Herb,

I think most can understand your need to split up the product into sections (like Standard end Extended). The most important issue however (at least as I see it), is the one that older and loyal customers that have bought a lot of your products in the past seem (at least in some cases) to have to pay more for the same product in the end than a brand new customer would?

Your VIP program clearly guarantees that you never pay twice for the same samples and hopefully you will honor that. However, doing some initial maths on some of the upgrade paths, seem to indicate that in some cases this is exactly what you'll (as an old customer) end up doing.

I've used the example of the Solo Strings (since the info regarding it was available) in another thread:

New customer: Standard VI Solo Strings + Extended VI Solo Strings = €345 + €445 = Total of €790

Old customer: Horizon Solo Strings + Standard VI + Extended VI = €445 + €345 + €30 = Total of €820

Am I completely wrong about this...or does the old customer actually end up paying more for the same product, which means that he/she in this case actually does pay for at least some of the samples twice?

Rodney

The final price is okay,

The problem is not to pay for VI and additional samples !
The real problem is that if we dont need (or can't buy) the extended version, we don't have VIP advantage and we have no choice

It wasn't the term of VIP program at start (you don't respect your rules).
With this program, the cool thing was to be abble to buy (at our rhythm depending of our possibility) and to be sure to extend my VSL progressivelly and never pay the same samples !
You know that all PRO user will be interessed by the complete and extended package of VI (Be sure your work is great).

You final price is OK if i buy the extended version (Need to play loto), but i can't anymore use the VIP program to update progressively, or i MUST choice to buy the VI one buy one Not fairplay.

[/b]

VI and "old" VSL share between 25 and 75% of previous samples, DG.

OSX doesn't, it's a Unix-based system...

That is the question.

If Standard Chamber Strings contains 25% of the old samples and Extended Chamber Strings contains 75% of them, it sounds a strange upgrade: if I'm not wrong, you should pay Standard VI (samples) at -25% and Extended VI (samples) at -75%

but

old users would pay the Extended package only a bit more than shipping cost (30 euro or 35 USD), more or less a 95% discount on the Extended package and a 52% discount if you sum Standard + Extended. Seen this way, it could work although you must take the whole packet in order to "save";

but

another question is: how much a sample?

I really hope a VI Opus 3 is on the horizon...

I am not convinced by the 'dealer-distributor' explanation sorry..

You could set up be a 'dealer' site on your VSL site. So dealers can check what price they have to do for an earlier user.

- User gives his VSL license info.
- Dealer checks on VSL site what rate he has to make (including his commission).
- VSL site is updated about the fact that a purchase has been made for the licensee (so there is no double buying).

Everyone is happy.


I believe there are ways. I'm not buying into the fact that there aren't ways.

"Screw the clients to please the distributors" is a 'no way' for me. This is not defendable Herb.


What it really feels like to me is the following :

Ultimately VSL doesn't really want to risk a situation where many existing users might decide they don't need the extended stuff and decide to stop investing once they have the 'standard S-Cube edition'.

Obviously it's hard to make the practical consequences of such an approach fit with the "no double pay for samples" philosophy...

I would prefer honesty in a sense.
Something like : "Listen folks we have no other financial solution but to impose this to you. Otherwise we'll have to close the business".
or
" Sorry folks, investors are making us betray you. We've checked with our lawyers and we can do this to you without you being able to do anything about it. In the end you can protest as much as you want. Most of you will buy the stuff anyway because our product is brilliant".

I maybe wrong, but this is what it really feels like.
It doesn't feel like you really tried to find a fair solution for early users.

It's all business in the end. Nothing new...

let me fabulate it very simplified - most forum members expected the symphonic cube to be priced around EUR 10.000. it turned up this is approximately the price, even less: 9.200.
users who already have the pro edition (which originally was EUR 5.490) had to spend another EUR 5.410 to upgrade to the symphonic cube, if they additionally own certain libraries from the horizon series even less.
i cannot see this would be such a bad deal considering you also get a really advanced sampling engine ...
christian

btw: version X + upgrade to version Y of a product is always more expensive than instantly buying version Y ... i don't know a product or software where the opposite is the case.

With all due respect, but almost no one promise that you'd never pay twice for the sample - except VSL with the VIP-program. The VIP promise to customers is the major discussion point here.

After a few of Herb's posts it isn't clear to me how much/if the VI std ver include new content compared to the Pro/Hor versions.

I haven't made up my mind yet about the pricing structure. Perhaps further clarifications will sort it all out, in addition to some extra fringies for us oldies, no?

Cheers,

Chris

What on earth are you talking about?

You seem to be set on finding funny non-logical quirks to all reasoning. Of course what you describe is a completely different matter. I'm talking about the VIP pricing guarantee which states that you shouldn't have to pay for the same samples twice. I.e. upgrading from one level of a product to the next.

Your talking about a platform switch which is a completely different matter.

I'm the one home with fever, yet you seem to be even more delirious.

No offence, but if you can't stick with the simplest thread of reasoning, don't get into it. You just confuse us other delirious people.

R

CM,
with all my respect,

the "bad deal" is that you are forcing us to the extended versions, while the new user has the choice not to go the extended version way.

Are you really saying you don't understand why we have a problem with that?

You realise this is the main issue don't you?

That's what you really need to answer.

I hope that you aren't going to answer by saying :" you don't have to buy the S-cube it if you don't want to"..

Charl

Bottom line and this might seem a bit harsh but IMO it's the way it is:

VSL has given a clearly stated guarantee that no customer of theirs should ever have to pay for the same samples twice.

This means, that if a customer upgrades from X to Y it should be no more expenisve than buying X + Y at once as a new customer. In other words, the old customer should get X subtracted from Y and the sum should be exactly the same as the new customer buying the whole thing at once.

If this is not the case, then the old customer has clearly payed for the same sample(s) more than once (be it all of them or just some of them) which in turn is a breach of the guarantee.

R