The future of FXhome!

KirstieT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRtJuCk9qQ4

Hey everybody,

For the last 20 years, FXhome has been developing creative software and shaping the most supportive filmmaking community in the world. We love what we do, and we’re inspired every day by you and your fellow creatives, now 6.3 million strong.

All this time, we’ve forged ahead in the industry alone, but now we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve become part of the fantastic Artlist (artlist.io) family! 

This next step in our journey is a huge leap forward for our software and our community. Together with Artlist, we’ll drive forward to create even better, next-generation creative tools and assets to empower you to tell your story.

Our users have and will always be at the heart of everything we do, and we're going to keep you up to date as we progress. Thank you for everything you’ve helped us to build - we can’t wait to create a better future together! 🎉

Andy001z

Good luck Fxhome and congrats Josh. Look forward to seeing the fruits of this great merger.

laconstantedeplanck

I just came to the forum after reading the e-mail! I have soooo many questions but I understand it's too early to make them yet. Here's Artlist's press note in case someone wants to read it:

Artlist Announces Acquisition of Software Company FXhome | Artlist

Long live FxHome, long live Hitfilm!

tddavis

Great presentation, Josh. Nailed exactly what was discussed yesterday in my opinion, and a great idea to do.

Stargazer54

Yep. Great pitch, Josh! All the best for the FXHome staff going forward. May the Force be with you!

FilmSensei

 Congratulations to both Artlist and FXhome for jointly moving forward with equivalent visions. I am certain that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts, and all parties will benefit tremendously from the merger.

Dewr

Congratulations!

Will this mean that there will be more development on the horizon? More exciting additions to Hitfilm?

Triem23

This is undeniably exciting news!

I had the opportunity to meet @IamJoshuaDavies in Los Angeles several years ago, and one of the things discussed was other companies which had expressed interest in acquiring FXhome, and Josh stated emphatically he would never consider selling or partnering FXhome for mere money, or with/to any company where he felt FXhome's tech would be buried (to avoid competing with a current product) or gutted (to be folded into a different product.

Anyone who has seen Josh speak about FXhome as a company, or about their software has seen how utterly passionate he has been about their mission to bring high quality software to independent creators, and to the young artists who will become the next generation of storytellers. I have no doubt that Josh and the FXhome team have undertaken this bold step in joining the Artlist family with the sincere belief that this is the best step to enable FXhome to not only improve their own software, but to provide assets and templates to the community.

Forum Mods/Ambassadors were made aware of this merger a day before the announcement was made, and Josh related the anecdote of how the FXhome team had a long meeting with the senior staff and creative of Artlist after Artlist's senior staff members, up to their CEOs had personally cleared a day from their schedule to explore FXhome's software. This is truly a rare thing - it would be more typical for persons much lower down in the chain to be assigned a play-around before sending a bullet point memo up the chain of command. Instead, it was the founders and senior creatives of Artlist giving their enthused feedback of what they loved and what they'd improve directly to the CEO and senior staff of FXhome. This high level engagement is rare in the business world, and it's this particular story of the level of attention payed by Artlist's execs that makes be truly believe the merger is the best opportunity for FXhome to gain an influx of resources to improve their product and grow in new directions without compromising their mission statement.

I look forward to seeing what 2022 brings for Hitfilm, Imerge, Ignite, CamtrackAR and potential future products.

I have no clue how to cram anything meaningful into 280 characters on Twitter. This news is too big.

tddavis

@Triem23 From a purely self-interested POV, I wanted to ask if this could possibly mean a push for Android Camtrack development but held my tongue.😝 In reality, I suspect that Android is simply lacking to be able to ever run it well.

Triem23

@tddavis an Android version remains problematic due to the varying hardware specs - for example, Laura and I have some cheap tablets we use as e-readers that don't have gyroscopes and accelerometers, and Laura's BLU phone also lacks that hardware.

Of course if an android device lacks the hardware for measuring its own movement it can't run a camera tracking app.

I hold out hope, but understand an Android CamtrackAR is going to be limited on compatible devices.

But this merger might be great news for the Linux crowd hoping for Linux Hitfilm, and an injection of cash and dev staff has to help FXhome do an Apple M1 compatible version. That's a good thing!

Dewr

I am hoping for an Apple Silicon version too.. And lots more wonderful tech inside!

Would also like to see something specific for Matte Paintings.

CleverTagline

I'm not nearly as verbose as @Triem23 , but I agree with every word he said. When I heard the news yesterday (in that meeting that he mentioned), I felt a mix of emotions, but at the top of it all were enthusiasm and optimism. I'm absolutely—what's an appropriate UK term...chuffed?—about what's happening, incredibly excited about the future of FXhome and its growing collection of tools, and thrilled to be part of the journey.

Dewr

Perhaps Blackmagic RAW might make an appearance in a new iteration.

iamkhanproductions

congratulations FXhome, sorry I'm late for the party!

