This is NOT true. According to the poll we made, the vast majority of users is satisfied and voted for SaaS option. It seems that the "only box, saas is evil" group is small, but very loud one.
That is good then, but I'm not thinking as of today, I'm thinking in one/two years or so, if I have Adobe and Corona as rented software for two workstations that makes me this:
Corona 50€
Adobe ~140€
Now add the following software we may need if it were on SaaS
3dsMax ~150€
Maya ~ 150€
This makes 490€/month, add also Unity 3D with iPhone and Android, as a generalist studio we do render and real time work:
Unity3d 57€
Android 57€
iPhone 57€
This makes a grand total of 661€ for a software I currently own and cost me 0/month, that doesnt means that I don't pay for it regularily, but I pay for it when I can, I recently paid around 2000€ for the Unity3d upgrade to version 4/5 but I want's able to pay for it before and I kept working with Unity 3.5.7 at cost 0 until I was able to pay for the upgrade, if in any case I had been unable to gain the money for Unity then I had been able to keep working for demos for clients with Unity 3.5.7 until I manage to acquire a project and I had been able to upgrade, with a rent option, this may have rendered impossible.
Same applies for the rest of the software, I don't doubt I will have 50€ next month, well there are times when I doubt it, but of course I pretty much doubt I will have 661€ every month for software, and I can't work with Corona without Max, so if I'm in a struggle I will have to stop working with corona to gain more projects becasue I will have to remove money from somewhere and Corona is not a base software, it's a render engine, as much as I like it.
In the end, is not that your SaaS price is not good, it is good, for me is great, as I said, as a side wing for my renderfarm, I don't need the rendefarm fed always, I can manage to work during the project with just 8 licenses (2 WS and 6 render) and pay for some nodes when it's needed, but I don't want to depend on my bank to keep working, I want to own my tools because if I don't have money, I have my tools to gain some more.
Now about my affirmation not being true, I thought I should have written "it feels that..." because I don't have data, anyways I know a lot of people that thought that SaaS (in general) is great until they start thinking in things like I told here, or when they start to pay for everything in SaaS mode, I have a friend that decided to go on SaaS with Unity, no he can't pay for it and it's locked up, he can't finish his project, the only solution was me helping him for free because I own my licenses so I don't depend on money to work with Unity, the same goes for Corona or for any tool I have.
Adobe is the only SaaS I have to keep, and I will get rid of it as son as I can, i'm looking for alternatives for After Effects and Photoshop, there are some for the first one, but there is no real alternative for photoshop, but I'll manage to found some way throught it.
Now regarding what DeadClown said, I think that way, SaaS is not evil, in fact SaaS could be great for a lot of people, what you do keeping Box license is the way to go IMHO, it just felt that you love SaaS a lot and leave the Box licenses with less love, like the ugly son hehehe, it felt that way because after the first wave of comments you modified a lot of things in the SaaS model like giving an increased render node option, but with Box licenses you just removed the 90 days of grace for subscription and that's it, that doesn't felt good, at least for me as a Box customer (bear in mind I don't say it in an angry tone or anything, it's just how it felt), but I always kept in mind you were trying to be fair while remaining in business.
Anyways I'm happy for people that like SaaS , I have to insist SaaS is not evil, is great as an option, wich is what you are doing, and me, from my side, I'm grateful to you for not offering just SaaS.
About the general disappointment regarding box, you may be right but I've already read some people saying that they won't be able to afford it here, but Ondra, you could be right, and it may be that this small group it's just too loud (I may be inside that group I assume)
Anyways, i'll keep purchasing Corona Box license, and with my comments about the pricing and subscription for Box I'm trying to be constructive on giving plausible options that could keep you going with what you need but will let more users that want the box model in.
And fianlly, why people understand 350+99 is worse than 450, well, I don't understand that either, and I tried to explain that 350+99 is better than 450€, but I think that people is seeing it as 450€ no matter what since once you acquire Corona you have to acquire the subscription no matter what or you won't be able to enter on it, and maybe that's what people are saying, if you want kept up to date you have no option to chime in later, so the real price is 450€ no 350€+99€, I'm playing the devils advocate here, because I will always prefer to have the option to not acquire the subscription, but really think about giving the option for a delayed subscription acquisition, even when the subs time counts from the license purchase date, not from the subscription purchase date, this can relax the thing about having to acquire the subs right away and spending 99€ more.
Another thing that I don't understand, and more people here have spoken about, is the thing that the SaaS will be flaoting, while the Box wont, as I say, it feel a bit like in the end the box licenses is poorly treated than the SaaS (my words may sound hars, but I wont them to sound harse, I want just to comment this out because I've been thinking on how to expose this since the second post about pricing was published but I thought that this oculd offend or something similar, so bear in mind that I don't want to offend please), maybe the floating thing is not true, because I don't remember seeing anything completely clear about it, I think you said that this parts of the licenses were not completely decided yet.
Cheers.