Waves sales

Hello Guys.
 
I notice Waves keeps having amazing sales with tremendous discounts.  The last time I saw a company do something like this was when Cakewalk offered life-time updates.  It's making me kinda nervous.  Is there something about Waves I should know?  Or am I looking a gift horse in the mouth (not that I normally study horses' mouth). 

Waves have a lot more products on offer than Cakewalk had so have the ability to drive more revenue through their discounted offers.

They also have a bigger potential number of buyers.

Finally it looks like they have a pretty mature model for selling their effects at a high price to those who will pay to have the latest before making it available at a lower price to those who are more cost conscious.

Yeah, I tend to agree that their pricing has been looking a bit strange lately. They've been doing the practice of having higher "regular" prices with discounts that dropped those prices dramatically but the discounted prices lately have dropped far lower than I've typically seen them. Horizon is currently going for $349 which used to be about where Platinum ended up on sale. On top of this, the bundles don't seem to be getting new plug-ins like they used to. Mercury used to basically be the "everything Waves" bundle but lately has diverged pretty far from that. Then you have the recent UI refresh on some older plug-ins that I don't think have changed that much at any point since they were introduced years ago. It all feels like it is pointing to something big on the horizon (no bundle pun intended) but who knows what that will be. Maybe the much anticipated v10 is coming soon but that means these discounts are potentially giving out a bunch of WUP extensions for cheap. I'm not complaining. I love Waves and the lower prices but it does all seem a bit fishy.
 

jude77
I guess I'm feeling a bit paranoid.  I'm sure everything is well over in Tel Aviv, but it's weird seeing Waves plugins for $29.  That's bargain basement.  I'll think I'll just be happy they're so discounted.

Really depends on how many copies they can sell at $29 I think they probably sell thousands.

It seems to me that Waves have a well thought through commercial model that sells at a higher price initially to the professionals and those who want the latest and greatest.

My guess is that the heavy discounts kick in after they have recouped the development costs.

From what we have read here since Cakewalk's untimely end the problem was not the sales it was the lack of a consistent and well thought through strategy for sales balanced by the need to cover costs.

I already had a bunch of Waves things I bought at huge discounts and I bought two more of the $29 ones during their month long "BLACK FRIDAY" sale. 
 
I'm not worried about them going out of business. What worries me more is their absolutely horrendous licensing authorization system. When I bought my new plug ins I had to install a new version of their "control center." Somehow, it ended up invalidating all the licenses I had for my purchased Waves product on my computer. Since they weren't on the Cloud anymore, I had to use the "once-a-year-fix-licenses" feature which got them working again. I really hope this problem doesn't happen again.

It is a combination of two things:
 
--The "great deals" thing are to drive human psychology. Software companies have found out that a way you can increase revenues is to sell things at a high price normally but have sales off and on. People then get the "I have to buy this now, it is such a good deal!" mentality and they get something they might not otherwise. Heck, I own Wave Diamond for that very reason. No need for 90% of it but I got sucked in by the deal. Also then this allows them to get more money from people who want something RIGHT NAO and will pay an inflated price. Basically they get more sales and more money than if they just had it at a lower price all the time.
 
--The overall lowering of price is to keep competitive and to continue to monetize their old plugins. Most of what they sell in their staple "material" bundles are old plugins. Some of them are over a decade old. Even a lot of the newer stuff is still old. A lot of their lauded plugins, Liner Phase EQ, IR-1, etc are over a decade old. I mean ya they've updated the UI a bit in some cases and ported them to 64-bit, but they are old plugins. So how do you keep people interested? Make the bundles more appealing. Drop the price so people find them to be a good deal, buy in, like your stuff, and then want your newer stuff which is something they have to buy separate (or get a more expensive pack).