It's been a while since I've done much with Poser, but DAZ's Platinum Club preview gave me a chance to pick up models at the $1.99 price without paying the membership fee (the promotion is over). I was very surprised at the general lack of discussion in the DAZ forum thread on the subject. The last time I looked at a Platinum Club thread at DAZ was a couple years ago and there were hundreds of posts on the thread in a couple days whereas there are only a couple dozen posts in the new thread after more than a week. Most of the comments in the new Platinum thread thanked them for the preview that let them buy PC items, but that they wouldn't be joining because of the focus on Genesis products that aren't Poser compatible. Looking at other threads in the Commons forum showed a similar comparative sparcity of replies in threads to what I remembered years ago. The forum is far from dead, but the activity level has dropped significantly.

I can't help but wonder if DAZ's decision to tie their latest generation figures to DAZ Studio has hurt them financially. I'm curious whether merchants, that have both Renderosity and DAZ stores, have seen a greater drop in sales at DAZ than here. A big drop in forum traffic is probably directly related to a drop in customer purchases. Of course, the debacle of pushing an incomplete website redesign on the public when neither the store or forums were functional will remain one of the dumbest ideas any commercial company has made. That certainly didn't help retain customers or forum participants.

Personally, I think Genesis is a good idea. Having a single mesh, to accommodate multiple characters such that clothing and accessories will fit all, is a great concept and beats buying the same clothing over and over for various figures or using a third party program to provide a mesh approximation to fit other figures. I haven't used DAZ Studio, so cannot compare it to Poser. I simply don't use DS because I don't feel like learning a new interface. I don't blame DAZ for wanting to tie their content to software that they control. They were in a shaky business position of creating content for a software program that has, at times, had a questionable future and been sold off a number of times. If Poser were abandoned, DAZ's future would have been equally terminal if they didn't have their own posing software. By having DS, DAZ also can control the future of their figure development instead of having to rely on another company to decide if and when such advancements would be made.

The circumstantial evidence I see tends to indicate that DAZ jumped too soon with abandoning Poser compatibility with their new generation figures. They can easily release a Poser version of their 5th generation figures alongside Genesis. I won't be very surprised to see that happen. Thus far, they seem intent on forcing Poser users to switch software to get the new figures. It doesn't seem to be working as well as they expected.

Hopefully, this won't devolve into a Poser vs. DS fight. I dont have any emotional commitment to software other than the occasional frustration with the software I use. Poser's lack of RSR thumbnail support already demonstrates a lack of commitment to longtime Poser users, so I don't have a longterm commitment to the future of Poser.

I'm kind of interested in people's opinion on this myself because so far I haven't made any clothing products for the Genesis characters and I was wondering if I'm missing out on a large sales market.

I don't use Daz Studio or any Genesis models myself so I don't know how evaluate anything concerning them.

Quote - Poser's lack of RSR thumbnail support already demonstrates a lack of commitment to longtime Poser users, so I don't have a longterm commitment to the future of Poser.

I got to say...what? RSRs were replaced by PNG thumbnails in Poser 5 nine years ago. It was another six years before support of RSRs was finally dropped in 2009 with the release of Poser 8. And even with that there are free tools available to do the conversion if you've somehow not done so over the preceding half-decade.

Heck, you didn't even have to do anything for those six years: all you had to do was open the library and the PNGs were automatically created.

There's "lack of commitment to longtime poser users" and then there's "ridiculously unreasonable demands". This sort of complaint leans well into the latter category.

I'm a relatively new vendor, so I only have a small data sample to dangerously extrapolate from, but here goes. My opinion is worth, by the way, just about what you are paying for it. grin

I think slow chatter has got a lot more to do with it being summer. My sales are down 90% from what was a steady growth before July. People are doing useful things instead of Poser.

 WHAT? Pose is not "doing useful things?"
 :-)

Quote - I'm a relatively new vendor, so I only have a small data sample to dangerously extrapolate from, but here goes. My opinion is worth, by the way, just about what you are paying for it. grin

I think slow chatter has got a lot more to do with it being summer. My sales are down 90% from what was a steady growth before July. People are doing useful things instead of Poser.

The traffic at Daz probably has more to do wth it being summer, as BB stated, but also they have had many issues after thier reboot, and they are working to overcome those issue.

Also, they probably alienated some die hard very vocal poser users we see in the forums all the time.

its been said that the forums account for a very tiny fraction of all the customers at any of the poser content websites, so I wouldn't put much stock into basing much on forum traffic.

Dollar$ however, are a different matter.

Quote:

I think slow chatter has got a lot more to do with it being summer. My sales are down 90% from what was a steady growth before July. People are doing useful things instead of Poser.

