Today's e-mail from Poserworld said they were starting a new business (making custom 3D models), because they believe the Poser and DS user base is shrinking.

Is that true?  Why would the user base be shrinking?  Is everyone moving on to Lightwave or other high end software? 

I would not give any credibility to anyone manking that kind of claims without providing evidence.

What happened is that Poserworld user based shrank. That is their issue and, as unpleasant that might be, it's not indicative of a trend in the industry. A lot of restaurants close their doors every year. That is not an indication that people stopped eating ;)

Development of Poser is continuing at great pace and the new game development version is proof of that.

Development of Studio is continuing as well and new characters and options are available. A recent report forecasted the 3D market to be expanding in the next few years so we are in good shape.

Cheers.

We seem to have lost a number of participants on the forums, which doesn't necessarily indicate that the user base as a whole is shrinking.  Participation on all the forums I've frequented over the past few years has been down.  Hard to know what that means, really.  Maybe they're all Twitter-tweeters now, using mobiles instead of computers.  Maybe they've all taken up knitting.  :unsure:  Maybe it's zombies, like when all the internet participants gradually disappear in World War Z, the novel.  :scared:

One might take the view that Poser is being expanded to be marketed to gamers because the traditional user base has been contracting, I suppose.  (I don't think that, but it is a worry that has struck me, once or twice... without any actual evidence.  Cage is a worrywart!  :lol:)  We might guess a lot of things, but they would just be guesses.  A thread at RDNA which asks how many Poser users there are came to the conclusion that no one knows, perhaps not even Smith Micro and the Poser Team.

It would be interesting to know of any actual data anyone has on a topic like this.  I don't think anyone would come forward with anything, for good or ill.  :unsure:

Poser users shrink in summer and grow in winter
Posers a winter sport ;)

Poser users shrink on weekends and grows week days
Poser is a workday sport ;)

Never been a lot of $$$ in a hobbyist anykind of business.
There's millions in movies.
There's MILLIONS in games.

So we all know where the eyes staring,for all the CGI app's.

they use to say money and sex biggest reson for divorse
now not just any game but they call the game buy name Call of Duty
is now the #1 reson for divorse.
Can't ya see the old judges setting there going ya husband is always home not running round on .
so now ya have what ya want a husband home all the time and that's why ya want a divorse ?
there alt to be a comdy movie in there some where :)

Poser is a LW plug.LW has 0.000001% to do with #of Poser users.

time chages landscape but where still there.
runtime and DAZ fourms both have around a million members.
CGTalk has around half a million.
so twice as many of LW,Max,Maya,C4D etc etc use DAZ Poser.
and this is just the english speaking part of the wourld.

the fundamental flaw with LW,Max,Maya,C4D etc etc there bloody difficult to learn
and takes for ever to get anything done in them and they cost to much.
DAZ Poser don't have any of those probleams.

CGI Will never die ,best medium ever.
Games are here to stay untill the end of time.
Can't put this genie back in the bottle

I've noticed a change but I don't think it's because the user base is shrinking.  The economy is still having a negative effect on how people spend money and existing users have probably come to realize that they just have too much Poser stuff.  In my case I probably have more 3D models than I'll ever use after more than 6 years of building a decent library of 3d models.

While there are people around that want to produce pictures but do not have the skills to draw or paint there will always be a need for something like Poser or Studio.  I include myself in that number but I also accept that, population wide, I am in a monority.  Most of my friends and family do not understand what I do or even why, so I doubt there will be megabucks in 3D software.

As to the question of if the userbase is falling or even growing I don't think that we will ever know for certain unless of course the powers that be just stop producing the software at a cost that people can regard as resonable for a hobby.  Isolated stories do not really build a picture and most market moves can have two sides.  The recent sale in newer editions of Poser can be seen as a sign they are not selling enough copies.  On the other hand it can be seen as an attempt to move a large user base to the new versions to help the market grow.

One point is fairly clear though, them that says they know exactly what is happening in the market don't or if they did they would not be allowed to tell.

I suspect a big part of the userbase is corporate users who stick to the default factory content and default factory poses.  They never buy anything from us 'artists'.  If PoserWorld's base is shrinking, it may have something to do with their odd halfway Members-Only business model.  

Is there still a market for an affordable character animation program?  Of course there is.  So who makes up this "base" we're talking about?  If it's people buying Poser, only Smith Micro know for sure, and I don't think they've given any numbers.

