Hi Herb. I do indeed understand your reasons.

However I saw a calculation Joseph Burrell did, explaining that someone who had bought your first ed, upgraded to Pro Ed and now to The Cube would end up paying $3000 more than someone just buying it as a first time purchase. That shouldnt in my view be the case. Or rather, I would have thought VSL would make sure it would not be the case.

IMHO it should atleast be so, that loyal customers dont end up having paid more for The Cube than newcomers.

Maybe you should have coupled the option you have chosen with some kind of discount for Pro Ed users (and maybe first ed) only. Should be easy enough for retailers, and people owning Pro Ed wouldn't feel so shafted. Sure some of the people owning only one or two horizon products might get sour, but at the end of the day they have made a rather small investment. You cant call Pro. Ed a small investment.

If those are the discounts the owner of a pro edition recieve upon buying the extended version he/she would be at (-)345 euros (in athoer words he/she would be owed that amount. After the 35% discount on the exteneded library is taken in to account of course. does that make sense?

Regardless of that my main problem is the extended material is a more of a - "nice to have" where as the standard version is a more of a "have to have to stay in bussiness" It is also contrary to the concept of pay for the same samples only once regardless of the challenges it would present to do things "the right way" My guess is if you can make a sample library that predicts how long a note is going to be you could have made a system work for "intelligent" pricing.

Herb,

Please take heed of christians points.

I bought the entire 1st edition.
I upgraded to the pro edition complete.

The way you have structured the VIP upgrade path I will indeed be paying far more for the cube than a 1st time buyer.
And its your early adopters (like ME!) who gave you the cash flow to grow your business and create the cube.
We should not be forgotton so easily.

The discontent occuring right now is the very TIP of the ice berg.
From every point of view you are not fully honoring your previous VIP commitments.

This will have far reaching repercussions for VSL.

Your early users are the reason for your success. In the next few years you will likely face stiff competition (and at lower price points).
Your lack of loyalty towards us early users WILL most certainly be reciprocated.

With all due respect-
THIS STINKS!
I just bought Solo Strings and Chamber Strings. Now if I want to "upgrade" I have to buy it all over again?!
This is not an upgrade path!
This is about the worst business practice I've ever encountered from a company!

I guess when you have the market cornered you can charge anything you want.

You know what they say absolute power corrupts absolutly.

Thank you!
I think Ed said it best....

Your early users are the reason for your success. In the next few years you will likely face stiff competition (and at lower price points).
Your lack of loyalty towards us early users WILL most certainly be reciprocated.
................

I went to a porsche dealer but they somehow only carried Itailan imported custom cars [*-)]: The VIP should be both for standard and expanded for people like me who have had your first edition at the end of 2002 and then went on to pro edition the end of last year! Great product....bad policy.....[:(]

[:@] Shame!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fontenette...relax!!

Seriously though. That sucks!!

The upgrade should be %50 or more for people that have used your product and help promote it and give it a good name. People have spent close to $10,000 for all of the upgrades...horizon series.

Hopefully you'll rethink that...

When I upgraded from my Kontakt player (which came with GPO) to Kontakt 2 I paid $250 and got a 15 GB library with it -
NOW THAT'S AN UPGRADE!

Beaswax, I know you feel my pain and my anger. All I can do is "just write" man; just write.

Hello,

I just registering to give my opinion ! Because iam in VIP program from the fisrt day !

I Bought the First Edition --> Upgraded to Pro Edition package
After what i bought :
Saxophones I
Epic Horns
French Oboe
Woodwind Ensembles
Chamber Strings
I was planified to buy Solo and Harps Soon !

I considere thats is not a cheap price for a independant musician.
and i only want say that i totally agree with (Christian Marcussen & Edamilton). I think we all play the game with the VSL Team !

(Sorry for my Poor English [:O]ops: )

Am I right or do I need help with the price?

I own the complete PRO package and the chamber strings plus some more,...