Bill,

I agree but even still, are you making stuff for V4, M4 or for Genesis?

I'm just wondering how many vendors are supporting the Genesis characters and if they are getting enough sales from it to make it worthwhile.

Depends on who you talk to I guess. Some vendors have said they've done very good with Genesis. Some said they haven't and their sales have slipped. Doesn't do much good to speculate since it's an all-round bad time of year for sales generally for more than just Poser stuff ;).

Laurie

Besides being summer, I think a big part of the reason you're not seeing many replies in the threads is that new posts don't bring the thread to the top, they quickly get pushed off the front page where people don't see them anymore. This is something DAZ really, really needs to get fixed.

Coldrake

Don't know if Genesis is killing DAZ, but all I know traditionally as BB stated summer is a bad time for everyone selling content. For me it's not as bad as 90% but sales are mostly down about 50% for me and pick up after the summer again. I haven't used Poser or worked on any content for the last month now. The weather is nice, kids are off school, lot's of other things to do then sit behind a computer all the time. I'm sure many are like me, take a break for a while and come back when the weather turns and start rendering and creating again.

I'm also sure that abandoning Poser is hurting DAZ. I haven't bought anything at DAZ since the release of genesis, hardly anything released that interests me. It's not some kind of me punishing DAZ, it's just a result of the move DAZ made. Most items released are for genesis, so Poser users do not buy. I'm sure DAZ did some survey and research before taking the plunge, but it is a risk, you never know how a market will react. I don't blame DAZ for making the move and I do hope others will fill the gap. That's something that is happing a bit now and I'm sure that is hurting DAZ as well, more figures, so more competition, since most of those figures do work in DS.

Genesis users may be only half the market (well, we could dispute the figures, but it's some sizable fraction of the market, in any case), but it's a wide open market.  Judging from what's on offer here and at RDNA, there aren't as many merchants making Genesis products, so the competition is likely not as stiff.  If one were thinking of getting into the market of making Genesis products, now is probably a very good time to do so. So I think Daz is probably doing quite alright on that front. (Or at least its vendors, as individuals, are doing all right). Its website issues are another matter entirely, and they may well have devastated their sales, at least temporarily.

If the technology split remains, I'd expect the two markets to stabilize eventually, as more merchants move over to Genesis, and open up the remaining Poser market to those who are either more dedicated to moving forward with Poser specific advancements or too satisfied with the current state of affairs to give Genesis a go.

Some vendors may put in a lot of extra effort to try to bridge the gap, and I definitely commend them.

Myself, I don't understand why there is M4/V4, M5/V5, and Genesis.  I understand the need to move the technology forward but those of us who are hobbyists and on rather limited expenses for non-necessary spending just cannot afford to try to keep up.  Even purchasing some of the items to make older goodies attempt to work with newer goodies is close to cost prohibitive at times.

I love that this is such a vibrant community and we can "rationally" discuss almost anything in our field.  Perhaps the problem over at DAZ is the latest rebranding of their web set.  I've all but given up on their forums.  They should take a serious lesson from the forums here.

Just my own opinions, and I am not a coder or content creator, just an end user...and what do we know, right?

forums seem to be slow all around

I too have noticed a big reduction in Forum traffic there.  I think the issues are website related.  Their new Forum puts the threads in order of origin, not threads with new replies at the top, so it is difficult to follow updates to threads.   I don't know if this is a bug or a feature, but it makes it quite unusable for me.  I used to check several times a day; now it's a couple of times a week...

Everybody is busy watching the OLYMPICS! ^ ^

Quote - Everybody is busy watching the OLYMPICS! ^ ^

I'm not. I watched Phelps come second in the 200m fly, and I see the highlights on sportsnet. That's it. The unbelievably sappy coverage makes the olympics basically unwatchable for me, unless they're broadcast in another language. I suppose I could watch them in French.

Quote - forums seem to be slow all around

I used to go to the Daz forums daily.  I'd check the Carrara discussions and WIPs, Studio and Hex discussion, and the general software discussion.  I followed on average about a half dozen threads that were interesting or useful.

When they changed the forums, those threads were lost.  Avatars disappeared and the user post count reset to zero.  I went back a few weeks later and there was little improvement.  I'm sure there were valid reasons for the migration, but wiping out so much information when their products have so many known issues (not to mention poor documentation) killed a bit of my enthusiasm for the whole DAZ experience.  Between the revised TOS and the removal of all prior discussion on the forum, I almost wanted to believe they were trying to remove signs of the discontent growing within their user-base.

I like several Daz products, but I don't like the way they handle them.  I'm tired of being a beta tester for products that never see a stable release.

