I’m sorry that you feel “cheated”. Just for my understanding, you purchased Cubase Pro 13 with a rebate of 50% and you feel cheated because you don’t receive the update to Cubase Pro 14 free of charge six weeks later?
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People who buy Cubase for the first time don’t know that’s how it works, so they wouldn’t know to delay their activation as long as possible. It’s a bad first impression to run into this after you make your first purchase of Cubase or Nuendo.
I also didn’t know that the grace period begins with activation and not purchase, or I would have waited till my demo expired.
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People who delayed their activation got Cubase 14 included with their deal.
Also, being happy about having gotten a great deal is one thing. Being asked to pay more immediately after turns that happiness into disappointment rather quickly.
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I was a cubase user since forever, started on Pro 12, then Pro 24 then their first version of Cubase.
About 9 - 10 years ago, my personal situation meant I had to sell everything I possibly could, to get some money. This included all my synth gear and software.
Thankfully for the past 4 years I’ve been back on my feet and I’m financially secure, own my house outright etc etc. I am a 60 year old man who had to retire due to severe (but not terminal) health issues, as my mortgage is finished, we have a nice disposable income.
I started my journey back to the synth world using Reaper, then went to Studio one. I simply could not justify to myself (or my wife), paying out the cost of a full version of Cubase. I would have love to have bought Cubase and Halion four years ago, but it was out of the question.
At just under £500 for Cubase Pro and another just under £500 for Dorcio Pro ,when I could sub to Studio one for £20 a month and get all their other things included their Notion scoring software, I simply couldn’t justify to myself the price of coming back to Steinberg.
Then September happens, I see they have a 40 year sale, I look into it and see people are giving away 70% off vouchers.
I jumped at it, I cancelled my Studio One sub and got Cubase for just £147.60
Yesterday Cubase 14 dropped and it cost me a further £83
That makes a total of £230.60, that is a very very very good deal and I’m more than happy.
I also used my 70% off vouchers I got for buying Cubase and bought the following.
Absolute 6 Full version for just £127.20
Dorico 5 Pro Full version for just £147.60
Wavelab Pro 12 Full version for £127.60
So for the total price of £633 I’ve got everything (except Nuendo) instead of paying around £1800 full price, OK I would always have waited for one of their normal sales, but even then it still cost a LOT more than £633. I could only justify buying these at what is a substantial amount of money to me, because it was such a very very good and unusually very cheap deal. It really was one of those too good to miss deals.
I’m trying to show how much of a good deal their 40 year sale was, I don’t think everyone fully understands what a rare low cost deal they got.
Steinberg have gained a lot of new customers in that sale (and got me back). In my opinion common sense says they were never going to include the sale items in their grace period, perhaps I just think differently to others?
Those that updated from 12 Pro to 13 Pro haven’t lost anything.
If you upgraded from 12 Pro to 13 Pro in the sale it was $100
If you upgrade from 13 Pro to 14 Pro it’s also $100
But it you want to upgrade from 12 Pro to 14 Pro it’s $200 so by upgrading in September, you haven’t lost anything financially although admittedly you haven’t really gained anything by taking part in their sale either.
I can understand the mindset where if someone has cross graded from a competitor and only a month later find their software is effectively out of date already. Coming to a new company to find there’s only one final update then Steinberg are effectively leaving you to your own means, well if that was me, it would leave a bad feeling. Sure it still works the same, sure it will take ages to learn it properly anyway, but I do understand peoples grievances in this particular situation.
Personally I think Steinberg should have made a concession to those cross graders for that reason.
I also think they should change their grace period rules to purchase date rather than activation date as I think people who know the system hence used a demo version to get round this, has added to the discontent of new customers .
From what I’ve read, if I understand it correctly, someone could have bought an old version (11 or older) and decide to only activate it today and get a free update to 14, whereas someone who bought the software on the same day but chose to activate it and use it straight away would have to pay £207 to upgrade. (and I suspect people could get hold of old versions dirt cheap at some places?)
That seems unfair to me, both had equal chance to use the software when they bought it, so one person decided to use it straight away and they have to pay, someone else decides (their choice) to buy and not use it, gets a free upgrade. Doesn’t really make sense to me.
But at the end of the say, that September deal was a one off dirt cheap deal and the update prices are very very reasonable in my opinion, upgrade if you want, don’t if you don’t want, continue using whatever version you chose and make music and have fun
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@Matthias_Quellmann Exactly what @Held says. I bought it for a reason in the sale and not before, being asked for another 100 Euros 6 weeks later is just… what I said…
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Maybe that’s the misunderstanding. We are not asking you to update. It’s not a mandatory update. It’s not a subscription. You won’t lose any of your investment if you don’t update. Cubase Pro 13 won’t stop working if you don’t update. We are just making an offer like any other business and it is up to you if you take it now or next year or within the next sales promotion.
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But you’re not really making the same offer for everyone. People who don’t know how the Steinberg update/grace period process works got a much worse deal than they could have gotten with a bit of insider knowledge.
It’s not like the deal I got was bad, it just sucks that I could have gotten a much better deal if I had known how things work in advance.
It’s an expensive lesson, for sure, and I’ll remember it when I make future decisions on who I give my money.
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I can only repeat what was said:
Being happy about having gotten a great deal is one thing. Being asked to pay more immediately after turns that happiness into disappointment rather quickly.
