Thursday, November 29, 2012

Moviestorm Releases 1.5.4 Update

     Some of you may remember that in the not-too-distant past Moviestorm was in open beta, and free to download and use, with extra content you could buy and use.

     Then Moviestorm went to a full release and access went to a subscription model. There was some outcry over that, from the people who never want to pay for software to those like myself who were concerned with how that might affect the future of the program. Don't get me wrong, I was and still am all for software developers getting paid, just as much as I'm for software developers going open-source. They were a business and wanted to get paid, which is kind of necessary when you have professionals that are working for you on promise of a salary.

     I had the thought that Moviestorm could offer the base program for free and sell content to make their money, and allow third parties to sell content through the Moviestorm site, taking a cut from those sales as well, much like DAZ does.

     With the new business model the situation was created where people who had already spent money on content for the program were now required to spend more money to use it. I was worried that people might find it wrong and Moviestorm would lose traction in a rapidly growing market (at least in terms of other developers working on their own versions of dedicated machinima software).

     Eventually I was proven wrong as the company has continued to grow. Adding the lifetime subscription offer, which was essentially the same as buying the software outright, eliminated the perceived stigma of the word subscription, and everything was right in the world again.

      With the new update to Moviestorm, there is a return to "free". According to the release notes:

"Moviestorm is now usable for Moviestorm users whose account does not have an active subscription. Such users may not use the modders workshop, mods, or non-free content packs they do not own, and will have a watermark on any renders they do."
     So, if I understand this correctly, if your Moviestorm subscription lapses you can continue to use the program and official content you have purchased for free, but you cannot create your own mods or use third-party content, and you're renders have a fairly discreet watermark on them.

     Sounds fair to me!
  
     I'm still standing by a suggestion I made a long time ago, which was to offer the program and all official content for one subscription fee and/or sell the program and content separately, just in case any of those MS peeps are reading this ;)

     Regardless, I think this is a great move by Moviestorm and a wonderful boon for loyal users.

    There are some bug fixes too. You can read the complete release notes here.

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