That's a fair; we just have a difference of opinion.

My feeling is that innovative tech products cost a lot of money to develop, and two years ago iPi Software was proposing a product I needed (a low-cost motion capture system,) which still isn't offered by anybody else for anywhere near their current price*. I saw this as an investment opportunity to get one developed. Personally speaking, I can't say I regret that my investment in iPi's software development actually produced a good product I can use. :)

G.

*The closest product to iPi Studio that I'm aware of is the Optitrack system, also considered an entry level mocap system for independent artists and small studios, but its price starts at $6,000! With iPi Studio currently going for $995, I maintain that it is a very good value.

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Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Thought i'd add my two cents here. I bought during the beta and I had my issues with it but I was able to make a 30 second animation with it that paid for itself. If you charge anything close to the going rate for an animation you could cover the software, cameras, and a 460gtx.... If you're so concerned with price though just wait two more months and buy a Microsoft Kinect. I guarantee that there will be mocap software offered for it by either ipisoft themselves or by competitors by early spring 2011. Either way the there are pros and cons to both types of these "entry-level" systems.
Kinect
Pros
-multi-actor
-realtime feedback
-little to no calibration
-one camera
-cheaper software (presumably)
Cons
-low quality mocap
-expensive camera

Ipi's pricing will make sense if they can keep offering better quality over a Kinect system.
Ipi might even offer some sort of hybrid option that uses both Kinect and cameras... or use multiple Kinects even to keep quality up and cover where their software falls short right now.
All in all we'll see how things play out, but I think they're positioning themselves to be a step up from the impending Kinect systems and that's probably the right place to be.

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Well the last thing I say on the subject will be this.

Take your sales you've had in beta from a few months after it was introduced.

Now compare your sales you've had since you priced it at 1k (use the same amount of time frame to be fair)

Keep in mind you've had more exposure lately, and I guarantee your sales figures show far more purchases and money made when it was $500 or less. Honestly have even 10 people bought this since it went up to 1k?

You're making the assumption that nobody is buying the software at the current price, which considering the actual cost-effectiveness and quality of the product, seems unlikely to me. Now assuming a lot of artists and indie studios are buying at the current price (this is total speculation of course; neither of us have any clue how many people are buying the software,) if iPi Software suddenly dropped the price, it would be totally unfair to these new users.

Here's a thought: what if they offered occasional discount sales of iPi Studio, like some other companies do with their products during trade show events like Siggraph or E3? Of course, this is entirely up to them, but you might want to ask them about it. (I would send them an email; for obvious business reasons, I don't think they will want to comment on this subject in a public forum.)

Or...they could eventually offer different versions of the software, including a cheaper or free version with limited features. Based on the current information on their website, I think that was their plan. But of course they could always change their minds about this, which they have every right to do.

G.

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Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Thanks and we appreciate your feedback.

We do plan to have less expensive versions of our software, as we announced long time ago on our Sales web page. However, we still need more time to prepare different versions of software with meaningful sets of features for different kinds of users.