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Huge and hot topic as I can see. There a lot has been said what could and should be improved (dynamics, hair, bodypaint etc) but so far a proper integration of RS is needed the most in my opinion. I still have to use my old xpresso materials presets and can't switch to a new and sexy node system cause it doesn't support many features that xpresso does. The feeling that RS is just a plugin that tacked on and not a native engine is still there. And the second is a viewport. I know it's de très mauvais goût aka a bad manner to compare to Blender but having a proper viewport render like Eevee or U-render is super needed. The production speed increases as a content shortage so most of the times I don't need to render out a proper render with GI, reflections etc. Good viewport render like in a Autodesk 3DsMax or Blender would be a huge help. Thanks, Anatolii

If I may.....please note that in my post, I discussed the general impact of subscriptions to software developers and their users in general. I did not specifically mention Cinema 4D nor Maxon and its practices. But, considering that you are discussing Maxon and subscriptions, then I will also focus my comments on Maxon. You state that subscriptions "leveled out the field even more, increasing competitive pressure". Now I find this a "curious statement" simply because if that was the case, why is Maxon doing everything in its power to discourage perpetual license holders and promote subscriptions? Why are services like Cineversity and access to modeling libraries no longer offered to perpetual license holders and only subscription license holders? Why is the cost of staying current with C4D 32% higher for perpetual license holders than subscription holders? If business is tougher in a subscription world, Maxon would not be selling it so hard. Why are perpetual licenses for Redshift being completely phased out? Sorry, but while your arguments that subscriptions give your corporate customers more flexibility are true, the fact remains that subscriptions are in-fact a "re-occurring revenue model" (an industry term...not mine) for Maxon and that means a higher percentage of "guaranteed" revenue as well. Stock prices go up for companies with "re-occurring revenue models". They go down if there is increased competition --- so your arguments do not hold up. Case in point is Cisco (the company I work for). They used to sell the IOS software with the hardware and our stock barely got above $30/share. 4 or 5 years ago, we switched to a subscription model and our software revenues are now a huge part of our quarterly earnings and our stock just broke $60/share. Also, our software revenue makes us one of the largest software companies in the world. We are right up there with Adobe! Go figure. The point I am making is that all companies in all industries love re-occurring revenue models. Maxon does to. And this brings me back to my original argument. All the "guaranteed" cash means less pressure on capturing revenue by growing market share through innovation. You just don't need to compete as hard if a certain amount of your annual revenue is a lock. Trust me, in a few years the next phase will be that revenue (though higher than before) will be flat year-over-year. Everyone is locked into a subscription, inertia sets-in, and there is less market growth. What happens next is that in the face of flat revenue, there will be a move to start cutting expenses because there will always be a constant drive to increase earnings back to Nemetshek. That's what CEO's get judged on and how they earn their bonus. And in the software world people are the biggest expense. Might as well cut headcount if your are not competing on new features as much as you did in the past. Why do you think Adobe products are not improving that fast? When that point hits and there is downsizing going on (hey...after all those acquisitions, there will be some downsizing) or fewer pay raises or both, please feel free to tell me just how much you love subscriptions. Dave

I understand that you are in a weird position.. and saying something that somewhat agrees with us, could put you on a tough spot. Also that you are not involved in these decisions, nor speaks on behalf of the company. But I dont think it is necessary to be dismissive about the clear issues that people had (and still have) with this "deal". Whatever attempt to defend this new business model is ultimately rendered null, because we are now paying for a temporary chance to use a software that we used to own. If times were difficult in the past, or you didnt see an improvement you wished on the next version, you could have chosen not to upgrade C4D for a year or two, and still have full support and bug fixes for at least a year (I bought R18 back in the day, and I remember vividly that). If the yearly costs were similar to what Maya asks for a Indie license, then I would say "yeah, awesome, I can afford this, and there is very little chance I wont be able to afford this next year" , but this is not the case with C4D. Now the "deal" is pretty much: - you have to pay every year this huge chunk of money. - you dont own the software, never will, dont pay next year, your files will become cute icons on your computer. - you dont get substantial updates to the software anymore. There is no more pressure to keep users wanting the next best update.. because well... they are forced to pay forever if they want to use the software, why improve? People can try to paint this in a different, colourful and nicer way, but ultimately, this is the reality. We got a horrible deal. It is like a bank taking back your home and saying "hey, but now you pay us rent, and it is a bit less than you used to pay for mortgage! Plus will paint a wall and fix a broken window every now and then ... of course, stop with the rent, and you will be homeless."

