*** Octane 2.3+ will require network connection for use ***

[radiance]

the problem with this thread is that the people who are not happy with it is because they don't know what we are building.
we are not building an anti-piracy system, and definately not something like ubisoft.

Just have some patience and you'll see when we release the pre-2.3 intermediate and i'm sure a lot of you will like what we've done, and most people will change there opinions.

Radiance

[mbetke]

You have a drop in sales for 3 reasons:
1. You had a huge influx because of the incredible offer you had.
2. You've already saturated the potential market of people prepared to invest in Beta 0.2.2 software.
3. Potential new buyers are waiting for the long advertised new release before committing to purchase. This is also normal. I'd expect a sudden influx in sales when you release 2.3 with a drop off again after you saturate that next stage.

None of this has to do with pirated copies. You're mixing a correlation of events for causality. Just because 2 things happen at the same time doesn't mean one is responsible for the other but both may have a common origin. in this case 2.2 has now been out for a while.

I was about to write exactly the same.
Most people who buy Octane in current state are Students and semi-professionals. No big studio or whatever will buy Octane now an use it in daily production.

Plus we have awesome summer weather and holydays around the globe. Plus like said before you filled the market with your 50 USD offer. Most of the people who bought now for 50 USD would have bought later for more money if Octane got more features.

So finally I think you just made bad management decisions with your product.
For a project from this size with three needed devs you need Investors! You will not get your costs covered on a long term base with such stupid copy protections and such a low price for the renderer.
Otherwise you will just overwork and get sick. If you are sick and cant work it would be the worst thing which could happen to Octane and new potential clients. Remember this happens once and development stood still!

With your internet copy protection you will scare off all people which don't like the idea of a steady connection required. Plus the other GPU renderers from big companies are longer on the market and will develop further too.

Finally if I need a connection who tells me you server wont get hacked and client data will be lost into the internet? I'm very concerned about securtiy and don't care about social web 2.0 stuff or community sharing.

[SurfingAlien]

I'm very curious to see what you've prepared and I'm sure many of us will love it, I know you open this thread with good intentions but it's been like when someone call you on the phone in the middle on the night saying "don't worry..."

[radiance]

I'm gonna go ahead and close this topic,
i think everything's been said that has to be said.

* wait and see when we release the new 2.3 intermediate and comment then on the system.
* we are NOT developing an anti piracy system. we are developing a new workflow that has the side effect of eliminating piracy, of which i'm sure everyone will really like. (unfortunately i'm not going to elaborate on it as we have competition reading our posts and i don't want to give them our new ideas prematurely.
* we will make sure that you will be able to use octane render in a comfortable way with less piracy related time lost than current, even using a slow internet connection. (eg the whole 'wait until your license key arives via email' will be gone, including the whole 3 activations, as you will be able to activate/deactivate your license whenever and whereever you want, it's fully floating, including your app preferences.)
* this is something we *have* to do, otherwise there will be no octane in 6 months anymore.
* the current 8x less sales is definately correlated with the sudden explosion of cracked copies and torrents, we've been selling at a very stable and good volume up until 2 weeks ago, which is quite a long time after the end of the 50% off deal.

So, just have a bit of patience and see what the 2.3 intermediate release brings...

Yours,
Radiance