I was looking at the top selling products at the MarketPlace here and at RDNA and none of them are for Genesis (although some things, such as hair, is compatible). My cursory look does seem to indicate that Genesis hasn't taken off the way previous DAZ figures did. It didn't take long for Victoria 4 to bury Victoria 3, nor was it a long time for V3 to eclipse V2. It was only a few months before new commercial V3 content became almost nonexistent once V4 was out. Genesis has been out longer than that and still isn't doesn't appear to be widely supported outside of the DAZ store. It has to be hurting DAZ financially. Poser users, that normally have a feeding frenzy for new DAZ figures, weren't biting for Genesis because that figure is not compatible with Poser. Roughly half of the DAZ store is devoted to figure content. Since Poser/DAZ Studio are mostly used for pinup art, a disproportionate amount of purchases goes to figure content. Since Poser users haven't adopted the Genesis figures the way they did the DAZ 4th Generation figures, DAZ is losing money

People getting into posing software are generally going to start with DAZ Studio because it's free. It comes with Genesis and enough content to give a beginning 3D artist a place to start. If those beginning artists like the results they get using the software, they're eventually going to buy some figures, morphs, clothing, hair, and models. Initially, they'll start with the DAZ store, but they'll eventually branch out to other content markets. The more advanced those users get, the more likely they're going to search and find that there is a lot of excellent content outside of, as well as in, DAZ stores. The fact that Genesis isn't selling well here is an indication that those numbers are a lot smaller than the number of Poser users buying content.

As I said in the original post, Genesis is a great idea. If Smith-Micro had come up with it, people here would love it. Buy a clothing item for one figure and it works on every other figure in Genesis. Wardrobe Wizard only works on supported figures and the market primarily drives those figures to adult females. If PhilC doesn't think there's enough money to warrant the effort to add support for a new figure, WW cannot be used for that figure. If somebody wants to do a Planet of the Apes type image with a costumed gorilla, Genesis will accommodate that, but not WW because the time it takes to create the WW plug-in isn't worth the small number of expected sales. Genesis also means one texture fits all and one morph fits all (some may need tweaking, but the Genesis design simplifies the process). If a Genesis user wants to create a race of alien figures, Genesis makes the job a whole lot easier and that race will have access to all the clothing in the Genesis line. Until Poser does something similar, Poser is at a disadvantage. Considering that most Poser users are creating sexy images that have no marketable value outside of low-paying porn sites, that's not an issue for most Poser users. I haven't played around with Genesis figures, so I don't know how well the idea compares to the reality, but it's certainly a forward step in this niche software market. The problem isn't Genesis.

The problem was abandoning figure content for Poser. Figure content is where the money is. Locking out a large proportion of the buying market was a bad marketing decision. It was probably based on overly optimistic expectations that the market would shift to the better technology. It didn't. Instead of letting Genesis gradually shift Poser buyers over to DAZ Studio, DAZ took an aggressive all or nothing approach and seem to be far closer to the "nothing" side of the scale than the "all" side.

A more cautious approach would have been to release V5/M5 as Genesis figures with a promise that Poser versions would be out in a couple months so that they can optimize the meshes for use with Poser. It would be extra work, but the extra money brought in by Poser users should more than cover the conversion costs. After all, this has been a very profitable strategy all the way up to V4/M4. All the clothing, textures, and character morphs bought by Poser users would be compatible with Genesis because the Poser and Genesis meshes would be identical. The Genesis figures would have more flexibility than the Poser figures, but at least Poser users would have new figures that would presumably be a little better than the ones they have now.

When V6/M6 would roll out a few years later, Poser users would have bought a ton of content that works with Genesis as well as Poser. Poser users would have had a few years of seeing DAZ Studio users doing a whole lot more with that content than what can be done with Poser. DAZ Studio users would not have to repurchase all their V5/M5/Genesis content to work with V6/M6. Poser users would have to do that or run a separate program to convert the clothing to V6/M6 instead of having it work natively in DS without any extra work; run a separate program to convert textures; and be stuck not having another program to convert character morphs to the new figures. Poser users would eventually start wondering if they're backing the right software. DAZ should still put out a Poser version of V6/M6 and continue doing so until the additional sales stopped supporting the cost to make it worth the effort to convert the new figures for Poser. In the end, businesses are about making money and decisions that lose a lot of money aren't usually the best. DAZ is a content driven company--not a software company even though they've tried to enter that arena. To survive, DAZ has to produce content that people want to buy. Adopting a business strategy that does the reverse surprisingly isn't as beneficial as it might otherwise seem.