I think what would help for a lot of hobbyists or people just wanting to get started (ie not an already established company with a budget) would be to include a very low cost Indie version of C4D. Otherwise how will MAXON attract new customers just starting.

Regardless of what action developers do or do not take to improve their software, the point that really needs to be made here is that subscriptions reduce the competitive pressure to improve the software. This is my biggest concern over subscriptions because before "maintenance" meant "improved" whereas "subscriptions" now just mean "rent". And with all rentals, you can have good landlords and bad landlords. Adobe and Autodesk have shown that for some of their subscription products, they are not the best landlords. The updates are light, bugs remain unfixed and long standing user requests are ignored. So in this discussion, we also need to rethink the term "mature". Here the software is definitely NOT mature.....but the user base is very mature. Mature user bases have grown comfortable with the software. The software is embedded in their pipelines. There has been a lot of investment of both time and money in that software. The customer base can be mature with the software but the software itself could be very far from being fully matured. Mature customer bases are inclined to stay with a software that is not improving as fast as they desire simply because of the effort required to move to something else. With perpetual licenses, you just decide not to upgrade....but that meant no revenue to the developer. Subscriptions simply remove the financial penalty for not improving the software. Prior to subscriptions, developers worked to earn your upgrade dollars. Now they don't have to because if you stop paying the rent you get locked out. The user now get's penalized -- not the developer. Plus, in those early perpetual licensed years, new and innovative features grew the customer base. But at some point in a product's lifecycle, the market share will stop growing or the cost to generate new features far outweighs the additional sales they generate. It is at that point that a company switches to subscriptions because it is the best way to preserve revenue without additional development expenses. Innovation is no longer a priority in a subscription world. Honestly, where I want to see innovation is in the seamless import of scenes from one software to another. Imagine if a competitor developed a program that converted all ALL of your C4D assets to their platform without error or any lost information (sorry but there are always errors or lost data with the file transfer formats currently being used). Shader trees are perfect. All geometry comes in exactly how it was modeled -- no triangulation and all quads intact. All rigs, UV's, weight maps, bones, and animations come in perfect and ready for continued editing -- just as you left them in C4D. And it could do it in batch mode. Just point it to a directory and off it goes. Break down that barrier to move your assets and you re-introduce the need for the host application to stay competitive on features regardless of their licensing model. In this world, when you stop paying the rent, you don't get locked out from using your work. You just take it with you. Dave

Exactly my sentiment. When I read the email that details that onerous "offer", I knew right there and then C4D management is off. My point, has been the same, and has never been CLEARLY rebutted: You can have your subscription. Fine. But don't alienate existing perpetual users. How are we alienated? No more MSA. Any upgrade is much more expensive (than the current subcription and the previous MSA) and no Cineversity. In terms of being rewarded for years of patronage, perpetual users are being punished. But again, its a moot point now. Not really invested in C4D that much, these days. Been using Houdini/Blender.

