Posted on by JesterXL

Prepare your pocketbook

Anyone remember Flash 4? Remember the price jump from 4 to 5? How about 5 to MX?

9 Replies to “Prepare your pocketbook”

  1. While I suppose it is possible that there would be some sort of price jump for the next version of Flash, to be honest, I don’t think it is probable that they will.

    That is just my feeling on the matter…it has to do with a consumer spending tolerance for certain goods.

  2. > it has to do with a consumer spending tolerance for certain goods

    Just remember, Director MX – which is not all that different in form and function from Flash – sells for $1,200. And if you want to develop standalone content for both Windows and Mac, you actually have to buy two separate copies!

  3. Face it, Flash is a must-have cash cow for MM. Seeing that LiveMotion appears to have failed, Flash will remain unchallenged atop a large mountain, almost on a level with the Photoshop mountain, and it would be incredible if they do not ride it hard. Actually I do not hear bitter complaints from working professionals about the price, just cries for yet more functionality and considering that one can base a career on this product, $499 is piddling.

    Price will become an issue when functionality reaches a saturation point. For example I happily produce perfectly good drawings and photos with old versions of Illustrator and Photoshop. The newer versions don’t offer me must-have features so considering the price I pass them up. But I don’t see Flash reaching that maturity for many years.

    Jester your warning is well taken. The increases will be more incremental than you suggest, but Flash will progress thanks largely to our coughing up the dollars.

  4. I never realized director was so much, cause we had it on all the computers at school.

    I think I know why AIA switched to flash, a great way to save a lot of money when you have the program on over 60 computers.

  5. I agree that prices may go up, but I don’t think that it would be in Macromedia’s best interest to boost up the prices too much because, in my opinion, it will increase software piracy.
    I’m a student who insists on buying legal copies of software, but I still don’t have MX because the $200 upgrade price from 5 to MX is huge for me.
    Were the upgrade price from MX to version 7 of, say, $400 then I don’t think that I’d buy 7 at all.
    Now I realise that people like me are rare, and they’ll get even more rare if the price goes up.
    The alternative that i might consider is building my own flash compiler in C#: if flasm can go from assembly-like code to bytecode, then it wouldn’t be that hard to go from a .as file to an assembly-like file. Of course I could just produce files with only actionscript, but that’s all I use flash for, and did I want to use some vectors then I still have a version of flash which can produce vertors in swf files, so I could just load those movies.
    Doing that would be an other hit at Macromedia, and I think they won’t allow themselves to go in that direction.

  6. For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen any info about price changes myself. I don’t usually track that stuff much before release, but I haven’t seen any indications substantiating such a thread, if that info is of help.

    (More context: The goal of the company is to maximize profits, which is two jumps away from maximizing prices… at the first jump you can reduce costs or increase revenues… at the second jump, to increase revenues you can increase prices or increase the number of purchasers. Each pricing decision needs to be calculated in response to current and particular conditions, so a linear extrapolation from a sample of two may not be predictive…. ;-)

    Regards,
    John Dowdell
    Macromedia Support

  7. “Just remember, Director MX – which is not all that different in form and function from Flash – sells for $1,200…” It seems to me that back in 1998 the price of Director was about $999. The price increase over that period of time is really quite conservative.

    It is so small a jump over so many years that it is nearly what it has always been, at least as long as I’ve been paying attention (several years).

    I’m no economist, but I do know there are certain standard equations involved which MM surely uses in order to determine two numbers – the number of potential purchasers of a product, and directly influencing that number, the price of the product. The number of purchasers will fall for every X amount in price they raise…and so there is surely an realistic ideal spread of numbers where they feel they can make the most sales and at the highest price possible. In order to keep the numbers and ensure that you achieve the sales you estimate, you don’t want a big jump in price, or you may loose a lot of money.

    Wow, that took a whole lot to say very little. The point is that it may go up a little bit, but I highly doubt it will rise much at all…it will keep in line with similar products price ranges and for the consumer population’s price tolerances…

  9. One would think that the price needs only be fair relative to the value. I mean, no one has a gun at your head saying you have to buy Flash. Naturally, clients won’t want MX projects completed unless there’s a marked value. I wouldn’t worry too much about the increase–which, while may or may not pass, will probably not go down. It’s either worth it or it isn’t.

    Thanks,
    Phillip

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