Most of the zbrushcentral User dont see this Thread. It has no Icon and it isn`t on the frontpage. This is the old Thread System. Pixo/Maxon will ignore it (dont know it) so the theme gets old and vorgotten like the old Licencesystem and the old zbrushcommunity… Weekly advertising from maxon brings the resign/deadening and new User will be happy with the new subscription because it is a low price to start with zbrush.
…sit out until the waves have calmed down.
Next step is zbrush2023 and nobody talks about the licence change again…
I guess I didnt see this thread until they moved my posting over into this “forum” area. So I will ask you all here this question too…
I am just curious who all did pay for the MAXON 50% off del because they needed to get the 50% off like I did? What did we actually pay for? I downloaded the MaxonOne app and there is nothing to install right now so didn’t I just pay for nothing? Since it was expired on August 5th, I thought I needed to because it will be hard to afford the full price one for a family like mine. And I use it at work and need too for a living. But we didn’t really get anything, right? I mean, there is no announced NEW ZBrush. I just feel like all this did was make my YEAR subscription date that much sooner with no announcements for a new version. Right? Am I missing something? And I love ZBrush, dont get me wrong, just making sure I didnt miss something I should have gotten by PAYING for something I didnt really get?
You should be able to use the Maxon App to install ZBrush 2022.0.5, and this installation will be compatible with the Maxon activation system. If you have Maxon App version 3.0 or above you should see ZBrush there.
If you do not have the ability to install, please contact the Maxon Support team. Support Center (maxon.net) Because this is a Maxon App or account issue, you’ll need to click the option to create a ticket under the “Support Requests” heading rather than the “ZBrush Support” heading.
To answer the rest of your question, you have effectively paid for what you already have – but you will receive all updates and new features for free for the duration of your subscription. Since you have your first year at 50% off, you’ve saved a nice chunk of change when that new version comes out. (Which will most likely be later this year. Remember that we normally announce new versions during the ZBrush Summit in late September/early October and then release at some point before the end of the year.)
Yeah, and I totally understand that but it does seem that the better way would have been to announce something and give me a reason to pay and hey, here is a 50% if you do for staying with us. As of now, that one year sub is started and really…i didnt get anything BUT thats my fault. I fell for it based on a deal and the threat of paying full price. And yes, the Maxon One app does have the installer but yeah, no reason to even mess with it for now. Thanks for answering and just verifying what I did was right…or at least I did download and got what I paid for that is.
But for people with a perpetual version, 50% off a years updates, all that means is at he end of the year their perpetual version doesn’t have thoese updates to keep.
The initial email arrived to me on the 18/07 (07/18 depending on your continent of choice). At best, you release a new version mid September. So for people who took up this offer on the first day of the email, they get 10 months where there might be ongoing updated for half the price of 12 months. On the other hand, if a new update isn’t released until late December, starting the half price subscription mid July means that they’ll only get potentially 7 months of “updates” for the price of 6, and hardly "you’ve saved a nice chunk of change ". Wow, what an incredible bargain that would be, 7 months of subsription, but you’ve only paid for 6!.
But either way, when someone ends their subscription, they lose access to all those updates and only has the “last” perpetual version that they have the update for, and for many hobbiests and other users that are not making money using Zbrush, that may well be 2022.0.5.
I think many people who would have been happy to pay Pixologic a reasonable upgrade cost knowing it’s going to the Pixologic team who develop and support Zbrush will be very inclined to pay (at a guess) 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a perpetual copy, annually, to keep up to date, knowing that the money is going to Maxon.
@aurick you certainly didn’t seem as keen on the idea of subscriptions 20 years ago…
How times or paymasters have changed
Let’s put things in perspective.
The Pixologic academic license cost about $500. It was truly perpetual, so long as it was never used for profit. To use it for profit you could upgrade it to a commercial license by paying half the commercial license price at time of upgrade. Ultimately, you would have spent about $50-100 more going that route than if you’d purchased the commercial license outright, but it was a pretty good deal in the long run for people who were going to stay hobbyists or who didn’t know if they were going to end up making a career out of ZBrush or not.
