Incoming Policy Changes on Superhive
A new policy on Superhive will limit product purchases to 12 months of support, with paid upgrades required for newer versions.
This article covers the debate that’s been taking place in the Blender community over the past week, following the release of Superhive’s email to a small group of creators about their new Support Periods policy. Please note that it’s a snapshot and that the exact implementation of the policy is still unfolding. We have been in touch with Superhive and they are listening to the feedback and are still working out the best way forward.
Superhive (formerly Blender Market) is introducing a new policy for all purchases on their platform: Purchases will include 12 months of support following the date of purchase, which includes access to new versions (if the creator uses Superhive’s versioning system) and support from both vendor and Superhive staff.
A customer will always have access to the files granted to them on the day of their purchase; however, if they are outside the 12 month support period and wish to access a newer version of the product they purchased, or require support from the creator, they must purchase the latest version of the product with a 50% discount.
Jonathan Williamson wrote on parent company Autotroph’s blog that for the last 12 years during which the platform has been running, there has been a default expectation by customers that purchases entitle them to lifetime updates and support. Jonathan argues that this is unsustainable in the long term and is one of the primary causes for reduced creator and platform revenue over recent years.
The policy change was discussed internally at Superhive and with key stakeholders before being announced via email on March 18th.
The announcement received significant criticism across community forums such as BlenderArtists, Reddit, YouTube, and social media. Primary concerns noted by community members were:
- The need to repurchase products yearly to continue receiving updates and compatibility with newer Blender releases feels similar to a subscription. Superhive reminds users that you will always have access to the version of the product you purchased.
- A small circle of vendors was consulted for feedback before the policy was announced, with the vast majority of creators hearing about it for the first time when it was announced. Superhive agrees that communication around the policy was not handled as well as it should have been.
- The policy is being implemented for all vendors universally, with no option to opt out. Superhive explained in the Creator Town Hall meeting last week that workarounds exist for creators to bypass the versioning system and continue to offer lifetime support for their products, though this is not encouraged, and that the reason the policy is universal is to create a consistent standard on the marketplace and avoid race-to-the-bottom style competition.
- Some users argue that because Blender add-ons are typically open-source, updates and support are a key part of what buyers are paying for, making limits on long-term support a reduction in perceived value.
- The policy applies to past purchases. Some users feel that indefinite support and updates were implied when purchasing a product, and that this policy was not something they agreed to when making the original purchase. Superhive reminds users that you will always have access to the version of the product that you purchased, and that this policy only affects the versions released later, and the support obligations from the vendor.
The policy is planned to be implemented on May 12th, the day after the Spring Sale ends.
We reached out to Superhive for comment and they provided this statement:
The creator email that had information about Superhive’s upcoming Support Periods policy came as a shock to a lot of customers and creators. That’s not at all what we wanted to happen. We wanted to have this conversation with the whole community, but we chose to start with creators since they’d be impacted the most. And the email was written with the assumption that everyone already knew what we were talking about. Those were both mistakes.
Your voice should be heard and we want to make sure that happens. We’re already having conversations with customers and creators who have reached out to us, but we want to have more conversations. Of course, having one-on-one discussions with everyone in the community is impractical, given its size, so I’ll be setting up a survey this week. Keep an eye on your email if you’re subscribed to the Superhive newsletter. If you’re not subscribed, look for it in our blog. It’s incredibly important that we remain transparent, so we’ll make sure that we keep the community informed about the shape of the plan and the reasons behind it. Our whole goal is to help people build sustainable livelihoods around Blender. With your help, I believe we can get there.
Superhive’s support period as is written above, will cause leaving of lot of artists ( customers) Superhive market. Including me and all my friends working in the same branch. All of us spent thousands of dollars on products which will be needed repurchase after finishing above mentioned period. As this solution is not acceptable for us, we need to choose different platform or/ and contact developers directly, which is happening already. It is pity that such bad decision was done. Best regards. G.G.Magyar
Why is everything becoming a subscription model nowadays? I’m genuinely considering leaving this ecosystem entirely. I refuse to participate in a world where “you’ll own nothing and be happy” becomes the norm. This policy fundamentally contradicts the philosophical foundation that Blender was built on and pushes us toward a dystopian marketplace model.
Why isn’t this opt-IN instead of opt-OUT by default? Let creators who specifically need this revenue model choose it for themselves, rather than imposing your vision of “economic incentives toward profit maximization” on the entire community.
I understand the data shows declining sales while support obligations grow—that’s a real problem for creators. But forcing a universal policy retroactively on all past purchases, with no opt-out for creators who want to maintain their existing relationships with customers, isn’t the solution. You consulted a handful of vendors while the rest of us found out when customers did. That’s not transparency; that’s damage control after the fact.
If Superhive believes the creator economy is broken, then work with the entire community to fix it—don’t unilaterally restructure the marketplace and call it inevitable progress.
Life time updates was the deal as a feature, it was not implied. It was stated fact before blendermarket was rebranded. Making the decision in the dark without feedback from users of the site is deplorable, but tells me a lot about the current direction and mindset. I feel the deal is between me and the creator of the plugin. I’m not repurchasing as this was not the deal when I took a chance and bought the add on in the first place. You could do this going forward if you want and the community will readjust accordingly. I for one would leave and never return even though I have enjoyed supporting developers through this website. Bad choice on your part. Most of the people you cater to do not appreciate subscription models which is why they are using Blender in the first place. I encourage all who post products here to reach out to the people who purchased your products and let them know how you feel about this decision, and what you propose to keep us as interested customers in the future.
Ive seen this mentioned before and I’ve been trying to find evidence of this myself too, but haven’t yet seen it. Perhaps archive.org can help?
So I went looking and about the best I can find, which is largely repeated in a number of places, is:
“As a creator, you are responsible for providing “adequate and reasonable support” to all of your customers in connection with all of the products you upload to Blender Market. “Adequate and reasonable support” is defined as doing your best to answer each customer’s questions, solve problems that a customer may have with the product, and/or otherwise work towards resolving any issues that arise with the product.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20240714140616/https://support.blendermarket.com/article/44-terms-of-use-creator
So that’s pretty open ended really.
On a little more digging I did find:
“Be sure to indicate in your product description or documentation whether or not updates are free for existing customers.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20250216025539/https://support.blendermarket.com/article/176-how-to-provide-product-support
So now we have an expectation that each product page should clearly state if updates are free or not and one assume for how long. I guess if a time frame isn’t stated, then it becomes assumed to be lifetime.
If it’s not stated at all, then I guess we fall back to the ‘reasonable support’, which does define any time frame at all. It’s very unlikely that specific product pages have been archived, so unless one saved or has email or something from a past purchase stating the update policy, it’s going to be very hard to prove if it had lifetime support or not.
The new Superhive in-forced subscription policy is not helping the Superhive market, developers or consumers but it will benefit the Blender 3d competition like Max, Maya, Cinema 4d and Zbrush. Blender is moving so fast in popularity and user base. All these softwares wants blender to slow down or stop the Blender progress. There is two ways to do that buy it or destroy it is echo system. They can’t buy it because it is open source but the can destroy the echo system by sabotaging the blender markets and pushing some nonsense store policies to discourage customers from buying and slowly eliminating the market and push the blender user back to arm of maya , max , cinema 4d and zbrush sound Superhive is helping it to happen. People are already moving away.