Why have you changed the way BattleScribe is purchased?

Some quick points

You can continue to use version 1.15 if you wish - it won't be taken away.

BattleScribe 2.0 can still be used for free, supported by ads. Purchasing a Supporter Pass is optional.

supported by ads. Purchasing a Supporter Pass is optional. If you purchased the old BattleScribe Pro, you will be looked after.

The road to 2.0

I started making BattleScribe in 2010 as a hobby project in my spare time alongside my job. Now, I am lucky enough that BattleScribe has grown such that I am able to work on it as my full time job. It pays for my mortgage, my bills and my food. I am just one guy, working hard to provide you all with the best possible product that I can.

Over the years, BattleScribe has come on in leaps and bounds. Every major update since version 1.00 has brought improvements and overhauls to various systems, inside and out, expanding it's ability to support new games and allowing it to handle the growing complexity of existing ones. After many updates to the app and data format, BattleScribe 1.15 was so different from BattleScribe 1.00 that they were already entirely different apps.

The wargaming landscape has exploded in complexity in recent years, with many more games becoming popular, and existing games greatly expanding the options available when creating lists. Developing software such as BattleScribe takes ongoing, daily work to in order to keep up with this constantly evolving wargaming landscape.

BattleScribe 1.15 had reached the limits of what it was capable of doing without major rework. The core assumptions and decisions made when the app was originally started no longer hold true. The data authors were having an increasingly difficult time trying to represent the expanding complexity in the data files. In order to continue developing and evolving BattleScribe in future, the very foundations of how the app worked needed to be re-designed. This had been a long time coming.

And so BattleScribe 2.0 was born. It is no mere incremental update. It is a complete re-write of the app, from the ground up, which aims to future-proof BattleScribe for years to come. All major systems have been rebuilt, there are new data editing tools and the data format has been overhauled to support a much wider array of games and improve the lives of data authors. Needless to say, this has been a major effort and has taken over 18 months of development.

Pricing

Selling an app for a single price and then providing unlimited updates forever just isn't sustainable, particularly for a small "one man show" like mine. This is especially true given that BattleScribe is updated and improved constantly, and requires ongoing work to keep it up to date with the wargaming scene.

Given the huge amount of time and effort it has taken to develop BattleScribe 2.0, it was the right time to finally release it as a new app at a new price. There is no doubt that this is a business decision, and one I have needed to make for some time. BattleScribe 2.0 has provided the opportunity and justification to go through with that decision.

Of course, the simple solution would be to release BattleScribe 2.0 as a new full-price app. But this comes with problems. People who had only recently bought the old Pro version would rightly be annoyed. Some would be concerned - correctly - that if they bought the new version of the app, it would become obsolete at some point in the future as 1.15 had before it. Other more cynical people would sling abuse and cry foul, which isn't nice to endure. Clearly, transitioning to a new app was always going to cause friction.

Releasing BattleScribe 2.0 as a new full-price app sets the precedent that future major versions (3.0, 4.0 etc) would also be sold as new full-price apps - and we would need to go through the pain of transitioning to the new app every time. This is not something I want to put you (or myself) through again in future.

The solution then, is the new Supporter Pass system. Instead of releasing new full-price apps every few years, the idea is to charge a much smaller fee on a yearly basis - less that 50% the price the old app was sold for - and continue to develop BattleScribe "in place". Buying a pass unlocks the Supporter features for a year, with no risk that the app will be replaced in future and become obsolete, thus invalidating your purchase. You know exactly what you're getting for your money, with no uncertainty.

For those of you who bought BattleScribe Pro in the past, I have provided a reasonable way to upgrade to 2.0, which I hope will go some way to ensuring you are not left out in the cold.

For BattleScribe as a business, it means my income is sustainable and predictable and I can continue to work on it for years to come. A small yearly fee more accurately reflects the ongoing work and development it takes to keep BattleScribe up to date.

And none of us have to go through the painful transition to another "new" app ever again.

This is a money grab!

I'm sorry if you feel this way, though I do think it's a rather cynical outlook.

While I have made mistakes in the past, with various bugs and issues plaguing the app in the the early days, I have only ever been open and honest about what I am doing and why. I have never done anything dishonest or deceitful that should make you sceptical of my motives, and in keeping with that I have laid out above exactly how and why BattleScribe 2.0 is priced the way it is.

Yes, ultimately it is a business decision, and one aimed at making sure BattleScribe can continue as a business in a sustainable way. But there is no shame in asking to be paid for the work that you do.

I understand that this new pricing model will not suit everyone, and that's fine. If you want to continue using BattleScribe 1.15, you can. If you want to use BattleScribe 2.0 for free, you can. If you feel BattleScribe brings you enough value that you want to throw a couple of bucks into the tip jar each year, then thank you!

I could make comparisons to the price of a cup of coffee, or the cost of a single miniature, but ultimately the value judgement is yours to make.