Adobe CS5.5 Scorching Student Deals

Modred189 said:
No, not exactly. If you can't afford it, don't mooch. Save up and buy it at the legit price.
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What can I say? I like to use the best programs that I can for doing stuff. Do I always pirate and forget about it? No. If I haven't purchased it yet I will eventually. I've done it plenty of times with games and other software.Office is just one example of that. I bought Office for the first time when Microsoft did their Ultimate Steal program where they offered the academic version of Office for $70.

I can't afford to pay for Photoshop what would pay for 2 or 3 textbooks. I just can't. Do I want to give Adobe my money? Yes, I love their stuff. I have to be able to afford it though.
 
visionviper said:
What can I say? I like to use the best programs that I can for doing stuff. Do I always pirate and forget about it? No. If I haven't purchased it yet I will eventually. I've done it plenty of times with games and other software.Office is just one example of that. I bought Office for the first time when Microsoft did their Ultimate Steal program where they offered the academic version of Office for $70.

I can't afford to pay for Photoshop what would pay for 2 or 3 textbooks. I just can't. Do I want to give Adobe my money? Yes, I love their stuff. I have to be able to afford it though.
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"You wouldn't download a car." Pffft.....no one chime in with comments about piracy.
 
With all due respect, then go without. Use Gimp etc. If you can't pay for it, you haven't earned it, and therefore don't deserve it.
 
Modred189 said:
With all due respect, then go without. Use Gimp etc. If you can't pay for it, you haven't earned it, and therefore don't deserve it.
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Well you keep thinking that, and I'll keep buying software from companies I used to pirate from when I am able to afford it. I'd list all the companies I have done this with but it would just be a wall of text.

Let's keep on topic.
 
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Modred189 said:
If you can't pay for it, you haven't earned it, and therefore don't deserve it.
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Modred189 said:
Funny picture (not being sarcastic, Medvedev's expression is classic). But I don't get the reference...:confused::confused:
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Your model views software as a scarce manufactured/crafted good rather than as infinitely reproducible, pervasive media. Telling someone they have to "deserve" Adobe products is akin to telling someone they have to "deserve" listening to songs by their favorite band. People will pay for it when they can afford it, but they're not going to stop listening to The Black Keys or using Photoshop just because they cannot afford to compensate the creator. Adobe's business model actually accounts for pirates in the first place; once people get hooked on the product, they will end up buying it or landing a job at an employer who purchases it for them. The vast majority of commercially available media content was authored or edited in an Adobe product for which a license was purchased, and that's what Adobe cares most about. Someone who pirates Premiere and makes a silly YouTube video isn't a concern to Adobe at all. When they make it big, they'll purchase Adobe because they already know how to use it, and if they don't make it big, they weren't Adobe's target paying customer in the first place. This position is somewhat unique in the software space, only occupied by massive firms with huge market share in their areas of expertise. The net effect is often a chilling of competitor options and a space that tolerates or even takes advantage of pirates, in pursuit of the business's greater goals. I'm not sure this state of affairs is the best possible outcome for consumers and media creators, but it is the way it is.

Anyway, I posted that picture because reading your post gave me the same sort of smile Medvedev has there.
 
Not going to lie, that's a much more detailed analysis than I have gotten used to expecting on teh tubez. While I agree with much of what you've laid out, I'm not sure I can get behind it as a justification to pirate. IMHO, just because company A knows people will pirate does not make it acceptable.
Mooching is mooching in my book, and is something to be avoided on a personal level.
 
Modred189 said:
While I agree with much of what you've laid out, I'm not sure I can get behind it as a justification to pirate. IMHO, just because company A knows people will pirate does not make it acceptable.
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Agreed. I wasn't trying to imply that I think it is justified, just that it is a market reality right now. Viewing digital media in the same terms as a scarce good simply does not work any more, and this transition is the source of much legal, political and economic turmoil. Adobe is in a unique position to handle this transition, which they seem to do with relative grace, at least when compared to other media giants like Sony, Universal, Apple, etc.
 
I blame SlickDeals :p. Nothing makes vendors call 'sales' pricing mistakes as quick as when the SD effect kicks in. Good thing Adobe doesn't make business software.
 
Well, for perspective, the master collection at educational pricing is about $700-800 depending on where you buy it. Institutional pricing that allows you to resell it internally is about $400-500. $180 was an INSANE deal. While I suspect it isn't a pricing mistake due to the ads, it is entirely possible that the code was only good for so many uses before they killed the deal.