Personally i agree, but i have no idea if this is a priority or not. Regardles of this being on the agenda or not, i can only say that we are running here, not walking. This includes everyone involved into the business side of things, licensing, etc.. Many people underestimate the effort it takes to put a product out, even if the product itself is more or less done. So it might just be that Indie just doesn't have priority yet over other more pressing issues. As i said, i don't know, not my area, not my task and even if it were, not mine to talk about publicaly. In general, if you (not you Kent, you know this stuff by heart 🙂 ) want to see things go faster and further -> https://www.maxon.net/en/about-maxon/careers

The core argument always cycles back to the MSA and Cineversity, those are the key difference between now and then. There still is a perpetual, there is still the option to keep it current at comparable prices to before. The key difference is that the only way to have Cineversity access is the new subscription since the old MSA was discontinued. The scope of this decision is imo blown vastly out of proportion in some of the postings here. I see a lot of steam being blown off, that is something i can relate to, but i won’t interact with it since there is nothing i can contribute. I’ll gladly try to bring things into focus that sometimes get distorted a bit, and i try to point out when there is often more than one valid point of view, but not much more. I have no fear to agree or disagree with opinions here, there is no reprisal i would have to fear from my employer. As long as i state my personal opinions and not try to talk as a company spokesman, which i certainly am not, all is good. The only thing expected by my employer is that i show professional behavior, which is not much of a stretch for me, and that company internal information stays internal, which, as an IT guy for many decades, is second nature to me.

Well ... give us back the "€700 for a yearly perpetual upgrade with Cineversity access" as it was. No need to call it MSA. No need for more frequent updates. And everyone will be happy. Now instead we have a higher perpetual upgrade price for far less functionality (compared to subscription).

First of all, I trully appreciate you adding your opinion and perspective here. For sure, there are a lot of factors that I cant see it from my point of view. For instance, the cost issues, it affects differently for different people, specially depending on what part of the world they are from. Im not a company owner, Im a one-man studio, so these costs of subscriptions, for me personaly, escalate quite quickly by the end of the month, and with a non steady income (some months I might get some projects, others not so much..) it feels quite scary the idea that I might not be able to have access next month to my own essential work files. Sure, C4D monthly is alright.. (not cheap.. but alright) but add other things that are piling up to this weird subscription model, and suddenly, you are paying for a full C4D license every year, without actually getting a license... not really owning anything. You mentioned that C4D finds a lot of traction with people that have a choice, but this is ultimately the big issue here. There isnt really a choice anymore, there is this fading impression that we have a choice right now as a customer... but in reality we dont. Maxon is punishing whoever doesnt pick the "right choice" for them (i.e subscriptions) by putting whoever picks perpetual licenses (the choice they dont want you to pick) in extreme disadvantages: - No more access to a great learning database for the software! - Only 2-3 months of bug fixes on a 3.5k dolars software. (whoever bought the R23 last year, didnt get the horrible timeline copy/paste bug fix for instance, and never will) - No more maintenance, only the giant price for updates. - No access to mid-year update, having to wait 6-7 months to have a chance to get a new feature on a software. It just feels very short sighted to treat people, who have worked with the software for such a long time this way... removing them from the possibilities and features features they were able have acess to since the beginning of the C4D's history. Look at what Pixologic is doing for example, I bought Zbrush 4 years ago, perpetual, full price, etc... and they continue to offer free updates ever since. They started the subscription model 2 years ago, and they continued to give equal support and updates to both users, perpetual and subscription. There is no shady "Hey subscription users, you will get this first! Perpetual.. well.. later this year" type of business. I guess the keyword in the end is choice.

I find this a curious statement. Rental means that every month the user has the choice to continue using and paying for a software or not. Project done? Stop paying until the next project comes along. Need fewer seats after a big rush? Reduce. So for customers it is actualy easy to optimize costs. Cost optimization for the customer always means that Maxon has to offset this loss by attracting new customers, which is difficult in a competitive environment and requires you to deliver a value to the customer that others can't, or at least can't do as good. Maxon is thriving and commercial users over all love subscription, this means the package that is Cinema 4D does find a lot of traction with people that have a choice. Anyone who ever ran a business knows that the cost of a tool is only a small part of the equation. If an expensive tool gives you an advantage that is worth more than it costs (could be productivity, feature, Artist availability, .. anything) it is worth paying for. Actually even the cost for the most expensive 3D tools currently on the market is usually in a range that it is no major factor in the over all cost, especially not if it can be optimized and does not need a large up front thanks to rental. When it comes down to it the deciding factor isn't monetary cost, if anything rental leveled out the field even more, increasing competitive pressure! To me it seems the perception of the value of Cinema 4D among several users here and those out there making Cinema 4D a financial success is quite different and is closely related to the state of the software at each point in time and how it can contribute to the success of the customer deciding what to rent. Anyone feel free to disagree with me, but please take the business reailites into account when looking for alternative explanations for why so many new users opt for Cinema 4D.