That's why I haven't been going there as often as I used to.  I doubt I am the only one who feels that way.

I am not too sure it is Genesis that is killing Daz, only time will tell but the PC is another matter, stopped my membership months before Genesis arrived purely because I was not getting any benefit from it.  Since then the number of products that appeal to me has reduced still further.  When I closed my PC account I purchase Prime Membership here and by Rendo's figures I have purchased over $300 worth products in just short of a year, all of that spend would have been done at Daz3D in the past, and that is only on Prime products. 

I do not dislike Genesis but I use Poser and I do not want to move to Daz studio.  I also want to spend my time trying to create art not jumping through hoops to try and make a non-Poser product work in Poser.  If I was in the market for a new figure, and I might be soon, my money would go on My Michelle not Genesis.

I may not be a typical hobbiest but I know I was certainly not the only one to stop my PC memebership in the last year.  Changes to the PC membership itself did not appear to help neither did the problems with the Daz web site.

I suppose the logical answer to your question is only a few select people know if Genesis is killing Daz and they are not going to post on any forum.  Logically it would seem that Genesis is hurting Daz as since it's launch there have been a drive for new figures and, assuming the size of the pie remains the same, the more competition the smaller the slice for everbody.

Yep, quite a few people stopped shopping at Daz because there's not much new Poser stuff.

After Genesis arrived, how many people stopped shopping here because there's not much new Genesis stuff?

Only the sales departments know whether these two trends balance in one market's favor or not, and it may well change over time, in any case.

I think the slowdown in the Daz forums is probably mostly due to their website disaster. They really need to try doing things one at a time and get one thing right before they move onto the next. It looks like even their sale promotions are colliding with messy results at the moment.

All their current problems can't be doing much too good for their sales.

Quote - I am not too sure it is Genesis that is killing Daz, only time will tell but the PC is another matter, stopped my membership months before Genesis arrived purely because I was not getting any benefit from it.  

.....

I know I was certainly not the only one to stop my PC memebership in the last year.  Changes to the PC membership itself did not appear to help neither did the problems with the Daz web site.

.....

Same here. I ran out of interest in the PC and I think they stopped the renewal voucher or something so I didn't bother to renew. Then DS4 and PP2012 promo stuff started to appear and I thought I'd take a look at both and decide which to go for. Never used Poser before and only used DS2 mainly to get figures into Vue (I'd bought DS3 and used it twice). I looked at DS4/Genesis and found nothing interesting. I looked at PP2012 and was totally gobsmacked! Easy decision :)

So far Daz haven't done anything to tempt me to buy anything else from them. A few of the vendors I used to buy from at Daz have moved and the prices there seem to be higher than elsewhere so I don't see any reason to buy there. Sending me emails advertising Genesis stuff and sales that apparently don't work terribly well isn't working on me as a marketing ploy. The emails I've been getting since the launch of the new site seem to have an air of desperation about them. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just the impression I get.

Genesis is probably what is saving daz after the move to the new store/website.

Genesis is a powerful new figure that can do so much more than anything else with the ds4 tech backing it up.

I still make some m4/v4 stuff, but the fact that I can make such a wider range of characters with genesis, makes it hard to develop for the older tech models.

I always hear people talking about weight mapping, weight mapping and weight mapping as the key factor in the genesis model and so they try to weight map figures for poser. But its not the weight mapping that is the main factor. The main thing (for me) about genesis is that you can rerig the figure to almost any new shape and have it work decently. THAT is power.

When poser picks up the tech for running genesis, it will be a happy day for me.

So while the store and website might be hurting daz now...i dont see genesis being the problem (cant wait for the site to be 100%...heck even 90% would be good LOL)

no disrespect, Rawn. but you have a niche market for creatures made from a base mesh, so Genesis will work for you, as you have a good following of customers.

your sales will not correspond with that of a mainstream vendor. it is a known fact, that outside of DAZ3D's own store, VERY FEW Genesis products will be found.

that says to me that few mainstream vendors have taken on creating for Genesis.

there is still a lot of kewl critters in their store i want to buy, like the Sharks. the bird sets.

Genesis is not killing daz.  Genesis is kinda cool if you think about it.

What is killing daz is:

1.  It's not that they are using gene it's that they are going gene only.  As rendo and RDNA are showing, there's still a large market for V4 and some of the vendors are now doing some of the fixes that daz should have years ago.

2.  There's a lot of stuff in the store but not all of it interests me.

3.  I don't like DSs interface, even if they don't want something poserlike to attract the poser users, they could still improve it.

4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.  Some of the other things in the store aren't that cheap, they look like they are getting more expensive (especially the PA stuff, but I hear that's DAZ's doing), and frankly I've got too many other things that are competing for my fun budget for me to want to pay more.

