Plug-in (mostly FX) prices: lost in a devalued world

[SampleScience]

I agree that the constant sale and huge discounts can be a problem. It can affect the perceive value of the product being sold. That's one of the reason why I'm now limiting my discounts to a maximum of 25% (+ I'm doing less sales).

Also, I increase the price of products by 1$ after they had been on sale. I do this for two reasons: 1. To adjust the prices to the inflation (I have to make a living too). 2. To avoid annoying the customers who bought the plugins full price before a sale. This way, they are saving 1$ from the updated price and they'll keep saving an additional dollar each year. They'll also have the plugins updated for free for as long as I'm in business.

This way, even if my customers buy my products full price, they'll save money over time.

[cocoazenith]

Wait, people. First of all this discussion is not about free plug-ins. Offering a free plug-in is a developer's
choice and has nothing to do directly with the retail market.

I am talking about big companies that discount their products by ridiculous margins. After reading the posts
in the topic and remembering what i've learned from the past 3 years of following the Bargain Center thread
I have come to a rather cynical theory...

The sale value of the plug-ins is the REAL value of the plug-ins. The developer is aware of that and it is
a marketing prerogative to develop a large product portofolio. One example might be a company that has
a portofolio of 10 EQ plug-ins and is selling each of these EQs with a big discount from time to time. Thi
assures a constant buyer base for these products. Why? Because a product on sale can always replace a product
that's not on sale. It's not about "I need it now" so I'm gonna pay the full price, because you don't need it now,
because you can replace with something else that's on sale from the same developer or better yet from another
developer.

[xoxos]

Wait, people.

krs-one?

The sale value of the plug-ins is the REAL value of the plug-ins.

if you're going to talk about reality we're delving into epistemology. whatever's real for you, hey, that's alright. the reason people contribute to this thread otherwise is because of their erudition. value is relative and thus volatile. those of us who have been in this business for a while (or since it began, which is only a few years ago) have seen the trends come and go.. like zero delay filters.. once those were open sourced we had about four or five years of people still mentioning it as a selling point, until highlighting it started sounding like desperation, now it's been a few years since i've seen anyone highlight "0df" as a primary selling point. to a newbie, two years of software releases might seem like an eternity, but to someone who has been in the field for a long time, it's momentary. if you really really want to make a generalisation about the objective value of retail software, there isn't one. we're telling you this to save you all that money you might otherwise spend being enthralled by the industry.. what a developer charges $199 for today might be $49 next week if some pressing "life event" (these happen as you age) requires pecuniation that the $199 rate of sales does not match. trying to find a "perfect" value is only to make you feel comfortable about the fact that you desire commercial plugins and want to feel the VFM is justified.

[chaosWyrM]

no. software is completely without value beyond what we assign to it. the worst software and the best could easily be priced the same with no real reasoning behind it. its not like an item made with higher quality materials which obviously justifies a higher price over a similar item with lower quality materials.

Fun fact: programming software takes time and skill. Good programming skills are somewhat pricy, you know? Sometimes the sheer amount of presets adds value (Omnisphere). And they take a lot of work to make.

Then comes customer service and updates, which don't come for free either.

fun fact: no one cares.

thats 100% entirely irrelevant. as a customer why should i care about how much it cost to make the product? in fact i dont (nor does anyone else). all i care about is does the price match up with the quality and usefulness. if the answer is yes...i buy it...if the answer is no, i dont (unless the price is below the quality/usefulness, in which case i buy it). i couldnt care less how much it cost to make...thats not my concern in the slightest.

[ATS]

What is real? I know for a fact that u-He products do seem real.

Cheers!

u-he has had huge discounts on their products too. I got $50 off ACE for filling out a short survey.

[DJ Warmonger]

no. software is completely without value beyond what we assign to it. the worst software and the best could easily be priced the same with no real reasoning behind it. its not like an item made with higher quality materials which obviously justifies a higher price over a similar item with lower quality materials.

Fun fact: programming software takes time and skill. Good programming skills are somewhat pricy, you know? Sometimes the sheer amount of presets adds value (Omnisphere). And they take a lot of work to make.

Then comes customer service and updates, which don't come for free either.

fun fact: no one cares.

thats 100% entirely irrelevant. as a customer why should i care about how much it cost to make the product? in fact i dont (nor does anyone else). all i care about is does the price match up with the quality and usefulness. if the answer is yes...i buy it...if the answer is no, i dont (unless the price is below the quality/usefulness, in which case i buy it). i couldnt care less how much it cost to make...thats not my concern in the slightest.

You contradict yourself. Deal with it.

[chaosWyrM]

no. software is completely without value beyond what we assign to it. the worst software and the best could easily be priced the same with no real reasoning behind it. its not like an item made with higher quality materials which obviously justifies a higher price over a similar item with lower quality materials.

Fun fact: programming software takes time and skill. Good programming skills are somewhat pricy, you know? Sometimes the sheer amount of presets adds value (Omnisphere). And they take a lot of work to make.