Look at the rest of what I wrote:
If A/W really wanted to benefit students, they’d make the full version of the program inexpensive enough that universities could put it on their systems. Then all students would be able to use it while they were in school without getting raped worse than they are for textbooks.
Now look at what Maxon is doing. Maxon offers pricing for universities that is quite reasonable. In other words, “inexpensive enough that universities could put it on their systems.”
More than that, Maxon has a license for students and teachers. It is the full Maxon One subscription and it costs $9.99 every six months. It’s literally just enough to cover Maxon’s administrative fees.
I’d take that over the Pixologic academic pricing any day.
So yes, times have changed.
While ZBrush upgrades were free, the perpetual license made way more sense than a subscription ever would. However, the free upgrades were ALWAYS going to end eventually. I remember no fewer than three versions over the years where Pixologic announced that “this will be the final free upgrade,” only to later change their minds.
Now that free upgrades have finally ended… times have changed. There are users who don’t care about upgrades. For those users, a perpetual license is still the best value. But the vast majority of us prefer to get new features, and that means paying for upgrades. As long as I’m using software X, I’m buying upgrades as they come out. The fact that I could opt out of an upgrade is really the illusion of choice because when the time comes, the new features make me want to buy it. So I’m still paying every year for the software. I just imagine that I have a choice in the matter. If I stop using the software, I don’t care about buying upgrades anymore – but I’m not using the software anymore either.
Properly managed, a subscription is exactly the same thing, at a lower price and with more frequent updates because the developer doesn’t have to wait until enough features accumulate to bundle into an upgrade. It also happens to represent a lower barrier to entry because a subscription costs less to purchase than a perpetual license. That means more customers, which in turn helps fund ongoing development at a faster pace. Which in turn benefits the entire user base.
Let’s put it another way. A perpetual license purchase is transactional. You buy, the company gives… and then wants you to go away and leave them alone until the next upgrade comes around for you to buy. A subscription is symbiotic. The company has to win your business not just once, but on an ongoing basis.
Again, just my two cents. 
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and my two scents are that with non free upgrades zbrush is a little bit too expensive for hobbists or hobby-indies (below 100.000/year).
would be great if maxon would have a better offer for these people.
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And the option to buy a perpetual lisence of Zbrush Core from Pixologic/Maxon has now gone. Subscription only now, with no announcement that it would be happening that I’ve seen.
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Not really. Winning business is about choice. The company has to win you business to get you to buy the upgrade. With a perpetual license your past work is always accessible and you keep creating if the company doesn’t justify your purchase of the new features in the upgrade.
With a subscription, your software stops working the moment you stop paying, so you lose access your past work as well as the ability to create future work if the software is relatively unique (ZPR format, for example.) Hence, whether the company improves the software or not (e.g. “win[s] your business”) you need to keep paying. Unfortunately, many companies have gone to subscription just to keep a constant revenue stream with relatively ho-hum or minor improvements.
Maxon even warns you that if you go back to your perpetual license from a subscription you need to export your files as they won’t work.
Hence, for a serious user that doesn’t view their work as disposable, there is no choice.
For myself I looked at the choice just offered, but discovered it was actually kind of restrictive: I nearly went for the subscription, but with Maxon’s policies, I don’t get an activation for my workstation and laptop (like I had for the last 20 years with Pixologic.) Instead I get ONE activation and to switch between workstation and laptop I have to 1) be online and 2) deactivate the workstation. To return the workstation, I again have to go through the activation-deactivation hokey-pokey.
Maxon’s solution to this rather practical problem? Buy two subscriptions of course! Even Adobe gives me two activations.
So in terms of “winning my business” Maxon seems to be going to the wrong direction: pay more and get less.
While ZB is still the best sculpting solution today, I can see that Maxon is either unaware or doesn’t care that alternatives are already starting to crop up and accelerate their efforts in market. I’m not sure the digitial sculpting niche is going to survive multiple players trying to slice up the pie.
To me, I feel Maxon is monetizing the Zbrush base while promising very little in return. The 50% one-year offer seemed to only be softening the blow that it will obsolete our perpetual licenses if we jump on the subscription train and the file formats change.
