CharlyCharlzz wrote:
Theo for the last part of your post I guess your maybe wrong , VST's are so pirated that you work to give 80% of your work to thiefs when Props Protect there format .
If I would still care about VST's I could get 5000 dollars Worth of them in 3 clicks and without all the i-lock crap you get when you pay .
We agree on that though.. what i was saying is that RE are crack proof which is FANTASTIC but they in general, for most (IMO), do not make a living for a developer.. even with all these bonuses of the format, because of the restrictions to one single platform and the NFR policy. I am happy for any dev to come forward and say "we make a living off just doing RE's" and I will be MORE than happy to be wrong. But I know for a fact many devs who make a COMFORTABLE living on doing only vst plugins and nothing else. There MUST be a reason why 99% of major devs have not gotten on board with RE. Please don't think this is how I have always felt, until now i was majorly in support of the format and did my best to get as many developers as possible to convert their plugins, but it was a futile exercise and i eventually gave up after every email came back with a "not interested".
So even with all RE's benefits, because of propellerhead being stubborn in certain ways, they are not big money spinners.. even though Reason has a million plus registered legal users. Simply because of the reasons stated, AND, if someone has a choice, that uses more than one daw, they will buy the non reason version of the plugin and get every format imaginable BESIDES RE, and mix down in the vst/au/aax host.. If it's a special RE only, and inexpensive, then there is a better chance it will be successful.
Of course we can agree to disagree, but one thing we can't dispute is the factual part regarding the dearth of big name REs. The shop has slowed down more than ever and all we are seeing are indi devs now (well, mainly). Whereas every single day, vst is thriving with plugin after plugin being released from indi devs and major devs alike with 15 employees just doing plugins and making a good business. Heck Camel Audio had a few employees and like 4 products and had the equivalent of a million USD in the bank when they sold to Apple. The many RE devs I have spoken to simply are not making money like that and NO i will never reveal who i have spoken to in private. I was only asking because I wanted to know if it was a viable life sustaining business as I at one time had plans to release some RE (those plans are indefinitely scrapped even though I had made it as far as securing a well known coding partner, we are going to do a line of vst/au instead).
The crack point you mentioned makes it even scarier. so much competition in vst world and still developers with good products, are able to make a living. By the way, let's get one thing straight.. ilok 2 and latest gen elicenser plugins remain uncracked for many years, just like REs. But every serial or non dongle vst is indeed out there cracked, this is true.
BTW I also am of the firm belief and always will be, that if a product is selling WELL, it will not be going on "unheard of" sales
I do happen to know a dev doing well in RE also, and ironically their products are not on sale very often if ever lately.
Please someone prove me wrong and tell me RE's can make someone live comfortably.
And if so, where are they? Where are more korg? Or how many other big players joined and dropped out? Who remains of the big boys? By my count only Softube and RP are still actually active RE devs from the big names. The rest tried, the stuff didn't make them money, and they moved on and simply abandoned the format. Do you REALLY think if Izotope, and Korg, and Fxpansion, and many, many more, had been making a decent profit with their RE's, that they wouldn't be rushing to release more? It's just logical deduction.
Do you really think propellerhead would have gone to such extremes and devalued the standard prices by in some cases more than 100% if they weren't desperate to inject some life into RE sales? If things sell WELL, they don't go to THAT much of a sale. They might have a once a year or twice max, 20% or something, but not the crazy sales we are seeing, and suddenly out of the blue, a whole TON of RE's from so many devs, dropping to ridiculous levels.. heck, buy one $149 bundle now and get a ton of RE's where one of them might have been that price on it's own before hand! LOL! How can anyone dispute that this means the format is in trouble? I will listen to any POV on the matter as i would LOVE to be shown or even flat out told I am wrong.
Also, can I ask one more thing? Who now, with knowing what comes with sales and the ridiculous slashing, and just how far props will go, will buy future RE's at full price, IF they know that dev participates in slasher sales?
I know for me, i will never ever buy an RE again, unless it is *at least* half price from it's list price. Cause i know with patience it WILL be. And i will never buy a single RE again.. Rather I will wait for them to be released in a bundle and pay $149 for a bunch I don't have. Even if it has one or two in it I have, it will still be great value.. So i am waiting for stuff I don't have to be "bundalized".
Right now the bundles are of no benefit to me as i have paid 10 times that much on single plugins, but no more from now on. WHY WOULD I? Why would anyone else? Only those who can make the money back professionally, would buck that trend and pay standard RRP, I truly believe that. This is why i have also *always* believed, that sales in the long run always backfire, and I am 100% with U-He on that one even though we barely agree on anything else LOL!
Now of course, if some day my health is way better, I open a studio again and have clients, and use reason for those clients, my attitude on purchasing will totally change. I would buy what i need for whatever price on the spot, as i would make it back that day. It's not an issue then, and it won't matter that it's NFR.
Let me summarize for the TLDR crowd:
My beliefs, and opinion, and please don't be mad.
Props is destroying the RE format because of
Percentage wanted for IDT - NFR policy - Sales that get steeper progressively every year to the point of 100%+ discount - No "complete my bundle" (this one is REALLY bad) - A flawed crossgrade system where the dev has to do a lot of work to generate a coupon and then props still take the cut off the RRP not the crossgrade price, hence only RP does it and I am not sure why, when it is hurting him financially (basically he loves us) -
Nutshell: propellerheads are committed to sending their own plugin format to the Grave.
3 + years old now.. when the product has reached the 5 year milestone, no influx of big names yet on board, and continuing declining prices, we will see what more of you have to say.