Quote - It wouldn't surprise a bit me to read next week "Due the overwhelming response to our offer, its being extended*.*..."

Ding-ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner!

"Due to an absolutely INCREDIBLE RESPONSE, this offer has been extended to the end of March..."

Quote - "Due to an absolutely INCREDIBLE RESPONSE, this offer has been extended to the end of March..."

March of 2014?

BIG surprise!!!! LOL.

All the best.

LROG

Ok, lets see, near the end of March.......

Due to blah, blah, blah, we have extended till April 30th 2012.

All the best.

LROG

Quote - > Quote - It wouldn't surprise a bit me to read next week "Due the overwhelming response to our offer, its being extended*.*..."

Ding-ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner! "Due to an absolutely INCREDIBLE RESPONSE, this offer has been extended to the end of March..."

Hey!!  I'm a Weiner!  :lol: I told ya! I told ya! I told ya! :biggrin:

In the retail world, discounts are usually extended because the response hasn't been quite as incredible as hoped for. The parallel here would be that sales of Genesis products in the past month haven't been quite as incredible as vendors had hoped for.

Or maybe this was always the plan, regardless how successfully it was working. After this extension perhaps a game-changing announcement that, due to incredible response, this stuff will be free for the foreseeable future, or marked down like 80% from previous prices.

Aww, they didn't even make an announcement for the announcement. :sad:

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - It wouldn't surprise a bit me to read next week "Due the overwhelming response to our offer, its being extended*.*..."

Ding-ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner! "Due to an absolutely INCREDIBLE RESPONSE, this offer has been extended to the end of March..."

Hey!!  I'm a Weiner!  :lol: I told ya! I told ya! I told ya! :biggrin:

And here I didn't peg you for one to say I told you so...giggle

Suddenly I'm hungry for a chili dog....

Laurie

The forecast is; Chili today, Hot tamale...

I'll take "will extend freebie past may" in the daz sweepstakes

Quote - Or maybe this was always the plan, regardless how successfully it was working. After this extension perhaps a game-changing announcement that, due to incredible response, this stuff will be free for the foreseeable future, or marked down like 80% from previous prices.

Once a company devalue's its own software, it's hard to argue the price back up again.  In this case, DAZ has probably collected those on the fence to try DS4, and with little prospect to sell the software, they might as well sweep up the last interested groups they can collect.   The will likely find that they will need to run giveaway or near-giveaway sales every few months as anyone new coming in isn't going to pay $100, $200 or even $400 for something that was priced at 100% off just a few weeks earlier.

Their most direct revenue stream to support ongoing development of DS4 will now be the Genesis product line, so it will be interesting to see how well the market tolerates the somewhat elevated prices.  I suspect we'll be seeing (as we have begun to see) lots of bundling to populate the new user's library.

The problem I have with this so-called game-changing direction is that it somewhat demotivates them from working on "Pro" features (or even fixing the bugs in their current offering) while they absorb a influx of new users.   The profit motivation would push them towards selling these new users introductory content--not enabling them to make their own content.

-K

kerwin makes sense. But on the other hand, maybe one of the goals of giving away DS4 Pro (aside from trying to keep their vendors on the Genesis bandwagon) is to build up a customer base for DS5, which will not be a free upgrade.

Quote - kerwin makes sense. But on the other hand, maybe one of the goals of giving away DS4 Pro (aside from trying to keep their vendors on the Genesis bandwagon) is to build up a customer base for DS5, which will not be a free upgrade.

Not at the moment but may be free when it is released.

After promising on its release that DS4 would never be offered at a lower price I think it might be difficult to sell DS5.

Customer confidence is perhaps difficult to get back once it has been lost. :unsure:

No one wil believe in whatever DAZ says in future.

No more give away sales, went back on that one.

Price will not drop, went back on that.

So, when DS5 shows it's head and the price will appear, what do you think most people will do?

The will wait as they now know that eventuially they will give it away for free.

All the best.