How do you measure something like this? 

Product sales is not an indication.  Many Poser users are quite content with older versions... 

Merch sales can't be an indication.  Many users by now know how to make their own props and might be using the fitting tools to repurpose items in their collection.  Even figure creation doesn't seem the insurmountable task it once did.

Activity in forums goes up when there is a new release or some groundbraking new figure or plug-in.  We're smack between releases (aside from Poser GD) and most users seem to have their favorite figures, renderers, modeling/sculpting tools etc. Users who may have been posting here are now posting at RDNA, in the Daz forums, or in the Marvelous Designer and zBrus forums...  Or 3D-Coat or iClone forums.

Who is this "base"  Is it the Poser users, or does it include the Daz people who still use or follow Poser developments?  Is it the 3D hobbyist, or the hobbyist who buys things?  The more we learn to do on our own, the less we tend to buy or post questions in forums.  How can something so undefined even be measured?

Quote - Never been a lot of $$$ in a hobbyist anykind of business.
There's millions in movies.
There's MILLIONS in games.

While doing some research for an economics paper two years ago I found the following numbers, ...the movie industry made 8.5 billion dollars US (and yes that's BILLION!), the gaming industry made 8.3 billion, and coming in right in the middle was 'adult entertainment' at 8.4 billion dollars.     The economy may stink but it's obvious from the steady growth in these industries that folks are turning to other forms of entertainment.  The 3D hobbiest is no longer a burgeoning industry; rather it's a steadily growing pastime with Poser leading the way (arguably).  In the Poser NNTP usenet group (yes, folks are still in the newsgroups) we frequently post 'Poser sightings' when someone notices a Poser made animation on TV or the net.  This demonstrates that folks are starting to use it commercially.  I've even started making short animations to use at work for our aircrew training packages.    This is BIG...and Poser is at the forefront.  Someone here posted recently that there's a million folks registered with the forum...doesn't sound like it's shrinking at all.

i've never bought anything from poserworld.

i don't want to make games, i want to make cgi movies.

internet activation requirements or internet connection requirements alienate me as a customer.  seems to be a lot of that these days.  feels like they trying to stick a syphon in my pocket.

10 years ago Poser was pretty much the only game in town for the hobbyist 3D artist. Blender was barely getting off the ground, there was no DAZ Studio, there were no free game engines to build your own game or virtual reality.

Today all of those options exist for the hobbyist and freelancer, and Poser is just one of many. Free game engines have become common place and some of the leading names - Unity and Unreal being two of them - have market places that have built up around them whose prices are often in line with Poser and DS content prices, and don't come with the $500 to $2000 licensing that DAZ content requires in order to use in game engines. 

Game engines are used for more than just games. Many people use them to create cg movies, presentations, web comics, etc. Everything you can do in Poser can be done in Unity or Unreal and the learning curve isn't much steeper than Poser since a lot of it is node based "plug-in-play" so to speak, you don't have to know coding to work in a game engine (of course coding helps to customize whatever you're doing). Some engines have modeling tools built into them so you don't even need to invest in external modeling apps. 

This is one of the fastest growing industries out there and there's no sign of it slowing down or going away any time soon. With the introduction of Oculus Rift, and other consumer affordable VR simulators to follow it, I'm sure we're going to see an increase in demand for CG content, especially in the adult oriented areas. 

So IMO, the suspected decline in Poser use is really just a reflection of how many more options there are for people out there today as opposed to what it was just a few years ago.

"So IMO, the suspected decline in Poser use is really just a reflection of how many more options there are for people out there today as opposed to what it was just a few years ago."

I believe this to be absolutely correct
look at what people are doing with iclone
http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

I think it is declining as is all software sales not just Poser-Studio. The number of computers (laptop and desktop) sold has been shrinking for several years.

Partly because of the economy. Partly because the computers some of us have, the newest one isn't some giant leap in technology or speed like in the past. And finally people think they can do it all on a tablet (the Cool factor in effect).

That said, I have friends who jumped all over the netbook-tablet products and got rid of their laptops or desktops. Several have come back to real computers because they realized there are certain apps they need that they can't run now and or miss the screen real estate, memory and processor power that a netbook or tablet can't provide. One even stated something like, "I wanted to be Joe Cool with my tablet in meetings at work, but discovered I wasn't getting things done as well, as fast that I could with a laptop and it almost cost me my job."

