Image Line Acquires UVI

[WatchTheGuitar]

FL Studio is now one of the worlds most popular DAWs - by sales.

If you’re not intending to make wholesale changes to the UVI or Melda businesses could you at least get the people at UVI who do presets and UI to have a chat to the people who do the same thing (poorly) at Melda? Melda make phenomenal plugins but their presets are horrible and the UIs a dog to look at and navigate, even with the new basic view interfaces.

And UVI Falcon can’t send out multichannel MIDI, but Melda MDrummer can do that really well. So, codebase differences aside, maybe some discussions would be helpful!

[revvy]

Notice this problem is affecting Netflix and others too. Its the new 'piracy'.

I’m no pirate. I pay for the most expensive Netflix sub for the family to use, just as I do with Spotify. One member is away at school half the time, I am often travelling.

The day Netflix agrees with you and ups my sub again in this new policy, I cancel the sub.

Your case is nothing like Netflix.

(Don’t worry, I’ve got one UVI and mo FL products, don’t worry, and I’m the unique user of all my legal, paid for audio SW.

[Image-Line]

Your case is nothing like Netflix.

They do agree with us. They are cracking down on account sharing.

And how do you think its not the same?

[jamcat]

poorly conceived lifetime update policy

Why do you think it was a poorly conceived policy?

Because you just told us it was.

Despite being “one of the worlds most popular DAWs” Image-Line still couldn’t even afford to maintain VST development of your plugin line, and had to seek out equity investors.

When the Fruity Loops’ lifetime upgrade policy was conceived, obviously no one was thinking about the ramifications 30 years later, with steadily contracting interest in music software that has necessitated a shift towards software subscription plans for the increasingly limited pool of potential users.

And with a massive userbase that only paid one time, tech support must be a massive cost blackhole, and a complete nightmare.

Last time I looked Cakewalk failed its user base.

Cakewalk is still in development. I don’t see how that’s failing its user base.

[revvy]

Your case is nothing like Netflix.

They do agree with us. They are cracking down on account sharing.

And how do you think its not the same?

I know they agree with you. I don’t. That’s why I gave my opinion that it’s different. Sorry for the confusion.

I already pay a multi user fee to Netflix, same I do with Spotify. I like the way Spotify implement it, email based for the registered group.

You’re asking me how your individual license worked differently?

Seems obvious to me but as I said, I don’t use your stuff so maybe it worked the same way, with multiple users from the same family using Fruity on multiple different devices.

[Image-Line]

Because you just told us it was.

I said no such thing. Arguing with experts on the internet never ends well but here goes -

Despite being “one of the worlds most popular DAWs” Image-Line still couldn’t even afford to maintain VST development of your plugin line, and had to seek out equity investors.

We chose not to. This has nothing to do with financial health.

1. Small team with too much on its plate:

We were not maintaining the plugins properly (if at all).

An already popular FL Studio, exploded in popularity about 10 years ago. As you are probably aware, Dider left in 2015, we had to build a new development team. Maxx was working on FL Studio Mobile which similarly was talking 100% of his time.

The small team we had was under pressure to focus on the core business and could not devote the time needed to the VST side of things. We outgrew the team, not finances.

It takes years to build a team of quality DSP software developers. We have been doing just that.

It does not matter how much money you have, the specific skill-set and talent needed to do this work is hard to find, and teams are slow to build. But we did it.

We didn't think it was ethical to continue to sell buggy plugins, that we didn't have the developer resources (yet, see below) to maintain to standard. So we did the right thing and withdrew them from sale.

Customers still had access to the plugins they paid for by the way. We didn't take them away.

2. VST/AU plugins are being developed again.

About a year ago, we employed a developer to specifically focus on this issue, and sometime this year we will be releasing bugfixes and updated versions of our plugins.

Please also note in the intervening time we have needed to develop 64 Bit and now ARM versions of all our software, including all these plugins. That now exist (unreleased). We can do this, because we can afford to employ someone to work on something that is less than 1% of our turnover.

When the Fruity Loops’ lifetime upgrade policy was conceived, obviously no one was thinking about the ramifications 30 years later, with steadily contracting interest in music software that has necessitated a shift towards software subscription plans for the increasingly limited pool of potential users.

This is incorrect. We have experienced double-digit (compound) YOY growth every year since 2008 (global financial crisis) and 2022 (which came down from a 2 year 2020-2021 COVID bump). All companies in our industry saw the same COVID bonus.

And with a massive userbase that only paid one time, tech support must be a massive cost blackhole, and a complete nightmare.

We are highly profitable. More profitable than all other DAWs I have seen the financial data on.

I have a question for you. Do you know what percentage of Ableton Live sales come from upgrade vs new customers?

Unless you do, you don't know anything about how profitable Lifetime Free Updates is, compared to the alternatives.

Regards Scott

[tony10000]

Image-line adopted a 'challenge response' product activation system last year. The interests of corporate bean counters was placed above user friendly keyfile activation.

That was 100% my decision, and came because account sharing was exploding. Among other things, I manage the IP and Trust and Safety aspects of our business.

Notice this problem is affecting Netflix and others too. Its the new 'piracy'.

Our Regkey unlock system was completely open for abuse, and was. Te clear, since we have Lifetime Free Updates, and only get to sell FL Studio once to each customer, we are particularly sensitive to account fraud and sharing. This included:

• Sub-leasing their licenses.
• Sharing them with friends
• Reselling multiple copies (shops on Ebay, Amazon, FB etc devoted to it)

The numbers were staggering in come cases, one guy had a network of users in the 100's.

We have seen Regkeys in use in the 10,000's numbers also.

