Quote - > Quote - You have to wonder if the timing of the hint dropped has any thing to do with the release of SR3, My Michelle, the pending new Miki and Tyler...a small shot across the bow so to speak to raise G character noise level back up after it became totally quite.

It's not like SR3 was under development for a day and released the next.  They claim they are cooperating with Coop and the team. So they had to know what was going on. So why weren't they prepared to spring it on us at the release of SR3? Sounds a little fishy to me.

To me it was a subtle hint if you have SR3 to come look at our toys again before you go down another path and get further and further away. Ala S5 released and basically 100 percent G character stuff released over the last several weeks in their store.

IMHO.

I don't wonder at all.

If they had been working closely with SM, DAZ knew how screwed they were when comparing DS3 to Poser 9/2012 - so in a panic, they released DS4 before it was ready.

They really thought that the Poser community would drop Poser for DS4 that had no documentation and many core features still in beta (well actually, they were in alpha). 

When that didn't happen, DAZ started telling Poser users "Demand that SM rewrite Poser to use our proprietary technology."  And that pathetic campaign ground to a halt after a few months.

Poser users slowed down on purchases at DAZ, and sales of DS4P weren't what they projected - As could be seen by the paucity of genesis products (300 genesis items from DS4 launch until March Madness at DAZ; at every other site had more support for Apollo Maximus than genesis) - which I believe drove the "game changing" announcement of giving DS4P away for 1 month, no 4 months.

This got DS4P into enough hands to start to build the DS4/Genesis ecosystem at the cost of ditching the entire DS4 revenue stream.  DS4P was priced at the same price as Poser 2012. And that revenue stream is never coming back.  When DAZ attempts to sell DS5, the user base knows that all they have to do is wait.

The DS4 ecosystem  is obviously not growing fast enough, based on the spur of the moment "sales" that keep popping up and the lack of genesis content at every other site.

The Gen4 content stream continued at it's pre-DS4 pace.

Then came Antonia.

Then came V4_WM.

Then came Anastasia.

Then came DAZ's attempt to commit suicide with their new site roll-out.

Then came the "Great Thread and Post Deletion" frenzy on the new site forums (that are just now starting to work properly).

Then came the multitude of "Goodbye DAZ" threads over at the DAZ forums. - And they are still going on.

Then came My Michelle.

In Sept, we'll get Miki 3, Tyler and probably weight mapped G2 figures as well.

In November, we get the Reality 3 plug-in for Lux-Render.

 

What do the DS4 users have?  No documentation.

 

I disagree about DAZ waving SP5 in our faces - very few people actually use SP3 or SP4 - which is a real shame, they are the only normal sized people in the DAZ universe.

Vendors over at the DAZ forums have stated that they are moving away from the genesis/Gen4 character combos because it isn't cost effective for them.  And that making genesis clothing takes less time than developing non-genesis clothing, so genesis clothing is more cost effective than making Gen4 content.

 

The Poser community has had a "A Year Without DAZ". 

And you know what?

"Our future is so bright, we have to wear shades."

 

I think DAZ needs us more than we need DAZ.  Hence the pathetic attempts by the moderators to stem the exodus caused by genesis. 

 

 

And, I will add that I believe their "Customer Appreciation" days told them more than they wanted to hear..........by having separate days for each "generation."