Dear Blade3D Customer,

Today we embarked on a new adventure, one that may come as a bit of a surprise. We have decided to wind down Blade3D in its current form as a 3D game engine and leverage the technology in a new direction.

Blade3D will provided us a phenomenal platform to develop a new generation of online tools for consumers. While we are not ready to announce where we plan to end up, it is safe to say we look at game development as a creative process and we'll be working toward fostering that community. Our expanded vision, combined with this innovative technology, will allow us to leapfrog the marketplace and set a new standard for creativity and accessibility.

As a valued customer, you will still have access to Blade3D for the next 6 months, free of charge, and we will stop charging your credit card immediately. We are no longer offering the product to new customers.

The current Blade3D product and community will continue in its present state through the end of the year but will move to www.digini.com. We will not be offering support beyond the existing FAQ's.
We'd like you to stay tuned. Later this year, we will contact you and let you in our next effort.

Take care and please let us know if you have any questions.

Tom Sperry
CEO/Blade Games

Hmm that's okay... but you do realize it isn't very logical to use a game engine if you know you will no longer have access to it anymore. That was the big difference between buying a license and renting one.

I'm no master business person but I think the subscription thing was the biggest hurdle for potental customers to get over and in the end it looks like they were right to be skeptical of the concept. Next time if you try to do subscriptino based there is already a precendent that's been set against that model. If a customer commits to /invests/falls in love with said product it can be taken away from that customer at the whim of the company.

I'm not trying to be a negative nancy but that's exactly what happened. And I can't complain too much because I didn't lose nearly as much money as some people have even though it still was probably a modest sum because of the low price anyway.

Well I liked blade because of the quality of the editor. It's the still the best one that I know of. And the enthusiasm of Behnaz and Ethanv and all the other guys who I haven't seen around the forum lately.

I wish you guys well in the future.

That message of the CEO is so cryptic that he might as well have said "Stay Tuned."

You guys might want to release Blade3d as a editor shell for other gaem engines too. If I could wrap Blade's editor around other game engines like Esenthel or Leadwerks or Ogre that would be pretty groovy. I'd easily pay $500 or more for that.

But my views are pretty much typically in the 'vast' minority

-your delicious Pancake

I agree with you Pancake (for once eh eh) especially on the CEO statement.
Got Unity 2.5 yesterday, well a all new learning curve to go through.

Well Im going with Realmcrafter Pro. Thought about it and really want to make a multiplayer rpg - mrpg - going to set it up so you can play with your friends.

yeah I can understand his point of view.

Personally if you ask me. I think the best way to handle the situation would be to make a bug-fix release. And then just let those of us who have been using Blade all this time continue to use it for free. Maybe if we release a commercial project we can pay you a few hundred dollars for a license fee upon release of the project. It might not be the worst thing in the world to keep a few people around who are still dealing with digini from a constumer standpoint even while you guys are in transition. It gives you an instant base of people, potentially, for whatever you are transitioning to in the future.

The only reason I'm not enraged is because of my MVP status. Otherwise I might have completely flipped out.

I mean asking for a subscription fee is asking for someone's trust. Subscribers are like investors, more so than people who purchase something and then walk away and gain ownership of it. I sympathize with scaplat's point of view.

-delicious cake in a pan

What will the Transitioned Product Look Like ? - Will it still be for the XBOX 360 ?

Any other "Good" XBOX 360 Engines out there (that are as easy to use) ?

???

Can You Please get Rid of the BETA/EVAL Screen then (?)

Not sure how long this message will last, but worth mentioning that in addition to other alternative tools mentioned here, Visual3D.NET is also worth checking out as they have made a lot of really strong advances with their toolset as of late.