For the grace period, taking into account the purchase date instead of activation date would feel fair to me (though probably technically not possible). Right now, I just need to pay because I was not aware that there will be an update so soon. I know, I DO NOT have to pay, but… see first paragraph.
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The free grace period update is a gesture of goodwill from Steinberg, intended for customers who purchased just days before a new release. It was never designed as a way for customers to defer updates solely to obtain a free upgrade. This policy essentially allows for an unintended workaround, which we accept as a technical limitation in order to support those who paid full price shortly before a release. However, I can’t guarantee this offer will continue in the future, especially if data shows that grace period updates significantly outnumber purchases during the actual grace period.
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Except that in this case, this policy is not only there to support users who purchased at the regular price right before an update is released, but those who know the system and how to exploit it.
Are you saying, that it’s fair for someone to save 100 euros on a Cubase Pro 14 update, because they knew, that Cubase 14 would be released in November, and that they could just avoid activating Cubase Pro 13 after buying it, during the sale. And then activate a Cubase Pro 13 60-day trial, instead - and now they get the Cubase 14 update for free?
And those who didn’t know that and didn’t do that now have have to be punished by paying 100 euros for a Cubase Pro 13 to Cubase Pro 14 update?
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I am not working in sales, so this is my personal opinion and no repesentation of Steinberg:
First of all, there might be a misconception about the sale. Having used the sale to buy C13 is still the best deal you could get to upgrade to C14. Some people seem to think that this sale is mischievious, because it moves you to buy right before the release. But buying in the sale and then upgrading is cheaper than buying C14 anyway. Nothing is lost from participating in the sale. Without the sale, a lot of people wouldn’t have bought C13 and got this cheap deal to upgrade to C14. The only way to go even cheaper is to use the “late activation in grace period” method and I believe there lies the problem.
I believe the big problem is that for some customers it feels unfair, that there are other customers with “hidden knowledge” that just waited with their activation and got a ~100€ bonus from that (Which is the upgrade cost). But the hidden knowledge is not real. Nobody knew about the release. So waiting with the activation is always a risky move. But in any case, some got lucky with this approach. I also understand that this still feels unfair. Buying a software and activating it should never feel like a gamble. But we need to clarify the mechanics of the grace period.
Why do we set a grace period? Because it feels dumb to have bought a software at full price and then a new version releases just days after.
Why 4 weeks? This is as arbitrary as anything. I myself think that 4 weeks is fair, but one can argue.
And for the most important question, which is the root problem of all this: Why use the activation date, instead of the date of the purchase? Using the activation date instead of the date of the purchase is the only reason people could use this mechanic to gamble to get a real cheap C14.
So why do it? Because it’s beneficial for the customer. Someone who bought the software one day before the grace period and left it unactivated profited from this. If It was the other way around, more people wouldn’t be able to get a lucky upgrade.
From my perspective the only way to stop this unfair feeling is to use the day of the purchase instead of the activation time. But this is not beneficial for the customer.
As disclaimed, this is my personal opinion on the matter.
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I feel “cheated” that Steinberg deliberately timed these 2 events so close, but still far enough apart to avoid having to offer a grace update. Can’t beat the feeling that the entire sales department is laughing at “all the suckers” who “so close” … but still not
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This argument seems odd to me. If you want more people to benefit from the grace period, simply extend the grace period. Why would you want exclude people from this great deal except for a few who got lucky?
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It’s really a matter of perspective. How do you think customers who purchased at the regular price just days before the 50%-off sales promotion would feel about your complaint?
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14 is seductive,. I feel I am back to modulation heaven in my teens 40 years back.
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This now happens automatically. Open your Steinberg Activation Manager, and you’ll see that your C14 license is waiting for you to activate it.
This “C14 through C13-Sale”-deal is no “great deal”. (I just saw that I myself called this a great deal. My bad. It’s a happy accident, nothing more.) This is not meant to happen. But the mechanics allowed it to some extend. This was not a planned dynamic. The only way to not let it happen was to cut off all people, who purchased in the sale. I don’t believe this is what you or anybody else wants. It would be more fair, but also less beneficial for some. That is what I meant in my conclusion. The only way to not feel cheated would be to make it less beneficial for some lucky few customers.
Extending the grace period into the sale would also just sell C14 at a price where it is just not profitable anymore to produce Cubase. But I can see the point that there could have been a little space between the two time-periods.
Disclaimer again: This is just my opinion as a programmer and customer. I have no idea about sales or marketing. Please don’t take my takes too official.
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You keep mentioning customers who purchased at the regular price. Ok, then let’s call them “A”.
Then you have customers who purchased at a discount and know how to exploit the system. Let’s call them “B”.
And then there are customers who purchased at a discount but didn’t even know that there was a system that could be exploited, so let’s call them “C”.
I understand that A have priority of taking the advantage of grace periods. But what about B? They didn’t pay the full price. Your argument suggests that A should have an advantage over C, and it’s understanable, since A contributes the most, financially, to the company. So how is B allowed get away with it by saving 100 euros, when they, just like C, only paid a discounted price for the product and not full price like A? The only difference between B and C, is that B knew a few tricks and C didn’t.
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I don’t understand what people are arguing about)
I’m ready to pay for an update even 5 times a year, the main thing - that with each update SB added new useful features that make my life easier!
ps: waiting for Nuendo 14
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I’m afraid that all these complaining people might only succeed in making Steinberg decide to remove the grace period. I literally don’t understand what exactly they’re complaining about
That it’s not free? This is an excellent product! It’s worth much more than $99 for an annual upgrade.
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