Hi Guys,
I can appreciate your feedback. But the fact of the matter is MainLobby has not seen a price increase since back in 2002 when we offered ML2 for $60. Actually it's gone down in price - it originally was being sold for $60 and we lowered it to $59.99. :huh:
Since version 2.0's release, we've added lots of new features and MainLobby probably only had a handful of graphics back then. Now it comes with over 300 graphics standard and over 50 bkgd skins. Along the way, there have been no charges for upgrades since version 2.0's release. All free. So we've been providing 2 years of free upgrades on ML.
I think users are getting confused by the addition of our new GuiGraphix libraries. This does not add to the cost of MainLobby. The product is the same price as it was before. We're just expanding our offerings to make it easier for our users to build complex/great looking scenes in a matter of seconds. Users can certainly import their own graphics as has always been the case.
Some competing products don't even include a fraction of the graphics nor the designer environment we've provided. Editing text files to replace graphics can really be painful.
We've kept our products modular for obvious reasons. Not everyone is using our products for the same thing. Some only want certain features. Because of this, the modular approach allows them to only purchase what they need. As well as add when budget permits.
Our thermost and security library are selling currently for $24.99. I'm guessing it will save someone roughly 10-20 hours worth of work and probably still wouldn't look as professional. The fact that the library is available directly from MainLobby's Library also makes it easier to work with rather than external files. This requires programming and careful planning on our part to deliver these libraries. The Home and Media library is a special case and is priced quite a bit higher. At the same time, these graphics are not available anywhere else. They are not royalty free and sold all over the web. They are strictly marketed/sold to MainLobby customers and therefore have a limited sales potential. For fun, I would recommend someone go out and solicit and illustrator to find out the cost per icon to develop. I think you'll be stunned how much it would cost to develop the home and media library as we've done. Then on top of that customize it to work entirely within MainLobby. I think you'll be looking at $150 to $250 per icon from a qualified designer - your cousin Louie who took an art class in middle school doesn't count as a qualified designer either.
This industry requires multiple products in order for a company to grow, succeed and continue development. I'm pretty sure Dan and I can't keep up our pace forever. 12-16 hour days gets tiring after 3 years. We're looking to grow and continue to expand. Which means hiring additional bodies as well as outsourcing.
We'll continue to release more libraries because there is a demand for these graphics. We hope users will continue to support Cinemar whenever possible. We realize not everyone will be able to afford every single product we release, but they are available for those that can.
I think if some people took time to look at many of the things we've provided for free over the years, you'll realize we've been very generous.
I know there has been a lot of talk about pricing on a variety of products in the industry so I thought it might be good to users to hear from another point of view. It could be much worse, we could have raised prices based on gasoline prices over the last two years and the cost of living. Unfortunately we decided to keep our pricing the same.
