New license model and options
by Ulrich Strauss (comments: 11)
With release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 the licensing options and model will be changed, but before getting into the details, let me explain, why a change in license model is necessary.
I never expected SPAD.neXt to attract more than a handful of people, as it was mainly designed to suit my own needs and it is generally a good thing that so many flight simmers think I created something useful, but this also has a drawback.
In the past 12 months, since public release of SPAD.neXt, the amount of time that needs to be spent to keep SPAD.neXt up to date and providing the best possible support to you has been constantly growing. And there are still many things that have been neglected, e.g. documentation and the website.
SPAD.neXt is a one-man-show and up to now everything is done as a double challenge to my 8-10-hrs full-time job, which results in another up to 8 hours a day to be spend for SPAD.neXt. I did this for a while but have reached a point now, where it’s about time to make a decision about the future of SPAD.neXt. In its present state it seriously influences my health, my family and my job and I can feel how I start losing my motivation because of this.
This way I reached a point where I had to decide either to quit development of SPAD.neXt or to find a sustainable pricing model to continue development.
While a lot of options have been evaluated over the last weeks (e.g. Crowdfunding , Donations, Venture Capital) I have decided to give the product itself a chance to evolve into my main-job.
To support this and to give everyone the opportunity to choose the option that suits best, SPAD.neXt has been split up into editions.
The SPAD.neXt complete edition will include
- all addons available now or in future with a price below 40 € (without VAT)
- exclusive special deals and features (e.g. customizable fip splashscreens)
- early access to new features
- priority support via ticket system/email
You can see this as an investment into the future of SPAD.neXt.
If you already own a license of SPAD.neXt nothing will change for you, apart from that you need to renew the update subscription once it expires. Remember that you receive one year of free updates.
Please also note:
If you own more than one SPAD.neXt license:
- Upgrading one of them will upgrade them all (open ticket to upgrade the additional licenses)
- One update subscription will be valid for all your licenses
The update subcription fee is not yet determined, but it will be well less than the license fee. It will be announced latest before the first update subcriptions run out ( November 2017 )
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Comment by Bill Roberts |
Ulrich I commend you on your hard work and devotion on such a great product. Many times I wondered how you could possibly put in the time involved for such a small fee you asked. I am happy to see that you are going to ask closer to what you deserve for this project. I along with many others hope that you can and will continue the development of Spad.neXt for the advancement of the Flight Sim community.
Bill
Comment by J M Smith |
This must have been a hard decision, especially to give up your regular job. I wish you all the success for the future. My only fear would be the possibilty of the unit becoming too expensive to license each year for people who have retired. Also would there be an option to by a second license at a discount, as I am sure that there are people who run more than one copy of SpadNext e.g.on a slave PC
Reply by Ulrich Strauss
The renewal subscription will be well below the normal price. Maybe something like 9,99€ (not determined yet).
There is (and always has been) a discount for secondary licenses. Just contact me to get a discount code.
Comment by Les |
Hey,
so I own 2 copies currently. 1 on the peimary system and a second on a remote PC running my 9 FIPs.
What is the process for this type of configuration to upgrade? Will I be able to get a personal site license? I am not against upgrading to complete and paying a yearly reasonable fee but I would like to not have to pay yearly for two instances just so I can distribute the FIPs to another PC to keep frame rates in check.
I understand I might be the rare use case but with the previous model of just pay 1 fee it was understandable. Now with recurring fees multiple PC systems licenses need to be a little more clear. Again happy discuss and come to a solution that sees reasonable models.
Les
Reply by Ulrich Strauss
You will only have to upgrade one copy to 'complete'. All sublicenses will be updated. Just open a ticket for that after upgrading one of your licenses.
Same applies for the update renewal. One update subscription is valid for all your licenses.
Comment by Joe Schreiber |
I also want to thank you for a wonderful tool that makes my flight simming experience so much better.
I want to make sure I understand everything correctly. Today my paid version of Spad.next updated to 0.9.5 and I think a follow on update even came after that. So am I to understand I will receive updates free of charge for the next year with my new license and then in one year from now I will have to buy another one year license to continue to receive updates?
At this time I don't need any add-ons so I will wait on the complete version but this will not affect my updates on my current P3D version correct?
Thanks again and I truly hope you can make this work since it would be a shame to lose the capability you have provided us!
Joe
Comment by Stu Patterson |
Over the next couple of days I will be converting my 2 licences to the Complete Edition, and am considering adding a 3rd licence. You have an incredibly useful product. As a professional programmer over the past few decades(!), I am overawed by your productivity. Danke vielmals.
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