While the survey was open 220 people decided to take the survey after reading the initial posting. I'll post the results for the other questions here as well.

This one was a bit confusing when I plotted it out so I decided to make another chart just showing people's #1 rank choices.

The higest #1 is Figures and Morphs which could explain the reaction about Victoria 5 only being available for Daz Studio 4 and not Poser

Sorry I took so long to post the results. I origingally said I would post them just after New Years. Unfortunately we had a bout of the flu just after and this is the earliest I've been able to catch up.

OK so there you go.  As I mentioned of the people who read the thread, 220 answered the questionare by the deadline (I was hoping for at least 200). I posted a link to the survey at RNDA, Renderosity Poser and Studio forums, and the Daz General Community forum to keep it as balanced as poss.

As you can see quite alot of people have a fair bit of content from Daz and spend a considerable portion of thier budget there as well (as seen in question 3 & 4).

I asked people to rank the importance of the content at the Daz Store which when plotted was a bit much so I charted the #1 ranks of which figures and Morphs had a huge lead of 41% - this could explain why alot of people are just a bit ticked off about the V5 and Genesis issues Which seems to be reflected in question 7& 8.

Question 7 & 8 asked what was the level of satisfaction with the content of the Daz3D store PRIOR (Blue) and AFTER (Red) the release of the Genesis system. As you can see there was a very high level of satisfaction prior with most giving a 7-10 star rating.  After the release of Genesis the satisfaction level dived with the majority giving a 5 star or less.

The other interesting comparision is questions 1 and 9.  While the majority of respondants were platinum members - it was a dead heat between the Yes and No camps all the way there was never more than 5 votes between them.  The deciding factor is the wait and see group. Regardless - if the numbers stay the same Daz may start taking a big hit financially soon which can be seen in the results of question 6 where 42% of the respondants said their purchases have gone down and 17% have stopped all together.

So was there any point to this? Maybe. As I said at the start I was getting tired of waiding through the posts to get an idea of what people thought of the actions Daz3D has taken.

What do you think?

I hope this topic will stay clean ...

Good job, with this Daz know what to do !

I just posted the results at Daz as well - as for staying clean Scotch Guard gives no guarentees in this case (but I give it one, maybe two pages).

Two biases:

1 - the people who like DAZ surely flocked to fill this survey while people like me didn't even bother to go there;

2 - as I wrote when the survey was announced, with such surveys there is not way to prevent determined people to stuff the ballot.

Even with these biases, the picture these pictures draw is "interesting".

My purchases have gone down since I requested my my money back for Daz4. Only purchases will be what is needed. Sometimes you would like something at rendo but you need an item from Daz for it to work.

Thanks for doing this, it would interesting to see what happen if this was run again for both Rendo and Independant stores. Would there be any major differences in areas such as satisfaction level?

A survey like this should be considered significant - even with the biases Alex mentioned - by vendors who are on the fence as to which way to go.

Other surveys might prove even more useful to them, I should think! Great start, courageously implemented.

I voted, and the results are what could be expected.

Good job.

I didn't vote.  But I can see my choices would have been somewhere in the middle of the charts.

A good way to produce a more valid survey (reduced "ballot stuffing and sample bias) would be if Daz (Rendo, etc) asked everyone to fill out something similar immediately following the completion of their first purchase after the survey was introduced.

Of course, we'd be unlikely to see the results...

The way questions are posed will affect results dramatically, as will the order in which they are asked. Respondents can be "primed" as well, by the environment in which the survey takes place. It's hard, if not impossible, to create a survey that doesn't introduce some bias, even in if unintentional.

I didn't mind this survey, even though sample bias is always going to be a problem when the sample is completely non-random

It would have been interesting, though, if a question had asked how much each person spent on average at Daz. If 90% of the $10 a year people stopped buying, it might not affect sales quite so much if 90% $10,000 a year people continued.

I'll post my response here as well as the sample population not truly being representative of customers that buy at DAZ.

If you glance over some of the charts it would imply that most of the participants are Platinum Club Poser users that are interested in figures and morphs that because of Genesis their purchases went down. 

Thus if I would believe your survey that then when our V5 was released, we should have gotten less sales than our Gen 4 characters simply because poser users are not buying it because of Genesis' release. 

However that didn't happen and the figure sold more than any of our Gen4 only characters. Also the Gen4/Genesis characters sold more than those Gen4-only products as well. So either those were flukes or your sample population wasn't really representative of those who actually buys content here. I'm going to go with the latter simply because all of the events that have occurred in the forums over the last few months that has caused so much negativity and releasing "unofficial" survey results such as this does nothing but to spread false facts and help reinforce the negativity, not enlighten.

