I've been hearing this:
1 - There was not early adopter sale, it was a SM wide sale.
2 - People who claim to have partaken in an earlier adopter sale are full of it because they quote an earlier date of getting the software than when it was release (supposedly June 3, 2015.)
I've looked through my email to get to the bottom of this. I am a totally unbiased party (take my word for it, I guess). I neither fault or commend the current pricing situation. However, this what I found. I hope this puts it to bed.
I received an email from SM on 5/21/15 announcing that AS11 was being released on 5/27/15. It also offered registration for a webinar on Jun 2 (I attended). The subject line is literally "Anime Studio 11 Animation Software Available May 27th".
I have two emails, and a separate save receipt in my evernote, confirming that I paid for AS11 on 5/26 (to be sure, the date from the sender was after 1am 5/27, but for me it was 5/26. I live in California.), and including active download links for the software (which I did download and install at that time). The price I paid showed that to upgrade from 7-9.5 to 11 was regularly $199, but I actually paid $133 (and some extra fees I think for download protection or some nonsense like that). I was upgrading from 9.5. I cannot confirm, but this would lead me to beleive that the upgrade from 10 would be even less. Probably $99.
Then later on 5/27/15 I have an email from SM announcing the early adopter sale for AS11. The subject line is literally "New Version Anime Studio 11 Animation Software. 33% Off Early Adopter Special." Inside it says things like "Now Available" and "Special launch week sale save 33%". Shows the (non-upgrade) price at $199 for this sale, regularly $299 retail. It says that the sale ends June 2nd (which, for those of you keeping track, is actually the day before this fabled June 3rd drop date). Why did i get this AFTER I purchased the software? Probably cause I was excited and bought it the first second it was available (refer to my note that I got the d/l links a mere hour after the drop date). There are also links for those interested in the upgrade offers (also on sale). This email says a LOT about AS11, and ZERO about any other Smith Micro product. If there was a SM wide sale going on, this email would be a good opportunity to advertise that fact. I can neither confirm nor deny that anything else was on sale at the time, just saying what I see in the email. And just so you guys don't think I'm totally full of it, here's the graphic from said email:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kx120u7h52zqf ... S.png?dl=0
(note that the sale expires June 2... this product was available before June 2)
I also have several emails around Jun 1 and 2 referring to my participation in the seminar (hey it's coming up and it's starting soon and thanks for attending type stuff). That neither confirms or denies drop dates or sales, or purchase dates. However I do notice that the first seminar for MOHO 12 is AFTER the drop date, which make sense, because they'd want people attending to already have the software.
So what have we learned?
- Full retail for AS11 at drop was $299
- The drop date was May 27, 2015
- They offered an early adopter sale of 33% off from 5/27 thru 6/2
- They offered tiered pricing depending on what version you were upgrading from, and also had early adopter discounts on those.
Why did I go through all this BS? Seriously, I don't care what SM wants to sell the product for, and what kind of promotions they want to run. In the long run, it's THEIR choice, and if people jump ship, or don't jump ship, they're the ones that have to deal with it (though I do understand that it's hard when you love a piece of software so much and the barrier to keep using it gets higher). HOWEVER, I see a lot of people telling other people they are full of beans when they are saying that there was an earlier adopter sale, and question the date that these people purchased the product. I want to defend these people and because
THERE WAS AN EARLY ADOPTER SALE, AND IT WAS RELEASED MAY 27th!!! Holy smokes!!! Also, in these people's defense, based on what I've found, I'm guessing folks who upgraded from 10 likely paid something like $66 for their upgrade (if they were early adopters), now that's jumped to $199... yeah, I can see why they'd be a little disgruntled!
I don't know why some folks think it dropped June 3rd, and that there was no sale. However, I do see a correlation with people paying full price for it after that date!
Anyway, this isn't meant to call anyone out, or argue with anyone really. I just want everyone to get their facts straight. Now get out there and buy or don't buy MOHO12. It does look awesome.