We'll see. Mine hasn't been canceled, and I still can't get to the page to verify anything.
 
Modred189 said:
With all due respect, then go without. Use Gimp etc. If you can't pay for it, you haven't earned it, and therefore don't deserve it.
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At risk of getting sent to soapbox, I wish this was our government philosophy.
 
CEpeep said:
Agreed. I wasn't trying to imply that I think it is justified, just that it is a market reality right now. Viewing digital media in the same terms as a scarce good simply does not work any more, and this transition is the source of much legal, political and economic turmoil. Adobe is in a unique position to handle this transition, which they seem to do with relative grace, at least when compared to other media giants like Sony, Universal, Apple, etc.
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This is the internet. i don't think we are allowed to have such even-keeled, constructive conversations here. Thus, YOU ARE TEH STOOPEDZ. :D
 
raz-0 said:
Well, for perspective, the master collection at educational pricing is about $700-800 depending on where you buy it. Institutional pricing that allows you to resell it internally is about $400-500. $180 was an INSANE deal. While I suspect it isn't a pricing mistake due to the ads, it is entirely possible that the code was only good for so many uses before they killed the deal.

We'll see. Mine hasn't been canceled, and I still can't get to the page to verify anything.
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I am so Mad,

I am thinking the exact same thing you are, they needed to make some revenue up for this quarter and the lanch of cs6, so they ran a deal to make it up and when they had what they needed that was it, disable the promo.
 
Whenever there's a deal like this, I like to take the mindset of "well if it goes through, great. If not, oh well." It makes life much less stressful if you do that.
 
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Neb said:
Whenever there's a deal like this, I like to take the mindset of "well if it goes through, great. If not, oh well." It makes life much less stressful if you do that.
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I'd normally agree. I've bitten on several "too good to be true" deals over the past year or so and was never too upset when the inevitable apology/cancellation email showed up the next day.

This one is different, because:

1. It stayed up for >24 hours *after* being posted to SD. There's no way the company didn't notice the tens or hundreds of thousands of orders flooding in at the 80% off prices well before they did anything about it.

2. The original intent of the sale was clear: 80% off the normal prices for Student & Teacher Edition, which had already been heavily discounted from retail. They had graphics describing the sale that we bit on; it was not some rogue H.S. dropout who typed the price in wrong in a database.

3. Though the deal was smoking, it actually seemed within the realm of reasonable, given CS5 is nearly two years old and soon to be obsolete with CS6.

4. It's Adobe, not some shady etailer with 70% favorable on ResellerRatings.

If this were an i7 going for $20 on a site we'd never heard of, there might be a few grandstanders threatening lawsuits, but the vast majority of us would just move on. The reality is that this situation isn't even comparable to that, though. *IF* they cancel orders that were placed legitimately before the coupon code was retracted, they deserve a class-action suit.
 
Yeah, I don't dispute the fact that this appears to have probably been a mistake made at a somewhat high level. The csr's were even actively promoting the discount at one point. That probably contributed to the deal lasting so long, since the lower level management believed that the discount was valid.

To me, the deal was a bit difficult to believe given that it was cheaper than some large volume license purchases that I've seen, even if the software is two years old. The previous generation of software is still being sold for more than the Master Suite was after the discount. Adobe doesn't normally discount stuff that heavily.

I'm also not sure that a class-action lawsuit would be successful, since the majority of the orders are stuck in the verification stage so the funds haven't been charged, and no product has been delivered. The case will change once it's been delivered, but that hasn't happened here.
 
I got an email from amazon today with 400$ off the full version of CS5 using the code.. It says specific to the account that received the email. (I checked and it wouldn't work on my wife's account)

I was able to order it for 232.61, which blows away any price I've seen for the full version except for edu versions.

So check your amazon emails!
O9mn7wGh
 
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From the Slickdeals thread, it looks like orders are starting to go through and won't be cancelled, though with the backlog Adobe expects wait times to be longer than usual.

I purchased the Master Collection < 30 minutes before the coupon was pulled. I've never used any of the software, but I'd very much like to learn it, particularly video and photo manipulation. I rationalized the purchase by telling myself that I was getting almost all of their professional products for less than the educational price of Photoshop.

