peter posted in the group Open Mic (Open Discussion)
I was recently talking to an indie developer about the market overall and the extreme deep discounting and how it puts pressure for developers to do very significant deep discounts to get attention in this market. Here we are months ahead of Black Friday and we have unbelievable discounts from developers big (NI, UAD, UJAM, IK, UVI…) and small. There’s never been a better time to be a home studio owner. You can purchase amazingly high-quality sample libraries and plugins for a small fraction of what those exact tools or type of tools cost just 5 years ago.
So, the big question is, what will it take developers and retailers doing to get us to open up our wallets for Black Friday now that they’ve made the expectations so high? A 30% off sale isn’t going to get anyone’s attention — okay, unless it’s from ValhallaDSP. What do you think?
3 Comments
Not surprisingly for those who know my taste in plug-in houses, I like the way MeldaProduction handles it. It’s never a big mystery when the sales are going to be and how much they are going to discount. They have their Eternal Madness Sale, in which every week 4 of their products are chosen (seemingly by some sort of weighted randomization system) to go on sale for 50% off.
Then a couple of times a year they have sales where everything, including bundles, is either 50% or 60% off. There’s usually a Winter sale and a Spring sale.
What this all adds up to is that if there’s something you want from their product line, you don’t have to wait very long to get it for at least half off, and their bundles are a very good deal.
Infrequently they will put something on very deep discount at Plugin Boutique or W.A. Production.
They do have introductory sales, but they are always for much lower than the 50% off price, so there’s no concern that the cool new effect that you bought will eventually be cheaper than the introductory price.
Another favorite company, A|A|S, does the introductory offer thing pretty well. When they release a new soundpack (patch collection), it’s priced at 50% off. They usually then put the instrument the soundpack is for at 50% discount. So if you’ve been considering one of their instruments, it will eventually come around on sale. They also announce older soundpacks for $9 via their newsletter. So like MeldaProduction, if you’re paying attention, you know how to maximize your spending power and don’t have to worry about the thing you just bought suddenly plummeting in a CRAZY discount.
I don’t automatically decline introductory offers unless the company offering is known for sketchy/random sale policies. Any company should know better than to put something on sale for less than the intro offer within the first year or so of its existence.
You’re the person who turned me on to MeldaProduction. To be really candid, I had remembered long ago when the developer did sock puppet accounts on KVR hyping up his stuff and I wrote him off as a scammer. Now, I can share that story, because he recently acknowledged it himself in a podcast. But he’s an incredible developer. Okay, 20 years from those practices, I’m sure he leads a team of talented developers.
That said, if you go to VI-Control. Mike Greene lets his advertisers use contactors posing as regular forum members to hype up libraries they’ve worked on and make royalties on. I’ve done my best to ensure that never happens here, even as we grow.
Some time ago when Klevgrand released “Revolv”, I absolutely didn’t need another reverb but I though it was so cool that I wanted to take advantage of the “introductory price” so I bought it, then, if I remember correct, it was just a couple of weeks after the introductory price offer ended, the company started a huge sale that made the plugin cheaper than what I paid for. This kind of move increase buyer’s remorse, and I’ll never be falling for ‘introductory offer’ again.
These “discounts” can lead to a bad perception of the company by the user. Take Waves for instance, it doesn’t take long subscribed to their newsletter to realise the real cost of any of their plugins is $29, so why play this sale game with the costumer? UAD is going the same way too. Fxpansion’s BFD3 is priced so high and lives in constant sale.