Allegorithmic is joining the Adobe family (part 1)

[Basbo]

was Algorithmic not successful enough (and thus making enough money) to not really need being acquired? How much greed is needed before enough is enough?

Plenty of factors go into such a decision. It's not only a matter of revenue, we have been profitable for a few years already, but a structure like Adobe brings us plenty of resources that are hard to scale for a small company: human resources, hiring great talents, offices to house these new hires, weight in face of giants like hardware manufacturers, and many other things that would simply be extremely hard to manage by ourselves.

It also provides funding to explore many other areas we couldn't afford to before due to all the aforementioned limitations.

With all respect for business decisions of founders, but declare "funding to explore many other areas we couldn't afford to before" as one reason for the buyout seems a bit indelicate for me as a customer. Maybe Adobe is funding indeed some kind of 'allegorithmic Sandbox' over one or two financial years as a assisted living playground for the awesome engineers of former allegorithmic.

But Adobe won't fund any kind of Sandbox from their own cash roll - this investment will be more likely priced a position in the quarterly minimum yields of the new acquisition. Add shareholders return and we easily reach a reasonable monthly price range between 200% and 450% of the former prices.
So it's not easy for prior allegorithmic customers to recognize any advantage of this familyreunion even though it might provide funding for some lab explorations.

[flcc]

Adobe pays no attention to the work provided by a community.
Look what they did with pixelBender.
They threw it in the trash with the CS6, no matter there was a community that had created a lot of free plug-ins for photoshop, after-effect, flash, illustrator etc....

[Vanessathi]

Sad news ... big fish eats smaller ones. And we loose diversity, possibilities to choose different softwares with different point of views in innovation, developpment, qualitie of releases, customers relationships, prices, licence type, .... And we are forced to accept only the point of view of the biggest.

I'm waiting for the next brillant software company owned by 5,000 or 50,000,000 co-owner - users. I'm pretty sure a lot of users are ready to pay a little to be co-owner and keep their tools far away from the unique and imperfect strategies of big companies.

[TooManyDemons]

the replies from staff here are making things even worse. the announcement that linked to this thread promised our questions would be answered and instead we're getting sassed in a frankly immature way for our justified reactions while being given zero real details.

I especially hate the tone that implies we're big meanies for not being genuinely happy that some suits we don't know are moving up in their careers. we are customers and you are a business. we've put a lot of money and faith into you and we're telling you that you betrayed that trust. nobody cares if you like adobe and the way they treat their products because we don't. the burden is on you to convince us to stick with you. we already paid for our products and owe you exactly nothing. you know full well that there's no promise you can make that adobe couldn't pull the rug out from under so please don't insult our intelligence by asking us to have faith that the giant corporation will suddenly act differently than they always have.

This

They call the language, "Corporate Speak".

If you've ever worked a retail job, you know all about it. Act super optimistic and deliver lines with a big smile, even between your fellow co-workers and pretending you are all for the greatest company that ever existed.

You see those same fake smiles on every product from cereal boxes to pots & pans. It's like looking at a bunch of sociopathic clowns.

[theo.hallenius]

Maybe it's a good idea to create a crawler, download everything from Substance Share and open up a mirror site using a peer to peer protocol like IPFS? Before Adobe shuts it down completely, which it will eventually.

[rumboldlaci]

9 days ago:
"Dear Friends,
The Substance team needs you.
We want to keep growing, keep improving, and give you what you need. That's why we prepared a quick survey: only 5 minutes.
Your feedback is essential: it will help us create the best possible experience!
Answer the survey
You can win one year of Substance! (and either keep or gift it)
Thank you,
The Substance Team"

So, who is the winner?
I guess the prize is now a CC subscription...

[danielanon]

Hi I would like to update my license immediately, but upon clicking Update I am not given the option for Perpetual Licenses. I was told if I wanted to buy a perpetual license over monthly payments I could, and now I can't find that option.

Edit; you need to go to Billing in order to update your to perpetual licenses. I suggest anyone who wants a Perpetual License to impulse buy right now, even if they don't get rid of perpetual licenses. You can't know the future, and this is Adobe. Algorithmic sold Substance, it's in Adobes hands now. They may be the development team behind Substance, but they're not the corporate suits sitting in the board room meetings or the general managers of billing or sales. Do not trust Adobe, do not trust that they will honor the perpetual license system ten years for now, five years from now, one year from now, one week from now. If you want a Perpetual License it is better to be safe than sorry. I hope everyone has a good day and this is unfortunately my cancelling of my Subscription. I could have gotten a perpetual license over a year ago but I kept subscribing because I wanted to support these talented developers.