Oddly, DAZ is sticking to their guns and not releasing Poser versions of any of their new figures. That's a bit inexplicable in light of the fact that the overall figure market has not embraced Genesis. Any time DAZ feels like it, they can release a Poser version of V5/M5. It probably won't be as successful as it would have been had it been done earlier. There are clearly a lot of negative emotional attachments to DAZ abandoning Poser figure releases. A free Poser V5 with a big sale of Genesis content that works with the figure will go a long way to healing emotional wounds. There will no doubt be some folks that will be too upset to even download the free figure. All I can say is: "Calm down. DAZ doesn't love you. Smith-Micro doesn't love you. Microsoft doesn't love you. Apple doesn't love you. They all have one thing in common. They love your money." Don't get emotionally involved in software or other products because it only clouds one's judgments in making purchasing decisions.

At some point, DAZ has to publically confess their sins. Blatantly obvious mistakes don't get better with age. Obviously, the longer it takes to make an apology, the harder it gets to admit a mistake, and the harder it is for the public to accept. It's still better than continuing to ignore a problem. DAZ doesn't have to apologize for Genesis. They have to apologize for abandoning Poser users. There were probably good reasons for doing it. Without those reasons made public, there seems to be increasing ill will. DAZ has to acknowledge the website debacle. Not releasing Poser versions of V5/M5 was a bad marketing call. Unleashing an immature/incomplete website to the public was just plain dumb. The first time I encountered it, I
got the weekly freebie and couldn't download it for a week. I don't get too upset over free stuff, but there were a lot of people that paid for content they couldn't get. The forums were completely unavailable for a long time. The site still isn't as functional months later as the one it replaced. Somebody in DAZ management needs to eat some crow over this one. It's still better admitting what went wrong and moving on instead of ignoring the mistake. People make mistakes. It happens. Over time, apologies get accepted and forgiveness sets in. Nothing has happened that is so horrible or irreversible that it cannot be forgiven.

One thing I don't understand is why the DAZ store doesn't have more content for their Poser compatible figures by outside merchants. Looking at the New Releases showed only one pose pack for V4/M4 without anything for Genesis. The disparity between what the DAZ store is selling versus what everybody else is selling seems to point to either a mandate or massive incentives for third parties to create Genesis content. There would probably be a legal nondisclosure statement to prevent outside discussions of such things. Without any edicts from DAZ, one would expect that more third party content creators would be marketing Gen4 figure content in similar proportions to other stores. DAZ Original content may focus on Genesis, but other content creators in the store would normally produce content that they think will sell. If outside creators are being forced to produce content for the DAZ store that won't sell as well as what they could make elsewhere, the natural thing is going to be for them to seek other stores for their wares. I'm not paying enough attention to the market to know if that kind of exodus has happened.

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for DAZ. The company can stubbornly adhere to their current direction or do something different. Enough time has lapsed that some measure can be taken of their current approach. If the intent was to nudge Poser users to switch to DAZ Studio, the general consensus here indicates that's not happening. The funny thing is that DAZ is competing against DAZ. It's not even a fight with another company's figure. People are continuing to buy Victoria 4 products. Since DAZ doesn't seem to be releasing V4 content, Poser customers are patronizing other stores. A "buy this or shop somewhere else" approach is only benefitting other stores. It's hard to imagine that continuing to ignore Poser users for another year will be any more a winning strategy than it has to date.

When DAZ stopped producing figure content for Poser users, a lot of their Poser customers either spent less time browsing for content in DAZ stores or stopped altogether. More than one poster has said that the money they routinely spent at DAZ is money they're now spending at Renderosity. The online store that people browse in will be the store that they make purchases from. A Poser user browsing the Renderosity MarketPlace for V4 content is more likely to buy a prop they come across there than to take the time to search other stores for other versions of that prop. Some users will search other stores. Some will just make a spur-of-the-moment purchase. The store the person didn't go to didn't make any money.

As I've stated, I have no stake in this matter. I don't use Poser enough right now to be overly involved in marketplace squabbles. I was curious about the things I saw.

