I dont think the motivation on this is too complex.  They are heavily invested in genesis and user adoption of the figure is not what they had hoped.  Genesis was designed to sell DS4.  Genesis was supposed to be the competitive edge against poser that allowed DS to actually compete for that share of the market.  They have deadlines and targets and projections that they are held accountable to (just like any company with a budget to meet) and they can see at this point that they wont be making them.  Quite likely nobody is buying bryce or hexagon anyway, but when you start giving away your flagship software its not just a company being nice, its a hail mary.  

that being said.. I'll give hexagon a go.. I have been pondering buying Silo2.2 so I'll see how it compares.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - I wonder what the real motivation behind this move is.

Why should it be any more complex than trying to kick-start the demand for Genesis-compatible products outside their own relatively small circle? Maybe there was a push from the Daz vendors for the company to do something to expand the Genesis base. V4 / M4 products pulled in buyers from all over the hobby. Since the change of focus to Genesis, the market shrunk to those using DS4.

Genesis requires DS4, therefore they need more copies of DS4 out there. Seems fairly straightforward to me.

I just don't think it would significantly increase the number of genesis users. DS4 basic was free, so anyone interested in genesis already had the opportunity to get it for free. DS4Pro is attractive for those already owning DS4 - but it does not bring many new users