SAN FRANCISCO ? Last week, NewTek announced a pricing strategy designed to lure users of competing animation tools over to it LightWave environment. This week, Avid is doing the same. At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Avid launched "Power Up to Softimage and Alienbrain" (www.softimage.com/powerup), a trade-in promotion designed to attract game developers to the company's 3D and asset management tools. The program - marking the formation of a dedicated market group that is focused on serving games and animation customers - offers trade-in rebates of up to 70 percent, for a limited time.
"With Softimage and Alienbrain, Avid provides two of the leading technologies that game developers need to deal with the complexity of next-generation consoles: scalable nonlinear 3D animation and proven, artist-friendly asset management," says Gregor vom Scheidt, VP at Avid for the computer graphics market. "To show how serious we are about this market, we are now offering these products for a limited time at unprecedented prices - making the decision to switch easier than ever before for a large number of users."
Gareth Morgan, senior product manager for Softimage at Avid adds, "Since the introduction of Softimage's new packaging and pricing last year, thousands of new artists have picked up SOFTIMAGE|XSI. We've significantly increased our market share and XSI Foundation has become one of the best-selling, professional-grade 3D packages. Continuing on that momentum, we are launching 'Power Up' at GDC to give users of 3DS Max a unique opportunity to explore a high-end alternative at a very compelling price."
"With the advent of next generation consoles, game teams expect to cope with ten times the content during production of a title," notes Matthias Adrian, senior product manager for Alienbrain at Avid. "We released V.7.1 of Alienbrain Studio just before GDC to help customers master this challenge. 'Power Up' now makes the most advanced asset management system for games accessible to every studio in the industry that is looking to upgrade from VSS."
The promotion provides the following price-matching cross upgrades for up to ten seats per customer, up until April 15, 2005: Power up from 3DS Max to XSI Essentials V.4.2 ($1,995); from 3DS Max V.6 for $795 (60 percent savings); from 3DS Max V.5 for $1,295, and from V.4 for $1,495.
Pros can Power Up from Visual SourceSafe to Alienbrain Studio V.7.1 ($690/$1,250 list price) and trade in their old license to get $500 per seat off: from VSS to Developer Client for $190 (70 percent savings) and from VSS to Designer Client for $750 (40 percent savings).
The "Power Up" promotion is available in the Americas and Europe through April 15, 2005, and is valid for purchases of up to 10 seats. Academic versions are not covered by this offer.