Starting with The Kids 4, DAZ are ending the 'free' status of it's base figures (see here, account at DAZ required to view).

I guess they changed their mind. A Blast from the Past....

ALL DAZ 3D BASE FIGURES NOW FREE!

Now that DAZ 3D and Gizmoz have joined forces to help make 3D more affordable, we have decided all DAZ 3D Base Figures will be offered for FREE. That's right, every base human figure from Victoria to The FREAK 4 (and everything in between) will be permanently FREE for everyone to enjoy, so tell your friends!

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=130846

Antonia will always be free...

http://sites.google.com/site/antoniapolygon/

They were only permanently free temporarily ;o).

Ah well - such is life. Back to buying them (like I did Vic 1-3, Mike 1-3, Aiko, Stephanie, Steph 3 Petite, David, Freak, Mil Kids, Aiko 3, The Girl - did I miss anyone? ;o)).

Laurie

Oh changing their minds isn't so bad, stuff happens and plans have to be altered.

However going back on a promise and then trying to retroactively change a year old post to reflect the current mindset is less than brilliant...much, much less.

To be fair to DAZ, they admit a change of mind and are encouraging folks to get them while the going's good - and to tell their friends.

I always thought the unlimited freeness was a strange idea, commercially speaking.

I find it funny they changed the permanently announcement.... and thought no one would notice LOL

even now they've changed it back... yeah. lost some trust points there ;)

On another thread in this forum I was forecasting that Studio base would someday stop being free.

This news is a confirmation of my ideas; now DAZ is fully entrenched and can start making people pay for everything (probably little, but still no free ride).

Bye...

I downloaded all of them in the past. I guess they will still remain in my account for re-download if I lost my copy..

This is why I download and burn, download and burn...;) The thing seems more like locking the barn after the horse is gone...;)

I can't blame them really.  I mean they were made free during a very different economy with no real clue as to what was coming. 

 Times have changed, thus so do their plans. 

oh I don't blame them.. I just think the editing of the first post wasn't honest... shrug but they makes the mistakes... they lives with 'em

You know I don't think I once got them for Free.  I think I purchased them all with a bundle at least V4 and K4, I had purchased V2 & V3, and MilKids and Baby.  So, I will just continue to do so.

It's. Not. About. The. Price.

Promises are broken all the time when circumstances change. The post was no longer

accurate, so they changed it. Their mistake was NOT telling everyone they werre

changing it to reflect the current reality. Still the best place to shop, as no one else

gives that 30 day money back policy. Mistakes are made, that's life.

no, the mistake was to change it and not leave it alone.

but I get the feeling this is something that will just be an ongoing arguement....so I'm off.

I thought giving the base figures away free was a pretty extremely smart move, and this switch back to their old prices is ... not.

While free is always nice, I never expect free nor do I have any illusions that anything will remain forever free. Obviously, I didn't have a problem buying the figures as I bought every single one I own except for the version 4's ;o). Not really that big a deal AFAIC. Now, it may be a bigger deal to vendors who specifically support figures. If they're no longer free, less people will have them and therefore less people will be buying the supporting items.

Laurie

They were free... yes, the base meshes, but if you wanted to do anything with them you had to buy morph packages, which were not free so that "free" tag has always been somewhat of a joke.

DAZ knows well that people will grumble and then... what do they do? Either they go to SmithMicro or... where? to MakeHuman :lol:?

In addition, if you assume that DAZ and SM are in fact in some kind of cartel agreement (quite a natural occurence when a few firms control almost completely a market) movement from one seller to the other is more than welcome because it can be used to show that there is "competition" and any oligopoly talk is just a conspiracy theory.

Bye.

[sarcasm] Yep,  Daz and Smith Micro are secretly conspiring to take over the planet.

...

As a friend always says: "Remember. It's pillage first, THEN burn!" [/sarcasm]

Laurie

I think pjz99 is right, giving the figures away was a smart move. It's like selling printers for a pittance. They may not make money on the printer itself, but you are locked in to buying their ink, and they make all the money from ink.

Note I don't question that they had a right to do it, of course they did, just this is a dumb move, that's all.  Possibly they regret giving away the morphs for Freak/SheFreak, S4 etc.

The ones who are probably really going to get irritated is those who are waiting patiently - or not so patiently - for David 4.  Every other figure variant given away free except (probably) D4, that's kinda shitty.  D4 fans have tended to be the most loyal, at least imo.

Quote - Yep,  Daz and Smith Micro are secretly conspiring to take over the planet.

