Private forum? Bad idea. Tweet

[Proupin]

hmmm... I guess Brazil only needs GPU rendering and we'd be ready for some competition hahaha... even so good point, it's nice to see developers fitting this into their biz models

[arail]

This is important. I don't buy tools if I don't see an active and dedicated support for them and I'm willing to bet I'm not alone doing so.

You're definitely not alone. I tend to rate software by how active the forums are - that tells me how wide the user base is, how enthusiastic they are about the program and how likely I can get help from a fellow member. Furthermore, a very active forum creates 'buzz' that functions as a selling mechanism for the software.

A year or so ago I was just beginning to consider a rendering program and I looked at HyperShot and modo. The HyperShot forums had 2 or 3 posts a day, if that. Modo had dozens every day, sometimes even hundreds. That told me what I needed to know when making the decision to buy.

I understand that the organization of the forum has to work for the moderators but I don't think anyone should underestimate how important a very active forum community can be for getting a software known and sold.