Quote - Actually DAZ has rigging tools now that can output a rigged Poser figure, although the point I was making was that D|S has mainly been used to get people hooked on their content (which you got) and offering a GI-capable version FREE would be a rather massive boost to that money stream (which you didn't get).  The very large improvement in image appeal that you get with minimal effort when working with GI would mean their Poser content - which is overwhelmingly their main revenue, not D|S plugins - would be shown in a far better light by many more people, making that content more attractive and thus making big bags of money.  Pun intented ;)

Certainly some people will buy the GI-capable version, but I'll bet you literally 10 times as many will stick with the free one.

I got it, but I wasn't sure if I agreed with it.  You make a good point, that better renders equals happier users, and that happier users will stick with the hobby and likely buy more new content.  I think their assumption (as well as mine) is that GI is a feature many new users might not see the value of initially, though they would no doubt notice the increased render times.  It surely can't be easy deciding which features should be in the free version and which should be in the pay version, especially when higher quality almost always requires longer render times and higher performance hardware that new users may not expect to have to invest the time and money into.  Many people, especially gamers, are often shocked to learn that a good render may still take hours or even days to produce, even on the same hardware that runs the latest 3D shoot 'em up at 60+ frames per second.