This "If you are bothered, stop complaining and go somewhere" mentality usually comes from a place where a certain issue doesnt affect someone personally And if that is the case, well.. good for you. You like the software and has no problems with the business model many others here, and that is cool. But it doesnt matter if you find this conversation tiring, because these issues are not being discussed to keep you entertained. A company screwed over its long time and perpetual customers, so it is expected that this conversation will happen (and will continue to happen until they provide a better solution). You can simply chose not to take part of it. Im sure that a vaste majority of people here understands how business works, and that a group of vocal customers wont change a new mentality this company has (specially if they are making good profit, which seems to be the case). But after you invest more than a decade of your life learning and using a software, and thousands and thousands of dollars, paying for the software itself and the many plugins the software needs to be useful commercialy, you damn right people will discuss about this. This "move on" you speak of it is not a process of a week, a month, etc... it can take years for someone to really learn a software professionaly and use it for their work. I am already in this process as many others here on this forum are too. But it doesnt mean I need to stay quiet on this matter. But again, you can simply continue with your normal life, and take part on another conversation that you personaly have interest on, or entertained by.

More or less good arguments on both sides, regarding how Maxon introduced the subscription. But it comes down to business realities, as srek earlier said. Business realities are easy to explain: It's all about the money. No fancy "best for the users". No fancy "best for the developers". Everybody is looking for themselves. Those perpetual/subscription discussions are tiring. If you don't like it - move on. There are plenty of alternatives and Cinema isn't by any means an "unreplaceable app". On the other side let Maxon play their game their way. If in the not-so-far-future sales slowly recede, they for sure will take actions. If everything works out well money-wise, than no lamentation or arguments whatsoever would change their mind.

Regarding cost. I am not sure what else you calculate into the cost of Cinema 4D, but if before you had the MSA to access Cineversity then you had a. the initial up front cost of buying the license, and b. the yearly MSA cost to maintain Cineversity access and a current version. At €700 the yearly cost for the subscription to Cinema 4D is roughly the same as the MSA was, except that now you get more frequent updates than before. For you the running cost should be about the same as before and you get more fixes.

I wish it would be a massive Timeline overhaul. It REALLY NEEDS ATTENTION. It's old, clunky, outdated. I feel it's more and more time and power-consuming to do there something after I once worked in Blender. Also I'm highly concerned with the degrading software quality and stability. I rarely get my r21 to crush (only while scripting and because of my own fault) but R23 already is considerably worse. It has a lot of bugs (in dynamics cache, extrude generator etc) and... it crushes! Just for no reason. I don't know why, but it's much less reliable. I was afraid it would happen, as well as development stagnation, right when devs told us about subscription options, and... It actually happens now 😞

Which then begs the question why the Blender developers are able to add major enhancements and new interesting functionality with every new release? And why plugin developers for various 3DCCs continue to innovate and come up with brilliant original features? Why indie developers still pop up with original 3D related apps? And why the industry keeps innovating as a whole, requiring new workflows and techniques in 3DCCs? Nope, 3D software is FAR from matured. Stating this is just not true (begging the question indeed). This argument is only used by software rental proponents, as far as I am aware. And as @Cairyn also mentions: the state of a number of C4D's core functionality could see massive improvements. Quite a few areas have been languishing for years, and consequently other companies and software have taken the lead.