Yes I carry an iPad when I travel and I travel a lot. Great for watching Movies while flying coach to and from Asia, playing games or checking email and making short replys. Otherwise Poser, C4D, CS4, Solidworks etc, all come along on a laptop or are used by a desktop at home or work.

Thanks for the replies.  Lots of things to think about.

Gary, I think you might be right about the decline of the desktop being a factor.  IRL, I am an engineer.  I am on a desktop all day, and so are all my coworkers.

But a surprising number of them use their smartphones as their main computer outside of work.  Especially the younger ones.  They often have laptops and desktops at home, but they never turn them on.  They prefer to do everything on their smartphones or tablets. 

I imagine that might cut down on the number of people who might check out Poser or DS out of casual interest.  (That was me, once.)

I think there is an oversaturation of the marketplace.  There is so much new stuff available that I'm not surprised that some might see their sales decline simply because there are more goods seeking the same dollars.  I get emails about every other week from a vendor with practically everything on sale for $2.  It's hard to make much selling characters for that kind of money...

Quote - That said, I have friends who jumped all over the netbook-tablet products and got rid of their laptops or desktops.

Unfortunately in the U.S. people have been "dumbed down" to smartphone apps.  The majority of the people who buy tablet products so that they can get rid of their laptop or desktop, probably don't realize that there are other types of software out there outside of MS Office and smartphone apps.   They are easy to spot because they can tell all about the different types of smartphone apps, but they will struggle to name just as many software titles designed to be used on a laptop or desktop.

Laptop and desktop computers will give you the most value for the dollar.  Tablets are good for their mobility and not much beyond that.  When it's time for some serious work to be done a  people will use a laptop or desktop.

Quote - I think there is an oversaturation of the marketplace.  ... I get emails about every other week from a vendor with practically everything on sale for $2. 

There's definitely an oversaturation which is why the prices are low.  This is a perfect example of an economic formula dealing with supply and demand.  The greater the supply the lower the price.

Sales are also a good indicator of a possible decline in business.  The first thing that a vendor /business will do when they aren't making as much revenue as before is to throw a sale.  I know Daz3d is known for having big sales, but lately their sales have been in high gear.  I'll put it this way, I can't remember the last time Daz wasn't running a big sale promotion.

For the last few months the sales of Tablets have also started to decline.  I am not sure if it is just a dip or a pointer to the fact the tablet market has started to reach saturation.  Some like me were never interested from the start while others seemed to jump in only to find out later that the were limitation.  Another point floated is that those the have a tablet are less likely to upgrade, certainly there does not seem to be the same drive to upgrade as with smartphones.

Whatever the real position it will be interesting to see how the markets will develope over the next year.

It sounds like we're all shrinking, in the way that Lilly Tomlin shrank in The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

That, or... it's me, isn't it?  I'm shrinking.  Oh, jeez, I knew this would happen.  Now I'll have to start wearing tall hats....  :scared:

Yeah, this post added nothing to the discussion.  Sigh.  (See, Cage is shrinking!)

Quote - It's hard to make much selling characters for that kind of money...

Well if it's characters for V4 then I'd imagine the market for that is pretty saturated by this point, so even those who have been doing well with V4 characters may be seeing a decrease in demand for their content, if all or most of what they're doing is V4 characters. But there is still a lot of room for a lot of other content, especially environments. 

Quote - It sounds like we're all shrinking, in the way that Lilly Tomlin shrank in The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

That, or... it's me, isn't it?  I'm shrinking.  Oh, jeez, I knew this would happen.  Now I'll have to start wearing tall hats....  :scared:

Yeah, this post added nothing to the discussion.  Sigh.  (See, Cage is shrinking!)

Don't panic, if you really were shrinking everyone else would look bigger.  Even if you are, try and think of the benefits of being so small......like ....errr, well there must be some. 

I really need to find a mouse who can talk before I post again.

Quote - > Quote - It's hard to make much selling characters for that kind of money...

Well if it's characters for V4 then I'd imagine the market for that is pretty saturated by this point, so even those who have been doing well with V4 characters may be seeing a decrease in demand for their content, if all or most of what they're doing is V4 characters. But there is still a lot of room for a lot of other content, especially environments. 