LROG

Yes, Jan, but that's the people who paid for DS4 believing that promise. This new generation of users, however big or small it is, started with the $429 flagship program for free. They're an easier target market to work with. Us jaded, cynical hobbyists don't spend like we did when we were noobs, anway.

Quote - Yes, Jan, but that's the people who paid for DS4 believing that promise. This new generation of users, however big or small it is, started with the $429 flagship program for free. They're an easier target market to work with. Us jaded, cynical hobbyists don't spend like we did when we were noobs, anway.

I always believed it was better to hang on to your loyal customers than continually chase after new ones to replace them. :lol:

I agree that new users won't know any better when they first arrive at the site but word soon travels.

Not sure about you but when I was new to this I was very careful with my spending. I spend much more now than I ever did in my first few years. :lol:

Not me. I spent like it was my last week on earth, when I got back into Poser 7 after an absence of many years. First it was G2 stuff, such as it was, then when I finally couldn't resist Vicky's flirtations any longer, I really went hog wild. Bought stuff I didn't even end up using, just because it was all so new and exciting.

The kind of buyer I was back then, that's who Daz is after. SM was doing its own giveaways then. Not Poser, sadly for me, but G2 Jessi and Miki were given away to new Poser customers. Like Daz and Genesis, SM wanted us to buy Jessi and Miki stuff at their store. It worked for awhile, but Vicky stole me away eventually. She's such a tramp.

Quote - But on the other hand, maybe one of the goals of giving away DS4 Pro (aside from trying to keep their vendors on the Genesis bandwagon) is to build up a customer base for DS5, which will not be a free upgrade.

Not to disagree with you, as you may very well be right, but I've given that angle some thought.   It is, of course, a common and successful  method to building up customer base by lowering or giving away the current version of a piece of software.   However, this is more commonly done at the end of a version's life, not the beginning (DS4 had been in market less than 6 months.)   Given that major versions of DS have been running longer than the industry average of 18 months, this would be massively deferring software revenues unless they were speeding up the development cycle so that they could start recouping that investment in six to nine months.   More than that, and you risk the base melting away as maintenace the current version is defferred into the new release.

Given the bug level and lack of attention to the bugs in DS4, (as well as documentation), I'm not sure the investment in the software supports a thesis that DAZ is accelerating the development cycle so they can see a release so soon (such as this fall.)  I'm pretty sure (from a financial calculus) that this is "give-them-the-core-and-sell-them-the-options" play, where the main option is content.

Of course, DAZ isn't saying.   I do know that they will face an uphill on DS5 as a paid upgrade if it doesn't contain some pretty astounding technology that users can't live without.   The history of the hobby 3D market tends to show that customers really lag in upgrading as long as their current product and system work well.  This would make a "give you 4 now, buy 5 strategy" even more problematic from a revenue standpoint.

Based on DAZ past public statements about Genesis and DS4, I suspect this play will work for them as long as 1) The free content availablity remains small  2) Other content outlets keep pace with DAZ's pricing model  and 3) Alternative core figures such as V4WM, M4WM, etc. don't absorb other segments of the market.

My reasoning goes like this.   Free content, is of course a threat, since content sales will need to sustain DAZ's core business in the absense of any software revenues.  Other content outlets also threaten their model as a purchase at another site does not generate any revenue to support innovation in DS.   If these other outlets also keep price down (by compressing their broker fee's, for example) then the new users might seek them out, even if not of the same quality.   (This is a well documentated effect of "free" software--it compresses what people are willing to pay to add accessories/options to that software.)   The last, element is what hapens with the "base" of V4/M4/K4 users.   If the alternatives of staying with their current investments work, or other products come onto the market at a lower price-point than the Genesis purchases, then revenue in that core base may be turned away from DAZ and further reduce revenues to invest in further development of DS.

To me, it looks like DAZ is swinging for the fences.   If they can lock enough new users into the Genesis/DS4 system, then they will have a strong financial stream to continue to a DS5 and make other strategic investments.   If they cannot sustain the core, and it disspates to other vendors and technologies, they have virtually no direct revenues for the DS software to fall back on as they have convinced the market that correct price is "Free."

