Yes, supply and demand are part of it, but the 3-D software industry seems worst than most when it comes to this. Back when I was an avid TrueSpace user, this complaint was leveled against Caligari all the time. They'd release a new version, offer an upgrade discount, but then a few months later they'd offer an "amnesty" upgrade or some other special at less than the price of the "real" upgrade!

People would get mad, but who knows how many sales they lost over it? Probably few. 3D tends to be like religion - you stick with what you started with. Anyone here giving up Poser because of this? Let's see a show of hands. :-)

They know they have a certain type of user who will pay a premium to get the latest version as soon as it's available. They may dangle a carrot or two to get them off their butts and reaching for their credit cards (Winter Queen, "early upgrade" pricing...) But once all those people have purchased, there are still a lot of potential customers out there, and dropping price is one way to get them.

Either you buy early with the knowledge that the price will drop, or you wait until the price drops and spend a few months enviously reading the posts about all the kewl new features the early adopters are using. Or wait for that issue of 3D Graphics :-)

• Jimdoria  ~@>@