So no.  Gene is fine, it's the boneheaded business decisions that're killing DAZ.

since the release of genesis i feel nothing daz puts out for sale is for me (a poser user), so much so that im thinking of removing my platinum membership,as it feels like a waste of my time and money, i dont know if anyone else feels left out like i do by daz?

Quote - since the release of genesis i feel nothing daz puts out for sale is for me (a poser user), so much so that im thinking of removing my platinum membership,as it feels like a waste of my time and money, i dont know if anyone else feels left out like i do by daz?

I don't think 'left out' is the right term in that it really is their choice to develop what they want and what they think will sell.  I do however think that Daz is no longer relevant for me as a Poser user as there is little there of interest for me and the prices do seem to have jumped quite a lot.  True, the work put into the product might justify the price but in these troubled times raising prices unilaterally does not seem a good plan.

I used to buy from Daz at least on a weekly basis now I very rarely browse the store and my purchase so far for 2012 is three products and in the last six months - nil.  These days I browse Rendo daily and must average two or three purchases a week.  My spending, or not spending in this case, will have no impact on Daz but how many more there are like me?  Of course we will never know.

Quote -
4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.

Yes, but where else can you get this...  :lol:

I agree that DAZ Studio likely started as an insurance policy against Poser's [then] uncertain future. Once they had it though, it was only natural that they would explore what they could do by more tightly integrating their content with the software. Looking at the Unimesh and Figure Mixer technologies, Genesis seems like a natural evolution. I assume that the plan always was that Poser would incorporate Genesis support. I don't know how far they were in development when SM (declined declined. If they were faced with the choice of abandoning their work on Genesis/putting it on hold vs. developing a more Poser friendly version (and possibly having to stick with V4 while doing so), I'm pretty sure they didn't take the decision lightly. Basically, I don't think they ever intended to draw a line in the sand and frog march Poser users over it. I think they were "stuck" with what they feel is a great piece of technology and an assumed "partnership" that didn't pan out. If the choice is between pulling the trigger on Genesis and soldiering on with old content (when new content is your main revenue) and risking self-inflicted wounds, I can see doing the former. It was risky, but if you really believe in something enough, you take the chance.

Everyone wants to be Apple, 'control their own destiny,' have a complete ecosystem, etc. - witness Microsoft's decision to create their own tablet. I'm not sure how well it applies in this market. DAZ and Poser had a nice complimentary thing going, but I wouldn't fault either one for their decisions. You do what you think is best for your business. With the small size of the market though and only two major players, it does mean that those decisions have an large effect on users. Perhaps that is reflected in the rather 'energetic' response to the whole thing. I think it's far too early to speculate on the outcome. I think that Genesis or something very like it is a logical move away from a plethora of individual figures, conversion utilities etc. I don't see the near term demise of discrete figures but I do think that a somewhat more 'integrated' system perhaps has the potential to broaden the market beyond those of us who are undaunted by (or enjoy) buying this here, that there, what works with what, convert this to that etc. Genesis may turn out to be the equivalent of the Windows tablets of years ago, too soon or not quite right. Poser or someone else entirely my eclipse everythig we now take for granted. I still believe that consumer 3D has enormous unrealized potential, but I wouldn't be surprised if, in the end, developments rooted in games or even erotica (two proven drivers) have more to do with large scale gains than Poser type applications. In the meantime, we should hope that Genesis doesn't kill DAZ, because I'm not sure that having only one major player in a small market is necessarily better than having two competing ones - even if their paths are - for the moment at least - diverging.

Quote - 4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.  Some of the other things in the store aren't that cheap, they look like they are getting more expensive (especially the PA stuff, but I hear that's DAZ's doing), and frankly I've got too many other things that are competing for my fun budget for me to want to pay more.

It's not overpriced. It's free for PC members. It's priced at that ridiculous price to discourage people from buying a product that's meant to be exclusive to the PC, that's all.  I'm going to guess that they lack the coding to make products that can't be bought by everyone, and that's always been the case, even at the old store.

Petipet's vehicles are not junk. If they are, then 95% of everything here is junk as well.

ETA:  lmckenzie, nice to hear a voice of considered reason. :)

I'm not particularly happy with the current state of affairs, but I don't see the point of recapitulating all the old bashing. RO and RDNA have benefitted, at least by getting my dollars. So someone should be happy.

It could be that Daz had no choice but go it alone with Genesis and I do understand that some Poser users might feel a little bit sore but I don't think we should feel we were singled out.  After all, the changes to the PC membership affected both Poser and Daz users.  The problems with the web site punished all people wanting to buy and by then it may have been more Daz customers wanting to buy than Poser users.  Selling software at a high price stating that the days of free software were over and then months later giving it away impacted Daz and Poser users. 

