No extra discount for existing users (split)

[chakko007]

I assume they want an even bigger slice of Adobe's cake. All fair enough, but, again, raising the base price by 60% over the years is a bit steep in my eyes.

20-30 € for the upgrade, and most people will upgrade, plus there'll be new customers with a still pretty reasonable full price.

No, I won't apply as sales manager for Serif.

[monzo]

35 minutes ago, Ali said:

I am still using the last versions of the Serif Plus range (in particular, WebPlus X8 2016 and PagePlus X9 2015) on a completely up-to-date Windows 11 system. I don't think it unreasonable to assume that the V1 Affinity range might have a similar longevity.

But you can't guarantee how long the current suite of V1 products will work for, and be secure, on the three platforms they were released on.

[Ali]

3 minutes ago, monzo said:

But you can't guarantee how long the current suite of V1 products will work for, and be secure, on the three platforms they were released on.

Nothing in life can be guaranteed except that you will die one day. Perhaps you need to stand back, take a breath and put all of this into some sort of perspective. Life is too short. It doesn't matter how much you complain or how often: the die is cast. Either you upgrade to V2 or stick with V1 and hope it lasts a few years longer. Or jump ship. It's up to you.

[monzo]

1 minute ago, Ali said:

Nothing in life can be guaranteed except that you will die one day. Perhaps you need to stand back, take a breath and put all of this into some sort of perspective.

Again, charming.

[Ali]

Just now, monzo said:

Again, charming.

Realistic, honest, whatever. As I said, it's up to you.

[monzo]

1 minute ago, Ali said:

Realistic, honest, whatever. As I said, it's up to you.

Blunt, is what I'd say.

Except it's not up to me is it. I now have seven pieces of abandonware on my devices (as do the numerous individuals and organisations I've recommended Serif to), and I either find £90 very quickly to keep them updated (though for how long, we don't know) on top of the hundreds I've spent already, wait and then get hit with an even bigger bill, or in your words "if you don't like it, take your business elsewhere".

Lovely.

[Bruno Belo]

leaving a little bit of all the above discussion...

see what I have here and maybe you will look for something similar in your country to try some discount on the purchase: Here in Brazil, entering the Serif website, the universal license is 99 dollars and there is no conversion to my local currency at the time of purchase.

however the Microsoft store app offers me the universal license for 377.97 BRL (USD 71) And through an app from a bank here in my country, I can buy a Microsoft Gift Card at a discount these days, which makes me go down to 67 dollars.

I haven't bought it yet because I don't have any way at the moment, maybe until the end of the month. And I would also like to know if buying through the MS store I would be able to download the installers later as well because before it was not possible to do that buying through the ms store, now with a universal license maybe I can, I read a lot about the purchase options on the serif website but no this part is clear.

[j.king]

Also surprised and a bit disappointed this morning after learning about the move to V2, but at least I have been using Affinity apps for a long while now. Started several years ago on a mac, then purchased again for a windows laptop when Affinity started crashing constantly on the old mac. I refuse to pay subscription to Adobe. I can certainly see how this is really, really maddening for anyone who recently purchased. Literally just a few weeks ago I had praised the Affinity products to someone (as I often do) who was interested in designing. So thankful now that they only downloaded the trial instead of purchasing. In that regard... yes, transparency & communication well ahead of time would have been better so everyone was aware of exactly what was about to take place. Honestly, the first thing I thought when I read the news was that Serif just said to hell with trying to fix V1, let's just start over. Probably not true, but that's what crossed my mind. Would be nice to know how long the special discount price for all apps is going to last.

[alansky]

23 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:

Unfortunately that’s the nature of software, always has been and always will be. Companies don’t spend the resources on things people can no longer buy. Like I said people have had up to 5+ years of free upgrades, that never goes on forever as it’s not commercially viable.

Actually, the nature of software is that buyers who already own the previous version of a given product get a discount on the latest version—often called the "upgrade price". This may not be a universal practice, but it has certainly been the norm up till now. The fact that free updates can't be expected to go on forever does not justify Affinity's decision to give zero discount to owners of version 1 of their products.

