License no longer working

[Ualaa]

At one point, PB was advertised as a product without any mention of a renewal fee.

Later, the PB page was changed to mention the requirement of a renewal, but until the 2.5 (current) version came out, no one was forced to renew the software to continue using it.
I remember quite a few people talking on these forums, when the PB page was changed to mention the renewal; Tim mentioned that it had always been intended as a subscription model.

I see the benefits of a subscription model...
The owner/author continues to receive support for their work, and improve the product via new features and options as time passes to attract new customers and retain existing customers.
I really like the subscription model.

I also like the idea of an old version (1.x) which will not receive further updates, and may at some point break entirely.
And then having a newer version (2.5) which uses the subscription model...
I'm not affiliated with PB, so my opinions on this don't really count for anything.

However, I frequently see Tim using the word "shady" when describing some of the software boxing competition programs...
Charging a fee to continue to use the original version, at least charging those who purchased the software prior to the website mentioning a requirement for a renewal fee, seems a little bit wrong to me... possible illegal as well, not sure on that.

Tim has always treated his customers well; he's also given excellent support for his product.
Give him a little time to decide how he wants to proceed with older purchases of the original version.

I'd encourage anyone who likes PB to take advantage of the new and improved version of PB, but to also be aware it is a subscription model which means regular updates and new features in exchange for additional fees over time.

[Chamassa]

Originally Posted by Beomon

At the time Keyclone cost more.

Are you a representative of Pwnboxer and suggesting he should not have bought it? I guess a refund would be in order then.

The old version of Pwnboxer worked fine for nearly everything. The poster you are ridiculing (in addition to myself) purchased Pwnboxer under a specific license with free upgrades and you cant understand any frustration he has?

I believe the owner should have retired the old version, leaving it as is for people to continue using. Then created the new version as a Pro version or something. Eventually everyone would have upgraded to the Pro version anyway, just no frustration with what feels like sneaky salesman tactics.

Read Ulalaa's post above mine.

Unca just gave his opinion about what software to use out of the two of those for the specific situation of a person. And looking at the situation, he is probably right that you don't need pwnboxer to just avoid alt tabbing when 'leeching' your alts through stuff.

That said, i am working for Tim, so it would be anything but logical for me to tell people to pick another product over pwnboxer. The facts however are that i encourage everyone to make their own choices on what software to use. If they find that pwnboxer is not for them, i am fascinated and would like to know why: from a developer point of view.

Beyond what i said earlier, that the 'free updates' are in no proven invalid by the fact subscribtion renewal was delayed because of the lack of a big update, i don't feel like it's my place to talk about this any more. I was not around at the time these users bought a pwnboxer license, so all i can say is what i heared from Tim and members of this forum.

[Unca]

Originally Posted by Beomon

At the time Keyclone cost more.

Are you a representative of Pwnboxer and suggesting he should not have bought it? I guess a refund would be in order then.

The old version of Pwnboxer worked fine for nearly everything. The poster you are ridiculing (in addition to myself) purchased Pwnboxer under a specific license with free upgrades and you cant understand any frustration he has?

I believe the owner should have retired the old version, leaving it as is for people to continue using. Then created the new version as a Pro version or something. Eventually everyone would have upgraded to the Pro version anyway, just no frustration with what feels like sneaky salesman tactics.

Relax, you are reading far too much into my comment. It had been so long since I'd used Keyclone that I had forgotten that it had a cost, sorry about that. My point was simply that for the use he described, Keyclone would be ideal, for the reasons I stated.

I don't see how my comment would mark me as "a representative" of Pwnboxer (or why such a helpful comment from a rep would be grounds to demand a refund) nor do I see how my comment could be regarded as ridiculing anyone. Take a deep breath, lashing out at everyone you see isn't terribly useful.

[Vlos]

Yeah, no one needs to get overhyped.

It's a purchase decision I need to make.

This has all caught me by surprise because I never got any emails (because my ISP provider blocks emails from this site). But the daily msg that pops up whenever I start PwnBoxer didn't even mention a required upgrade (which I believe is downloaded every time I start). thus I was caught by surprise.

Also a bit unhappy with "upgrade" costs. Being a developer myself, it's surprising the "discount" owners get for an upgrade.

Here are some good discussion on Subscription costs/upgrade costs....
Scientific Computing: Software upgrade pricing strategies
- A total of 16: 2 are 80% - 14 are under 60% (of which 10 of those are under 40%)
* The Business of Software - Upgrade Price
- or just google it....

Because I use PwnBoxer in a limited fashion I need to determine if it's worth it for me (as I'm sure others do as well).

Do I like PnwBoxer, yes, but before that I was simply using macros. But for ~$50 a year, macros seem better, so may just try that for a while (or other solution).