 

Quote - 

Well if my buying pattern is anything to go by that is spot on.  I used to buy a lot of V4 characters but I have only purchase two in the last year and they were both in the Prime section.  Not a lot of profit in $3.50.

 

Environments is a different matter I am still buying them but I tend to buy less and pay more per item as I like the quality of the enviromment to be high.

Quote - i've never bought anything from poserworld.

i don't want to make games, i want to make cgi movies.

internet activation requirements or internet connection requirements alienate me as a customer.  seems to be a lot of that these days.  feels like they trying to stick a syphon in my pocket.

Not a whole lot of difference between games and CGI movies.  Have you seen "GTA V" or "The Last of Us"?  "Watchdogs" or "The Order 1886"?  If you can make one of those games you'll have no trouble making a CGI movie.

Quote - Today's e-mail from Poserworld said they were starting a new business (making custom 3D models), because they believe the Poser and DS user base is shrinking.

Is that true?  Why would the user base be shrinking?  Is everyone moving on to Lightwave or other high end software? 

Poserworld has a business model that may not be sustainable.  What also works against them is they don't make hookerware for V4 - they make practical things - which is why I am a member.

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.

Poser users are not also moving to higher end software - this is the same crowd that says they can't afford to pony up $40 or so for an old copy of Poser 9.

The market is fragmenting however.  Consider the confluence of the following:

1.  The V4 market is saturated.  When was the last time something for V4 rolled out that made everyone say "Damn, I GOTTA have that!"  Yeah, I don't remember either.  In all seriousness, how much hookerwear and early 20's white chicks do you need?

2.Post V4 figures:

a.  Genesis never got much traction with the vendors outside of DAZ.  In addition to that, the vendors making genesis content with very few exceptions (Dariofish here and Male3dia over at DAZ) are making the exact replicas of the bland, early 20's Caucasians since the release of V4.

b.  Anytime a new Non-DAZ figure is released, self-appointed "experts" will proceed to flood the forums to make mountains out of molehills - using standards that they NEVER would apply to their figure of choice (i.e. V4 or genesis for the DS community).

3.  Vendors

a.  Most vendors have a Poser 7 workflow and they are aggressively uninterested in using any post-Poser 7 advancement.  They learned how to do something in Poser 7 and that is good enough for them.  The really believe that no one uses any version of Poser past the one that they learned on.

b.  Customer:  *I'd like some clothing for M4.*Vendor:  "Almost a decade ago I made a product for Apollo Maximus, it didn't sell well, therefore I will never make male clothing ever again." 

c.  Then there is the whole I'm an artist, I make what I want nonsense. God forbid they do market reseach - or use mechanisms like kickstarter so that every product is financially viable BEFORE they start work on it.  That would interfer with their artistic abilities apparently. 

4.  Users.

a.  The genesis users do not appear to venture outside of the DAZ cul-de-sac.  There isn't any reason do, especially since the genesis 2 figures are branching even farther away from Poser, the state of DSON and the lack of non-DAZ genesis content mentioned above.

b.  Those of us that have moved beyond the Poser 7 workflow have other storefronts (and forums) to visit.  Renderosity is in a Poser 7 timewarp and I don't think they will be leaving anytime soon.  I want products that take full advantage of 2014 - and many of those are sold elsewhere.

c.    Dawn has a dedicated storefront for people that want a V4 (and soon an M4) replacement that takes full advantage of Poser 9+.  The same can be said of other characters.  Not to mention that the troll factor is much lower at other forums.

d.  Because I fully leverage the capabilities of Poser 2014, I spend less time in this storefront. 

e.  As far as the forums, a lot of topics are beating the same horses as they were a decade ago (This being one of them along with this new version of Poser doesn't do what I need, therefore it sucks! or the ever popular, All hail some earlier verison - which somehow go so much better than it was when it was actually released.)  Some of the newer ones are variations of How can I get genesis working in Poser?

*The market is fragmenting and people are going to gravitate to places that cater to what they want.

Don't venders exspect to make 99.9% of there $$$ off there new product with in about the first 3 days of publication ?

Then after that they leave there product in the store so they might get a sell here and there from time to time.

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?

If that is the case, RorrKonn - almost every product I have purchased is a surprise to the vendor.  I buy what I need, when I need it, not when it is released.

