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Do people not realise how big Serif are ?

They are not some small start up that needs the funds urgently, these guys are major major players and have been for a very long time.

We will all get the Windows releases when they are ready (Expect sooner than later, they want their current windows line replaced by the new software)

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Might be applicable to both Mac and Windows platform for future development plan.

Adding a bit to what Bungle said, on the Mac side in the U.S. Mac App Store Affinity Photo is currently listed at number 5 among the top grossing App Store apps. Affinity Design was until a few days ago listed at the seventh or eighth spot, & currently is #14.

 

That is a pretty good indication that the Affinity commercial products are doing & will continue to do quite well without the need for crowd funding, particularly when you consider that the Mac market is much smaller than the Windows one.

 

EDIT: while I was wring this, AP jumped up to the number three position, probably because of the 20% off sale going on to celebrate its one year anniversary.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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Greetings

 

I've no doubt that Serif is great, but the Affinity suite in my opinion is a startup for Serif, it's a new product that needs resources to beat the giants Adobe and Corel. And for that Affinity needs to deliver a product at a great price with solutions that are a surplus to the professional design, photo, online publishing and print market.

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No way would I countenance supporting a business in this way. As said earlier, this is no small start-up enterprise, this is a large company that must stand on its own two feet. Serif is a commercial operation not a charity. Anyway how do you reconcile donating via crowdfunding and then having to purchase the product at release. What next for heavens sake, crowdfunding for Adobe or for Apple - don't think so!

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 I agree totally with Bungle 100%

 

Just to add, I think it's a bad idea for this specific company/product line. It's clear from the roadmaps and such that Serif/Affinity has things pretty well figured out and to do a crowdfunding would muddy that up, as those who pledge could feel even more "ownership" than license-holders do now. If just the lead up to AD 1.5 beta is any indication, there's going to be very healthy-bordering-on-obsessive anticipation that may be expressed in not so wholesome ways

 

While I feel that crowdfunding is great for some creative endeavors (I'll be doing a kickstarter in Sept. with my team to cover publishing and paying for work done for the first issue of a comic), when it comes to software, It's great for opensouce apps, not so much for closed-source apps, like the Affinity line of apps. From my observations and experience, setting up a crowdfunder isn't just like flipping a switch. There's a hell of a lot of prep work before it gets started, even more (constant) work once it gets going (there's updates, constant monitoring of the pledges, stretch goals) and then quite a bit once the funding has ended. That means that at the minimum, at least 1 (probably 2) full time work slots would have to be devoted to the crowdfunding for at about 3 months. And for Kickstarter, what if the goals weren't met? All that work and effort lost. While it's depressing for a writer/artist, it would be a healthy bit of red in the company's ledger.

 

Serif, as noted earlier in this thread, isn't just some scrawny startup, it's been around for a while and, from how they rolled out AD and later AP, clearly have a plan that they're following. A crowdfunded would muck that up pretty well, imho. 

 

I feel that the time/effort in a crowdfunded for Affinity would be much better spent/used for work on the actual apps themselves. 

 

It's like this, Crowdfunding is just one tool of many. It may be the flavor-of-the-day currently, but just because it's there, doesn't mean it should be used by everyone. I feel that the choice to use it or not should be totally up to the company and not its user base. 

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Isn't crowd funding for people who don't believe in their product?

 

See Peter Molyneux..... by games industry terms, a rich man, yet still on the scrounge to support his failed project dreams.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
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Well, I'm a Windows user and for us Affinity Designer is still beta and free, that's the reason I posted this on Windows forum. What concerns to supporting the Project it would have an option that to a certain ammount the première comercial release would be free for those supporting with that amount of Money. Like in a "normal" crowdfounding Project supports would receive products according to the amount of money that they would be abble to give.

 

If we go to the list of most successful crowdfunding enterprises few are charity most of them are commercial products like videogames and software.

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I fundamentally disagree with crowdfunding for anything other than charitable objectives. If business opportunities want money for development and their product is good they should raise capital the way any other self respecting business does. If they cannot get funds that way then tough - it is their problem and nobody elses.

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Traveling Man in part I agree with you.

If you check this list you will notice that most of the projects launched are comercial products

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest_funded_crowdfunding_projects

 

I've just suggested crowdfunding because I know that is difficult to obtain credit from the bank credit lines. And a Project big as this needs lots of resources, both human and technological that are expensive.

Crowdfunding is just a way more easy to raise funds than the bank credit lines or the shares selling on the stock market.

 

And I think that crowdfunding is for people who believe in their product, people only give Money to something that can be a surplus value to their lives. And crowdfunders have to have arguments to make people pledge on their project

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I fundamentally disagree with crowdfunding for anything other than charitable objectives. If business opportunities want money for development and their product is good they should raise capital the way any other self respecting business does. If they cannot get funds that way then tough - it is their problem and nobody elses.

 

I've always had a feeling that crowd funding is morally questionable.  The people "investing" are not treated like investors, they are treated no different to a customer, but maybe with a slightly sweetened deal (but not that sweet looking at most projects on Kickstarter - getting something first, to me, is not a huge incentive).

 

If it was called "crowd investment", where everyone got an actual quantified stake in the venture, then I'd be more happy with the concept.

SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer
  • Software engineer  -  Photographer  -  Guitarist  -  Philosopher
  • iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395
  • MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300
  • iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB
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I've always had a feeling that crowd funding is morally questionable.  The people "investing" are not treated like investors, they are treated no different to a customer, but maybe with a slightly sweetened deal (but not that sweet looking at most projects on Kickstarter - getting something first, to me, is not a huge incentive).

 

If it was called "crowd investment", where everyone got an actual quantified stake in the venture, then I'd be more happy with the concept.

Agreed. It is open to huge abuse.

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