Quote - As far as "shrinkage", for the past decade the Poser user base has been "shrinking" - With the release of Poser 9/2012, we are actually in negative numbers - and I suspect that with the release of the GameDev version, the "shrinking" Poser userbase will create a black hole and destroy the Earth - which will be dissapointing to fans of the Zombie Apocolypse and those that fear the Large Hadron Collider.

Please cite your source for this info.  The only thing that matters is whether SM sell enough copies of Poser to continue developing and supporting it.  Are sales down?  Have official numbers ever been released?

Unlike DAZ, SM sell their product, they don't subsidize it with merchandise and plug-ins.  The fitting room allows any Poser user with intermediate skill to create new clothing and re-purpose old items for newer figures.  Why would anyone buy an item when they probably already have something similar in their collection for a different figure?  Both EZSkin and EZMat can also extend the life of older items and reduce the temptation to buy specific shader packs or scripts designed to accomplish similar tasks.

As Poser still largely works the way it has for years, I'd like to think more users are comfortable making their own content and less dependent on others to provide it.  That is where I'm at right now.  I'll likely buy every version SM release, but with free tools like meshmixer and Sculptris, plug-ins like EZMat and EZSkin and an ever growing familiarity with how Poser works I now have almost zero need for 3rd party commercial products.

How does any of this equate to a new version of Poser being a bad thing?