My frustration right now is over all of the older content that I can no longer purchase here because of 'Rosity's stupid sales policy.

Poser 2014 makes old legacy figures new again.  Not to mention the fact that I missed a lot of items because I simply didn't have the computing horsepower I have now.  Poser 5 forced me to move from a G3 PowerMac to a G4 Powermac, Poser 6 forced me to a G5 PowerMac - Poser Pro convinced me to buy a MacPro.

My want list of stuff that is no longer available at 'Rosity -

Miki 1 - 40+ items; Miki 2 - 20+ items; P6 Jessi - 31 items; P6 Koji - 2 items; G2 Females - 15 items; Gloria - 1 item (still sifting round for her, the G2 males); Terai Yuki - 7 items; V3 - 16 items; V4 - 2 items

Even at the clearance sale prices, these items would put me back over $900 dollars - and I would buy them.  Not all at once of course, but they would make their way to my bloated runtimes. - especially the Miki stuff.

I have a similar list from stuff I missed at RDNA & Content Paradise.

Quote - > 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?

I was being facetious.  The whole The Poser user base is shrinking has been an ongoing shriek with no evidence to back it up for about a decade now.

I agree with you whole heartedly about being able to repurpose and revive legacy content.  That is what is so awesome about 2014.

The only bad thing about the upcoming GameDev version of Poser is that I won't be able to buy it until Sept 1.

Quote - I was being facetious.  The whole The Poser user base is shrinking has been an ongoing shriek with no evidence to back it up for about a decade now.

I agree with you whole heartedly about being able to repurpose and revive legacy content.  That is what is so awesome about 2014.

The only bad thing about the upcoming GameDev version of Poser is that I won't be able to buy it until Sept 1.

You were quite convincing...  There may be truth to that point of view, but in all the years of hearing it I've never seen the damning evidence.

I don't know how much this GD version will cost, but I doubt it's in my current budget.  I've every intention of buying it, though Poser 2014 is completely adequate for my current projects.

Quote - My frustration right now is over all of the older content that I can no longer purchase here because of 'Rosity's stupid sales policy.

Contact the vendor to see if they still have the product and if they are willing to sell it.  You may be able to get it depending on how old the product is. You may be able to purchase it from a different site or directly from the vendor.

Miki 1 isn't available anymore, anywhere that I've looked. So I wouldn't expect much content to still be available for her either. 

In fairness, content takes up a lot of server space and bandwidth, and if it's not selling then it's just draining resources and that can get expensive. There's no reason to keep it around just because it might have a chance of selling one copy once every 6 months to a year or so. These marketplaces are businesses and they have to keep their costs down where ever they can find room to squeeze a few pennies out of the overhead. 

You could always PM the vendor that created the item that's no longer available and ask them if there's a way to still get that item. 

Quote -  Dawn has a dedicated storefront for people that want a V4 (and soon an M4) replacement that takes full advantage of Poser 9+

Is there a Dawn2 you might be talking about here? Cause Dawn1 does not take "full advantage" of most any of P9/10's features. At least not that I've seen, and I have worked with her a good bit to see exactly what she's capable of. She's weightmapped, that's about it. But beyond that, no figure has utilized any of the new features of P9/P10. At least none that I've seen, and I've been looking for them. Except ChrisII, but he's a toon, not a realistic figure. Rigging/design-wise tho, he's freakin awesome. > Quote - Don't venders exspect to make 99.9% of there $$$ off there new product with in about the first 3 days of publication ?

Then after that they leave there product in the store so they might get a sell here and there from time to time.

If their content is mediocre then probably so, but for the artists that actually put time and effort and attention to detail in their work it shows and they can make very good money doing it. But the majority of content available is mediocre at best, so it's understandable why the misconception that you "can't make any real money at this" notion exists. There are several artists I know of, and many more I don't know, making very good money selling Poser and DS content, and other CG content for other apps. Poser and DS are by far not the only apps that people buy content for. And custom commission work can pay very very nicely. Have you ever looked at the prices on Squid? Or at their contributing artists status? They have levels based on sales quotas. I think the highest is Diamond at $10,000+ in sales, and there are a lot of diamond level artists at squid. From what I've been told it doesn't take too long to reach diamond either. If your work is good enough people will buy it.