Is my price now 5300.00 Euro minus 3790.00 Euro minus 565.00 Euro (945.00Euro)
or Am i completely wrong? If this is the case it would be more than fair, if not I am clueless (everything up to 2000 Euro is ok)!

cheers, imusic

@Billy Rubin said:

This is about the worst business practice I've ever encountered from a company!

As far as I know, Apple does not offer upgrade paths to the old users of their OS...

[6]

Based on the information given in the 2 VIP-price threads and the prices shown in the shop, i've done a basic caluculation on the Chamber Strings.

There are 3 options how you could end up having the Chamber Strings VI Extended Version (VI ext ver):

New user:

VI std ver + VI ext ver = €495 + €595 = € 1080

User having bought Horizon Chamber Strings at normal price:

Hz CS + VI std ver + VI ext ver = €815 +€495 +€30 = €1340

User buying Horizon Chamber Strings at reduced Holiday price:

Hz CS + VI std ver + VI ext ver = €530 + €495 +€30 = €1055

The conclusions are:

[list:372d207171]- a user who entered the VIP program at an early stage - with the promise not to have to pay twice for the same sample - will have to pay €285 more than a new user who now gets into the VIP program. That would in that case be the price for the VI itself.

- a user that now buys Hz Chamber Strings at reduced price will end up paying €25 less than a user buying the VI ext vers next year.[/list:u:372d207171]
Assuming no cost for the VI itself, it is the "Holiday price user" that really gets the VIP-pricing. The VIP-promise to the "old user" (never pay twice) is then not valid any more.

Assuming the VI is worth €285, the "old user" gets the VIP pricing, while the "Holiday price user" will get €285 in rebate. But for the "old user", the price for the VI increases with the number of packages you'd buy, which doesn't seem reasonable.

Would that be an accurate description?

Cheers,

Chris

@Billy Rubin said:

This is about the worst business practice I've ever encountered from a company!

As far as I know, Apple does not offer upgrade paths to the old users of their OS...

[6]

You do get a discount from Apple if you upgrade a species of Mac OS, but I think it's relatively small.

Actually I wasn't quite correct in my last post.

This is from Apple's FAQ on Tiger:

@Another User said:

Is there a way to upgrade from Panther to Tiger without paying?
If you purchased a computer on or after April 12th 2005, you are eligible for our Up-to-Date program. The software is free; you pay just £11.99 for shipping and handling.

So it seems their upgrade deals are dependant on when you bought their OS. Other than P+P, it's a free upgrade, but only if you bought it from April 12th onwards. If you clicked on the purchase button at 5 seconds to midnight on April 11th, then you're well and truly shafted!

Personally I think time dependant upgrade deals are less fair than VSL's VIP program.

@Another User said:

Is there a way to upgrade from Panther to Tiger without paying?
If you purchased a computer on or after April 12th 2005, you are eligible for our Up-to-Date program. The software is free; you pay just £11.99 for shipping and handling.

So it seems their upgrade deals are dependant on when you bought their OS. Other than P+P, it's a free upgrade, but only if you bought it from April 12th onwards. If you clicked on the purchase button at 5 seconds to midnight on April 11th, then you're well and truly shafted!

Personally I think time dependant upgrade deals are less fair than VSL's VIP program.

What about if you upgrade from OS9?

DG

Herb,

I think most can understand your need to split up the product into sections (like Standard end Extended). The most important issue however (at least as I see it), is the one that older and loyal customers that have bought a lot of your products in the past seem (at least in some cases) to have to pay more for the same product in the end than a brand new customer would?

Your VIP program clearly guarantees that you never pay twice for the same samples and hopefully you will honor that. However, doing some initial maths on some of the upgrade paths, seem to indicate that in some cases this is exactly what you'll (as an old customer) end up doing.

I've used the example of the Solo Strings (since the info regarding it was available) in another thread:

New customer: Standard VI Solo Strings + Extended VI Solo Strings = €345 + €445 = Total of €790

Old customer: Horizon Solo Strings + Standard VI + Extended VI = €445 + €345 + €30 = Total of €820

Am I completely wrong about this...or does the old customer actually end up paying more for the same product, which means that he/she in this case actually does pay for at least some of the samples twice?

Rodney