-K

kerwin, nice thoughtful post. Hard to argue with much of what you said. But I would just make a couple observations.

Daz is under new management and is not necessarily going to adhere to previous schedules and strategies. They're certainly not adhering to promises made by previous management to the customer base. They're doing what they think they must do for the good of the company and it's affiliated vendors, to heck with what the previous management did or said.

By offering their most expensive product for free for a month, and then extending that for at least another month, they don't seem to be much worried about deferring software revenues ... for DS4. They're more concerned with encouraging purchases of aftermarket Genesis stuff. That is ALL this version of DS is about these days.

So I don't think it's out of the question that the new bosses at Daz might follow this giveaway (and steep discounts that will doubtless come next) by bringing out DS5 sooner than the company had done in the past. I'm not saying next week, but maybe in a few months when this promotion has exhausted itself.

They're ignoring requests for bug fixes in DS4? Well, maybe they're saving those fixes and other improvements for the next, paid version.

Quote - They're more concerned with encouraging purchases of aftermarket Genesis stuff. That is ALL this version of DS is about these days.

Which strategy was most successful in the past. The software at any stage isn't really of a finished-product quality, so that can most safely remain a give-away. It's their content that was the main revenue-generator, anyway.

Quote - They're ignoring requests for bug fixes in DS4? Well, maybe they're saving those fixes and other improvements for the next, paid version.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. :blink:

Quote - > Quote - They're more concerned with encouraging purchases of aftermarket Genesis stuff. That is ALL this version of DS is about these days.

Which strategy was most successful in the past. The software at any stage isn't really of a finished-product quality, so that can most safely remain a give-away. It's their content that was the main revenue-generator, anyway.

Quote - They're ignoring requests for bug fixes in DS4? Well, maybe they're saving those fixes and other improvements for the next, paid version.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. :blink:

Everyone probably needs to remember that the one ingredient you're not accounting for - Poser users.

Until DS4, for the successful strategy you're all discussing, POSER users were buying content.

Not.  Anymore.

Speak for yourself.  I still buy poser content from DAZ on occasion

I buy content here and at DAZ for Poser and Studio. I can use both programs with no major issues. The latest version of Studio that is also the free version does have bug fixes. They also do have a full time employee working on the documentation being contributed to by other DAZ workers. I've already seen many pages of the old DAZ manual (still relevant) updated with the latest changes and more information than the old manual had, not that many ever read it, including those complaining about "lack of docs." I still prefer video tutes. That's how I learned Animation:Master years ago.

I still think the best is yet to come.... 4.1 has the big render speedup that was shown in December and many will find that a must have. Going from 55 minutes for a render to 26 minutes just based on a software update is quite good! I hope it doesn't get broken between now and the release.

Quote - Daz is under new management and is not necessarily going to adhere to previous schedules and strategies. They're certainly not adhering to promises made by previous management to the customer base. They're doing what they think they must do for the good of the company and it's affiliated vendors, to heck with what the previous management did or said . . .

They're ignoring requests for bug fixes in DS4? Well, maybe they're saving those fixes and other improvements for the next, paid version.

Yep, they're definitely under new management (and some posts which are still filtering into the public light.)   They have definitely wanted to increase the base for DS4 and hence sell more DS4 content.   They get a 50% cut of the affiliated vendors, so that will work for them.  I do see a lot of the same 'ol DAZ though . . . shifting price policies & packages, excessive marketing hype, uneven forum moderation (for example, they're now hosting a thread on SM's latest earnings to promote the FUD that Poser is in financial trouble again), and the usual lack of attention to product quality and documentation.   I say this as one of the early adopters of Genesis and among the early independent developers to release morphs for the Genesis product.

Their new CEO comes from and Art & Craft store background, not a software background (as far as his CV on LinkedIn would indicate) so I don't know what to make of the new moves.   