I was excited about the game dev version of Poser when it was first announced, but I've been experimenting with DS and have found that so far DS does everything the Poser game dev version is claiming it will do, as far as FBX and mesh reduction/combining goes, and I don't have to buy anything extra. So I'll likely be holding out on this version until I see some examples of just how good it is. Still looking forward to seeing it in action tho.

Quote - Contact the vendor to see if they still have the product and if they are willing to sell it.  You may be able to get it depending on how old the product is. You may be able to purchase it from a different site or directly from the vendor.

That is what I have been doing - although in a couple of cases, the vendor simply gave the product to me, but in other cases, the vendor has dropped off the face of the 'Rosity.  I'm still trying to figure out the best way to approach Aery Soul (or whatever handle they go by these days) to agree to sell me a copy of May for Miki 1.

What frustrates me is that if so much as 1 copy of a product was sold, 'Rosity can't just trash it - because it is still in the purchaser's account, available for download.

They really should rethink the clearance policy.

could ya get a smitth micro stock report ?

wouldn't that give ya some info on Poser ?

Quote - In fairness, content takes up a lot of server space and bandwidth, and if it's not selling then it's just draining resources and that can get expensive. There's no reason to keep it around just because it might have a chance of selling one copy once every 6 months to a year or so. These marketplaces are businesses and they have to keep their costs down where ever they can find room to squeeze a few pennies out of the overhead. 

All of these producst are on the servers - everyone of them still has a webpage, even if 'Rosity doesn't want to sell it anymore.  Go to your purchase list and pull up something that isn't for sale any longer - the webpage still exists and the zip file is still available for download.

As long as 1 copy was sold, you have the same space and bandwidth costs as any other product - you are simply missing out on potential sales.  Not a lot granted, but when "sqeezing a few pennies" every little bit will help.  And as far as the vendors go - it would be "found money"  They have sunk those costs a long time ago.

When I contact these active vendors at 'Rosity to pick up a number of things that I missed the first go around, I'll be buying content that is sitting on 'Rosity servers at this very moment costing "server space and bandwith".  And 'Rosity won't see a dime of it. And it is a lot of content - it's actually larger than my current wishlist - and that is saying something.

Again, I think 'Rosity need to relook their clearance policy - it may have made since when it was first formulated, but the community has changed, even if 'Rosity hasn't.

Why not make these things part of Prime?  At least you could get back some of those "server and bandwidth" costs that 'Rosity is currently eating.

Quote - could ya get a smitth micro stock report ?

wouldn't that give ya some info on Poser ?

No - the stock market hasn't had a relationship to reality in a very, very long time.  As long as things like front-running are legal the markets are a casino.

Quote - All of these producst are on the servers - everyone of them still has a webpage, even if 'Rosity doesn't want to sell it anymore.  Go to your purchase list and pull up something that isn't for sale any longer - the webpage still exists and the zip file is still available for download.

Ah, right. I'd forgotten about that aspect. Still, I'm sure there is a logical business reason for why they remove items that don't sell. Some of it is also due to vendors pulling their stores for various reasons. 

There is - churn.  I don't think 'Rosity understands how Poser 2014 can change the game for endusers that move beyond NVIATWAS.  Figures that were problematic in 2005 aren't in 2014.

My problem is I didn't know then what I know today.  In 2006, I didn't know that Idler168's high heel pump was the exact same obj that he uses for every figure he makes that shoe for - which is a lot, it's a good shoe.  I didn't know that all of the texture sets for the V3 product would work with the other Miki or Jessi high heel pump.

I have the same issue with dynamics - I missed a lot of cool stuff in the past because my computers at the time didn't have the horsepower to make dynamic cloth worth my time.  My trusty MacPro is a whole different story.

Quote - 4.  Users.

a.  The genesis users do not appear to venture outside of the DAZ cul-de-sac.  There isn't any reason do, especially since the genesis 2 figures are branching even farther away from Poser, the state of DSON and the lack of non-DAZ genesis content mentioned above.

Aside from Dawn, are there any other new figures that even work in Studio? I know the native Poser figures won't.

Quote - > Quote - 4.  Users.

a.  The genesis users do not appear to venture outside of the DAZ cul-de-sac.  There isn't any reason do, especially since the genesis 2 figures are branching even farther away from Poser, the state of DSON and the lack of non-DAZ genesis content mentioned above.