"releasing "unofficial" survey results such as this does nothing but to spread false facts and help reinforce the negativity, not enlighten."

Maybe not. jsmith8045 was careful not to overplay the meaning and I doubt that any views are going to be changed from where they already are. I do find what essentially seems to be 'the ballot box was probably stuffed, the results are what I expected/wished for' kinda surreal but hey, at least there are no dimpled chads to worry about.

Quote - I'll post my response here as well as the sample population not truly being representative of customers that buy at DAZ.

If you glance over some of the charts it would imply that most of the participants are Platinum Club Poser users that are interested in figures and morphs that because of Genesis their purchases went down. 

Thus if I would believe your survey that then when our V5 was released, we should have gotten less sales than our Gen 4 characters simply because poser users are not buying it because of Genesis' release. 

However that didn't happen and the figure sold more than any of our Gen4 only characters. Also the Gen4/Genesis characters sold more than those Gen4-only products as well. So either those were flukes or your sample population wasn't really representative of those who actually buys content here. I'm going to go with the latter simply because all of the events that have occurred in the forums over the last few months that has caused so much negativity and releasing "unofficial" survey results such as this does nothing but to spread false facts and help reinforce the negativity, not enlighten.

Analysis of results can be a tricky business - not just for this survey but also the results of your sales that you quote here. For example, V5 is new and those that do have her will be hungry for content, which is still light on the ground. They will also likely be looking for content specific to V5, so even if they have a shed load of V4 characters, they may be more inclined to buy a new V5 one than a new V4 release that would stand a chance of being rather like many other v4 releases they have already purchased. So, questions that have to be asked include: was the market that you released your V4 characters into really comparable to the market you released v5 characters into?

So I will grant that the value of this little survey may be limited but we mustn't be tempted to try and discredit with what may be equally limited information. From what I can tell, nobody is making any big claims about the survey, it is what it is, and the questions and sample data are there for us to judge it for ourselves. I don't see the spread of false facts, just someone trying to understand a bit of the market a little better. So long as we recognise its limitations, then I don't see a problem.

Quote - I'll post my response here as well as the sample population not truly being representative of customers that buy at DAZ.

If you glance over some of the charts it would imply that most of the participants are Platinum Club Poser users that are interested in figures and morphs that because of Genesis their purchases went down. 

Actually, the charts do imply no such thing, except that most of them are platinum users. The rest is up to your imagination (and you seem to imagine that it is the platinum users who are interested in in figures and morphs).

Quote - ...
...Also the Gen4/Genesis characters sold more than those Gen4-only products as well. So either those were flukes or your sample population wasn't really representative of those who actually buys content here.

Or the fact that you sold more Genesis figures has absolutely nothing to do with the numbers that the survey has collected. Also it might be the case that the people who are buying those characters are not a representative sample of all daz customers, even if  the survey was representative.

Quote -   I'm going to go with the latter simply because all of the events that have occurred in the forums over the last few months that has caused so much negativity and releasing "unofficial" survey results such as this does nothing but to spread false facts and help reinforce the negativity, not enlighten.

I guess i agree in principle, but i think this survey bears no false facts. False facts and  rumours are born by careless interpretation of numbers like these (like you tried above). But it seems to be a principle of human nature to see two roughly equally sized slices in two different pie charts and immediately to think they represent the same population which is just not the case. So when interpreting these numbers be very careful with using words like "because" and "imply", statistical and causal correlation are different things (especially when there practically is not even statistical correlation :-)

There are lies, darned lies, and then there are statistics.  While I think the results are interesting, we have to remember that it could be that the anti-ds4 crowd was better at getting out the vote.  Second, not everyone knew or voted in the polls either.

Still, I'm not terribly happy with Gene myself and would prefer V5 being  poser friendly.

Quote - Actually, the charts do imply no such thing, except that most of them are platinum users. The rest is up to your imagination (and you seem to imagine that it is the platinum users who are interested in in figures and morphs).

Actually they do. For instance the line bars that orders of their preference; the longest bar notes figures and morphs by a large amount. So out of those 200 or so people that did the questionaire, that was their actual preference... no imagination needed because that's exactly what they chose.

Quote -
Or the fact that you sold more Genesis figures has absolutely nothing to do with the numbers that the survey has collected. Also it might be the case that the people who are buying those characters are not a representative sample of all daz customers, even if  the survey was representative.

  The survey basically tries to assert that because the majority of people that took the survey are not going to buy Genesis items and the should be a drop in those sales. That didn't happen in my case. And yes these unofficial results had no bearing on my sales because my sales didn't drop and the nature of how the results were obtained (people going to a website instead of a blind random sampling) aren't representative of the customer base.

