Monster Soup

I always liked the scene from the first UNDERWORLD film when Selene leaps from the building, and it was in the back of my mind when showing Luke jumping into the pit here.

It’s that time of the year, when Celsys is gearing up to release the newest version of Clip Studio Paint. This will be Version 5. Every year, I pay for the upgrade, though, this year, I’ve noticed something that gave me pause. The cost of the upgrade has gone from $50 to $83. At this point, I feel like I’m in a subscription without even calling it that. They do offer an Update Pass. Those who have this only need one perpetual license. Yet if you ever cancel your Update Pass, you go back to using the last version of CSP that you bought. So if I started paying for the Update Pass with only owning a license for Ver. 1, and stopped paying it now, I wouldn’t have access of all the Ver. 4 features. This would drop me back down to only having access to Ver. 1.

The prior cost for my upgrades:

The current cost for the newest upgrade:

Cue the sticker shock. 😨

This here is their “helpful” graph showing the path/options to take:

And this is my current predicament. Do I switch over to the Update Pass and stay at my current CSP Ver. 4? In the back of my mind, I worry about the day the Update Pass service is ended. Let’s say that the current version is Ver. 9, and Celsys decides to end the Update Pass for CSP. This would send every user back to the last license they purchased, which would send me back to Ver. 4. And if I wanted to get back to this hypothetical Ver. 9, I would have to spend hundreds to purchase the new license. Yeah. Convoluted. I hate subscriptions for this very reason. Dumping all of this money into a product you don’t really own.

On the other hand, my mind weighs $83 (EX Ver. 5 license) against $32 (EX Update Pass). Then I also remember that the Update Pass gives access to the new features as they are released, rather than waiting a year for the perpetual license update.

Pros and cons. I keep shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders.

I think I might switch to the Update Pass.

😵

P.S: My mind is whispering to me that this is Celsys’ trying to push their subscription model.

P.P.S: I went back to look at what I paid for the past CSP updates, and it seems I bought them when they had a 30% off sale. If that’s any indication of what will happen in March, then I should be able to get the Ver. 5 license for $58. The $8 increase is still better than the $33 I originally thought. I know I’m speculating, but this seems to be the pattern.

✨ Page 4 ✨ is on Patreon for $1+ tiers, plus a bonus image of the page’s original sketch.