Then comes customer service and updates, which don't come for free either.

fun fact: no one cares.

thats 100% entirely irrelevant. as a customer why should i care about how much it cost to make the product? in fact i dont (nor does anyone else). all i care about is does the price match up with the quality and usefulness. if the answer is yes...i buy it...if the answer is no, i dont (unless the price is below the quality/usefulness, in which case i buy it). i couldnt care less how much it cost to make...thats not my concern in the slightest.

You contradict yourself. Deal with it.

lol. nice try...youre wrong...deal with that.

i see you attempted to show some kind of contradiction by highlighting my text. you do realize theres no contradiction there...right? ive been perfectly consistent this entire thread. in fact im not even sure what you think you see there.

[DJ Warmonger]

You are willing to pay for better production materials but don't care about product cost? This is clearly contradiction.

Trivia fact: Expensive products are not free. Choose one.

Anyway, in modern world product value is added from design - which includes idea, sience, engineering and also programming. The cost of raw materials is no longer decising factor. So, yes, better products might cost a lot to develop but at teh same time it's worth to spend a lot of development if it gives an edge.

[chaosWyrM]

You are willing to pay for better production materials but don't care about product cost? This is clearly contradiction.

Trivia fact: Expensive products are not free. Choose one.

Anyway, in modern world product value is added from design - which includes idea, sience, engineering and also programming. The cost of raw materials is no longer decising factor. So, yes, better products might cost a lot to develop but at teh same time it's worth to spend a lot of development if it gives an edge.

not sure where i said i was willing to pay for for "better" materials. regardless...even if i was...that still has no bearing on software costs. there is no such thing as "better" production materials...seeing as how software isnt made of anything. do i really need to give you another example as to how that notion makes no sense? ugh...im not going to...go back read the other 3 times i explained it.

regardless thats all entirely irrelevant. the costs of "better production" in software does not at all translate to a better product. not in any way shape or form. at least a car made from higher quality materials is more likely to last longer than one made of crappy materials (still no guarantee), so a higher cost can at least be explained.

i challenge you to demonstrate some kind of direct correlation between software production costs and quality. i double dog dare you.

you are still making the false equivalency between production cost and product quality....which doesnt even hold up in the realm of actual real goods...let alone in the realm of non existent digital goods.

no one is denying that it costs money to make software. and no one is denying that higher quality coders, engineers, and artists dont cost more than lowe quality ones. what is being denied is that those costs directly translate to the quality of the final product AND (more on topic) that the final cost of software is an indicator of its quality (an idea that is absolute nonsense).

[DJ Warmonger]

seeing as how software isnt made of anything

I seriously find it difficult to discuss with someone who has literally medieval view on economy. In medieval times there was no real sience or engineering, the economy was based only robbing gold (and other "materials") from someone else. Today we are beyond that since software products can be instantly copied, generating value out of nothing.

regardless thats all entirely irrelevant. the costs of "better production" in software does not at all translate to a better product

[/quote]
Of course. One can still make crap even with all the funds in the world, but it's nothing new.

My view is that product "value" is irrelevant. If I need something and I can afford it, I buy it.
Still, there is abundance of competing products on market and some of them offer more features for less money. SO most certainly then can be compared for value.

[chaosWyrM]

seeing as how software isnt made of anything

I seriously find it difficult to discuss with someone who has literally medieval view on economy. In medieval times there was no real sience or engineering, the economy was based only robbing gold (and other "materials") from someone else. Today we are beyond that since software products can be instantly copied, generating value out of nothing.

regardless thats all entirely irrelevant. the costs of "better production" in software does not at all translate to a better product

Of course. One can still make crap even with all the funds in the world, but it's nothing new.

My view is that product "value" is irrelevant. If I need something and I can afford it, I buy it.
Still, there is abundance of competing products on market and some of them offer more features for less money. SO most certainly then can be compared for value.

and i find it difficult to discuss this with someone who doesnt understand the basic difference between commodities and non-commodities...and how those differences relate to the economy (medieval or no). or am i to assume you are being purposely obtuse? you do understand that software is quite literally not made of anything...right? that fact alone makes it intrinsically worthless (in an economic sense). if something can be duplicated an infinite number of times without the need for any raw materials, or even a warehouse to hold it, and for next to no money at all...how much is that thing worth? 9cu yards of cow manure is worth more than a hard drive with 100,000 copies of diva on it. in fact that hard drive is only worth what the hard drive itself is worth....the software on it doesnt increase the value at all.

and your second part there only confirms what ive been saying all along...which is you can not determine the quality of software from its price...so thanks.

[masterhiggins]

Actually, an item having physical substance doesn't indicate intrinsical value, either.

[xoxos]

money doesn't have anything to do with software development. you can take your laptop and plug in to the power at the football bleachers and code when no one is around. or the old pump shed, it's pretty quiet in there.

weed and coffee, may have more relevance to the process.

[fluffy_little_something]

The cost and value of Software is basically the work put into it, and occasionally a few bucks for DVD and manual. With physical products such as cars it is also work, plus material costs of course.

It is odd when people think something that is not tangible has no value. Everything our society is based on is not tangible, e.g. love, trust, work, creativity, talent, education...

[Acid Mitch]

The cost and value of Software is basically the work put into it, and occasionally a few bucks for DVD and manual.

It usually costs a bit when you need to buy computers and software for development.