Considering the costs post-audit are the full MSRP cost of the software with no package deals, along with fines which are IIRC at least double the cost of the software itself, along with the cost of the audit, having 4 pirated seats of Maya will cost a company something like $30,000 total, probably even more, and that can be enough to shut a place down (especially on the indie side of things). And to be frank, if you have 30k to cover the cost of the fines, why the hell aren’t you getting the seats legit?
Not aimed at people posting :
It’s a bit disappointing that people, especially now, still try to justify piracy with stuff like “well I want to work in the industry and I can’t afford the software, and every studio requires that I know it!” or “well, the software is too expensive!”. Autodesk literally gives away 3 year license edu versions of nearly all of their software as long as you have an email address, and besides the non-commercial aspect are exactly the same as the commercial versions. Sure, you won’t be able to make money using them, but if you’re just trying to learn the software you really shouldn’t be aiming for profit anyways.
That’s also ignoring the fact that there are free and low cost alternatives which are genuinely amazing now. Blender has become truly competitive; I was a hardcore supporter from 1.2 to around v8, stopped modeling, and coming back into it recently decided to give Blender a serious go. It took a little while to get a handle on it, but I much prefer it to Max (and Maya). Sure, I was a bit resistant at first, complained a bit about how the software was organized, but that’s because I spent so long in the Autodesk ecosystem. Understanding why Blender does what it does, I’ve been able to work significantly faster than ever before.
Between Blender, the Substance Live suite, and UE4, I’m only limited by my skill, and practically every time I open any of those programs I make noticeable gains.
I won’t suggest that people already established switch over unless they have a good reason to, and if your goal is to work for some AAA studio that uses Maya it’s better to learn on that, but for people that are doing things solo, getting back into modeling, or just want to noodle, Blender is an excellent choice. And really, the skills will transfer, it’s all down to differences in UI and the quality of the tools.
E: To add a little clarification about the audit side of things - in the surveying and engineering world, audits can and will happen, and I assume it’s similar to the game industry. While my company was never audited while I was there(we were really on top of making sure all our AutoCAD licenses were up to date, no trials, the right amount of seats), some other local firms were hit (probably due to an ex-employee trying to get that sweet narc cash), and my boss said their fines were way over what we paid for our last round of upgrades. Considering we paid $30k for our seats, it’s hard to imagine just how much those companies had to cough up. I never asked details, but I have to imagine it led to firings and depending on the circumstances a lawsuit or two.