Given that Maxon has had eight months to discuss and lay out their solutions to the future of Zbrush, I can’t conclude that they is much good to say. If there was exciting advantages (and no, intergration with Maxon One does not excite me) Maxon would be, by this time shouting it from the rooftops to increase their market share instead of offering fire-sale, “pay me 50% today for a hamberger Tuesday” promotions. (No functionality offered, just the threat that your perpetual license will become outmoded by upcomming, unamed, undescribed technology which wil have an expressed price if you don’t subscribe.) If there was something good to motivate the customer, I think its a marketing mis-step to not put it forward as motivation towards subscribing.
Instead, we only see the threat of unknown as a motivator.
Considering that Zbrush updates traditionally consider both bug fixes and product features, which will likely force the professional users to subscription model, I don’t hold a lot of hope for perpetual license “upgrades” unless they offer the fixes that will come on top of those upgrades as part of the package. Maxon has been mum on that, but the implication from all their discussion of subscriptions has left me to believe that they believe bug fixes are for subscribers only.
I don’t see how the perpetual license model will survive this transition.
For a symbiosis to be truly symbiotic, both parties need to prosper. So far Maxon isn’t really putting on the table a coherent picture of what that future prosperity will look like (other than Maxon One integration.)
TL; DR
Thus it will ultimately come down to one choice. Subscribe to Maxon Zbrush or look to a different provider. Only at the point of serious competition will Maxon truly have to win the customer’s favor. 
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Hi there,
I can’t find an answer to my simple question, so I ask it here.
I have a Pixologic subscription that costs me $161.96 every six months: what will happen to my subscription?
I’d like to have a clear and straight answer, please.
Regards,
Pino
Your subscription is grandfathered as a six-month sub. It can’t be edited by you to have new payment information, so when you cancel it or it fails to renew, that will be the end and you will need to purchase a new license. (Maxon has monthly or annual subs, but no six-month subs.)
During the month of September, your subscription billing will be moved from Authorize.net to Digital River. In most cases, nothing will need to be done by you for that to happen. When it does take place you will receive an instructional email.
Before your subscription renews, you will need to install ZBrush using the Maxon App. That way it will be able to use Maxon’s licensing system and see the payments being made there. Your legacy installation will stop working the day that the renewal happens because the legacy system can only see Authorize.net’s billing.
Ok, so for now I installed Maxon ZBrush as unlicensed. Will my subscription about stay unchanged?
When your subscription is migrated, the Maxon App version will be able to start working. Until then, continue to use the legacy installation.
What about the cost? I expect the cost to be locked to the existing contract.
Hi Aurick,
Can we keep our perpetual ZBrush 2022 license and still use this offer to sign up for Maxon One or will we have to surrender our perpetual?
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The price of the subscription is not changing.
Thank you - I see the answer is yes.
I am also pleased to see perpetual licenses will be able to be upgraded. 
hope it’s not prohibitive.
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I thought maxon was some elaborate phishing attempt aimed at absconding our licensees when I started getting mail from them.
Somehow this seems worse since spam blocking them isn’t going to be as useful as I thought.
Sending me an email asking for username, license number and all the other information I (and I hope everyone else) learned decades ago to never give out with no warning from Pixologic says a lot about them, and none of its good. Stupid is the word that springs to mind.
So…
What happens if I don’t make an account with them?
What happens with KeyShot?
Good god, did they get Sculptris too?
I have what I think is the latest ZBrush, I have KeyShot, I have (and still use and love) Sculptris, and I’ve got Blender.
Do I need anything from them really?
They are going to have a hell of a lot of work getting me past all this. I don’t want or need subscription services, I stopped using PhotoShop when adobe made that mistake and I don’t see me wanting to change that any time soon.
I really don’t have the time to think about these people frankly, this just sucks as near as I can tell. More cooperate takeover crap is all I’m seeing here and I don’t think I want anything to do with it.;
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I’ve tried unsubscribing to these Maxon migration spam emails,
They wanted a reason why I unsubscribed.
This was my answer:
I don’t want to be reminded of Zbrush/Pixologic/Maxon ever again.
Unfortunately, I’m still getting their spam.
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