Subscription based models

A few months ago, Digital Tutors introduced their subscription based model. Instead of buying individual tutorials, you pay a fee to get access to all their material.

Not long ago, Gnomon Workshop followed suit. They have three tiers, Visual Effects only, Design only , or all tutorials. Pay a yearly fee and get access to all Visual Effects-tutorials, all Design-tutorials or all tutorials whatsoever.

The advantage with this that I can see is that you don't have to choose. As long as you are a subscriber, you have access to all tutorials and can take a look at them as the need arises.

The disadvantage is just that, it's only as long as you are a subscriber. Stop your subscription, and you lose all the tutorials again. Basically, you are paying for something that you can't keep.

(Of course, nothing is stopping you from taking notes etc, but sometimes it's just not the same thing).

One difference I can see between Digital Tutors and Gnomon is that you can get montly subscriptions for DT, while Gnomon only let's you subscribe on a yearly basis. This makes the step into DT a bit smoother, you can try it out for a month before commiting several 100 USD to the service for a yearly subscription.

What's happening with Maya?

Today, on my workplace, I finally got to install Maya2010 and see what new things it contained.

The answer: Basically nothing! All the changes are external from the actual software (Complete-version dead, Toxic and Matchmover included etc), but within Maya, almost nothing has changed.

So, what is happening? Is maya going the way of the Dodo?

I don't think so. I do think 2010 is a dissapointment, but I also think there is a reason for it. From what I've gathered on forums like CGTalk etc, it seems that a major overhaul of Maya is underway. For instance, the GUI-handler will be replaced by something that will be a bit faster, a lot more cross-plattform-able.

My own guess is that the Maya-developers are busy working on the new version, rather than adding things to the "old" platform. So, let's keep our fingers crossed for a nice and impressive release of Maya 2011.