it's not a scam, it's jrivers normal development pace. one cool thing about jriver, even if you don't upgrade from 30 to 31, next year you can upgrade from 30 to 32 for the same cheap price of about 20 bux. I mean.. it's a lot cheaper than roon
This email seems to be the typical upgrade cycle since, well, years.
It is an early notification of a future update.
Is the email itself a scam?
But back to what I think may be the concern of the OP.
JRiver seems to update MediaCenter on a regular basis.
The initial email sent out about those upgrades typically precedes the actual upgrade by weeks (months?). I honestly do not remember the lead time from the receipt of the initial new-version upgrade email, and when I want to upgrade.
OK... long story short...
II you want to upgrade, then perform the upgrade when you are comfortable in doing so.
My personal view is that this JR Media Center software is good stuff.
So I prefer to upgrade sooner than later.
My understanding is also (and please, someone correct me if I am wrong), that the older versions continue to work, but without (obviously) the features of the newer versions.