I did a cost/benefit analysis comparing DAZ's Platinum Club & Renderosity's Prime Membership.  Someone over on the DAZ forums challenged me to prove that Prime was a good deal.

Needless to say, that post was deleted mighty quick, but here is the post:

Challenge Accepted.
Spending from Jun 11 to 13 Sep (2012) - Prime vs. Platinum:
Total paid orders at Renderosity: 48
Total paid orders at DAZ: 57
Total amount spent at Renderosity: $1,935.26 - This number does not include Taxes
Total amount spent at DAZ: $440.36 - this number includes Taxes
Average amount spent per order:
DAZ: $7.73
Renderosity: $40.32
Spent on Prime items (only):
Total Paid: $511.00 USD (146 items)
Total Saved: $1,093.84 USD
Total free items from DAZ: 47
Total free items from Renderosity: 16
Prime looks like a winner in my book, looking at the average spending per order, I’d say ‘Rosity also looks at Prime as a winner.

The basic reality is that if you are not using DS 4 or later, the Platinum Club is no longer a good deal.  DAZ told us that their prices were going up - “It’s not fair” thread at the old forums. They also promised less sales (to ween folks off from waiting for those 90% off sales - which was a damn fine idea - prices were too low during the Gen4 era). The problem was typical DAZ - they didn’t stick with it for more than a couple of months and then went right back to the old way of doing business.

Because DAZ doesn’t look long-term (i.e. over 90 days) or believe in having a “Plan B”; they didn’t see the second & third order effects that auto-fit (along with Wardrobe Wizard - Xdresser - Morphing Clothes combo, and now the fitting room) bring to the party.

A DS4 and/or Poser user could buy that more expensive genesis outfit - or they could pick up a cheaper Gen3/4 outfit and run it through the user’s conversion program of choice. None of them are perfect, but for most people, they are “good enough”.  Especially when one considers how cheap the customer base is. (I am very tired of seeing threads from a customer about a sale they missed. By now, they should understand that sales at DAZ are like buses, there will be another one along in about 15 minutes.)

The vendors are not only competing against each other - they are now competing against everything that has been made before. So what does that actually mean?

In my case, every figure has access to any other figures’ clothing - Anastasia or Mariko or My Michelle has access to any piece of clothing ever made for any DAZ or non-DAZ figure. That means that 2nd item (business suit, lingerie, shoes, whatever) has to be really, really good. Or really, really cheap.

The implications for the vendors is simple - they really, really have to up their game. More vendors need to take the approach Sickleyield is taking with the business suit they are making. It is going to have a lot of morphs (and hopefully a lot of textures, and, if we are real lucky - textures that an adult would wear).

There is a thread here at DAZ about it and Sickleyield is actively seeking input from potential customers - which is a great change from the “If I make it, they will buy it” attitude that many vendors take.

I suspect it will be expensive - I hope so, because something needs to set the price floor on what a great piece of clothing should cost. In comparison - Stonemason’s products are much more expensive than almost (if not all) sets here at DAZ. When he releases something, everyone screams about the price and then goes and gets it, because, well, if you have any of his products - they are “must have”, price be damned. We all go get it.

From my perspective, there were a lot of great vendors that are no longer producing due to the constant “Sale, Sale, Sale” nonsense, and we have been left with a lot of second-stringers. (In economic terms, “bad” money forcing out “good” money.)

Vendors who are just doing low-quality repeats will hopefully be forced out of the market and the bar for quality products will continue to be raised.

As far as giving away DS4P as a panic reaction to Poser9/2012 - at first glance that would seem so, however, it doesn’t fit the facts at hand. DAZ doesn’t make money on software sales, they make it of content. What does DS4P have that DS4A and DS4 not have? Content Creation Tools. From the release of DS4 to the March Madness sale, there were only 300 genesis items at DAZ - that is everything - content - bundles - mislabeled
items, everything. From what I can see (and DAZ certainly isn’t talking), they didn’t sell enough of those tools - and that is probably because there wasn’t any documentation - which is another problem that DAZ has - they really, really don’t get how important that is.

Right now, it is the primary reason I haven’t attempted to integrate DS4 into my workflow - my time is valuable - DAZ doesn’t think so, but I do. And I have no intention of roaming the forums looking for answers to questions like:

Why is it every time I import something into DS4, it disappears when I take the cursor off it?

Stop the presses - I have now seen the first item that would make me seriously consider adding DS4 to my workflow

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/new-releases/cthulhu-rising

Remember earlier in this post when I said:
“That means that 2nd item (business suit, lingerie, shoes, whatever) has to be really, really good. Or really, really cheap.”  This is an example of “really, really good” - It looks much better than my 4 or 5 year old Sixus 1 Cthulhu.  If DS4 had a manual, this would already be in my cart. Since it doesn’t, I am stuck waiting (and not buying)......