My Avid post that was just too long I felt bad if I posted it on their forums

OK, want to inject an idea here. And before I do, I just want to say that I know that video games are a world away from NLE software, but it's an idea I've always wondered with all of our rants about pricing.

The president of Valve Software (video game company) came out to explain the dramatic increase of sales they have seen when they offer their games for limted time discounts through their software download application "Steam" (think iTunes for video games).

http://www.edge-online.com/features/valve-are-games-too-expensive

You're looking at a hit game that increased sales by 3000%. Yes, three thousand. Not only did they make more money lowering the price and increasing sales, but more importantly for Avid, they got their game into more HANDS. More people playing means more people telling their friends how cool it is.

It's the story of Photoshop to me. Why is Photoshop so pervasive? Cuzz when we were younger it was so easy to get a hacked copy and learn it. Now that we make money with it, I buy every new version that comes out. Apple knows this with FCP. It's pretty easy to find and install illegitimately, and that's one way people can get their hands on it. For Apple, it's clearly the number of users with it in their hands, not the cost of it. And yes, they have the added bonus that the more people that get FCP, that's probably another Mac computer sale.

I'm not saying Avid should make their software easy to pirate (although I do hate the dongle, what decade is this?) and I think the educational pricing is great, but what I would like to see happen is for MC and other Avid software get into peoples' hands. We all know that once you learn Avid you realize it's soooooo much better than FCP. But for some reason or another I know people who don't even want to try using Avid. It's almost like the people who swear up and down that Windows Vista is aweful, but have never actually used it themselves. ( I just had a vision of the MacVsPC ads, but with FCP vs Avid... who would play the characters?)

I'm so sick of getting handed footage from a p2 shoot as DVCPROHD quicktimes that were run through Final Cut because the guy on set had no reservations assuming I was using Final Cut Pro.

My point is, I don't want to say what's best for Avid, because of course I don't know. But, I would love to see Avid put more easily into peoples hands and have someone "assume" that I might be using it. I would like to see lower prices and a wider spread use than higher prices and limited use only to those higher budgets. This seems to be the position Avid currently promotes, and that's fine, but personally I don't think it will lead to a good end. To me it's still old thinking, but what do I know.

About a decade ago I worked for a rather large, but not famous, software company that sold a product to create dynamic web applications. Totally ahead of its time with what it could do. The problem was (as how I, as an mere software engineer, saw it) was that we sold our software for approx. $25,000 dollars. In any case, at whatever point, the Hail Mary was thrown and it was decided to sell the software at about $10,000. This company no longer exists. It was totally crushed by this program called "Flash" that could be purchased for about $600 dollars.

I just hope the current Avid pricing isn't their Hail Mary.

QWERTY is king, mp3 dominates, IE has 67% of the market... sometimes it doesn't matter if the other system is better.

ps. ran across a podcast of a good set of guys discussing FCP and Avid marketshare. And I know how we all like to listen to people talking about that. http://www.thatpostshow.com/