No I don't feel hard done by, I want Daz to succeed it's just that they will have to do it without any of my money until they can somehow tempt me back... which gets more unlikely by the week as I got so feed up with emails that no longer interest me that anything from Daz goes straight to my junk mail folder.

Quote - 4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.

??
the viking-motorbike was o.oo this morning.  guess i nabbed it just in time.

Quote - > Quote - 4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.

??
the viking-motorbike was o.oo this morning.  guess i nabbed it just in time.

You need to be logged in to see the PC price. It's still free.

Winterclaw wrote;

Quote - 3.  I don't like DSs interface, even if they don't want something poserlike to attract the poser users, they could still improve it.

Actually you can improve it yourself, very easily.

Quote - 4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.

Petipet's models are not junk, they make some excellent models.

Coldrake

I don't feel "left out" by the Genesis stuff. I'm just not interested in it. So I don't tend to look into the Daz store because I assume most of it will be Genesis. It definitely won't be anything for GNDA2 and buildings/props etc. I rarely buy so I just have no need for their store now that I've got all the A3 and M3 stuff I want from there.

And I agree - it's poor business decisions that are going to kill Daz if they're not careful. Whether or not Genesis is part of that I have no idea.

Quote - Winterclaw wrote;

Quote - 3.  I don't like DSs interface, even if they don't want something poserlike to attract the poser users, they could still improve it.

Actually you can improve it yourself, very easily.

Coldrake

The DS interface is completely alien and hostile to a Poser user. You can't change that. You can only change fancy colors and fonts and layouts. There is no way to change the layout of the menus, the chaotic structure within menus, the way menu items appear and disappear without logic and how UI items are named differently from poser for the sake of being different.

Genesis isn't killing DAZ - DAZ is killing DAZ.

The company leadership continues to make the same bone-headed moves that they have been making for a number of years. 

DAZ does not learn from their mistakes.  The scary part is that they may not view them as mistakes. 

DAZ really thought everyone who shopped at DAZ would just dump their Poser workflows for DS4 because DS4 had genesis.  A year later, DS4 still doesn't have documentation, all core features out of beta, etc.  It is still a half completed piece of software that can't be finished as long as Daz refuses to get to feature freeze.

Imckenzie, you are not the only one that has notices that DAZ wants to build a closed ecosystem like Apple.  Don't point that out in the DAZ forums though, your post will be swiftly deleted.  More on that later.....

The problem is that DAZ has absolutely no clue as to WHY the Apple ecosystem works like it does.  The Apple ecosystem works because everything in it "just works".  Apple has an OCD approach to fit and finish.  Can anyone with a straight face say that about anything that DAZ makes?  I didn't think so.

Lets start with Business Processes....

If DAZ has a business plan, they need to start following it.  The customer base has been drug pillar to post with changes in strategic direction  Re: The "It's Not Fair" thread in the old forum.  DAZ (for once) laid out how they were going to handle sales in the future.  It lasted all of about 90 days and they were back to "sales all the time" - after stirring up the natives.

Killing revenue streams - Making DS4P available for free after attempting (apparently unsuccessfully) to sell it guarantees that no one will EVER pay for it.  People know they can just wait a couple of months and DAZ will give it away.  And why did they do that?  Because nobody was buying the Content Creation Tools.  How do I know that?  I counted the genesis specific products.  From the release of DS4 to the beginning of March Madness, there were 300 items for sale (or free) at DAZ.  That is everything, to include bundles.  It is hard to create content when there isn't actually any documentation available to help with said content creation.  That is why I believe they gave it away for 4 months, and have gone back to giving it (and Bryce and Hexagon away).

Maybe if we ignore the customers, they will leave us alone....

Speaking of not talking (or listening) to the customer base.  Anytime something bad happens, DAZ reps are nowhere to be found.  They don't like dealing with angry customers so they dump that off to the forum admins.  Take for example the latest website fiasco - At no point has anyone from the top of the foodchain shown up and attemped to calm the waters.  And we are going on 90 days now.  The "leadership" of Daz works under the belief that they have an infinite amount of goodwill with the customer base.  Not a good assumption, because people are starting to vote with their feet.

Of course, DAZ could have stopped the sales of Poser 9/2012 in it's tracks had they simply thought about what they were doing.  At no time in the runup to the release of DS4, did DAZ ever warn the Poser community that the new flagship figure wouldn't work in Poser.  Then DAZ was constantly stating in their forums that they had no intentions of creating a schism in the DS/Poser community.  Any post that called them on that BS was immediately deleted.

