Dom's Blog

When I bought my Virtools Dev Student version, i think it was in 2003, I paid 300 EUR ( ~ 414$ US). And that was a very special, ultra, unique, hyper mega super deal … because the normal price was still 500 EUR (~ 689$ US). I told them that this price (500 EUR) was completely insane … strangely they didn't agree …

I thought very carefully if I really wanted to 'invest' 300 EUR for a non-commercial student version… I really was into DEV .. I wanted to to become an expert and I dreamed of a full-time job in a company that was using Virtools. But my case was a very special scenario … I didn't know any student that would invest 300 EUR in a student software, because it's a lot of money for a student. Nowadays, it's probably even worse because there was a law-change in germany (also insane) that allows public-schools to ask additional subscription fees. There has always been some fees per semester (6 month cycle) – which were around … i think 150 EUR. Now it can be as high as 600 EUR and if you study longer than the usual time, it can climb even as high as 900 EUR!!! (Depends on regions). 

Study fees, books, computer, software, studio, food … this quickly sums up. That's probably why there are also free learning versions (PLE) like for Maya or Houdini. But even back in 2003 the student version of 3ds max was much cheaper than the one from Virtools … maybe like 150 EUR, but i don't remember exactly anymore, that's a big difference. I was told by Virtools that "students always ask for 'cheaper' until it's free" … maybe … but 500 EUR???

Now, if you are a student in the U.S or in south or central America, then you are lucky because for a really reasonable price of 99$ US (09/2007) you can get your personal student license (which is limited to 2 years). That's ~ 72 EUR – see the difference?

Finally somebody is reasonable. I have no idea who initially put the 500 EUR price tag on the student version, but he must have been from another planet. 🙂
I hope this price-drop pays off, but time also has changed with XNA, Unity3D Indie etc. There are more choices and much more 3D real-time development communities than ever before. We will know when suddenly we get tons of new students into the forum coming from America …