Quote - I think we're finally seeing the shake out of poser content products. There are too few buyers, way too many people producing content, and tons of quality free items out there now.

Smaller stores are fading away, and bigger stores are doing back to back sales, and prices are spiralling downwards, even though sales volume is also going down, while quality workmanship is going up.

Agreed somewhat.

There are lots of folks who buy stuff still (DAZ has been doing near-constant sales for eons now; just on different stuff).

Quote - While that sounds great (short term) from a consumer standpoint, the reality it some quality artists can no longer afford to do this for a living , and have left, or moved up to higher end applications doing prefessional work.

It all depends on a couple of things:

1. Your business model. I've said it a zillion times before (and promptly got yelled at for it) - you cannot --by and large-- expect to pay the rent with this hobby, esp. with only a couple of adverts on Rendo's banner rotation.

2. Features, Features, Features. Any fool can make and sell a "dress". Any fool can make hair. Any fool can make and sell "textures for (product)". The ones who do well can make a dress with not only body morphs, but movement morphs and a lot of detail (w/o pumping out a zillion-poly .obj file, either). Hair is a biggie in this regard - if you can give it simple but powerful movement and modification controls, and make it look good, you own the joint.

3. Uniqueness. I bet you have at least half a dozen underwear packages for V4 in the RMP right now. But, how many people build a clothing set that is as functional as much as it is (at least superficially) pretty?

Quote - Others have fallen into the "churn out th V4 skimpy outfit of the week" mentality, only producing items that still sell in numbers. Producing nitch items can be a killer now, unless its as a freebie release.

Not necessarily - If it's something with some flexibility to it - say, a more generic 'room' with different styles of furniture in it, with different MAT files for wallpapers and paint options, and etc, it'll likely sell more than just a fixed set-piece victorian era master bedroom that's usable at only one camera angle, y'know?

Quote - Odds are, the pendulum will swing like this for the next year or so, and once the ranks have thinned out enough, it will swing back the other way.

True.

/P