I was looking at the top selling products at the MarketPlace here and at RDNA and none of them are for Genesis (although some things, such as hair, is compatible). My cursory look does seem to indicate that Genesis hasn't taken off the way previous DAZ figures did. It didn't take long for Victoria 4 to bury Victoria 3, nor was it a long time for V3 to eclipse V2. It was only a few months before new commercial V3 content became almost nonexistent once V4 was out. Genesis has been out longer than that and still isn't doesn't appear to be widely supported outside of the DAZ store. It has to be hurting DAZ financially. Poser users, that normally have a feeding frenzy for new DAZ figures, weren't biting for Genesis because that figure is not compatible with Poser. Roughly half of the DAZ store is devoted to figure content. Since Poser/DAZ Studio are mostly used for pinup art, a disproportionate amount of purchases goes to figure content. Since Poser users haven't adopted the Genesis figures the way they did the DAZ 4th Generation figures, DAZ is losing money

 

People getting into posing software are generally going to start with DAZ Studio because it's free. It comes with Genesis and enough content to give a beginning 3D artist a place to start. If those beginning artists like the results they get using the software, they're eventually going to buy some figures, morphs, clothing, hair, and models. Initially, they'll start with the DAZ store, but they'll eventually branch out to other content markets. The more advanced those users get, the more likely they're going to search and find that there is a lot of excellent content outside of, as well as in, DAZ stores. The fact that Genesis isn't selling well here is an indication that those numbers are a lot smaller than the number of Poser users buying content.

 

As I said in the original post, Genesis is a great idea. If Smith-Micro had come up with it, people here would love it. Buy a clothing item for one figure and it works on every other figure in Genesis. Wardrobe Wizard only works on supported figures and the market primarily drives those figures to adult females. If PhilC doesn't think there's enough money to warrant the effort to add support for a new figure, WW cannot be used for that figure. If somebody wants to do a Planet of the Apes type image with a costumed gorilla, Genesis will accommodate that, but not WW because the time it takes to create the WW plug-in isn't worth the small number of expected sales. Genesis also means one texture fits all and one morph fits all (some may need tweaking, but the Genesis design simplifies the process). If a Genesis user wants to create a race of alien figures, Genesis makes the job a whole lot easier and that race will have access to all the clothing in the Genesis line. Until Poser does something similar, Poser is at a disadvantage. Considering that most Poser users are creating sexy images that have no marketable value outside of low-paying porn sites, that's not an issue for most Poser users. I haven't played around with Genesis figures, so I don't know how well the idea compares to the reality, but it's certainly a forward step in this niche software market. The problem isn't Genesis.

 

The problem was abandoning figure content for Poser. Figure content is where the money is. Locking out a large proportion of the buying market was a bad marketing decision. It was probably based on overly optimistic expectations that the market would shift to the better technology. It didn't. Instead of letting Genesis gradually shift Poser buyers over to DAZ Studio, DAZ took an aggressive all or nothing approach and seem to be far closer to the "nothing" side of the scale than the "all" side.

 

A more cautious approach would have been to release V5/M5 as Genesis figures with a promise that Poser versions would be out in a couple months so that they can optimize the meshes for use with Poser. It would be extra work, but the extra money brought in by Poser users should more than cover the conversion costs. After all, this has been a very profitable strategy all the way up to V4/M4. All the clothing, textures, and character morphs bought by Poser users would be compatible with Genesis because the Poser and Genesis meshes would be identical. The Genesis figures would have more flexibility than the Poser figures, but at least Poser users would have new figures that would presumably be a little better than the ones they have now.

 

When V6/M6 would roll out a few years later, Poser users would have bought a ton of content that works with Genesis as well as Poser. Poser users would have had a few years of seeing DAZ Studio users doing a whole lot more with that content than what can be done with Poser. DAZ Studio users would not have to repurchase all their V5/M5/Genesis content to work with V6/M6. Poser users would have to do that or run a separate program to convert the clothing to V6/M6 instead of having it work natively in DS without any extra work; run a separate program to convert textures; and be stuck not having another program to convert character morphs to the new figures. Poser users would eventually start wondering if they're backing the right software. DAZ should still put out a Poser version of V6/M6 and continue doing so until the additional sales stopped supporting the cost to make it worth the effort to convert the new figures for Poser. In the end, businesses are about making money and decisions that lose a lot of money aren't usually the best. DAZ is a content driven company--not a software company even though they've tried to enter that arena. To survive, DAZ has to produce content that people want to buy. Adopting a business strategy that does the reverse surprisingly isn't as beneficial as it might otherwise seem.

