Forgive me if many of you know about this. Was probably mentioned before.
Google it and it also shows many other links
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-14/adobe-angers-users-with-its
-savvy-reckless-photoshop-subscription-plan
look at games to see what is happening with software / money/consumers,
games have been one of the major driving forces behind computer hardware
advances, especially video cards, as well as pushing the upgrade cycle and
the subscription model. (the pRon industry is similarly the largest driver
of internet innovation - online banking as well as much that we recognise as
'standard' internet stuff wouldn't exist without them but we shan't talk
about them)
Games are also one of the biggest moneymakers there is pulling more $$ than
the entire movie industry in recent years. I'm sure Adobe like many
software companies is looking at the games industry to see how they rake it
in.
Some games are buy once and play forever, others were subscription, then you
have the likes of Blizzard's money monster - World of Warcraft. buy buy buy
buy and buy the game AND subscribe. Sure - apologists argue that they have
a vast infrastructure to support as well as all the teams of developers
working on new things.. but those teams of developers are not so much
coders anymore as psychologists - and that is not an exaggeration.
pay for part one, then the expansion, then the next, next and the next
ne - Oh, and you pretty much need to have bought all of them to play, and
THEN pay $15 a month. You've already paid around $350 in just buying the
game, now start paying to play it... That sticks in some players throats.
Especially when one of their earlier games, Diablo II you bought once and a
decade on you are STILL able to play online on their servers for free. The
newest incarnation of Diablo requires you to be connected to the internet
'for validation purposes' even if you are playing single player.. that is -
all by your lonesome. If the internet is down or they are having issues at
their end - tough luck, you can't play. but then the defenders will point
to the WoW 'play for free' version. a crippled teaser of the game which
includes just enough to suck you in but not enough to make the experience
worthwhile... so people put their hand in their pockets once hooked and the
money bleed begins.
So yeah, my guess is Adobe looked at this vile model and decided 'yup, we
want in on that'.
I'll bet they're already advertising for the psychologists to add in-game...
er, in-program 'advanced features' to make it seem worthwhile. I wouldn't
be surprised if Adobe has looked at their loyalists and thought 'heck,
they're a lot like Warcraft loyalists, ready to promote and defend our
product without us paying them a cent!'
Adobe won't have looked at the massive decline in the Warcraft player base
that's resulted from their substandard and frequent expansions (upgrades)
and they will overlook the fury and resentment that has turned loyal players
into vocal critics once they cottoned on to the fact the game is THE most
expensive game ever. The loyalists and newcomers will still valiantly
defend the game citing the complexity of it all and the resources that
*must* be consumed to keep it all going.
There's another game model emerging of late which players refer to as 'pay
to win' - you buy or get the game free, play for free but if you want to
unlock advanced features you pay a small amount.. it's always small, but it
gets the player used to sticking their hand in their pocket and there's
always much to buy. Games like Mech Warrior do this. In the end a player
can spend substantial amounts of money for these little features but it
gives them an advantage over everyone else in the game. Adobe could
incorporate features like this in their model as well and I would be
surprised if they weren't looking into it. 'Special' features that aren't
accessed all the time could be used for a small additional fee when needed.
But the fact is Game companies like Blizzard have raked it in hand over fist
and they got used to steadily increasing profits and when the game reached
it's natural plateau (all markets eventually saturate), they pushed even
harder to make more money and now they are paying the price as players drop
away and look elsewhere for more affordable and satisfying alternatives.
Blizzard may look unstoppable, with games that dominate the landscape, but
since the advent of the computer game market well over 200 very large games
companies have been wiped off the map. These were big players!
Conversely, Bill Gates made rather a lot of money with the Windows OS.. and
his stance bordered on pro-piracy. He figured people are going to use
operating systems they don't buy and he decided he's prefer they used his
rather than a competitors. Well that worked out nicely for him in the end
with his operating systems dominating the world. Adobe seem to view this as
naive..
When Adobe bring this model in and you find yourself unwilling to support
their lavish demands just remember - Paintshop Pro has been a cheaper and
sophisticated alternative to Photoshop for quite some time, with the added
advantage that it can work with both bitmap and raster images - many
standalone programs exist that exceede photoshops abilities, and a lot of
the internals of photoshop which caused people to 'upgrade' are available
for free. I refer to the likes of 'content aware image resizing' -
something that excited many a PS buyer was already available for over a year
as a free standalone program from the developer. Many resizing algorithms
that blitz PS lay littering the web, noise reduction, gross image editors,
unshake, 3D creators.. so much is there for free without paying a cent. Or
just do not 'upgrade' - there's many a fine computer jockey out there
producing stunning results with ancient versions of Photoshop, just as many
of those images we still hold in such high esteem were made with old wooden
cameras and junk glass lenses.
k