I will not support Adobe, they're predatory corporatists pretending to engage in Capitalism.

[Jonathan Manyway]

Pure subscription. No way to get a Perpetual license. We were short before ordering the full CS6 suite, when we found out, that it will be subscription only. Since then it's no Adobe for us anymore!

And now this!
Please give us clear evidence, that perpetual licenses will not disappear. Not this year or thereafter.
If we don't hear any news about this within the next half month, we must stop the subscription and consider reordering our pipeline, to adjust to a new software from another house. This is a saddening, as your great software is not easy to replace.
But if our current subscription will not yield in a perpetual license at the end of the 12 month period, there will be no other way.
You consider your business practices, we have to consider ours. Please don't be sparse with a clear answer, as this will only consolidate our decision to leave. Thanks in advance.

[Fenes Octavian 0]

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO PERPETUAL LICENCES?

[nmargie]

9 days ago:
"Dear Friends,
The Substance team needs you.
We want to keep growing, keep improving, and give you what you need. That's why we prepared a quick survey: only 5 minutes.
Your feedback is essential: it will help us create the best possible experience!
Answer the survey
You can win one year of Substance! (and either keep or gift it)
Thank you,
The Substance Team"

So, who is the winner?
I guess the prize is now a CC subscription...

Mixamo had a month long sale. For 30 days they talked baout all the upgrades that would be coming and soon to be released.

As soon as the sale ended they siad 'We sold to Adobe and we have no idea if we will do any of the things we promised oyu for the past 3o days." They even attempted to tell people the sale came out of nowhere and was a last second thing


Funny side note
   When people demanded refunds Mixamo claimed they no longer can handle the money legally. So when people like my self pointed out that "Why are you still selling a PBR material pack add on for Fuse right here on steam?" Their officecal resposne is that it was nto them selling it Allegorithmic created a steam account with their company name and was selling add ons for Fuse under that identity 

[TooManyDemons]

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO PERPETUAL LICENCES?

--"Allegorithmic tools are already offered as a subscription service to individuals and enterprise customers, and in the future Adobe will focus on expanding the availability of Allegorithmic tools via subscription. Later this year, Adobe will announce an update on new offerings that will bring the full power of Allegorithmic technology and Adobe Creative Cloud together."--

https://news.adobe.com/press-release/creative-cloud/adobe-acquires-allegorithmic-leader-3d-editing-and-authoring-gaming

Time to swallow that enormous Truth Pill and stop hoping.

[DamienI]

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO PERPETUAL LICENCES?

If you read the Adobe press release they've made it clear that perpetual licenses will not exist and it will be under the umbrella of CC.

Just like they've done with past perpetual licenses (both their own, and acquired) they will terminate the licensing servers and force you to subscribe. If you take a look into the past as an example when it will occur, probably within the first year, definitely in the second.

[juricakrizanic]

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO PERPETUAL LICENCES?

If you read the Adobe press release they've made it clear that perpetual licenses will not exist and it will be under the umbrella of CC.

Just like they've done with past perpetual licenses (both their own, and acquired) they will terminate the licensing servers and force you to subscribe. If you take a look into the past as an example when it will occur, probably within the first year, definitely in the second.

I am definitely expecting adobe to attempt invalidating our perpetuals. Any idea if we have any kind of legal ground for a class action lawsuit when it happens?

[sensevisual]

When Adobe adopted their horrid (and forbidding to me, as a freelancer with no stable income) subscription model, I ditched their products.

Got Clip Studio Paint for digital illustration and some styles of graphic design.

Got Serif DrawPlus, and later Affinity Designer, for other styles of graphic design.

Already used Inkscape for raster to vector, which was and still is better than the one in Illustrator.

Got Filter Forge to cover the creative/crazy filters.

And got the Indie "Substances" to cover the texture workflow...

(BTW, I think all those added together cost me around $200)

Very disappointing to see Allegorithmic selling out to Adobe.

I thought I was supporting an independent company, but it turn out to be "just the same old sh**".

Also, thanks to the users here for reminding me of the Source points, I going to spend them before something bad happens.

[jaran]

If we download the license file and choose the activate via license file option does it still check with the license servers?