[erutan]

Mac App Store doesn't support discounted upgrades, it's standard practice to just have an upgrade level discount when a new version launches as a workaround so people don't have to pay full price.

Think back to before the MAS existed, it's not like a new version of application would be 40% off for new users and 50% off for existing ones. I'd be full price for new users and 25-50% for people with a previous version.

[RafaGCG]

Pues valla panorama. entre affinity y luminar....
Si todos el dinero lo donaramos a los proyectos de sofware libre, habria programadores 24/7 a sueldo haciendo cosas bien hechas. Tenemos lo que nos merecemos.

[Strumiker]

10 minutes ago, erutan said:

Mac App Store doesn't support discounted upgrades, it's standard practice to just have an upgrade level discount when a new version launches as a workaround so people don't have to pay full price.

Think back to before the MAS existed, it's not like a new version of application would be 40% off for new users and 50% off for existing ones. I'd be full price for new users and 25-50% for people with a previous version.

This is certainly how I'm viewing it and it seems to be how Affinity is approaching the situation. It's a new product launch for them. I'm seeing everyone being able to reap the benefit of the upgrade price for a short period. 

My personal bummer is that I recently purchased their three products for Windows in mid-September. While I got them for a nice price, especially coming from Adobe's model that I didn't want to afford anymore, it's hard to want to spend more in the following weeks while this promotion is happening. Had I purchased them six months ago, I'd probably be less bummed about. Three is just too recent. But it is what it is and I get their situation. 

As it stands, I want v2, but will probably wait until another promotion simply because I just purchased their expired product too recently.

[erutan]

Yeah buying them a month and a half ago would be rough. I got mine years ago! If you're just using them on windows waiting for a future sale probably makes sense vs snagging a universal license now.

Many companies have a "free upgrade if you bought the old version within x months", but that's part of a traditional "buy a license key, input it for a x% discount that jumps to 100% if it was bought before y date" flow.

I imagine their support is slammed at the moment but it seems like something you might be able to get a refund or freebie v2 license for later? They really should have announced something along the lines of contacting support for a free upgrade or discount up to the money you've spent past some point in the summer but that's going to take a lot of support time to deal with.

[Danold]

It’s interesting when corporations talk about “we want it to be inclusive” when in reality it’s estimated THAT LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF THE WORLDS POPULATION can afford (for example) the Adobe monthly subscription. Very inclusive!
Now the discount here is INCLUSIVE and the same for all, which is insulting to existing users.
According to the World Bank, the next big market is Africa. Good luck with that. We will see who will survive. My gut is telling me the platform with the happiest and strongest community of people will survive. I really hope this will b Affinity. 

[William Chang]

This is exactly how I feel. Bought on the 11 October for the original price and now I see there is a V2... I'm kinda upset that we, the V1 people don't get compensated and they talk about purchasing once, yea I guess, they just didn't say there will be a V2 or a V3 or a V4... To be honest, even a discount code for existing user will be good. But oh well.

[Brian_J]

15 minutes ago, William Chang said:

This is exactly how I feel. Bought on the 11 October for the original price and now I see there is a V2

@William Chang Since your V1 purchase was so recent, I would recommend contacting Serif to ask them what they can do for you about cost. The email listed on the Serif Support page is: affinityorders@serif.com. Support is really backlogged, so it may take some time for them to respond, but I think it would be worth your time to get in touch with them.

[William Chang]

11 minutes ago, Brian_J said:

@William Chang Since your V1 purchase was so recent, I would recommend contacting Serif to ask them what they can do for you about cost. The email listed on the Serif Support page is: affinityorders@serif.com. Support is really backlogged, so it may take some time for them to respond, but I think it would be worth your time to get in touch with them.

I actually went and bought the V2 license... The software is good, I'm just not fond of this type of so called discount. It makes the early supporters look stupid.

 

Now I have another problem, I purchased the V2 license, money taken, but it says failed purchase... sigh, what is wrong with Serif lately

[Brian_J]

2 minutes ago, William Chang said:

I actually went and bought the V2 license... The software is good, I'm just not fond of this type of so called discount. It makes the early supporters look stupid.