Software......

1.  DAZ is too cheap to spend money for developer seats for OSX or Windows.  How do I know this?  Because DAZ is CONSTANTLY blind-sided by changes in the operating systems.  This is why, for example Carrara, Bryce & Hexagon don't work with OSX 10.8 - If they had developer liscences (at $99 per year for OSX), they would have had access to betas, and could have made patches.  Oh wait, that leads to the next issue.

2.  The programmers at DAZ couldn't program their way out of a paper bag.  They have been developing software since 2005 and they STILL DO NOT KNOW HOW TO ISSUE A SERVICE PACK.

3.  DS4 upon release wasn't finished, in fact, it still isn't.  They simply announced that the last beta was the production version, which generated a number of WTF posts from beta testers.  It had the smell of a panic release with so many uncompleted (and undocumented functions).  Poser 9/2012 feature set (especially the ability to weight map legacy figures) appears to have spooked DAZ.

4.  Don't get me started with their other software.  I got screwed on Cararra 6, Bryce, and Hexagon (which didn't run on OSX for 4 YEARS - but DAZ would happily sell it to unsuspecting mac users without warning them that it wouldn't run under 10.5 or 10.6.

Genesis Part 1 - Technical Issues

**
**

The first technical screwup was the belief that SmithMicro would rewrite Poser to use a propritary file format that was documented to DAZ standards. File formats that they are still creating, DSON being the latest.

And just who would be expected to support this?  SmithMicro, not DAZ.  I could certainly see DAZ rewriting code that just happened not to work properly in Poser ("We're adding cool features and they all work just fine in DS, you should be using that instead of Poser" will be the excuse.)  Sorry, but I lived through both "DOS ain't done til 1-2-3 won't run" and the nightmare that Win16 support was in OS/2 - MicroSoft changed the Win16 API every 2 weeks until IBM gave up trying to support it.

Then there was the tackyness of DAZ telling Poser users that they needed to badger SM to add support for genesis into Poser.  This is coming from the same folks who never added any support in DS for any Poser 5 or later feature.  Interestingly, I haven't seen a similar campaign to get other companies to rewrite their 3d apps to use genesis natively.  Not even Cararra.... Oops.

No one from DAZ has ever explained what problem genesis solves for the customer base - other than giving vendors a new mesh to remake clothing for.  Genesis solves a problem for DAZ - 1 mesh instead of 2.  Which would make since if they actually tried to fix the problems in their figures, but they seem to have stopped doing that with the release of V4.2 back in 2006.  On the other hand, there is an entire cottage industry devoted to provided fixes for DAZ figures that DAZ was too lazy to address.

**
**

Genesis Part Duex - Sales Issues

Genesis has been a marketplace failure.  I was around when V4 rolled out the door - the DAZ gen3  products disappeared in about 90 days. 

The DAZ Gen 4 figures work in Cararra, DS, and Poser.  The genesis figure works in DS, Poser to a very limited extent, if the customer is willing to roll their sleeves up (and very, very few are willing to do it.), - I don't know about Cararra - I do know that the new, weight mapped Alyson 2 works in Cararra - I saw some shots with Anastasia in it.

Genesis came out a year ago, and if you want genesis products, for the most part, you are shopping at DAZ, because genesis products are few and far between anywhere else.  For example, Sickleyield has developed about 90% of the genesis clothing available here at 'Rosity.  Hell, Miki has more clothing at 'Rosity, RNDA and Content Paradise than genesis has at those sites.

Vendors -

1.  The clothing vendors at DAZ for the most part are not making new clothing for genesis, they are converting Gen4 clothing to genesis.  As I said over in one of the DAZ forums:

"I am not all that interested in buying Grace Pumps for Genesis, when I paid good money for Grace Pumps for V4, or Pharaoh for Genesis when I already purchased Pharaoh for V4/M4, or Boudoir Bliss for Genesis Female when I already purchased Boudoir Whispers for V4, or Liquid Halo On Sky 16 for Genesis when I already bought Liquid Halo On Sky 16 for V4 or the Morphing Fantasy Dress for Genesis when I already own the Morphing Fantasy dress for V4, A3, V3, SP3, Laura, The Girl, .... well you get the idea."

2.  The character creators are just recycling the same characters and look over and over - as an example, you have 3 Thorne & Sarsa characters, you have all of them.

The Website......

"The DAZ website rollout is like a living monument to the Dunning-Kruger effect."

I can't put it any more succently than that.

The Forums......

The moderators got much more heavy-handed once the new website flopped out the door.  Posts and entire threads were being deleted as quickly as they were posted.  For about the first 30 days only the "kool-aid" drinkers could expect their posts to stay up.  The moderators are about as unprofessional as they come.

The Platinum Club.....

DAZ needs to rename it the "DAZ Originals Club" because that is all that it is good for now.

This is what is killing the company ^^

Daz is killing Daz.

ssgbryan, I don't think you're wrong about any of that, though I don't think it's quite as bad for Daz as you suggest.

I can't help wondering, though, why we should really care.

Quote - since the release of genesis i feel nothing daz puts out for sale is for me (a poser user), so much so that im thinking of removing my platinum membership,as it feels like a waste of my time and money, i dont know if anyone else feels left out like i do by daz?

Yeah.  I feel the same way.  You can still get critters and sets there so I'm not 100% ready to give up my PC memebership yet, but I'm getting close.

Quote - ssgbryan, I don't think you're wrong about any of that, though I don't think it's quite as bad for Daz as you suggest.

I can't help wondering, though, why we should really care.

Becuase it is the poser users fault for not adapting to DS4 and gene completely!!! Everything would have been just fine if we did that!!!

No I don't believe that but I'm strongly sure that such will be the excuse they'll use at some point.

Moriador, I don't care about DAZ.  I don't have a personal relationship with DAZ. 

I have (actually, it is moving to had) a business relationship with DAZ.  Which is why since the new webstore rollout, most of my posts have been deleted and I have been counseled by the DAZ forum mods about my "negative attitude and unreasoned criticism".  Which isn't true, my criticism is very reasoned, my negative attitude is based on the facts on the ground and I broke my rose-tinted glasses a long time ago. 

DAZ is very dependant on customers believing that they have a personal relationship with the company.  DAZ's attitude should have that cleared up for everyone by now.

DAZ has made it very clear in their actions, that as a Poser user they don't want my money.  And based on their lack of programming skills on the OSX platform, I have no interest in getting ripped off (again) with their shoddy software.

So the money that used to go to DAZ ($100 a month average from Dec 2004 to Aug 2011) is now going to other vendors.

As a Poser user, the best thing that has happened in the past year is DAZ trying to inflict the grey golum on us.

A year ago, the DAZ Gen4 characters were all that anyone used.  Very little of the Poser 5 or later technology was being used, everyone for the most part was still stuck in the Poser 4 world because of DAZ refusing to move forward.

Look at what we have now - More figures (The SM G3 figures, Antonia, Bella, Michelle, Kez, and more on the way (Lucas and possibley Brad) - Better legacy figures (With weightmapping - people are starting to pull out older characters & freshinging them up).  All of the updates to Poser systems (lighting, rendering) and a thriving ecosystem of experts in everything from figure creation to lighting.

The Poser community is no longer waiting on DAZ.  We are forging our own future, where they simply provide sets and props.

I am sure DAZ will survive genesis, but I believe they will survive as a much smaller company.

For me, this exchange was the writing on the wall.  I am talking to one of the forum mods about a critical bug in DS4 that prevented me from using it. (DS4 would crash withing 15 seconds of launch, with no user input required - just launching the program.)

Richard Haseltine - 12 June 2012 01:33 PM

a) bug reports are acted on, but many are duplicates and so aren’t marked as resolved.

b) it depends on the bug. Some are intermittent, or affect only a limited number of users, or appear only in special circumstances; for those reports are needed to identify the bug’s cause so it can be fixed. Other issues with the store - such as the lack of warning when repurchasing a previously purchased item - are known and don’t really need more reports.

If something isn’t marked as a new issue it’s probably worth a report, or a note to a pre-existing report if there is one.

ssgbryan - 12 June 2012 02:15 PM

Has ANYONE at DAZ worked in a production environment?  How on earth do you know what has been fixed and what hasn’t if you don’t update the tracker?  When I go into bugtracker & I see over 300 bugs (crashes only) that haven’t been addressed in months, how am I supposed to know if DAZ has looked at or fixed ANYTHING.

Richard Haseltine - 12 June 2012 02:28 PM

To an extent you won’t - though the Change Log for the app you are using should give some idea, if full or public betas are being released |(in fact for DS4 at least the change logs are in the wiki even for purely internal builds).

ssgbryan Posted: 12 June 2012 02:35 PM

OMG…..

I have worked places were we fired an entire IT staff because they had no idea what was fixed and what wasn’t.

Richard, does anyone at DAZ not understand that the person that turns in a bug will check back on a regular, if not daily basis to see if the bug has been addressed?  Does anyone not understand the messege this sends to the customer?

Now I know why I had to PM the CTO on a bug issue.

After this, I knew that I wouldn't be spending much time or money at DAZ anymore.....

Dunno about daz being killed but it must be hurting at least a little, because I am buying far less stuff there than I used to do.

Love esther

An interesting thread you started here. I'm too new and I don't know if DAZ3D kills itself with Genesis. But I wanted to share nethertheless my thoughts about it - following a trace of DAZ3D mistakes.

I started doing 3D 1/2 year ago. 1 year ago DAZ introduced Genesis together with DAZ Studio 4. When I started I saw not that much content for Genesis, vendors still focused more on V4.

The lack of the SDK for Studio 4 was another issue, a lot of People didn't switch to the new version because of missing plugins. So they didn't use Genesis as far as I read in the old DAZ forums.

So I decided right from the start to avoid Genesis at all. Starting more with legacy V3/M3 and working my way up to V4/M4. Still searching for alternatives, like Miki 3, G2 characters or Alyson (2); and even the free mesh of Antonia at runtimeDNA.

Being a new user with professional background in photography I think that I'm not alone with my decision to avoid Genesis.

Let's see if Genesis turns one day to Exodus... ;-)

Quote - .....

As a Poser user, the best thing that has happened in the past year is DAZ trying to inflict the grey golum on us.

.....

So true! If it wasn't for Genesis I would probably never have bought PP2012 :ohmy:

I think that is something you really do need to give credit to Daz, without them and the way they have gone in the past year I am not sure we would have all the extras that have come Poser's way.  I use V4WM almost exclusively at the moment although I am keeping an eye on how My Michelle develops. I am also looking forward to the new SM figures that appear to be ready for launch.  Others have used some of the many other products that have already been listed here.  We will never know the answer, but I do wonder how many would have seen the light of day if Genesis had been a poser figure.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - 4.  Overprice junk like this is killing daz.

??
the viking-motorbike was o.oo this morning.  guess i nabbed it just in time.

You need to be logged in to see the PC price. It's still free.

WOW!  I saved more than my yearly PC membership cost-what a DEAL!!  :lol:

Of couse, I found out about it here rather than from DAZ; communication has been an issue there as of late. :rolleyes:

I like DAZ; I got my start in 3D with Studio 1.8, and I've long been able to find a good deal or two there.  It's been sad to see this happen; it's sort of like like watching a friend drink himelf to death. I wish they'd get their act togther.

PS; the DAZ Originals sale has been over for a week; I wish they'd take them out of the sale category...

I like DAZ; I got my start in 3D with Studio 1.8, and I've long been able to find a good deal or two there.  It's been sad to see this happen; it's sort of like like watching a friend drink himelf to death. I wish they'd get their act togther.

I feel much the same way, if I had not stummbled on Daz some years ago I would not have the hobby I have now.  Using one of the early free versions of Daz was the only reason I had the courage to spend, what I regarded as a lot of money at the time, on Poser 5.  I liked Poser and stopped using Daz software but still spent a small fortune at Daz 3D.  I subscribed to PC membership for something like 4 years and thought it was great at the time.  I guess my horizons were raised though and I started buying higher quality products and, while there were some real good PC products available, soon the cost of membership was not worth it.  It was not Daz's fault I moved on and I still shopped at Daz and happily paid more for the items I wanted.  Today I would still buy from Daz if there was something I wanted, the prices I do think have gone up but I would still pay them if there was something I wanted and could use.  Sadly the Daz I think I knew seems to have gone and I miss my old friend.

Quote - no disrespect, Rawn. but you have a niche market for creatures made from a base mesh, so Genesis will work for you, as you have a good following of customers.

your sales will not correspond with that of a mainstream vendor. it is a known fact, that outside of DAZ3D's own store, VERY FEW Genesis products will be found.

that says to me that few mainstream vendors have taken on creating for Genesis.

Of course I am talking about myself and my experience LOL

Naturally it takes a while for others to get used to new technology, so it is no surprise that there are not as many developers for genesis as there is for legacy content.

But the numbers are growing as people find out how versitile and easy it really is to work with.

There is even a thread in the daz forums that shows how other sites are starting their support:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/5065/

But my point was....it is not genesis that is making things hard on daz right now....right now the issues is really about the site and summer slow-downs that are playing hard on everyone involved there.

Rawn

Quote - Besides being summer, I think a big part of the reason you're not seeing many replies in the threads is that new posts don't bring the thread to the top, they quickly get pushed off the front page where people don't see them anymore. This is something DAZ really, really needs to get fixed.

Coldrake

This is true. I've gone to the Daz forums a total of two times since they changed them. And while I didn't go that often to begin with, I did go a lot more often than twice in a many month period...lol. I hope they do get that fixed.

Laurie