once you pay do u have to pay again?

[nod114]

hello all
i have a simple question
once you buy L3DT and download it and then a new vertion comes out do u have to buy that upgraded version or is it like garage games when you can upgrade wen ever you want with no cost needed?

[lmaceleighton]

I think I got free updates for like a year and a half the first time I bought it, and then Aaron gave me a discount for another period of time. I am sure Aaron will answer this in more detail, as one of the things I love about thing L3DT is the service!

[Aaron]

Hi nod114,

If you purchase a license, you are entitled to free updates for 18 months, which historically equates to two or three releases. After this time, you may continue to use the program indefinitely, but you will not receive new updates unless you choose to renew your license. At this moment in time, renewals receive a 40% discount.

My judgement was that this model provides more certainty to users as to how long they will receive updates. The alternative model of 'updates forever' usually apply to a specific major version or product, which eventually is discontinued. Consider your example of GarageGames and their engine licenses. Torque users receive updates until the engine is 'finished', which is an unspecified and theoretically unlimited time period, but in practice is limited. TGE was last updated in 2007, TGEA was last updated in 2009, and now we have T3D, and one suspects in a year or two, they will declare T3D finished and produce a new game engine. At each engine change, users had to pay to upgrade.

To be clear, I have no objections to that charging model used by Torque. I think it makes a lot of sense to provide updates until the engine is 'complete'. However, in my experience of developing L3DT, I've found the concepts of 'versions' and 'completeness' to be rather arbitrary. Certainly, I think we could all agree that for a version to be 'complete' it must do all that is promised and have no bugs that interfere with the proper use of the software. Beyond that, it gets a bit fuzzy. For example, how many 'features' should be added to get a new version? How do we account for improvements to existing features, or the 'size' of new features? Changes are many, small and continuous, as opposed to few, large and quantised. In the end, I decided that it would be too artificial to charge users when upgrading from, say, v2.0 to v3.0, because a version's worth of changes is still and arbitrary decision on my part. Instead, I give you the results of the last X years of development*, plus another 18 months worth of my labour, including prompt bugfixes, and any other improvements that I have the time and imagination to conjure up. It's a simple model, and, I think, an honest one.

That said, I'm more than happy to take suggestions on changes to the licensing arrangements. If you or any other user would like to recommend or discuss different models, please reply to this thread.

Best regards,
Aaron.

* Where X = 7, at present.

[nod114]

that makes since
it is a good deal already with out the 40% decrease lol
i mean its just 35 $ that is a deal no one can argue with