 

Oddly, DAZ is sticking to their guns and not releasing Poser versions of any of their new figures. That's a bit inexplicable in light of the fact that the overall figure market has not embraced Genesis. Any time DAZ feels like it, they can release a Poser version of V5/M5. It probably won't be as successful as it would have been had it been done earlier. There are clearly a lot of negative emotional attachments to DAZ abandoning Poser figure releases. A free Poser V5 with a big sale of Genesis content that works with the figure will go a long way to healing emotional wounds. There will no doubt be some folks that will be too upset to even download the free figure. All I can say is: "Calm down. DAZ doesn't love you. Smith-Micro doesn't love you. Microsoft doesn't love you. Apple doesn't love you. They all have one thing in common. They love your money." Don't get emotionally involved in software or other products because it only clouds one's judgments in making purchasing decisions.

 

At some point, DAZ has to publically confess their sins. Blatantly obvious mistakes don't get better with age. Obviously, the longer it takes to make an apology, the harder it gets to admit a mistake, and the harder it is for the public to accept. It's still better than continuing to ignore a problem. DAZ doesn't have to apologize for Genesis. They have to apologize for abandoning Poser users. There were probably good reasons for doing it. Without those reasons made public, there seems to be increasing ill will. DAZ has to acknowledge the website debacle. Not releasing Poser versions of V5/M5 was a bad marketing call. Unleashing an immature/incomplete website to the public was just plain dumb. The first time I encountered it, I

got the weekly freebie and couldn't download it for a week. I don't get too upset over free stuff, but there were a lot of people that paid for content they couldn't get. The forums were completely unavailable for a long time. The site still isn't as functional months later as the one it replaced. Somebody in DAZ management needs to eat some crow over this one. It's still better admitting what went wrong and moving on instead of ignoring the mistake. People make mistakes. It happens. Over time, apologies get accepted and forgiveness sets in. Nothing has happened that is so horrible or irreversible that it cannot be forgiven.

 

One thing I don't understand is why the DAZ store doesn't have more content for their Poser compatible figures by outside merchants. Looking at the New Releases showed only one pose pack for V4/M4 without anything for Genesis. The disparity between what the DAZ store is selling versus what everybody else is selling seems to point to either a mandate or massive incentives for third parties to create Genesis content. There would probably be a legal nondisclosure statement to prevent outside discussions of such things. Without any edicts from DAZ, one would expect that more third party content creators would be marketing Gen4 figure content in similar proportions to other stores. DAZ Original content may focus on Genesis, but other content creators in the store would normally produce content that they think will sell. If outside creators are being forced to produce content for the DAZ store that won't sell as well as what they could make elsewhere, the natural thing is going to be for them to seek other stores for their wares. I'm not paying enough attention to the market to know if that kind of exodus has happened.

 

It'll be interesting to see what the future holds for DAZ. The company can stubbornly adhere to their current direction or do something different. Enough time has lapsed that some measure can be taken of their current approach. If the intent was to nudge Poser users to switch to DAZ Studio, the general consensus here indicates that's not happening. The funny thing is that DAZ is competing against DAZ. It's not even a fight with another company's figure. People are continuing to buy Victoria 4 products. Since DAZ doesn't seem to be releasing V4 content, Poser customers are patronizing other stores. A "buy this or shop somewhere else" approach is only benefitting other stores. It's hard to imagine that continuing to ignore Poser users for another year will be any more a winning strategy than it has to date.

 

When DAZ stopped producing figure content for Poser users, a lot of their Poser customers either spent less time browsing for content in DAZ stores or stopped altogether. More than one poster has said that the money they routinely spent at DAZ is money they're now spending at Renderosity. The online store that people browse in will be the store that they make purchases from. A Poser user browsing the Renderosity MarketPlace for V4 content is more likely to buy a prop they come across there than to take the time to search other stores for other versions of that prop. Some users will search other stores. Some will just make a spur-of-the-moment purchase. The store the person didn't go to didn't make any money.

 

As I've stated, I have no stake in this matter. I don't use Poser enough right now to be overly involved in marketplace squabbles. I was curious about the things I saw.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon