Well for the new poser user DAZ has almost done the same thing as withdrawing the gen4 by starting charging for them.   Maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe I was a particularly cheapass new user, but when I started out in 3d I wouldnt pay for much of anything. I'd grab anything free I could find, but I wouldnt pay.  It wasn't until I got my feet wet and started getting decent results that I started spending like a drunken sailor.  

My concern with the SM figures that ship with poser... decent results are going to be tough to come by, especially for a new user.

Heck one thing they should be doing is taking that content tab that I have never ever used and adding a section that links to download sites for any decent free figure(content) around.  There are figures around that compare quite well to the gen 4 series.   Antonia is an example.  Maybe v4 has a few things up on her, she has a few things up on v4, but really as a free figure to start working with a new user can get a lot of miles out of her and some nice renders without a ton of effort or skill.  Unfortunately a new user probably wont find her.   Previously that wasn't a problem for the new poser user, they just did what we all did and grabbed the free gen4 base figures... but now that there isnt a free base figure....

 

Do we worry about daz deciding they prefer predatory business practices over their reputation?  I do.  I bet a lot of people do.  That to my mind is what a lot of the fireworks surrounding genesis were about, people seeing a predatory business move and not liking it.  

On the upside it isnt a terribly difficult fix on the surface of it.  All SM really has to do is put a very good figure into everyone's runtime.  The v4 content madness that swept the poserverse is, as much as anything, about the fact that everyone had her in their runtime, therefore the market was huge for v4 products.  If SM puts a very good set of figures into everyone's runtime, vendor support will show up and you have the start of a transition away from the daz gen4 figures for poser users.  It wont be a landslide right off, neither was genesis, but it will give a route forward around a 'standard' figure family, and allow a focus for vendor support that has not yet been seen bi any of the very good alternatives already on offer

Quote - > Quote - ...and if DAZ woke up one morning and decided, hey, let's stop allowing downloads of gen4 figures to all but past purchasers w/ it specifically in their order history?

I guarantee you that any further growth in Poser would stop almost dead cold, right then and there (Pirate Bay pending, natch). Smith Micro knows it, and even though you won't admit it, upon thinking it through, you know it too.

This is true.

But is it likely to happen? Is it even likely to happen any time soon?

As long as Gen 4 make up half of Daz's catalog, it seems very unlikely to me indeed.

We might worry, if we think it's likely that Daz will suddenly decide it prefers predatory business practices over concern for its own reputation.  The backlash from thousands and thousands of vendors, whose back catalogs absolutely depend on the availability of these items, would be immense, nevermind the response from customers.  I find it hard to imagine Daz actually doing this until Gen 4 items everywhere else begin to disappear from the marketplace naturally -- and that's going to take quite a bit of time.