Maveris said "I'm not sure that CL can't be blamed... Cinema4D (Maxon software) have about the same price in all the world." That's precisely the point. There are NO restrictions in imports of software. I know the matter well. There is a Customs fee, which in Italy is 20% of the value of the object, BUT, laws says, if you pay customs, you do NOT have to pay VAT (which is also 20%). If you pay VAT, is it because you have purchased from a reseller, then in this case, you do NOT have to pay the customs! That is the reseller's duty. Plain and simple. If you are a final customer, and buy from abroad, you pay Customs charge, but not VAT, because your money does not go to a national company. If you as final customer buy from a reseller, the reseller must impose on you the VAT, because it is a national company, but if the reseller asks you to pay for customs, they are illegal, because customs is exclusive charge of reseller. So the point really is: 1- there are companies which distribute directly their products. This requires investment but it's the most profitable situation 2- there are companies which do ecommerce, and sell online - this also is profitable until laws will come to rule that too mnd make you pay customs on downloaded goods (yes sooner or later that crap will happen you can bet on it) 3- there are companies which do use resellers in a non exclusive way. Like, they let Amazon, Beyond, UpgradesUnlimited, Barnes adn Noble, etc, all resell their product. They give a "suggested retail price" and then it's up to single resellers to make the final price, keeping in mind that in a non exclusive reselling situation, you have competition, so whatever you charge more than the SRP, it might kill your sales. 4- and lastly, there are companies who sign exclusive resale contracts with foreing distributors, get their financial feedback sometimes all immediately (if they are lucky and they have a strong product), sometimes part immediately and part with shares ON THE RESELLER'S RECHARGE (meaning they get their basic price plus a further share) The last situation (situation 4) is what with all probability happened with CL and Propack distribution. Needless to say, situation 4 might be the safest (under many respects) for both producer (because it gets a sure financial return it can count on) and reseller (because it gets exclusivity and can set the price without competition) is the most crappy and, dare I say, the less fair and democratic, for final purchasers. It is a solution that is dangerously close, to my POV, to a situation of monopoly commerce, where a goods is sold at an arbitrary price for lack of competition in the market (I am speaking here of the resale market, not the software market). Legume: I agree that a jump in price was to be expected. But as I said, if it was a $100 jump, then I could have accepted it as a in-line-with-poser-tradition price. Being a $250 approx. jump, it can not be defined as the above. It is more correctly defined as the poser traditional price DOUBLED. Because that's the cold stone truth, regardless of all the reasoning we may make here. So ultimately, it goes down to a precise point, which has less to do with price than it has to do with raising people's expectations and letting them down later. Curious Labs have made a public statement (that of the poser traditional price) that simply proved not to be true. I personally didn't like it very much. Then we don't know what's behind it. Probably the person who made that statement spoke in hos own will and hope, and maybe some company boss (or financer) privately reproached him and imposed a higher price... who knows -and we'll never know. What's for sure is that we have been told an -at least partially- incorrect information and perspective, and there could be better ways to start a promotion of a new product than giving illusions to people and at least partially, letting them down when it comes down to the facts. Having that said, I agree that many people will "need" poser 5 - but don't forget that for one poser merchant, there are dozen simple users who can not justify high expenses for a hobby. And ultimately it's a dog biting his own tail, because if the user base restricts, merchants sell less, if they sell less, they produce less and invest less, and so Poser 6 will see much less invetments from the merchants, if Poser 5 is out at a merchant-justifyable price only, and not at a end-user-justifyable price. Really it is more complex and involved than it might appear. But hey they don't make university courses in marketing for nothing, don't they. ;-)