@Fred Story said:
So...it would appear that this thread has slowly wound to a conclusion without a real explanation - or reconsideration (other than the additional 3 months) - on VSL's part. Oh well. We tried.
I'm choosing to believe that Herb and his team are talking about whether they can rescue the upgrades by running the two systems in parallel, and that they'll get back to us. Unlikely, I know, but they seem like nice people.
In the end I do understand the pressures they must be under. Firstly I don't know of any firm that has managed to provide lifetime upgrades on just one product - and essentially the Vienna library as it was, was just one giant product.
I know many firms that have promised it, but then they always have to wriggle out via some loophole. Steinberg, for instance, manage upgrades for quite a while, but only if you've stayed within two versions of the latest, and then they suddenly announce that you have a few weeks to do so or else buy Cubase over again. Usually, at this point, the price of the collective upgrades between the version they are 'cutting off' and the latest does not total the price of the whole product, so there is definitely a punitive feel to the policy. FruityLoops promised free lifetime upgrades, then realised that they had a limited user-base, all of whom expected their product to be kept compatible with every change of OS, for no further expenditure. Eventually they had to create tiered versions of the software; everyone got to keep their lifetime free upgrades, but, surprise surprise, it turned out that the version they all had was the lowest of the tiered system, and they all had to pay again to have the version with serious funtionality. Then they stopped including their new plug-ins in the sequencer, and made them pay-for extras. So VSL deserve some kudos for not trying to disguise this turn about.
Having samples as your product makes it even more difficult, because there is no perceived change to the product with each upgrade. Despite the fact that it takes a massive amount of work to keep the player compatible with various OSs, and the programming that goes into improvements in manageability, playability, realism etc, at the end of the day all this expeniture is simply to enable customers to continue to do the same thing they could do before they upgraded. Our perception is that we're not actually getting anything each time we pay again, when in fact there is a huge amount of work gone into making sure that we can still use our samples. Most firms with this kind of situation, (-i.e. only the one product, but massive overheads to keep it functional - ) actually charge annual license fees - not just upgrade fees, but you actually have to pay them or you can't use their software at all.
Also when VSL started out I doubt whether they had any plans for some of their sideways expansions to the product. Back then there was one library - take it or leave it. Due to customer pressure, they have provided a variety of other ways to buy in, and the potential combinations of parts of the whole thing, which any given customer may own, makes the upgrade possibilities mind-boggling.
On the other hand, what is a bit disappointing is that it would seem that this latest move is genuinely not about them hoping to get additional money out of those of us who were part-way through upgrading. It is about money, but not targeting the bit of extra cash they'd get by making us pay full price for the extended VIs. We're just incidental victims of their need to move to other pastures, which feels a little careless. It feels as though, with some effort, possibly a lot of effort, they could have kept us on board. For instance, if a poll were taken, I'm willing to bet that most/all First Edition users would be willing to sign up to an agreement that we will only try upgrading to complete VI collections, and that any individual instruments we buy will be null and void when calculating the upgrade. Stated up front that would preclude us from applying any pressure to make things any more complex. Then they would simply need to maintain a second calculator, label it 'Legacy Upgrades' and let it run - maybe even put a time limit of a couple of years on it.
I realise I'm talking off the top of my head, and I don't know the scale of complexity that's about to hit, but it would certainly be a little sad, given the level of expenditure involved, if they really ditch us because it's too hard to work out.