KirstieT

Thanks so much everyone for your kind words! Everyone at Artlist has been saying how wonderful the response has been, and that they're so happy to bring you all into the family. What a wonderful time to be part of all this!

Andersen01498

I am hoping that Fx Home Software doesn't become a subscription model.....Fx Home has a unique pricing model which is one of the reasons why I dropped other companies like Adobe. Of course Fx home had the all-in-one package with Editing/compositing which was another reason why I stuck with FX Home! I am excited to see what the future looks like!

ndpproductions

Congratulations! I'm looking forward to seeing the future of FXhome!

RikVargard

I think this is amazing news! I'm so happy for the amazing team and I hope this will be a new level of era of amazingness!

Congratulations, you guys deserve all the best that's coming to you for all the best right reasons! 👍️

jtjutsvfx

I am so grateful for you guys! I could never have started VFX without you and you have truly made a massive impact in the filmmaking community! Can't wait for what you do next!

RikVargard

https://community.fxhome.com/discussion/comment/165645#Comment_165645

I absolutely agree with that. At my job, I convinced the director to switch from Adobe to FXhome for the very same reasons, plus the philosophy of FXhome. And I'm pretty confident they made that philosophy clear to Artlist because that's why they got so popular and loved. So even if they deicide to make a subscription, I'm sure it will be a fair and honorable deal for us.

tddavis

Technically speaking, with the current model of purchasing Pro and getting a year of updates then renewing that year of updates the next year, it kinda, sorta, from a certain point of view is already a yearly subscription. It's just the best of all worlds in that we never get locked out of the program should we not renew that year of updates and we can keep it operating at the last update version we got. Also, if we see new features two years later, we can always buy that level program with another year of updates. Granted, we'd lose any upgrade premium from renewing every year cause basically we are buying a new version. But a case can be made that is basically a subscription model now, just a generous one not one sided one like...er...cough er, A&$&$ has.

Dewr

As long as I wouldn't be tied into paying, I'd be happy. Even if, let's say, more products were introduced that expanded the toolset, I hope that you can just buy what you want when you want then upgrade when able.

Triem23

I have a few thoughts on the acquisition of FXhome by Artlist. Josh Davies​​ and Kirstie Tostevin​​ were nice enough to give permission to excerpt segments from an internal Staff/Moderator meeting to illustrate them.

https://youtu.be/kndKhmttI-I

Dewr

I sincerely hope that they do not go the way that Adobe has. I prefer the Blackmagic way, where it is one payment and that is it.

But with Hitfilm, I would be ok with paying a single payment for the year, and if I need to when required, paying again for the new version.

triforcefx

@Dewr Just remember that the Blackmagic model only works because their software development is subsidized by the sale of very expensive hardware, and Resolve is also designed to build brand loyalty to the Blackmagic ecosystem and ultimately get users to make a hardware purchase. For instance, if you use Resolve because it’s free and it becomes your primary editor, then later on in life you’re looking at a camera purchase/rental for a big project, you’re now much more likely to grab a Blackmagic camera over a RED camera, because you know it will play very nicely with your editor of choice.

FXhome never had this luxury since they were only making software, which takes time and money to create. (NOTE: The following is pure speculation, I have no insider knowledge on this) However, with the Artlist acquisition, we may ultimately see the software become more affordable over time, especially if they integrate Artlist content with HitFilm and other products, partially subsidizing the cost of the software.

Triem23

@triforcefx Blackmagic using Resolve to drive hardware sales is nicely illustrated by "Buy a Blackmagic camera, get Resolve 'free.'" Of course with ATEM switchers you can set up ISO recordings and the mixer creates a Resolve project so you can load in your show for post edits.

@Dewr this has worked well for Resolve as Blackmagic has been willing to buyout other companies (the NLE, Fairlight audio and Fusion modules were all mature software acquired by Blackmagic and bolted into their color correction software) and actually use/improve/develop the product - unlike some companies, which buy out other companies to either flat-out kill it, or leave it as is forever. Mixamo comes to mind as an Adobe acquisition which has never been updated. The updates to Resolve are great for Resolve users, but Blackmagic's profits come from cameras, console switchers and color control units, and let's not forget format converters (high markup on those SDI/HDMI converters!).

Artlist... Ugh, I have a couple of data points I can't elaborate on due to an NDA, but publicly available information information can be used to make the point.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/29/artlist-raises-48m-led-by-kkr-for-its-royalty-free-music-video-and-sound-effect-library/

So, this article discusses a $48 mil investment in Artlist last year. Article also states that, while Artlist isn't forthcoming with its full financials and profit statements, they say they've always been in the green.

With FXhome we can extrapolate from their own statements that, in 2020, Pay What you Will raised over $100,000 for charity. Let's up that number to $150k. Ok, let's assume that all of that was at a 10% to charity tier (it wasn't). That's $1.5 million in Express add ons. Now, the majority of FXhome sales are Express add ons, but let's assume half the income of FXhome is Express add-ons. That's about $3 mil in 2020.