I would have liked to have gotten Lightroom for $17, but considering the deal I got here, I wouldn't feel too bad paying the $80 for it (or whatever the educational price is) in the future. By the time the deal started falling apart and I was prompted to purchase, phone representatives had already been told to stop selling at that price.
 
I'm quite sad about the fact that I couldn't get it to work. The verification bugged out on me and my cart price went up when they changed the scheme. I'm a magazine writer and I am starting my own digital magazine, so after scrounging for adobe deals for months I thought this was the jackpot - but alas, a bug screwed up my order and it wouldn't go through until the coupon code was in reject mode. I really wish they would lower their prices for students/teachers to a reasonable price - I can't believe they think that students can afford their software. Quark Woodwing seems like a good alternative for me, but still -it seems crazy that I'm looking at software that costs more than my damn car.
 
I would assume that most students that do buy the software at standard student discount rates just put the cost on their loans.
 
Modred189 said:
I would assume that most students that do buy the software at standard student discount rates just put the cost on their loans.
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Right, and that's not paying for it.... sorry for the sarcasm, but I'm broke with loans, hardly easy to spend even more for the software,
 
I got my keys about an hour ago. Don't forget to redeem your complimentary gift after you register. I know these are provided with suite purchases, but I don't know about individual software purchases. I chose the Adobe Text Pro font set and a month at Lynda.com. As far as I could tell, the Magic Bullet Quick Looks plug-in is free, and there's a free version of Phototools 2.6 with about 20 presets instead of the 100 that PhotoTools 2.5 Standard comes with.

Does anyone know why there are three serial keys for the Master Collection?
 
Received my $89.90 code for Production Premium just now... I'm very pleasantly surprised at Adobe's handling of this.

Taikero: it appears the second serial number is for the CS4 products that 32-bit users will be forced to revert to (Premiere and AfterEffects, which are 64-bit-only in CS5). The third is for some sort of extra plugin for AfterEffects.
 
Received my codes for CS 5.5 Production Pro. Printed my Invoice just in case Adobe gets froggy with my CC company.

The three codes you have should be:
Color Finesse
Production Pro/After Effects CS4 - 32bit
The rest of the suite you bought.

If you have a 32 bit machine, you have to use CS4.
 
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So, I chose the physical version. It went from verification pending to just a line in my orders. I didn't get an email or anything. Does this mean it shipped?
 
I think it means that it passed verification and will be shipped, mine has "Usually ships in 7-10 days" in the spot right under where the verification pending was located. My digital order that I placed in addition to my physical version has the download available, so I don't see why it wouldn't be shipping...
 
I received an email that my verification was complete and I should receive my DVD in the mail in 7-10 days. I will update when I receive.
 
So, I chose the physical version. It went from verification pending to just a line in my orders. I didn't get an email or anything. Does this mean it shipped?
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Same for me, so I expect they'll ship it soon. Hope the provide a tracking link.

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And they already charge my cc.
 
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Well, all sorts of hassles with getting verified due to getting kicked out of the process due to volume, but I got verified and got the keys and the DL link.
 
Just spoke with "Gamgmei" (really?), and confirmed it it moving between warehouses. Total ship time looks like it will be around 2 weeks after order.
 
An even sadder part of all this is that UPGRADES (purchased later on) are going to cost more than what we paid for the full version.
 
got mine a few days ago, did the standard creative suite. Best $60 I ever spent. To bad its not interchangeable between win and OS X. I would love to have this app run natively on both OS but at this price point I aint complaining.
 
Are you basing that on any real world knowledge John? I'd think they'd never be so stupid as to turn down an upgrade fee for the chance of real money, no matter where it came from. I hope you're wrong.
 
Begomot said:
Are you basing that on any real world knowledge John? I'd think they'd never be so stupid as to turn down an upgrade fee for the chance of real money, no matter where it came from. I hope you're wrong.
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He is wrong. You can upgrade a student version though the standard upgrade path, and then is will essentially become a full upgraded version, since you will not have to give your student info during the upgrade. Also, there is NO student upgrade price, only the full price, so occasionally its cheaper to buy another student version. Why, they didn't have a student upgrade price is beyond me, a typical student in Collage will have 4 upgrades come out before they finish collage, or two major versions, that are not .5 like cs5.5. I guess they figure that once you purchase it and find out how great it is you will gladly pay for the upgrades.
 
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