Quote - I guess i agree in principle, but i think this survey bears no false facts. False facts and  rumours are born by careless interpretation of numbers like these (like you tried above). But it seems to be a principle of human nature to see two roughly equally sized slices in two different pie charts and immediately to think they represent the same population which is just not the case. So when interpreting these numbers be very careful with using words like "because" and "imply", statistical and causal correlation are different things (especially when there practically is not even statistical correlation :-)

No but thing is, as you saw from the first few posts in this thread, the results started to add fuel to the negative forum fire based on it. There wasn't anything concrete in it, yet people started to run with it and that's how misinformation starts. The way it was set up and conducted should be taken with the tiniest grain of salt and would cause more problems than try to shed light on the situation.

Regardless of the outcome of the survey that does not mean arguements needs to start because of it. If you don't like the results, think before you post.

"No but thing is, as you saw from the first few posts in this thread, the results started to add fuel to the negative forum fire based on it."

I thought the first few post just said thanks or interesting and where rather even handed but then I guess just as beauty in in the eye of the beholder the meaning will change dependant on the reader.

As for statistics I remeber the joke told by the irish comedian Dave Allen which went along the lines "twenty percent of the accidents on the road last year was caused by drunken drivers....which means eighty percent were caused by sober drivers therefore, statistically at least, it seems the sober drivers should get off the road and let the drunks drive in saftey".

Quote - Two biases:

1 - the people who like DAZ surely flocked to fill this survey while people like me didn't even bother to go there;

2 - as I wrote when the survey was announced, with such surveys there is not way to prevent determined people to stuff the ballot.

Even with these biases, the picture these pictures draw is "interesting".

Well, unless someone went through the effort to mask or change their ISP they wouldn't have been able AND if the ballots were stuffed wouldn't the results have favored Daz - especially for questions 7, 8 & 9?

Quote - Thanks for doing this, it would interesting to see what happen if this was run again for both Rendo and Independant stores. Would there be any major differences in areas such as satisfaction level?

Go for it! It will be a while until I do another one myself though - I got enough flack over this one.

The site I used was:

http://www.kwiksurveys.com/

Free site with a lot of survey style options and no limits

do not be dissapointed.

You did well.

Some might not like the result, but hey.
You did your best.

I voted.
I might add another comment to this:

My name is Tony, and my full name is Tony Vilters.
I post under my real name.

That is the name my parents gave me, I am proud of it, and I use it.
It is Vilters here, and it is Vilters everywhere.

I would have more respect for all the critics if they used their real name also.

I never answer a phone, if the number is hidden.
I never open the door if I do not know who is behind it.

If one has something to say?
Do it in the open, face up, and under your real name.

I respect an initiative like this.
Whatever the outcome.

it is very easy to give a bad comment if you can hide.
Is it so hard to give a compliment?

Also just a few reminders -

Notice of the survey was placed in several locations.

The results were NOT made available until now so that the choices did not bias other respondants.

Respondants were allowed to answer the survey once and then they were locked out.

Respondants had to answer all the questions.

This survey was mostly to satisfy my curiosity because I was getting tired of sorting through the post which were made by relatively few people

I wanted to give people who didn't want to leave a post an opportunity to have some input to the issue at hand.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY this was called an unofficial and unsupported survey because I wanted to make it VERY CLEAR that I did NOT REPRESENT Daz3D in any way.

So that's it - take it for what it's worth to you. I will now duck and cover.

A lesson for the future: he who looks for trouble, finds it. Better stay silent and leave everybody to themselves. Anything that even remotely looks like helping others is a most dangerous activity.

I'll add a thanks, jsmith, as well. It was about as unbiased as possible without massive amounts of money invested in it....and just because it doesn't say what some seem to want it to doesn't invalidate it as a benchmark.

Quote - Anything that even remotely looks like helping others is a most dangerous activity.

Boy howdy, ain't that the truth! :glare:

The results are interesting. I have no idea how many studio users there are compared with Poser 8 & up, so it's hard to know what sort of market share DAZ have with genesis. There are a lot of people who will play with both, though, so what will be interesting is to see if those who use both poser and studio eventually choose one over the other. 

Even if you hate genesis or V5, you have to be happy that DAZ is keeping SM on it's toes. 

I don't know how many people stuffed the ballot box on one side or the other, or to what degree the numbers are representative. But one thing stood out to me: That even among people who use the DAZ site, the number of Poser users signficantly outweighs DS4 users, and almost equals the figure for all DS versions. Of course, there are many who use both DS and Poser, but it is interesting that among those who care enough about Daz content to fill out a survey, Poser is so poplar.

That would suggest to me that Daz, which presumably has more exhaustive and accurate internal stats about their members and clients than this survey, would be crazy to alienate Poser users. Perhaps some of their business decisions have done so to some degree, but I don't think it was a plan or plot or anything deliberate. A mistake, perhaps, which they are entitled to make in the pursuit of their business.  

