I have spent thousands of dollars over the last couple of years alone on RL products, always upgrading across the board to get the most out of the product suite. Incremental and even large feature updates ship as part of that licensing agreement. At no point was I made aware that when RL decides the features being added are big enough to be considered a new product release that I would have to *buy them all over again.* It's totally unreasonable, and the marketing they are using around the langauge "free upgrade" is almost certainly illegal, both in the US and Europe.

RL create great and useful products, and Indie customers make up the bedrock of their business. This "free upgrade" and exorbitant upgrade cost for existing customers is, for me, intolerable.

I don't know who of you agree, but I feel betrayed.

My biggest gripe with the upgrade fee is that it does not take into account the add-ons that have been previously purchased separately, now they are included with iClone8.
Don't get me wrong, having less add-ons is better overall, specially for new users that feel duped when buying only iClone just to find out that it is really hard to work with without certain add-ons.
However, iClone8 is now far more expensive than iClone7, one can assume this is because previous add-ons are now built in. 3dxchange, motion live and curve editor are now part of iClone8.

iClone7 owners now receive a $50 discount when purchasing iClone8, another $50 for purchasing iClone7.
If you have purchased any of the aforementioned add-ons, you are essentially paying for them again when you purchase iClone8 as they are not optional.

If Reallusion really wants to take care of those of most loyal customers, they would discount the purchase amount for those add-ons that were already paid for or offer some sort of discount for already owning them. Otherwise iClone8 would be better for older users if they had a version stripped of these add-ons prebuilt and allow us to reinstall them to iClone8.

They are introducing massive changes and as in every commercial company there must have been discussions between them to know what features could make people want to drop IC7 and CC3 for this new upgrade. (And not update this is important)
As some of the features that will be included are for me updates (the motion mixer will fix the very common "Mickael Jackson" bug where transition between two standing animations resulted into a "Moonwalk"style feet slide on the ground) others are obviously and undeniably upgrades.
Will this prevent you from using IC7 and CC3 ,of course not.
Do they know that this will create a gap between old gen and next gen users? Of course they do.
A lot of frustrating things are being solved (reach effector for the door and the fact you could now prevent arms to cross a solid when doing a motion had me go running for my credit card) and there will be the animators able to use those new features and those that will not because they will not be able to or will not want to upgrade.
And let's not speak about the huge announcements for CC4. Mixamo and Maya import (hello Auto-Rig features from both solutions) ,non humanoids avatars.....
Same thing there will be the avatar creators that will have access to this and those who won't.
If you use this for fun, you will still have fun with IC7 and CC3 for a long time.
If this is for business, the additional quality of your movies will pay for the upgrade cost in no time.

Peter has stated that the "upgrade" discounted prices will be announced when iC8 and CC4 are released next year.
Any pricing you currently are viewing are not "upgrade" prices but promotional prices and special offers (i.e. buy lots of content get something free).
List price for iC8 is $599 and for CC4 is $299 or bundled is $898.
There has been no mention of upgrade pricing for plug-in's as of yet.

Jeff



Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

We are at version 8 of iClone. Every major upgrade version from iClone 1 to 8 has required purchasing. This isn't a new policy. Interim updates such as from 7.0 through to 7.9 have all been free, but when a major upgrade is released it requires purchasing for an upgrade price. That has always been the case and is the same for almost every company.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Motion LIVE is NOT built into iClone 8. It requires separate purchase, or if you have already bought it for iClone 7 then you will get a free upgrade.


                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Hi Jeff

The following plug-ins will get a FREE upgrade for iClone 8/CC4 if you have purchased them for iClone 7/CC3.




                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thanks for that info Peter, that's great news.

Jeff



Get my Plugin Manager and TaskNotes plugins for iClone.
Check out EZColors and Other products for CTA/CA. EZColors: the easy way to change Render Styled (RS) colors!
See my CTA Tutorials on the YouTube channel CTAStepByStep

My issue isn't with purchasing, I am happy to do that, here are my issues:

1) This soft launch offering a 'free' upgrade is one of the most underhand and arguably illegal marketing tactics I have *ever* seen. It's just untrue. Instead, it's a 'buy this, which means you have paid for the software, we we will give you that value in free content' offer.
2) The price point at which these products are offered ($799 for iClone 8 and CC4 I believe) is not even what the eventual price may be next year, I imagine it will be higher, please prove me wrong.
3) There has been a desultory effort to offset the payments customers have made for additional tools which will now be bundled in ($50 here, $50 there)

The way companies who have a (may I just say it), more modern approach to their monetisation strategies understand that *having* users is the cornerstone of them *buying* from you, hence the rise of free update on upgraded software as standard. It seems to me that RL instead are just gouging money from indie publishers and content creators because they seem to think that we have to use your products.

The right way to have gone about this upgrade, in my opinion, would have been an email to all customers who have bought iClone 7 and CC3 software with a straightforward "here's your upgrade deal for being a great customer, we think it's fair, thanks so much for being a customer".

Instead, we feel insulted by the tiny offers made against the thousands we have invested, and we feel tricked by the "free upgrade" marketing tactics you have so very inadvisedly used at this soft launch.

At the risk of defending Reallusion...
a) How many times to we hear "buy one, get one free."  Is it really "free" or is it "buy two at 50% off?"  I don't see a problem with the description.
b) Would you prefer that you buy some content and that's the end of the story?  Buy some stuff, and pay full price for the next version of software?  Of course this deal only makes sense if they have stuff you want to buy.  But if you are going to buy stuff anyway, it's a very nice bonus to get the upgrade for "free."  But hey, buy and ton of content and then pay full price for iC8 if that makes you happier.

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