Are the days of the high priced plugins history?

[Tricky-Loops]

Short info... The average income in Germany is 2.700€ (after Tax!), compare this to < 1000€ for musicians and you get the picture. I expect similar values for all countries with a similar or better national output.
There is some money people (hobbyists) invest in music software and stuff. IMO the hobbyists _are_ the big market and not the pros.

There is no "average income" in Germany of 2,700€, that's nonsense. Every person has a totally different income. And there are loads of poor people who haven't much money for audio software! I only know a few people who are earning 2,700€ a month or more - but I know a lot of people who only have 1,400€ or far less.

The statistic he's referring to is here http://de.statista.com/themen/293/durch ... einkommen/. They're talking about 2700€ per household, not per person.

In any case, you don't have any reliable numbers to back up that assertion. It would, however, be interesting to see the pro (i.e., makes money with his/her music) vs. hobbyist ratio in terms of sales.

I'm glad prices are dropping, but I hope it's not going to put deserving devs out of business.

However, all these "average" statistical stuff is senseless. Think of a study in 2012 that reveals that every average German drinks 107,2 liter beer a year.

Now who is the average German? I'm drinking 1 liter beer a day, my brother drinks no beer at all, my sister drinks maybe 0.5 liter a day and her friend drinks 1.5 liter beer per day.

So everyone drinks a totally different amount of beer on a day. Even for a brewery the yearly average amount doesn't help them at all. Because every brewery sells a different amount of beer.

But back to the topic, what is the average price of a plugin?

[Sendy]

Zebra is not expensive for what it does. *glares at people who thinks Zebra is expensive for what it does*

[Monkage]

1st you have to look at DDMF SKnote Toneboosters, they have changed the effect market forever and anybody still buying much higher priced comparable products is doing so for the name alone.

2nd it hasn't happened in the synth world just yet because of the larger amount of development time on a typical big synth, however see point 3

3rd anybody who compares the value of a synth plugin to that of hardware is very much kidding themself, hardware costs more to develop and also has a much higher resale value.

Just a couple of points to think of,personally i am glad overpriced software is not doing so well when indie devs like those mentioned above in the effects world but also urs in the synth world are not only making superior products but also have fair copy protection and dont punish paying customers

[Urs]

Compared to other synth it's expensive.

There is no comparable synth in terms of workflow and integration of synthesis techniques :-p

What I admire about your company is that you don't make any special sales, group buys, summer sale etc. - the prices are always the same, the whole year over...

Well, we're thinking a lot about it.

Obviously we get by. We know from friends that xmas sales etc. are a magnitude of sales. But I suspect that it tricks people into buing what they don't really need. We believe that sales create unhappy customers. Not all of them, but many.

[Monkage]

Doubtful that would be the case with your stuff in particular. It is universally accepted as the best available for a reason

[Tricky-Loops]

Compared to other synth it's expensive.

There is no comparable synth in terms of workflow and integration of synthesis techniques :-p

What I admire about your company is that you don't make any special sales, group buys, summer sale etc. - the prices are always the same, the whole year over...

Well, we're thinking a lot about it.

Obviously we get by. We know from friends that xmas sales etc. are a magnitude of sales. But I suspect that it tricks people into buing what they don't really need. We believe that sales create unhappy customers. Not all of them, but many.

I never was an unhappy customer because of a sale. I've always tested the demo before I bought something at the sale.

I assume that not making a special sale is a point of your selling strategy. First it's about "value". Your synths are worth the regular price, so why should you make them cheaper? And then it's about your income. A sale creates instantly a higher business volume, but after the sale most people have your stuff and there will be far less sales.

[mellotronaut]

We believe that sales create unhappy customers. Not all of them, but many.

yes, because people tend to buy every 'no brainer', regardless of it's usefulness.