Quote - I don't know how many people stuffed the ballot box on one side or the other, 

For the love of ......

OK this is THE LAST TIME I WILL SAY THIS UNTIL I PROBABLY HAVE TO SAY IT AGAIN IF THIS GOES PAST 4 MORE PAGES OF COMMENTS

Unless someone had multiple ISPs or went through the trouble to change it every time they took the survey (very unlikely with 220 respondants) they were LOCKED OUT of the survey once completed. This means that even if you used a different id on your computer or even a different computer in the same network you would have been denied re-entry according to the recorded ISP address.

Sorry, man. People were talking about stuffing, and I was reacting to that, indicating it's irrelevant. Didn't make that quite clear.

Locked the ISP?

My ISP is Telecom, the Ma Bell of Italy. Probably 50% of the italian internet users rely on it so if any of them voted, everybody else using Telecom was locked out? I think more likely you mean locking the IP address or a class C subnet containing the IP address.

That's quite possible - I did get some feedback about being locked out of the survey even through they hadn't taken it

"Block duplicate responses using IP address  - Users in the same network/office/campus may be blocked" is the setting I used to ensure there would not be any multiple entries from a single point.

Regarding the survey stat showing that more than half of respondents either reduced or stopped their purchases at Daz after  the release of Genesis... To some extent this reflects the fact that there is simply less offered for non-DS4 users to buy. So this stat probably includes some customers who would buy more at Daz if they could. Again, Daz no doubt has more exhaustive data and we need to give it a little time to see if they and their vendors make any changes to get some of that revenue back.

Quote - do not be dissapointed.

You did well.

I agree to this. Any objections I had I left in the original thread, but overall, you did well.

Quote - I would have more respect for all the critics if they used their real name also.

Incidentally, most long-time folks here know my real name (it's Tom Miller if you're curious and didn't know - you have only to ask).  I use the 'nym as I've used it since 1999 or so; I brought it over from my days of online gaming. 

I do disagree and agree at the same time with you on this point. Let me explain:

I disagree with you because the merits of an opinion should stand and fall on their own, no matter who says it. I will also defend to my last breath the right of anonymity for those who desire or require it. Why? Because there are many examples where it is necessary for safety, and an equal number of examples where it can bring greater insight without risking the speaker's personal or professional reputation or career.

OTOH, I do agree that someone should be able to stand behind what they say, and I detest the use of anonymity merely to cause trouble ("griefing"), commit crimes, or to create a false consensus ("astroturfing"). These are however minor irritants compared to the loss of freedom to be anonymous as a whole.

I've given compliments and criticism equally under this 'nym for just over a decade now. But then, I wear the 'nym as comfortably as my own skin.

Quote - Locked the ISP?

To be fair, one could use open proxies (to change the apparent IP) and the browser's "privacy mode" (which wipes cookies after the window closes) to defeat most of these polls. That said, it still takes more than a little effort to 'gin up any sort of false consensus, since you'd have to do it repeatedly.

Quote - do not be dissapointed.

You did well.

I found the results fascinating, to say the least. I'd say they mirror what I would have responded with had I voted.

Quote - I voted.

I didn't, purely out of forgetfulness! 

Quote - I would have more respect for all the critics if they used their real name also.

I've been using this alias since the early 90's and it's not going anywhere. Brynna Morgan (which you'll run into on the 'net as well) is my Wiccan name. My mundane first name is Linda, and no, I'm not handing out my last name. I prefer aliases to using my real name, mostly for safety and the sake of my career, as Pengy noted. I've posted, complimented, flamed and lurked under this alias. Not about to go and change it now. 

Quote - I never answer a phone, if the number is hidden.

That's what voice mail is for. :biggrin:

Back to the survey. I, too, would be interested in a Renderosity version.

I've kept mine from the days of AOL dial up where I tried a number of combinations and my "handle" had the lowest number atachment available - at least my first name isn't John. 

The coolest one (depending on your 1960's Brit TV knowledge) I've seen was one of my university classmates - "I_am_not_a_number".

As to a Renderosity version of this servey - either they or someone else will have to do it since I've had my turn at the front line.

jsmith8045 - sorry to read you've put off by the naysayers after such a sterling effort.

Maybe they should try doing it.

Questions 3 and 4 should have had "None" as an option.

BTW, great effort and an interesting set of results. 

Addendum:  My real name is widely known, it's on my pictures, in my ReadMes and you only have to ask.  Anyhow, I've used it for years, most people know it and I answer to either name. 

I appreciate seeing what 220 users (approx. 2/3rds PC members) had to say. Thanks for running the survey and publishing results. -K