True, but my own evil plans for world domination are now so far advanced that there is no stopping me! Too late DAZ & SM, Ho Ho, Ha Ha... Ha Ha... Mwahahaha...

Perhaps they fear, that when they bring out V5 some day, nobody would use it. So it would be best for them when that time comes everything else would cost some money; and if they wait too long it would be suspicious ("Hey, look we have V5, its free. Oh, and by the way, from today on V4 costs $50"), and could make some customers disgruntled.

When V4 came out, M3 and V3 were no longer free, at least for a year or so...

Quote - ...and could make some customers disgruntled.

Lets face it, anything DAZ does will make some customers disgruntled, particularly the ones who hang around here.

Quote - > Quote - ...and could make some customers disgruntled.

Lets face it, anything DAZ does will make some customers disgruntled, particularly the ones who hang around here.

I wouldn't want to be in Kevin's shoes, ever.  You couldn't PAY me enough.  I've taken some brutal insults and accusations over the years, but it's the passive-aggressive mean that's the worst.

Base figures not free anymore...... pc items discontinued because of the costs involved...... talk about pc club price raise...... subtle hints of DAZ Studio not being free in the future anymore...... graduate price raises..... sounds like business isn't as good as it used to be or DAZ spent too much money on mergers, take overs and such.

I dropped my PC club membership last month. I hadn't seen anything in there that I wanted to buy in over a year.

Frankly they were foolish to make them free to begin with. I'm sure the hope was to see the niche sales increase and I doubt that happened. I don't have any problems with the niche bases no longer being free personally. Even getting them free didn't encourage me to use most of them. As long as M4 and V4 are free I doubt it will be any impact most new users or what products get created.

"pc items discontinued because of the costs involved" The reason should have been they are old as the hills and frankly do not look good in the store any more.

"subtle hints of DAZ Studio not being free in the future anymore" They have already said some of what will be in the next free version vs pay for version so those hints must be for Version 5 of studio.

Quote - "subtle hints of DAZ Studio not being free in the future anymore" They have already said some of what will be in the next free version vs pay for version so those hints must be for Version 5 of studio.

...maybe they will change their mind :lol:.

I have read a few posts on other forums hinting at financial problems for DAZ; such ideas could not be further from reality. When a firm behaves as DAZ is behaving is because it is dead sure that it has a firm grip on the market and can act as it prefers towards the objective of maximizing profits which, remember, is the only objective of any firm on the world.

If you check the supply and demand model page on wikipedia you will find enough information to understand that the point that maximises profits is not low prices but prices not-too-high-to-turn-away-too-many-customers.

In addition, as Poser stuff demand is more like a "need" than a "hobby", it is an example of highly inelastic demand (another example is car fuel, you might get the bus but in the end you keep driving); with such characteristic, people grumble at price hikes and then keep buying (and firms know that!).

The give away technique is used to 1) create a market (with price hikes in the future) or 2) to price out of survival competion (aka dumping). It is never meant to be sustained in the long run.

I think P5 Judy helped sell more DAZ Vickie's than any sales campaign DAZ ever put together.

Actually, the Poser figures aren't bad, and I did kinda like Judy. :)

The problem was that they didn't bend as well as the DAZ figures,

despite what some Poser users say, and they were much harder to

morph into someone else. Their features were to distinctive. Any way

you morph Miki, for example, you can still see the base character was

Miki. I've seen characters out of Vicky and Michael that I would never

have believed came from them, because there was nothing of Vicky or

mike LEFT in the new characters. I'd quess that is where their popularity

comes from. Smith Micro really needs to do a Everyman and Everywoman

in order to compete with that. ^_-

Quote - oh I don't blame them.. I just think the editing of the first post wasn't honest... shrug but they makes the mistakes... they lives with 'em

I agree with you - changing a post to make it seem that they never said that. That undermines their credibility. Changing their minds is their right, lying and trying to fool people isn't.

Quote - I dropped my PC club membership last month. I hadn't seen anything in there that I wanted to buy in over a year.

This is a little OT, but I'm getting to that point as well.  Them making things I want is happening less often over there but I still feel like I've saved enough to renew at least once more.

Anyone notice that S/M stock plumeted by over 34% this past week?  (wireless market problems unrelated to 3D graphics), but, with this tidbit of news, perhaps there may be a bit more going on behind the scenes that does relate to us. 

Nobody lied, and no one tried to fool anybody. Read DAZ_Kevin's posts.

Coldrake

V3 and v4 bases for free. $15 for V4's morphs++......................NICE!

