Marketing Policy?

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  • #310214
    eelgoo
    Moderator
    Rank: Rank 7

    Is there a shift in Daz's Marketing Policy?

    Time was that V4 ruled the roost.
    Then along came various iterations of Genesis, Genesis 2 & 3 with all their associated sub characters.
    Each had their own Starter & Pro bundles.

    This no doubt initially generated a lot of extra sales,
    but of late the sub characters & especially their bundles seem very lack lustre to me.
    Whereas vendors used to go into a feeding frenzy whenever a new sub character was launched,
    of late there seems to be little vendor interest in them.

    My take on it is because G3F & G8F provide solid base characters they offer the soundest customer base.

    Anybody any further thoughts on this?

    #310779
    Ethiopia
    Participant
    Rank: Rank 3

    That's a subject dear to my heart. I see Daz3D as nothing but a bunch of greedy, self serving, selfish bastards. Everything they do is geared towards making money. Studio has only enough functionality to make it borderline usable with little time invested in tools that professionals would want. It lacks proper IK, dynamics and pipelines to real 3D programs. Iray is used only because it's proprietary and they can charge money for endless shader packs. Information on anything to do with the program is given only to content creators so that they can sell items and horrible tutorials.
    The figures are it's main cash cow and they dole them out to maximize profits. Every two years or so, another "super amazing incredible fantastic" figure is trotted out so that the army of mindless and compliant Daz fanbois can worship at it's feet and fall all over them selves extolling it's virtues and draining their bank accounts to buy the same crap all over again. It's pathetic.
    I'm disappointed that more people haven't wised up to their sleazy marketing. When I see someone complaining about the cost or displaying any dissatisfaction, I quietly PM them and direct them here. (I use an account through a fake email address and access Daz via the Tor browser).
    I'm hoping that the new team re-writing Poser will include native support for Genesis figures and make free tutorials available to allow folks to make their own clothes and items for Genesis 1,2,4,8,11.... This will provide some real competition for Daz and hopefully see another renaissance of goodies. The continued popularity (and support) of Vicky Fourpointtwoplusplus is a testament to that halcyon time.

    #310887
    coolcat
    Participant
    Rank: Rank 3

    I don't like the prices on the stuff it seems to have gone up and when u are like me and have to pay an exchange rate, then it costs even more and when they have sales u have to buy from certain vendors instead of from any vendor any product. I also don't think they give a xxxx what their customers request to be built I have made product suggestions and it does not seem to matter to them how many people agree with the product it still does not get made WTF ? This is their marketing policy, bend your customer over and FXXX them for all they are worth. LOL OK my rant is done. GRRR

    #310917
    Anna
    Participant
    Rank: Rank-1

    Which is why I never buy anything from Daz. All the DAZ items I have I've gotten from either this site or torrents.(with the occasional free items from the daz market)

    #310973
    Ethiopia
    Participant
    Rank: Rank 3

    I'm sure that there are lots of people who remember the early days when Poser (as buggy and crash prone as it was) used figures from Zygote (V2,3, then V4). Information on creating content flowed freely and there where dozens of sites for individual artists to sell their items. Innovation ran rampant and we had a wildly varied array of stuff to choose from...even if a bit of it was pretty sick, weird and twisted.

    I believe that Daz's marketing strategy of giving Studio away free has paid off well for them....unfortunately for all of us.

    #310993
    eelgoo
    Moderator
    Rank: Rank 7

    My view is somewhat more positive.

    Whilst I really dislike their marketing strategy & in some cases their pricing policies,
    I feel that the product G3F & G8F are exceptionally good in terms of 'bang for buck'
    value as compared with other hobby level figures.

    Poser has been in the doldrums for generation after generation of figures.

    On the whole there is excellent vendor support for Daz based products &
    there are some quality items swamped among the tidal waves of texture packs.
    For me, there is far too much fantasy wear & insufficient 'real world' clothing.

    #311020
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Rank:

    @Ethiopia

    That’s a subject dear to my heart. I see Daz3D as nothing but a bunch of greedy, self serving, selfish bastards. Everything they do is geared towards making money.

    Amen to that.

    It took me years to use DS and I still think it's mediocre compared to Poser.
    I did want future Genesis figures to be usable in Poser and it was disappointing that didn't happen.

    I still think it was DAZ who tried to kill off the competition between themselves and Smith Micro by stopping support for future Genesis figure in Poser.
    + Giving away DS for free. (Remind anyone of M$?)

    This is the sort of predatory business style the community could do without.

    #311057
    eelgoo
    Moderator
    Rank: Rank 7

    The story I heard was the other way around.
    Smith Micro or whoever at the time refused to give native support to Genesis figures, which forced Daz to develop Studio.

