We are a small company with a turnover above $500,000. We would like to use Spine for a small feature on the Sumdog educational website. We are prepared to pay fees for Enterprise license to develop the feature but feel that the ongoing payment for use of run-time is not fair.
The reasons why we believe the run-time license is unfair is:
If we build an animation feature that the children love and you increase the cost of the run-time license, then we have no choice but to pay whatever you ask.
If we build an animation feature that the children don't love that much, but it's too costly for us to remove, then we are stuck paying for a run-time license that is loss making.
I've run a software business for over 20 years, and I have only twice agreed to run-time licenses. In both cases I'm still regretting the decision, because:
i) the run-times are built into the products,
ii) the products are old and sales are falling,
iii) hence, the license costs grab an increasing proportion of the revenue from these products, year after year. Once the sales becomes less than the license fees then we will naturally be forced to stop selling these products, which is a real shame for the teachers that use them.
In conclusion, is there any chance you can drop the run-time license part of your business model? This is the main factor stopping us using Spine at the moment.
