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You beat me to it. I was just about to create a topic, explaining the whole thing. Arrrgh ... man, you just ruined my dramatic intro 🤣 OK, joking aside. Hello, my name is Daniel. I am the user on this forum formerly known as "C4DS". When I joined the forum back in 2005, I only recently had purchased Cinema4D (R9 at that time). Next to being a proud owner of the software, I also was proud of joining and being part of 3DKiwi's community. At that point in time it made perfect sense to have a username reflecting what I was proud of ... and it made me especially feel "clever" to having found a way to include my initials. (Yep, it's those small things that makes a person happy) Over the years I grew fond of that username, while to some it might have sounded cheesy. Obviously, I also grew fond of the software, although it had its quirks and flaws. After using the software for over 10 years as a hobby user, I started to feel I was missing some functionality and ventured into the world of plugin development. Soon, I realized other people could benefit from the small plugins I created. And it could also turn out to be a way to fund the yearly Cinema4D upgrades. So, I started a business. Not to become a gold digger, nor make a living out of it, as there is not much money to be made from this niche market. For me it was just enough to be able to upgrade to next release of Cinema4D. Anyway, times have changed. R21 hit the shelves, together with the nasty s-word announcement. Plugin sales dropped significantly ... and a pandemic on top of that really didn't help. Then came S22, and now R23. All these new features included are definitely heaven-sent, you don't hear me saying the opposite. But for perpetual users, just like myself, losing the MSA and seeing an upgrade price almost doubled ... Carrying the username "C4DS" just didn't feel right anymore. I wasn't feeling proud about that software like I used to. That in combination with the current financial burden. While it was a difficult decision to make, leaving all beloved plugin customers in the cold, I decided to stop the business. I will try to keep it running until the end of this year. Hence the closeout sale I am having right now, hoping to be able to break even. As Dave was kind enough to already provide the link to the closeout-sale in his message, I will not repeat it here. Just note that the plugins are compatible with R16 - R21, as at this point in time I cannot afford to upgrade to R23 ... and to make it clear, I am not looking forward to, how nice the new features may be. For clarity, I will keep using my R20 license. I am not looking to jump ship for another 3D software (not right now at least). I might still continue to develop plugins for my own usage. I am personally not in a financial dip, I am doing fine. It's only the business which isn't running anymore. From now on, I am just a regular user, a hobby user, going by the username "dast". Thanks for reading.

Working on some re-renders atm, so whilst waiting for those to render out i did a quick clay render of my old toon car model 😄 nothing special just having some fun 😛 (open in a new tab for full size)

It's a very different world now with the accessibility and affordability to high-end 3D tools. I think it was Jops (or you, or both of you) posted here that mentioned about capturing people when they're first trying out 3D software. Years ago the cracked software route was the entry point. Now with the likes of Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Krita give a completely free end-to-end workflow it must be putting some pressure on major companies. Even Nuke is offering an Indie license although I heard it's pretty restrictive. Right now it's a good time to be a hobbyist in the 3D world but there's a high cost to be a hobbyist in the MAXON world. If I had a wife, kids and a car I don't think I'd even have a café account, never mind a C4D perpetual license.

Obviously MAXON has a different strategy then Autodesk. And from a company side of view it is quite smart. As most of the customers are professionals, cinema for them is much cheaper then the competition. But here we start the "who is a professional discussion" someone who is earning 40k, 80k, 120k? The big problem with the indie version is the information that is not to be found. So it is 100.000 US dollars per Year. For the last fiscal year? for the last year at the point of purchase? what is the exchange rate? What does projects for more than 100k mean? the money the artists earns (projects that go over years)? or the project of the agency? or the project of the customer? How will this change in future when you are committet to the software? A lot of people complain, that MAXON is hiding information or that they do not communicate properly. But to be fair autodesk is not better. (which of course does not excuse MAXON in any way) MAXON clearly tries to establish a one fits all solution after many years of very graduated offers. I appreciate this approach. But the fact that perpetual costs considerably more than subscription and offers even less services is contrary to this approach. I am not shure if there is a solution for the situation of the hobbyists. But considering the environment, the indie licenses and especially blender, I would be concerned that people that start 3d now get lead to the competition. Therefor MAXON should do something about this. Maybe MAXON should give away the light version that ships with adobe for free to everyone. They already have to maintain this version anyway. That would be a real competition to blender and the indi license and as it is limited the professionals wouldn't like to work with it. People could use the version for years and if they are convinced that they can afford it can switch to the subscription or perpetual version.

Agreed. The cost of subscriptions in the C4D world (noted above) if you are real enthusiast and want software, plugins, additional render engines, training, etc can easily equate to that of leasing a pretty cheap car. I looked up what the most expensive hobby was and it turned out to be skydiving as the cost of a each jump is $300/person. I think if you did 12 jumps a year ($3600), then it compares favorably to having C4D as a hobby when you consider all the subscription fees plus the money you need to put aside for new computer hardware. Now this may not be 100% accurate (I have never gone skydiving) --- but you get my point: C4D is one very expensive hobby.

I certainly hope not or the two of us will never move the needle on giving the hobbyist a break on staying with the program. My sincere hope is that the hobbyist is enough of a customer block to MAXON that our sales (or lack of them) mean something to their quarterly income statement. Pleading, whining, cajoling and hoping won't do a thing. MAXON is a major company in a big market. Don't get all warm and fuzzy thinking that they will have empathy for the hobbyist who is not a fan of subscriptions - who wants something permanent that they can keep using if they can no longer afford this expensive hobby. What motivates any company is making their quarterly revenue targets. I encourage everyone to read up on Nemetcheks market analysis. They are doing well, but their short term debt exceeds their short term assets. This is not good and can represent risk in a bad economy. COVID-19 certainly is helping any economy these days, so there is exposure. As such, I am sure there is pressure for revenue across all divisions. Hopefully, if enough hobbyists sit on their wallets, the lack of our dollars put their quarterly revenue targets at risk. Only then, will MAXON do something.