[Beomon]

Of course I over-reacted as well. I liked Pwnboxer and it rubbed me wrong when all of a sudden I couldn't use it anymore.

Its unlikely I will upgrade. I used Pwnboxer for WoW only, and WoW is on its way down. I have cancelled my WoW accounts, along with the other 300,000 people a month that have been leaving.

Multiboxing software is the smallest part of the cost, having to buy 5xgames, 5xsubscriptions, etc. makes the measly $47 to buy the boxing software seem trivial. But I only need one program to box, I know IsBoxer works, but unable to test the new Pwnboxer.

[Tim]

Hey there,

I let the thread run without comment by myself to see what you guys thought.

Pwnboxer always was a yearly license. I remember distinctly since I recall resorting the "check out" page at one point to list what you get, and in that what you get listing it mentioned the 1 year license (which was mentioned in another area). The reason I added the more up front listing was simply due to questions people asked about how long the purchase was good for, how long they could download, how long they could use, etc. It was always there, I just added an extra mention of it. I remember offering to give the money back to a person who asked me about it. Realistically, a large portion of the design of Pwnboxer + the website is based on user feedback, with this being just one more of those.

Zoom ahead almost 3 years and it ended up Pwnboxer turned from a 1 year license w/almost 2 years for free (depending on when you got it). I've stated it a few times in the past, but I specifically did not require everybody to renew their license at once because I felt that Pwnboxer should get another big "oompf" upgrade/update before people repaid for the software license.

For those people who say this is greedy, you should think a bit more closely about that. I specifically allowed nearly 2 years of no renewals. The money lost there potentially as high as THREE TIMES the combined Pwnboxer sales. If I was a greedy person, then I would be one hell of a crappy greedy person to sacrifice that amount of cash. That literally means that for every $100 in 2009 that Pwnboxer made, I gave up $100 in 2010, and $100 in (what is left of) 2011.

I did this because Pwnboxer is all about community, all about constant changes and upgrades, and about having fun. The renewal license offer an incentive to me to keep the software updated, expand the features beyond typical multiboxing softwares (such as the integrated screenshot functionality).

One of my favorite things about Pwnboxer is community feedback. I absolutely LOVE when people come up with awesome ideas on my stream, in the forums, and via emails. One of the coolest features was made in the stream by a non-multiboxer a long time ago which made it into the program (video recording).

Realistically, multiboxing software is the smallest cost of multiboxing, yet probably the most important area. The better your software functions, the better support is, and the more incentives the developer is to enhance it, the better your multiboxing experience will be.

EDIT #1: About the upgrade, for those of you in 2009 who remember Pwnboxer originally, I used Paypal for doing the purchases. Well, Paypal sucks ass, and I had to move away from them. This system I created for licensing was modified to allow for upgrades, however, Paypal is currently locked in a massive legal battle for taking 100% of the money of game developers for 180 days. Unfortunately I just couldn't release any upgrade system knowing that Paypal would take all the cash. Everybody should seriously go to www.paypalsucks.com and learn more about their practices and stop using them. Corrupt paypal is corrupt. So basically my upgrade system was unusable, and my current billing company I've partnered with for money transactions doesn't allow for 2 prices for the same product (Pwnboxer), so I'm stuck with the normalized pricing. In the future I hope to correct this, but that future might be a long ways away.

TLDR: Subscription software provides continual funding for the developers to constantly upgrade the software. Better upgrades = better supported software = more fun for you. For example, you will never have to worry about something like a WoW update causing PB to not work as PB will be updated.

Pwnboxer lives and thrives off the feedback of others and I am honored to continually serve the users by continually adding features to Pwnboxer.

[Ualaa]

The subscription model is definitely the strongest, in terms of having the best software to use as a user.

$37 or $47 for a year (the two boxing programs that are subscription based, and I know the pricing for them) is a rather small amount of my boxing incurred fees.

There's also around $50(Can) per game or $250 in total, for each expansion which was a two year cycle and now seems to be a 1.5 year cycle; that equates to $125 (previously) or $166 (currently) just to have the expansion.
Then a years worth of play time, for five Warcraft accounts, is $900 if you go with a month by month basis... you can knock off a couple of bucks a month per account (by going with 3 or 6 month subscriptions, instead of monthly subscriptions) and end up paying just under $800 for a year.

$950+ (subscriptions & expansions) per year versus under $50 for the boxing program...

[Tim]

Well said Ualaa.

I personally rather pay for subscription software for things that I use daily (vs free/cheap/onetime programs). I use a lot of paid programs for my daily work routine. When you support a person/team/company, they in turn tend to support you.

Easily said from my perspective of course, but really it is true. Not just of software, but of everything in life. I love to reward those who help support me, and I appreciate the rewards of those whom I support.

[Tim]

Thanks for the feedback all. Since this question is addressed I'm going to go ahead and close the thread.