I would welcome an announcement of a DS5 strategy.  I had orginally banked on a DS4 strategy, which told me I could develop for Genesis, and then through a magic "CR2 Exporter" my customers could just "dial up" my figure and load to use in Poser 9/PP2012.   To date, that has remained unfullfilled and left Genesis developers without a clean Poser strategy; and if I read the posts by the product managers at both DAZ and SM correctly, it will continue to be unfullfilled.  I had asked their team to comment on this, instead I got a list of what SM has to do to make their product work in Poser.  Maybe DS5 will have the promised Poser bridge?  Somehow I doubt it.  :lol:

-K

(P.S. To be clear, I'm not criticizing your thesis--DAZ's new management may have a good plan and I'm not seeing it.   I'm probably just suffering from "broken trust" syndrome when it comes to DAZ announcements these days.  ;)  )

Free for another month eh? Now why doesn't that surprise me?

I'm still buying Poser stuff form the Daz store too. Well, when I say "buying"... all those vouchers they've been giving away recently to get the new bugs to buy Genesis stuff have been great for getting A3 Daz Originals items for a cost of exactly nothing. Thanks Daz for feeding my Poser runtime! ;)

Quote - Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. :blink:

Ain't that the truth ;).

Laurie

Yeah, I still buy stuff there. They have some nice stuff...lol. I'm not gonna confine myself to just certain stores just because I don't like their software. After all, I know some of the vendors there and that's who I really support.

Laurie

I also buy a lot of stuff there still.   I really like the set pieces they sell and I see no reason not to buy them from DAZ even if the price is a little high.

-K

Quote - Their new CEO comes from and Art & Craft store background, not a software background (as far as his CV on LinkedIn would indicate) so I don't know what to make of the new moves. 

Jim Thornton said in post in their welcome thread that Dan Farr talked him into coming over from Provo Craft to work at DAZ. My guess is to handle all the business stuff as Dan Farr had said in a couple threads that the business side of things (dealing with investors, etc.) was eating up all his time. He said that him joining DAZ would free up Dan to focus on what's next for DAZ. Jim made a big point that his previous company, where he was Chairman and CEO, has a big hobbyist customer base and he considers them and DAZ to be content companies.

Janl wrote:

Quote - After promising on its release that DS4 would never be offered at a lower price I think it might be difficult to sell DS5.

Actually they never promised DS4 wouldn't be offered at a lower price.

Pageneagle2001 wrote:**
**

Quote - No more give away sales, went back on that one.

Never said that either.

Pageneagle2001 wrote:**
**

Quote - Price will not drop, went back on that.

Or that.**
**

Coldrake

I'm not defending the new management's plan as good or successful. Just saying what I perceive it to be... and I could be wrong. kerwin isn't the only Daz vendor who has spoken of "broken trust." One vendor told me a few weeks ago she is getting nervous that her Genesis products are not selling as she expected, and she hopes this giveaway will turn things around.

Honestly, we should hope it does, even if Genesis never becomes something we can use painlessly in Poser. Indirectly, we need Daz to be successful. The fewer "mainstream" players in our hobby, the less incentive there is for innovation, and for keeping prices reasonable.

As for the Daz Marketplace, well, for me personally it has become less and less worthwhile to visit. I have pretty much sucked what I wanted out of their back catalog, and there is not enough new coming out for V4, or props / scenes that interest me. I still look a coiuple times a week, and occasionally there's an Instant Alert that tempts me at the price. But often I go away disappointed, money unspent.

Which is probably just as well, I have about 50 discount purchases from Daz and Rendo that I haven't even installed yet. Now that's pathetic!

coldrake wrote:

Quote - Actually they never promised DS4 wouldn't be offered at a lower price.  

Unfortunately communication with customers has never been their strong point and a lot was spoken by them at the time about discounts and fair pricing and offers not happening etc. etc. etc. I guess only they know what they meant but many customers believed that the best price would be obtained by adopting DS4 early. This has turned out, for whatever reason, to not be the case.

Quote - ... he considers them [Provo Craft] and DAZ to be content companies.