[sounddesigner]

I voted yes and believe this to be true (with exceptions). Most of the big companies i know of have lowered their prices at some point over the years. Companies like Algorithmix don't but that's because enough people see them as the best and unrivaled (especially LP Splitcomp), UA prices have actually increased once they upgraded their dsp's (the uad plugins prices have always slowly rised but the dsp hardware prices lowered at one point), but many other big companies prices have dropped or they're doing constant discounts. UA have constant sales but those sales are'nt significant discounts like they did many years ago until last August iirc when they started giving away a quad-card with the purchase of their Mic Pre's. As quality of plugins get better many people see less the need to upgrade often just like with more powerfull computers when bought the upgrade cycle slows down. The market is also getting more crowded as time passes with more developers joining the party so for many developers the money gets spreaded thinner. I'm sure the number of consumers of plugins have grown as well but the need to upgrade everything is slowing down so less money from many is spent in that regard (you know that horrible constant upgrade cycle ITB music production had many of us in due to lack of cpu power and sound quality) plus the worlds economy is horrible. I've gathered from reading many developers posts over the years that there is'nt much money in software plugins, ofcourse some developrs do ALOT better than others but very few can run a company with employees full-time from it.

I think some plugin developers go hardware because very little money is in software and because of copy-protection. I don't believe those developers fully believe in software cause often the hardware algorithms sound better than their plugins to me (Arturia even confirmed that the Enulations algorithms in Origin differ from their plugins- but the plugs are suppose to be accurately modeled ). Just my thoughts and opinions.

EDITED

[Tricky-Loops]

We believe that sales create unhappy customers. Not all of them, but many.

yes, because people tend to buy every 'no brainer', regardless of it's usefulness.

Really, do they? I always download and test the demo before I buy something, even if it's a no-brainer for $20.

There are so many sales, especially at the moment (summer special everywhere) - I think people couldn't buy so many useless stuff at all.

[mellotronaut]

We believe that sales create unhappy customers. Not all of them, but many.

yes, because people tend to buy every 'no brainer', regardless of it's usefulness.

Really, do they? I always download and test the demo before I buy something, even if it's a no-brainer for $20.

There are so many sales, especially at the moment (summer special everywhere) - I think people couldn't buy so many useless stuff at all.

i bought 4 'no brainers' myself, but only the ones, i really wanted. anyway, i have way too much stuff and as you can see on the KvR marketplace, i'm not the only one.

Schöne Grüsse nach Hause!

[hibidy]

I dunno, but I'm not getting as much as I originally paid in selling it all

[Borealis]

When I started playing electronic music in the 80s everything was hardware. I have a sampler that cost me about $6000, my guitar pre-amp was over $1000 etc. etc. I can't believe how ridiculously inexpensive the equivalent software instruments and effects seem now. I feel like I'm always getting a great deal, of course I'm relatively ancient, and that's the thing, it's all relative. My god, look at what real estate and automobiles cost now! My two cents . . .

[zerocrossing]

People crying that a $179 UDD synth is "expensive" make me laugh. Maybe you've been living in a dream? I've been very poor in my life and I'm sure I never, ever, once considered a sub $200 instrument to be expensive. Somehow even when I was managing a sock store (yes, it's true) I was able to scrape together enough to pay the rent and buy the occasional Digitech Spacestation pedal. I waited tables at a Chevy's to save for a guitar amp. Sure, I never had top-o-the-line gear, but I managed to put together pretty decent rigs at a time when $200 was a lot harder to earn than it is now.

Shame on you for getting used to Blu-ray players coming out of China for $99 from companies who pay their "employees" $1.40 a day. I seriously doubt Urs or any small dev is getting filthy rich on their work even at full price. I gladly pay for Urs's plugs and always think I'm getting the better end of the deal.

[pc999]

I still think that prices overall are very high (DAWs included) but we are getting better offers and better low cost options, but not enough...

[KBSoundSmith]

I still think that prices overall are very high (DAWs included) but we are getting better offers and better low cost options, but not enough...

Allow me to quote myself below:

Of course, we also live in a society that increasingly believes the results of everyone else's work should be free, so that probably affects people's perception of prices as well.