Why is substance so expensive?

[Felis Tigris 0]

How are creators supposed to work when they have to pay 20 USD for 30 materials? what if they find out after rendering that the material is not suitable?
let alone that they have other fees to pay such as other software , plug ins, etc..
(ex:3ds max +100 USD per month)

Is digital art supposed to be that expensive or am I missing something?
please no hate speech. and I would appreciate it If this post was not deleted or banned. Thank you.

[Recon03]

This is common, typically it cost more, I make Substances and sell textures. Custom work as well and I charge much more. so this is pretty cheap for the industry.

[Daf57]

$20 a month for access/use of 3 software packages PLUS 30 downloadable materials... doesn't seem like much to me at all.

How are creators supposed to work when they have to pay 20 USD for 30 materials?

[T. M. 0]

I'm fairly new to 3D myself but just to offer an opinion ...

It can be expensive if you're chasing down the top of the line commercial software, but as you probably know there are open source alternatives to some things, such as Blender. It's nice to have Max sure, but you don't need it to get started.

I think it also depends on what you're looking to do. If this is a hobby, then it can be an expensive hobby.

If on the other hand, you view yourself as an entrepreneur, it's really cheap relatively speaking. I've started a landscape company, a photography business and a recording studio (obviously I'm a bit older), and all of those cost tens of thousands of dollars to really get to any sort of commercial level. It took starting small and working my way up and finding ways to produce with what I could afford along the way.

If you're a student, there are discounts for many applications.

If you're looking to become an employee in the field, like anything else you're going to incur bills whether that be in education or the cost of living, etc.

I've yet to find anything that you can get money out of, without putting some investment into it first. But $20/month is about as cheap as it gets for commercial software, especially when you're getting an entire suite as with Substance. That's a lot of bang for the buck. And you mentioned the downloadable materials ... to me those are all gravy, you're also getting the tools to make your own materials.

You don't need to try to buy everything all at once to produce results. It would help if you mentioned what your goal is.