Claus Bohm
Peter Nebelong
True-VFX
about 3 years ago
Hi Peter,
It's unfortunate that we're not able to upload images here, as we'd be able to show the conversation that we've had with you all morning about this, a conversation where we explained the decision that was made about pricing, and how that pricing does not affect updates or features, purely amount of content.
When you purchased True-Terrain in November of 2020, you got the product for close to $30. True-Terrain pro is now $59 as we have added more content and features. You did not have to pay any additional fee for this update/upgrade, it was provided to you for FREE, as all our updates are. Is this not fair?
We have also provided all customers with a of Pro and Lite, with coupon codes for moving up a tier at a cost reduced in line with what the current price of their tier is. For example, if you wish to upgrade to the Ultimate Tier, from PRO, then you are given a $59 reduction in price (the price of PRO as of now) Which actually means that in your case, and anyone else who got PRO before it cost $59, means that you're getting a higher discount, than anyone who paid $59 for PRO. We thought this was fair!
We sent a survey out last year, asking all customers that had True-Terrain, to let us know what they think of the pricing (at the time) how much more new content they would like in the next update, what they thought that the RRP of that version once released would be, and whether they would like the option of a higher tier, and whether it should be free to people who already own the product. The answers we received for this, led us to the current pricing, and addition of a higher tier. That way allowing people with any level of budget to purchase a product. We also even offer a free version, available for download via our product page. Based on customer feedback, which we though made us fair?
We also explained all of this to you in the email exchange earlier today, both about the pricing, how you actually did get your free update and upgrade, getting over 80 new assets at no cost in the PRO version, moving from 3.x to 4.x. We also explained to you that, we are still a business at the end of the day, and we do this full-time, we can't just give away content after spending over 7 months working on it. We couldn't move PRO to Ultimate without moving LITE to PRO. We were also told explicitly in survey responses, and even now by our community, to not keep giving content away for free. Which we do regularly, and even in your downloads, there's literally a download called "gift pack". Seems reasonably fair to us..
In regards to the whole "you won't get this cheaper comment", that's entirely correct, people will not get the chance to upgrade to Ultimate, any cheaper than they have been able to for the last 2 months, after the 7th of September, as that's when the price will increase, meaning that the jump between tiers will cost more. That being said, the date the price was to increase was the 1st of September, and we had a lot of people contact us to ask if we could push that date back, as the sale was on, and people wanted more time to upgrade. So we pushed the date back from the 1st, to the 7th of September. Again, just another thing we did to try and be fair.
GPL means nothing when it comes to non-code content. We don't charge for features, or anything to do with the core features of the addon. We charge the fee we do, based on the content that's available. We think that 160+ texture sets, 8 procedural materials, 4 water types, 8 grass types, 11 rock systems with over 50 unique models, and 5 tree systems with over 50 unique models seems pretty fair for the cost of Ultimate too. It is, however not fair, that you email us telling us that "[you] expected to have been moved up a tier" and that "[we're] being greedy, by charging what we charge", and "how we can justify it, when Blender is free". Blender is free, so is True-Terrain, Blender makes money through donations, we make money through selling products.
> "Unfortunately I will not be able to answer after posting this rating and I have already pointed out these problems to the creator of TT but didn't get any understanding for my views as a customer that feels bad about the broken promises."
We understood your views, and explained the rationale behind the pricing. You didn't understand our views, after several emails back and forth, then contacted us for support around how to import your own materials and assets, then sent a final email thanking us, and wishing us success, only to leave a 1 star review riddled with inaccuracies about the actual exchange between us.
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