That is how I read his welcome message as well, which tends to make me think they will tilt away from software and emphasize content; software really being a means to consume that content.

In my view, DAZ had three principle business' going: 1) A content provider  2) A software maker 3) A content broker.

I sense that the focus will be strongly on #1--content provider.   I also get the impression they want to better with #3--broker, perhaps as part of the web site overhaul.   My fear is that #2 (software maker) will suffer except where it very directly supports business #1.   The current moves are to attract more tyros (given the free price tag) rather than professionals who are both more demanding and expect to pay for their tools (as they make money from using those tools--it's seen as an investment expense.)   With the proportion of tyros to pros shifting, the logical conclusion is the emphasis in #2 will very much move to what the tyros need to consume more content (as they will vastly outnumber professionals).  This does change the game, IMHO, but not necessarily where the more expert users would desire.

Time will tell, last summer there was much talk of Genesis in "other systems" with an inference that some professional systems were the target.   Today, I hear very little about that.   

(BTW: I do not mean "tyro" in any derrogatory sense.  I really mean "new user" in Product Manager speak but "tyro" is a lot easier to type . . . in the software industry, we discuss endlessly how to balance the needs of new users--tyros--with our "power users"--usually professionals.)

-K

Quote - Actually they never promised DS4 wouldn't be offered at a lower price.

True--and I wouldn't argue that point.  Their marketing did suggest that DS4Pro at the price offered last fall was an outstanding value at its discounted price.  Some might consider this 100% off sale as pushing that value to zero.    There was no literal "lie" to point to (or at least I have never seen convincing evidence of such), but I can understand how some consumers feel decieved that the "value" (e.g. the price they paid last fall) is now somewhat less than advertised.   It's the difference between perception of misdeed and the breaking of a law or contract.

My advice to DAZ would have been to quickly and quietly address that perception.   Instead they took some time fumbling around after the free offer announcement to start handling it through customer support.   Smart marketing might have planned for this reaction a little better than letting 40+ page thread of disatisfaction spread in their forum.

I agree with Jan that it will be a tough sell for DS5 after the price volatility we saw in DS4--that's just consumer behavior (I've hear it called the "once bitten, twice shy rule of upsells".)

-K
 

Quote - Janl wrote:

Quote - After promising on its release that DS4 would never be offered at a lower price I think it might be difficult to sell DS5.

Actually they never promised DS4 wouldn't be offered at a lower price.

 

Pageneagle2001 wrote:**
**

Quote - No more give away sales, went back on that one.

Never said that either.

 

Pageneagle2001 wrote:**
**

Quote - Price will not drop, went back on that.

Or that.**
**

 

 

Coldrake

"It's Not Fair" thread in the Commons most certainly did say all of that.  In addition, there were pages upon pages of what customers had to purchase to qualify for the upgrades.

By giving away their so called flag ship programs they have shown that they have no confidence in people now buying them.

People will think about htis every time something like a paid for DS program comes out.

Should I buy something at $200 - $400 when I know that they will bring it out for free in 6 months time.

Very much doubt it.

Genesis may be popular at the DAZ store, but where else?

When PA's are happy with a product then they make things for it, not a lot of non DAZ PA's doing things for Genesis.

More people have V4 content and PA's on most sites are still making content for her and now with V4WM she is going to just carry on being popular.

Poser users will continue to buy things at DAZ if they think the items are worth it, but as more and more content that appears there is restricted to Genesis, then they will take their money elsewhere.

DAZ thought they were doing something that would make Poser users drop Poser and take up Studio. This didn't happen and in fact the Poser community has moved on and is quite happily doing their own thing now.

All the best.

LROG

ssgbryan wrote:

Quote - "It's Not Fair" thread in the Commons most certainly did say all of that.  In addition, there were pages upon pages of what customers had to purchase to qualify for the upgrades.

Nowhere does it say they promised DS4 wouldn't be offered at a lower price, nowhere does it say they wouldn't give it away. You can keep repeating that it does as many times as you want but it won't make it true, no matter how much you want it to be.