Now I have another problem, I purchased the V2 license, money taken, but it says failed purchase... sigh, what is wrong with Serif lately

@William Chang Yeah, Serif made some significant mistakes with this V2 launch. What a mess.

Bummer about your purchase failing. Hope you're able to get it worked out soon. But regardless, I would still ask Serif to work out a deal for you since you purchased V1 such a short time ago — there's no guarantee how they will respond, but I think it's a perfectly reasonable request. You won't get anything unless you ask for it, and it doesn't matter if your V2 purchase has gone through already or not.

[William Chang]

1 minute ago, Brian_J said:

@William Chang Yeah, Serif made some significant mistakes with this V2 launch. What a mess.

Bummer about your purchase failing. Hope you're able to get it worked out soon. But regardless, I would still ask Serif to work out a deal for you since you purchased V1 such a short time ago — there's no guarantee how they will respond, but I think it's a perfectly reasonable request. You won't get anything unless you ask for it, and it doesn't matter if your V2 purchase has gone through already or not.

Thank you so much Brian, really happy to be so welcomed at this community with your assistance  I did emailed them now, let see what they say.

[Brian_J]

Just now, William Chang said:

I did emailed them now, let see what they say.

Cool, I'll cross my fingers for you. 🤞 There was some chatter in these forums about Serif offering some kind of deal to people who just bought V1, but I don't know how accurate the info was.

Welcome to the community, by the way! The forums are crazy right now because of the V2 launch, but I think you'll find there are a lot of knowledgeable, helpful people here who can help if you have questions.

[William Chang]

1 minute ago, Brian_J said:

Cool, I'll cross my fingers for you. 🤞 There was some chatter in these forums about Serif offering some kind of deal to people who just bought V1, but I don't know how accurate the info was.

Welcome to the community, by the way! The forums are crazy right now because of the V2 launch, but I think you'll find there are a lot of knowledgeable, helpful people here who can help if you have questions.

I hope everything get sorted and then I start learning!

[mitchm]

On 11/10/2022 at 10:27 PM, Patrick Connor said:

@Azazaraa

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

Sorry you are disappointed, but my reply here explains that if there was a promo code for existing users it would ONLY give you 40% and less for everyone else.

We have to eat

Patrick (Buddy) that is exactly the marketing error that was done here.... Accept the inconsequential, Serif SHOULD of given a 40% discount existing loyal customers and less to the rest. What your seeing here on there forums are users expressing their thoughts and opinions, whether Serif look at these comments and realise they messed up or actually dont care is up to them. The fact remains that, a LOT of loyal users feel duped that they didnt get looked after upgrading from v1 to v2........ Serif needs to accept this fact and either do something about it, or let everyone rant and hopefully move on without to much reputation damage.

The worst thing Serif or its (moderators) can do in this situation is try and explain or get out of this situation.

This is simply another life lesson for everyone.

[William Chang]

So now I have a question, I went ahead and purchased the V2 License, funds got taken but nothing happened as yet, I did not get a confirmation email or anything. Sent 2 emails already, I sent it on Saturday but nothing yet. Almost a week now... come on.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, William Chang said:

Sent 2 emails already, I sent it on Saturday but nothing yet. Almost a week now... come on.

Only about 3 business days, though. And they are running quite behind still, as the banner at the top of this page shows.

How did you purchase? From the Affinity Store, or via in-app purchase? If via in-app purchase, where did you download the Trial app?

If you have an account at the Affinity Store, have you checked to see if the purchase is registered there?  Check the "V2" tab at https://affinity.store/account and you can see if it's there.

[William Chang]

51 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Only about 3 business days, though. And they are running quite behind still, as the banner at the top of this page shows.

How did you purchase? From the Affinity Store, or via in-app purchase? If via in-app purchase, where did you download the Trial app?

If you have an account at the Affinity Store, have you checked to see if the purchase is registered there?  Check the "V2" tab at https://affinity.store/account and you can see if it's there.

It was on their website, not an in app purchase.

I went on my banking app and it shows unprocessed, I phoned my bank to tell them to cancel the transaction so I can make the purchase again but the bank says the fund is awaiting collection so I cannot cancel.

Funds been deducted off my account but there is nothing under V2 place and also, I haven't received any confirmation emails.