Remember, I rounded up projected Express income and assumed that's half of FXhome sales, not the majority (more than half). So, while a $3mil business is nothing to sneeze at, this number is mostly likely too high.

While we don't know the value of Artlist, the fact that they have always been in the green and are profitable enough to gain $48mil investments means that it's not unreasonable to assume that Artlist is worth 15 times of what FXhome is, if not more.

This means Artlist pretty much has to be able to sink a big chunk of cash into FXhome. This means they can hire more devs. This means they can buy more testing and development hardware - might this lead to M1 optimized Hitfilm? Well, that's probably in-progress, but will help get that out faster. Maybe it'll suddenly be economically feasible for FXhome to do Linux software! Maybe more mobile software. More devs means our base Hitfilm, Imerge and Ignite can iterate and improve faster. Maybe we'll get an Android CamtrackAR! Maybe Action Pro will come back from the dead!

More money has to go to other areas. Hitfilm's growth is largely word of mouth and referral (how often do you actuality see Hitfilm ads come up?). What could the marketing team do with a larger budget?

This all leads to economy of scale. Long-term Hitfilm Pro users might remember how the price of Hitfilm has varied. At one point it was $399, then $299, then $399, then $299, then $349. Now, some of this is dependent on third party tech - the last price increase was when Foundry got added, and I'll betcha a lot of that increase was the license fees for Foundry.

Which all builds to this - if improved development and increased advertising leads to an uptick in sales, then, the per unit price of FXhome software might actually go DOWN. This isn't wishful thinking, there are real world examples. But, as triforce said in his last post, with the media sales from Artlist being folded into the software sales from FXhome under a single entity, there's no reason why Hitfilm 2023 can't be cheaper than Hitfilm 2021.

Now we, as a community, just have to keep the faith and trust FXhome agreed to this acquisition for the right reasons - to improve the product - and not get into a "Artlist will ruin everything" panic. If we trust and support FXhome during this transition, and not flee for other software, then we will help them grow and reap the benefits of better - even *knock wood* cheaper software for us!

Dewr

I hope you do understand that this is a big step for us customers. We are used to things being a certain way. It would be nice to see things in Hitfilm that none of the other companies have.

spyresca

My prediction (and sorry for negativity here) is that within a few years (or product revisions) that Hitfilm will go to a somewhat traditional Subscription model. And that many here will defend that (for whatever reason). I'm basing that on the official word (twitter) from that they aren't ruling out

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Thanks for your question! Subscription works really well for the Artlist community and libraries, but there are no immediate changes happening to HitFilm. We'll let you know if any additional pricing options become available in the future - so sign up for our newsletter! - Steven

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Not exactly a confidence building statement from them.

When a few years passes, I truly hope someone points to this message and it turns out that I was completely wrong. But I kinda don't think that's gonna happen, unfortunately.

Triem23

@spyresca we'll see what happens, but for any company to ever say "we're not going to change xyz ever," would, in itself be a worrying statement, because the future can't be predicted (I'm remembering a teenager who visited a few years ago who wasn't sure if he'd download the software because it might not, one day, be available in the future for the rest of his life. All i could respond with was that FXhome still allows users to download their Alam DV from 1999 if they own it, but no one could guarantee that FXhome would be around in another 50 years). FXhome states that, for now, they have no plans to change anything but have to be honest enough to admit that changes can happen in the future - whether through an entirely FXhome based decision, or through input from Artgrid.

Whether or not Fxhome ever does change to a subscription model will mostly be driven by economic factors. As I said in my prior post, walking away from FXhome now hurts the chances of the software stay under the current pricing model. The long term support from the current community is going to influence how Artgrid treats the software, so, let's hope for the best and plan for the best.

If, in the future, something happens you disapprove of, then change then.

spyresca

Well, the wishy washy nature of their statement does not fill one with assurance.

It shows they are officially open to "Additional Pricing options " (hm, what could that be?) in the "Future" (Tomorrow, a year from now, what time frame exactly?)

I truly hope I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that these "options" will be subscription based and they'll be sold as some kind of upgrade. ("Hey kids, its all subscription now, but you get some free content from artlist!" or some such).

It's cool to hope HF as a subscription won't happen (my position) but seems a bit silly to assume that it won't, can't happen or is not a real possibility.

triforcefx

@spyresca PR statements from almost any company are often written to be ambiguous so that if something changes, the company won't have people trying to sue them.

If FXhome and Artlist are to be believed, they both want the absolute best for the communities they serve. If HitFilm moves to a traditional subscription model, I believe it will only be after substantial research and community input that they move forward with it. And hopefully, if they do something that causes significant backlash, they will re-evaluate and do the right thing.

For all we know, Artlist is just as big a fan as we are for the current software pricing model- in fact, Artlist subscriptions come with a license agreement that any assets you use in a project are yours to use forever, even if you cancel your subscription... so they appear to be familiar with the concept.