Maxon UK’s Liam Stacy goes over the pros and cons of renting vs buying software. “Rental solutions typically offer you the latest software for an attractive monthly rate but there is just one catch… If you stop paying, you lose your software!” In this blog post the company that develops Cinema 4D once again gives a clear signal that it will continue to offer perpetual licenses and that its business model is driven by customers’ needs. “We’re trying to ensure we’re offering what you need us to. (…) MAXON has always been and will always be driven by the requests of our customers.” More on Maxon UK’s website.
Maxon on renting vs buying software
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finally , one Company get it right !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It´s not so hard… indeed they got it right 🙂
and this is why i am going with c4d, among other things. i already customized the ui, could not really jive with the orange buttons.
looks fantastic now. meanwhile autodesk is going: you give your permanent license and we will give you a time discount on your subscription. lmao
They do get it indeed.
I wish they had Indie options for personal and low revenue use.. We have licenses at work but for personal projects at home, not much I can do about it.
Maxon are so honest and right!!!
Damn Cinema 4D is expensive, and priced weird:/
The perpetual license is cheaper than 3ds max was the last time I checked (5 or so years ago) but the yearly subscription if you want to rent it is actually higher than 3dsMax now!!
1700 GBP per year?? that’s 2130 USD?? Max (at least here in Poland) costs 1700 USD so like 20% less!!! And for 2400 USD a year you get the complete suite with Maya, 3dsMax and MotionBuilder (and some other crap)
So they introduced renting the software but at prices that are supposed to dissuade the users from renting?!?!?!?
I think Maxon have priced subscription as a service where you pay a premium for the added flexibility – if renting extra licenses for a few months gets you a big job with a tight deadline out of the door then I think that’s fair. Autodesk seem to have taken a similar pricing structure for rental.. If a bit cheaper .. but of course with the big difference that rental with autodesk is gradually becoming the only option they offer.
Yes, and this is completely logical.
The thing here is to have options, right now a C4D license is 3k€, rental option is just for short term use when you need to increase your manpower.
But the main point here is not if it´s cheap or if it´s expensive (I don´t see 3k€ as something expensive, it´s not cheap either, max used to cost a lot more) the main point is that they give you options to accomodate your business model, and that is the right way of doing things, giving options to the users.
For the time being I´m working with Blender and I´ll keep it that way, but I know I can always land in C4D land if I need to.
Cinema 4d was always an overpriced piece of software for what it does. Its big advantage is its Mograph module, but not so much anymore because of Houdini and Maya MASH. It needs also Houdini engine for VFX. It seems also more productive because of its ergonomic UI. Nevertheless prices should have an even more generous reduction. It is a software for indies, freelancers and small firms but has still prices that only big corporations can afford.
Did you have a lot of experience in the latest C4D releases? Hones question because I though they improved a lot different parts like animation, but I may be wrong.
Any ways, I still prefer Blender 🙂
Well Cinema 4D does more than 3DsMax in some areas, worse in others.
From tracking to matchmoving, cloth, rigid bodies work with mograph etc you can do it all in C4D.
Try to do Mograph in Houdini with “projects for yesterday” and see where you get. And assuming you know Houdini well.
Most people don’t know C4D well. In a sense i found C4D more complete than 3Ds Max.
Yes, I agree, when someone has short deadlines it is one of the best options. Cinema 4d is a productive piece of software, that’s for sure, but for broadcast only. The problem is its high price, firstly, for its main target group, indies and freelancers and, secondly, for what it mainly does: broadcast. 3ds max and cinema 4d are completely different applications. I can not compare them. 3ds Max is for modelling and visualising and C4d is for broadcast. But I can compare it with Maya MASH. And with Houdini, I can compare the price: for 200 bucks per year you have perhaps the most high-end application available. Houdini is not for short deadlines. However, most motion designers have an already ready-made repertoire of networks to work with and usually, they don’t create from scratch, especially when they have not much time.
The rent option is more expensive, but you start paying less if you are starting out and you can translate that rent into ownership after a time.
It still better than nothing and if you don’t have the full money to start, you can go this route. It’s an option and a valid one.
If you go with 3ds Max + Maya + Motionbuilder, but miss a year, well, you can’t open your files. 🙂