Antonia Polygon 1.0 for free.............................REINVENTS NICE!!!

DAZ can decide to charge for DS at any time.  From the outset, DAZ clearly stated that the base app would be free so long as content sales support current and future development. 

I was a little shocked by the level of hysteria about this at the DAZ forums. Things seem a little more sane here.

I can't see Studio losing its free status for a while as they are tied to a render engine that they don't own. They can supply it without the cost of a licence because they supply it for free - they can only charge for Advanced on the grounds that you are paying for extra tools to those given for free.

If they begin charging then they will have to pay to licence the render engine, which will bump up the cost of both Studio versions. To sell the software, they will also need to start including some content and before you know it, they would be competing directly with Poser on the same basis. I suspect that they would be at a disadvantage to SM in that market and pricing (who now have a physical basic version with a rrp of just $49).

Ironically, if DAZ had directed their development and marketing efforts toward Carrara instead of Studio, they could have been in a position to take over that market. Unless they are prepared to invest a lot in supplying new materials, that boat might have sailed.

JenX:

"

I wouldn't want to be in Kevin's shoes, ever. You couldn't PAY me enough. I've taken some brutal insults and accusations over the years, but it's the passive-aggressive mean that's the worst.

"

Don't get mad. Get even.

Well, we kept going on in that other thread about whether DAZ and SM were moving in the same direction or slowly moving in different directions. Maybe, at least the people at DAZ were reading!

I can see charging for the newer figures. I don't know how much revenue they'll get from V2 etc., if I'm understanding correctly that the old figures will be for sale eventually as well.

Quote - Base figures not free anymore...... pc items discontinued because of the costs involved...... talk about pc club price raise...... subtle hints of DAZ Studio not being free in the future anymore...... graduate price raises..... sounds like business isn't as good as it used to be or DAZ spent too much money on mergers, take overs and such

Ha-ha-ha!!!!

Thanks for that! I needed a good laugh!

Note - They didn't spend any money on mergers. They merged to get financial backing for further development.

mac (DAZ PA)

Finally it's about time that they start charging for the bases again. The price isn't a big issue for me since I'm broke anyway and it's been almost a year since I've purchased any new content.  I'm sure they have a few customers in similar situations where having a lower price isn't going to make things better.  People won't buy if they don't have money. 

A lower price means they have to sell large quantities of content to break even, but by raising the prices a little all around, they no longer have to sell tons of content since the profit would be higher on each model.

It's about time.

All base models except for V4 and M4 go off sale as of midnight 2/18 not just the K4 models.

And I wonder if this is somehow related to SM releasing Poser Debut in the near future?

Quote - And I wonder if this is somehow related to SM releasing Poser Debut in the near future?

I don't think so.

I don't know for sure either, but I think Daz is just to a point where the risks now outweigh the benefits, that's all. People aren't buying as much content as they thought. I know I was one of the people who were leery at Daz giving the figures away for free. I felt it not only devalued their own figures, but also devalued the products of every vendor who  made products for their figures. And if you don't understand what I mean by devalue - I mean that it drove the prices of everything right into the floor. As much as people love free (and yes, it IS nice), people also come to expect it after a certain length of time. And if not free, dirt cheap. It's one of the risks you run when you are constantly giving ppl things. A sense of entitlement develops and they are dealing with just that right now at a certian other place. The people here seem to understand that things change and so do plans.

I bought all my previous Daz figures right up until the version 4's. Obviously, I didn't mind paying for them ;o).

Laurie

Laurie,

Your post is the most sensible, concise and accurate assessment of the situation I've seen yet. All the conspiracy theorists should be made to read it because it's far closer to the truth than any of the wild guesses I've read, mainly from people who think they know DAZ's business better than DAZ does.

If I didn't know better, I'd think you worked at DAZ. LOL.

mac

Quote - If I didn't know better, I'd think you worked at DAZ. LOL.

mac

Gawd no! LOL. Just trying to think of things from a business standpoint and from a human nature standpoint as well...lol.

I was just telling a friend this morning that ppl are a lot like bears. You really shouldn't feed then too often. If you do, they come back day after day and they bring friends...lol. Feed then for long enough and they won't bother to try and look for food themselves anymore. Stop feeding them and, well, they'll start tearing your place apart and if you're not careful, eat YOU...lol.

Laurie

About conspiracy theories: one of the few things that my 51 years of mistakes have taught me is that if you assume the worst about people you always err on the side of too much optimism and trust.

"All the conspiracy theorists..."

But it's more fun to form conspiracy theorys. ^ ^