3ds Max 6

#1 This is a really stupid question to ask, why? It's an industry prooven application that provides the end user with a plethora of options abilities to do 3D related work and has done so for well over 10 years.

You might not agree with the price point, but unfortunately that is the value that the developer has set as the suggested retail price and obviously due to its widespread industry support and sales growth year upon year it works.

The real question you need to ask yourself is if you are talented enough and have the drive and determination to use your investment in a piece of software like this to generate enough money to make it worth your investment.

Logan

#2 If you are really in the market for a high-end 3D app, but wanting to save some money, I would recommend Maya over Max - save yourself the $1500. They have fairly equivilent feature sets and are both industry standards. Each has a few advantages for game content creation - some people prefer the features of Max's polygon modelling, while Maya's texturing tools have significant advantages over Max's.

Both tools are incredibly flexible, and quite capable of handling the task of game content creation.