Feel free to post the exact quotes where it says they will never give it away or sell it for a lower price.

Coldrake

Actually it is hard to prove what has been said since so many posts have been edited and removed. I have no recollection anymore of what exactly has been said, but the impression the thread gave was that prices would remain stable.

This is from the first post in this thread (edited 3 timies, last one a week later)

"While going through this initiative, it occurred to us that our repeated, deep discounting on 3D content was unfair to some of our customers.  A large disparity between the amount one customer paid vs. another is unfair.
Everyone should pay a fair price always. We hope you agree.
Still, we want to offer our faithful and loyal customers added value and bonuses. And we want to motivate you to purchase new items right away instead of waiting by offering true value and not artificial or arbitrary discount periods. "

Hee Hee!

I should make that quote my sig...

Quote - Actually it is hard to prove what has been said since so many posts have been edited and removed. I have no recollection anymore of what exactly has been said, but the impression the thread gave was that prices would remain stable.

This is from the first post in this thread (edited 3 timies, last one a week later)

"While going through this initiative, it occurred to us that our repeated, deep discounting on 3D content was unfair to some of our customers.  A large disparity between the amount one customer paid vs. another is unfair.
Everyone should pay a fair price always. We hope you agree.
Still, we want to offer our faithful and loyal customers added value and bonuses. And we want to motivate you to purchase new items right away instead of waiting by offering true value and not artificial or arbitrary discount periods. "

 

And, while they quibble about what was/wasn't said, customers walk out the door because there is no documentation.

I still buy content from Daz if it is good, some of the scenes are high quality and if something special appears for V4 I will buy that, put it through 3d outfitter and use it with V4WM. 

I do wish Daz well and the suggestion that it loss would stifle innovation may or may not be true but there has been a lot of innovation recently.  I suspect much of this innovation did not take the market in the way Daz would wish but I am only guessing. 

I do also think that Daz has been unlucky in that, while the fact their new figure did not work in Poser was upsetting, the impact was greater because it appears that Poser 9/2012 was such a leap forward.  I for one spent my money on 2012 long before the software was available just to get Sub-Surface Scattering after seeing the example renders at RNDA.  I could see what I was spending my money on rather than going on promises.  I have still not seen anything with the 'G' figure that makes me say 'I must have that', although in fairness, since V4WM I have stopped looking anyway.

I remember a time when another content outlet made similar promises that it couldn't keep. It blew over too.

Quote - I remember a time when another content outlet made similar promises that it couldn't keep. It blew over too.

More than one ;).

Laurie

Quote -   ...I for one spent my money on 2012 long before the software was available just to get Sub-Surface Scattering after seeing the example renders at RNDA.  I could see what I was spending my money on rather than going on promises.  I have still not seen anything with the 'G' figure that makes me say 'I must have that', although in fairness, since V4WM I have stopped looking anyway.

Likewise.  I recently got the Genesis morph packs on the off chance that there someday will be a Poser compatiable version. (Plus I've bought so much from DAZ over the years I couldn't find much else to spend those vouchers on.)  I'm not holding my breath, though...

Quote - **While going through this initiative, it occurred to us that our repeated, deep discounting on 3D content was unfair to some of our customers.  A large disparity between the amount one customer paid vs. another is unfair. **Everyone should pay a fair price always. We hope you agree.

Still, we want to offer our faithful and loyal customers added value and bonuses. And we want to motivate you to purchase new items right away instead of waiting by offering true value and not artificial or arbitrary discount periods.

coldrake is right, it does not explicitly say here that they won't do it any more (at least in this final version after 3 edits). But, boy, it sure does sound like an apology to paying customers for having done it in the past, admitting the practice is unfair.

Which is an odd thing to acknowledge while giving away their most expensive product, and two other 3D software packages as well.

Not listening closely enough to your customers is probably the worst thing you can do - except for listening too closely to them. But then the closest I got to B school was shelving books in the library :-)