Quote - I'm kinda with the poster who said maybe it's the amount of time spent here that's changed our view of products in the MP. I still use, on a regular basis, character meshes I bought five years ago, because there hasnt been much that's really screamed BUY ME! since. I'll buy an occasional texture and then rework it for my own needs or a set prop and then rescale it to fit the characters I use. But I happily ignored all the stuff for V3 and will no doubt do the same for V4 and A4. It's just not interesting, sorry.

And I happily accept that I'm well within the minority on that point. But I find it amusing to see sooooooooooo much similar stuff out there. The note about the expected products for M4 is a valid one: I love the final results -- even M4 itself was worth the wait (and I say that in my own astonishment) -- but did any of us really expect anything original?

But let's not forget that buying in the MP is all about impulse, which is why we see so many scanty outfits and cookie-cutter showgirl textures. It's that "Ooo bright shiny!" syndrome: a product sells well for about two weeks, then gets lost in the rush of everything else, so the merchant has to make sure it sells damn well for those two weeks. Ergo: Ooo! Bright! Shiny! :)

ditto!  i feel the same way as Conniekat8, but i do still think it's me.  i think the market is condensing some, because the trend from independent creators to mass merchants wasn't quantized but continual.  and it's still happening.  as the good become great and the great become amazing (Stonemason, Lourdes, etc.), demand for quality goes up.  more skill can only do so much; at some point hard work has to make up the rest.  well, not only does that mean you need to reduce your work by repurposing base elements, but you need to make sure your products sell more and more.

and it's all circular.  i got told once in the forums that there was no way people would buy products for males and females if DAZ started pushing products that were based on traditional fine art (say Renaissance to pre-Raphaelites).  frankly, i don't buy that.  i think if all the fairy girl pictures in the DAZ gallery were precisely the same skill level but in a more fine art style, everyone would be aspiring to a differnt aim.  as is, if you're part of the Poser community, you have to deliberately block out all the media pushing the main popular Poser types to even think of something else.  there's tons of popular genres out there that are neglected in Poserdom.  but the community is caught in a tightening popularity loop.

advertising works, and one of the primary functions of the galleries and forums is advertising. 

if you've been here a while, it's very visible.  every year, there's less interesting stuff.  every year the stuff that is interesting gets a little lower quality on average and relative to skimpy fantasy girl outfit no. 1,000, 002.  every year, the art fits more and more rigid parameters, as more of the skilled follow norms or leave, and the unskilled are shown more and more limited examples of what good and appealing artwork should be.  again and again, i've watched those who've grown artistically, not just improved their skills but explored different visions, leave the community.

maybe things will change.  but it would take a really, really big change of some sort.  for instance, when D|S gets dynamic clothes, it may become much easier to make clothes, and more profitable to give people creative power not tied to a specific style.  Poser 8 might finally be the draw to higher end users its team seems to want it to be.  certainly life is often unexpected.  but i'm not counting on an end to trend towards a singular and incredibly proscribed artistic vision.  i actually think that's happening in most media, anyway.