Pirates could take a key, bundle it with a version of FL Studio that didn't phone home and voilà!. Almost effort free crack.

So not just sharing with your best friend, but outright fraud, possible because Regkey licenses were not restricted in the number of installs in any way.

So, put yourself in my position, what would you have done?

You are talking to Scott Fisher (COO).

Good decision, IMHO!

I have been a FL owner and user since version 3 and am glad that your company is still here and providing me with free updates after over two decades.

As for Cakewalk, all the $$$ that I paid for upgrades over the years is down the tubes.

Keep on doing what you are doing!

[tony10000]

Cakewalk is still in development. I don’t see how that’s failing its user base.

No it isn't. The versions that I bought and paid for have zero support. The plugins are not supported. I cannot even access them online. Cakewalk by Bandlab is a different animal.

"The key difference is that Cakewalk does not include some of the 3rd party plug-ins that were bundled with SONAR Platinum. As Cakewalk is now a free program, it does not include any licensed 3rd party plug-ins."

https://help.cakewalk.com/hc/en-us/arti ... plug%2Dins.

[bmanic]

poorly conceived lifetime update policy

Why do you think it was a poorly conceived policy?

Because you just told us it was.

Despite being “one of the worlds most popular DAWs” Image-Line still couldn’t even afford to maintain VST development of your plugin line, and had to seek out equity investors.

When the Fruity Loops’ lifetime upgrade policy was conceived, obviously no one was thinking about the ramifications 30 years later, with steadily contracting interest in music software that has necessitated a shift towards software subscription plans for the increasingly limited pool of potential users.

And with a massive userbase that only paid one time, tech support must be a massive cost blackhole, and a complete nightmare.

Last time I looked Cakewalk failed its user base.

Cakewalk is still in development. I don’t see how that’s failing its user base.

jamcat, you seem to think the world stopped 30 years ago and no new people were born since. Literally every single day new potential customers enter the hobby.

Why people went for the subscription model is simply greed. Plain and simple. Massive profits to be made if you manage to "lock-in" people into a system. Just look at Apple. That's their main business model.

[jamcat]

Continued development costs the same, whether you charge for those updates or give them away for free. Image-Line is on version 21 of their product, which means missing out on up to 20 points of sale per customer, so far. (40, if they were Steinberg. )

Maybe Scott will try to make the argument that not charging for updates has brought them 20 times more users than if they had, but it would be a difficult argument to make.

The bottom line is Image-Line's business model requires an ever increasing growth coefficient just to remain even with a model that includes charging for updates.

And it makes sense to do it. I don't imagine FL Studio 21 is at all the same program as Fruity Loops 1.0 was in 1998. At least, I hope not.

Cakewalk is still in development. I don’t see how that’s failing its user base.

No it isn't. The versions that I bought and paid for have zero support. The plugins are not supported. I cannot even access them online. Cakewalk by Bandlab is a different animal.

Image-Line kind of did the same thing to people who bought their VST plugins.

[tony10000]

Continued development costs the same, whether you charge for those updates or give them away for free. Image-Line is on version 21 of their product, which means missing out on up to 20 points of sale per customer, so far. (40, if they were Steinberg. )

Maybe Scott will try to make the argument that not charging for updates has brought them 20 times more users than if they had, but it would be a difficult argument to make.

The bottom line is Image-Line's business model requires an ever increasing growth coefficient just to remain even with a model that includes charging for updates.

And it makes sense to do it. I don't imagine FL Studio 21 is at all the same program as Fruity Loops 1.0 was in 1998. At least, I hope not.

Cakewalk is still in development. I don’t see how that’s failing its user base.

No it isn't. The versions that I bought and paid for have zero support. The plugins are not supported. I cannot even access them online. Cakewalk by Bandlab is a different animal.

Image-Line kind of did the same thing to people who bought their VST plugins.

Absolutely untrue.

I still have the VST plugins installed and have access to them online.

And, according to Scott, they are in the process of being updated.

[jamcat]

I assume you’re only disputing my comments on plugin support, and not the maths regarding necessary customer base growth.

According to Scott

We were not maintaining the plugins properly (if at all).

That left their customers high and dry. So they were discontinued. Whether or not the company maintains a backup of your old plugins for you is irrelevant.

I hope IL get the plugins update and re-released. And I hope all previous plugin customers get those updates for free, if and when that finally happens.

But until then, it’s the same boat as Cakewalk plugin users.

[N__K]

[...] So, put yourself in my position, what would you have done? [...]

The same or worse, on a bad day. Something better, perhaps, on a good one.

I don't envy you your job, that much I admit - but as a user, having experienced negative consequences of your decisions, I have nothing good to say about them.

That said, it's interesting to have confirmation that you were indeed behind those changes at IL. I had some intuitive suspicion of it from your writings, but expected a larger team to be responsible.

[zerocrossing]

I’m knee deep with Bitwig, and no intention of learning a new DAW, but I do own quite a few Image Line plugins and I hope they restart development and keep them going, including the likes of UVI Player and Falcon.

[tony10000]

I assume you’re only disputing my comments on plugin support, and not the maths regarding necessary customer base growth.

According to Scott

We were not maintaining the plugins properly (if at all).

That left their customers high and dry. So they were discontinued. Whether or not the company maintains a backup of your old plugins for you is irrelevant.

I hope IL get the plugins update and re-released. And I hope all previous plugin customers get those updates for free, if and when that finally happens.

But until then, it’s the same boat as Cakewalk plugin users.

I have experienced some minor bugs with only of their plugins. The other ones work as expected.

I can still use them and can download them.

This is obviously a different situation from Cakewalk. If you cannot tell the difference, I don't know what to say.

Methinks you are being disingenuous by even making such a comparison.