    That backfired big style!

    :0/

    #311066
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Rank:

    I don't think we'll ever hear the truth from either side 🙁

    #311068
    eelgoo
    Moderator
    Rank: Rank 7

    Probably not. :0/

    #311104
    Feymarcher
    Participant
    Rank: Rank 4

    The story I heard was the other way around.
    Smith Micro or whoever at the time refused to give native support to Genesis figures, which forced Daz to develop Studio.

    That backfired big style!

    Yep, that's what I've heard, too.

    That was basically Smith-Micro's "Nintendo Playstation" moment.

    For those that don't know, here's a brief history lesson: Back in the late 1990's, Nintendo was THE king of the crop, albeit in close competition with Sega. At one point, Sony was going to work with Nintendo to develop a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo. However, something happened, and Nintendo ended up telling Sony to go pound sand and opted to work with Sony's rival, Phillips, instead. While the Nintendo-Phillips partnership ultimately went nowhere, Sony went on to create their own video game console: the Sony Playstation, which was cheaper to produce games for due to the format (Nintendo stubbornly refused to support the CD-ROM format and went with cartridges for the Nintendo 64) and whatnot. Sony ultimately now has a large chunk of the market share, while Nintendo suffered poorly for years, now having settled into a niche. They're still most remembered and associated with video games in general, but they're nowhere near being as on top of the charts as they used to be these days.

    Just swap 'Nintendo' with 'Poser' and 'Sony' with 'Daz', and that's pretty much what happened in this case. Regardless of your feelings towards Daz, you have to admit that S-M shot themselves in the foot by not choosing to better support Genesis 1-3. Maybe DS5 will be a significant improvement (especially if they've finally ditched Optitex for something better), maybe Poser will finally get better if it gets a Manga/Clip Studio-esque overhaul.

    Frankly, I tend to stick with Daz Studio. It's what I'm used to, and I like Genesis 3. It serves my needs, and if I need a little extra oomph, I just pop something into Blender for a few little tweaks. I've never been one to get involved in "fanboi company wars". I don't have the time or energy to stroke a hate boner towards a company/product like some people do on this site and elsewhere. But the opportunity presented itself for me to try Poser -and I can't believe S-M hasn't even put out a demo version yet-, I'd be willing to give it a try, though. I'm an artist, I use whatever tools I can get my hands on to realize my imagination.

    I don't, however, like how increasingly expensive things have gotten over the last few years. Being an artist myself, I get the mentality of being paid fairly for your efforts and skill level. Even I don't think charging value meal prices for something elaborate and extensive as an Aeon Soul product is fair. So I don't really care if a fancy outfit is like $25-30. People like Arki, Aeon Soul, Uzilite, Samsil, Rhiannon, etc. are worth it. And I will pay whatever for SickleYield's stuff, because they consistently put out amazing utilities that are lifesavers, IMHO.

    But where I do draw the line are little accessories and pose sets. Unless a pose set comes with some substantial extras, I refuse to pay more than $10 for one. At least Renderosity is a little bit better in this regard, but even then, you have to agree that the prices are slowly starting to go up even there, too.

    All in all, as the technology across the board evolves -Marvelous Designer, ZBrush, Blacksmith, DS, etc.-, I don't see it getting any cheaper in general.

    #311128
    NanoDot
    Participant
    Rank: Rank-2

    Ohh, they're rewriting poser? Now that might be very interesting indeed.
    There's a little program called DesignDoll which lets you pose a character. It's free, but has a pro version with a few extra features. The posing mechanism in that app is simply worlds better than in Daz and much smoother and intuitive than in Poser. So I hope they take a cue from what's presently available elsewhere and focus on speed and usability.

    #311130
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Rank:

    @NotEnoughRupees

    you have to admit that S-M shot themselves in the foot by not choosing to better support Genesis 1-3

    We simply don't know that because there has been nothing but rumours floating around the community. Neither DAZ or Smith Micro have ever made a statement to confirm or deny this.

    #311136
    Anonymous
    Inactive
    Rank:

    @NanoDot

    I've heard the same.
    Give me a regularly updated and overhauled version of Poser over DS any day.
    Personally I'd use both. But Poser more for rigging, etc.

    #311182
    Ethiopia
    Participant
    Rank: Rank 3

    "Ohh, they’re rewriting poser? Now that might be very interesting indeed."

    Yes. SM fired the entire Poser crew and hired a new gang. The whole thing has moved to Portugal where the re-write is taking place. That's from various forums and has been confirmed by SM, although they put it in much nicer terms. The SR7 update is their first release and I have great hopes for them. You can send suggestions to the team from the Poser forum at the SM website.

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