3DNeo opened this issue on Aug 19, 2006 · 72 posts
kobaltkween posted Sun, 27 August 2006 at 7:06 AM
have to disagree with your notion of "supermodelness" is why vicky sells. she sells because she's the norm. she sells because of the circular model of the market - everyone buys vicky because all the content is for her, and all the content is for her because everyone buys vicky. after vicky who are the most popular figures (as far as i can tell from galleries, merchandise, etc.)? the specialized and petite aiko and the ordinary looking miki. and miki has what, 1/100th the support of v3? but is still highly prominent in the galleries? even aiko trails v3, and she's got a lot of support.
if anything, i'd have to say that the ordinary look sells better due to how well miki does. after all, her looks is just about all she has on v3. it's certainly not joints or morphs that sell her. it certainly isn't cost since v3 is now free. it sure as hell isn't merchant or freebie support- v3 wins that hands down as i mentioned. if you were right, products like rikishi, miki and koji wouldn't even be on the map, let alone as popular as they are.
i mean, come on, when most merchants explicitly announce that they're going to support v4 when she comes out, and when daz has a history of pairing with artists for a 20 and 30 product launch, what do you think is going to happen? i know i bought v3 with an expectation that the community would support her as they did v2. that i could wait months to buy a texture because free ones would be released immediately. that i could wait to buy clothes because there would also be free clothes. and i was right.
one reason apollo sold as well as he did was the flexibility he came packaged with and the initial support of several key merchants.
i would be willing to put money down that any female figure that has
would more than give vicky a run for her money. but even though i've only named 18 merchants out of the hundreds out there, i'm pretty sure only one figure presently fits the bill. there are other permutations for success, but basically, if enough popular merchants do quality work for a figure, it will become popular. even with gumby shoulders, bent straw arms, thighs that flatten when sitting, mediocre expressions, and almost no ability to acheive true supermodel thinness (excluding jim burtons add-ons which are basically new figures). vicky's built like an amazon with a huge chest, broad shoulders and a wide body, not the clothes hangers supermodels are.