Adobe Changes Creative Cloud Download Availability

According to a blog post released by Adobe last week, Creative Cloud users will now only have direct download access to the two most recent major versions of Creative Cloud desktop applications. Not the best news for editors, videographers and creatives all around.

As long as you had a Creative Cloud account, it’s always been possible for users to download older versions of adobe applications included in their subscription. I know for a fact that many video editors (including myself) oftentimes wait months and months to update to the newest version of Premiere Pro CC until all the kinks and bugs are “sorted out”. Some editors don’t even do it at all.

Here’s what the Adobe team had to say according to their blog post:

“A Creative Cloud subscription offers numerous benefits, including frequent product updates with new features and capabilities, critical bug fixes and important security updates. We recommend all customers use the latest release of Creative Cloud for optimal performance and benefits.

Please note that going forward, Creative Cloud customers will only have direct download access (from the Creative Cloud Desktop app and Adobe.com) to the two most recent major versions of Creative Cloud desktop applications.*

Focusing our efforts on the latest two major releases of Creative Cloud applications, which the vast majority of Adobe customers are already using, will further enable us to develop the features and functionality most requested by customers and ensure peak performance and benefits across Windows and Mac operating systems. Business customers in need of an older version of a Creative Cloud application should contact their IT Administrator to see if one is available.

*Exception: Only the most recent version of Adobe Acrobat is available for download.”

Is there maybe more to this than they would like to admit? Lately there has been a lot of negative feedback from film and video professionals regarding stability issues with their desktop applications. Adobe often releases updates only to fix bugs and stability problems, being that a few ago they released an update to address a ton of crash report issues.

Allowing users to have direct download access to only the two most recent versions of their Creative Cloud applications would in theory allow them to not have to deal with issues from older iterations of the applications.

What do you guys think of this download change from Adobe? Does it change your mind regarding having a Creative Cloud subscription? Will it affect your work at all?