingly huge amount of new customers, most of which will be pre-programmedly unhappy impulse buyers. And so it repeats.

Ring a bell?

Nothing good will come to anyone, creators and users, if devs start selling their products for less than they're worth. In this industry, every price tag keeps a family alive. Or a dog fed.

What would you say if your boss told you "Hey, you've been doing well around here, you're one of my most versatile and reliable employees. Unfortunately though, I have no use for your sharp eyes, your huge belly and your well-trimmed beard. I don't use those features of you, so I can't be paying for them just because they come with you. But I could pay you less so I can still afford you." ... ?