Aside from Dawn, are there any other new figures that even work in Studio? I know the native Poser figures won't.

not no vickys ,but there might be some stand alone wolf monsters and all.

Long time ago I was a memver at Poserworld it was nice while it lasted but in the end the selection was just not what I was looking for (though I do not buy all that uch these days anyways)

What really out me off Poserworld was all the weird emails they were sending a while back from other business ventures to wanting/needing money and crying about possible shut down.. worst thing I unsubscribed about 4 times and still got those mails every once in a while. In the end businesses such as that will never see mooney from me.

As for all of the Poser userbase shrinking.. I am not seeing that at this time. It is however summer and most things slow down in summer to a degree I myself have been spending lots of time outside and on vacation and nowhere near the marketplace or Poser.

Quote - 10 years ago Poser was pretty much the only game in town for the hobbyist 3D artist. Blender was barely getting off the ground, there was no DAZ Studio, there were no free game engines to build your own game or virtual reality.

There were a lot of free game engines, the difference is that not too many people knew that then.

The Build Engine has always been free for personal use, released in 1995.

ID Tech 1 (Doom Engine) released to public in 1997.

The Source Game Engine has been out for about 10 years, completely free, and can do just about every type of game you can think of. It could compile for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. Newer versions do, Xbox, Andriod, etc.

There are many more that are free and have been so for years.... Many companies release previous versions of their game engines to the public after it isn't the newest one with all the "bells and whistles" Some of them are not easy to use. They release the engine(s), but not all of the support stuff that goes along with it. Some have oddball file formats and scripting as well.

As for 3D there were not a lot of choices, but there were a few.

Simply 3D came out in 2000 and could do 3D rendering, had a library, etc, but I don't recall it having rigging.

There were some other ones, but I seem to be drawing a blank now.

The major difference with all of these, is the ease of use and the community surrounding them.

Poser has a rather large following compared to software that proceeded it. And a lot of that has to do with sites just like this one. Lets face it far less people had an internet connection 10 years ago. Now anyone with a cell phone can get on the internet.

Is the Poser user base shrinking? I sort of doubt that.

Programs without a following have a tendency to disappear.

And we are still here, debating if we (or someone else) isn't.

I used to follow these free 3D engines, waiting for the magic one to come along with the "make game" button enabled. 

But IIRC many of them weren't actually game engines, rather just tech demos of someone's rasterizer project.  And the ones that you could actually make agame in had strings attached...

The ones I remember most impressing me were CosmoCreator and Beyond Virtual.  I'm sure none of what was available then can compare to what's availbale now in Unity or UE4.

I do miss some of the more promising 3d stuff of about a decade or so ago...  Remember Merlin3d that was designed around the space navigator?  And whatever happened to Anim8or...  Don't even get me started on TrueSpace's demise...

Communities don't usually just disappear, they tend to migrate.  If less people are using Poser, and I don't know that this is even true, they've probably moved to iClone, Daz, or a more full featured program such as Carrara or blender.  I strongly doubt that the idea of animating 3D characters appeals to fewer people than it did 10 years ago.

in Poser 3/4 days there was

Softimage ,Max ,Lightwave they where the big 3

at that time they could only do about a 10th of what Blender can do now.

then came all the rest etc etc

Softimage is being ghosted 2015 ,once the king ,now ...R.I.P.
Lightwave forums seems like a ghost town compared to back in the day.
Sad ,there both killer app's but not the most user friendly.

So if they can't survive ,kinda hard to see how med rage app's could survive.

I can only speak for myself..... when it comes to poser, yes I'm shrinking :)

I'm still on Poser Pro 2012 and have no intention or need to upgrade. I only use it in conjunction with Vue, to pose and set up my characters, props, etc. For that, not much is needed. The new features that are added to poser do not change my experience with poser, I don't need them.

Seeing how SM now trying to break into other markets, I'd say yes, the poser base is shrinking.

Looking at the content market, I'd say yes, the poser base is shrinking, but mostly vendors imagination seems to be shrinking. I see the same stuff (slutwear) over and over again. I see the same kind of props being released over and over again. No one is moving forward, the market seems to be standing still and we all know what that means in the end.

Poser is driven by content..... if the content well dries up, so will poser. The content market is saturated since vendors lack a long term vision, they create the same stuff over and over again, doing the same everyone else does. That will have a huge effect on the market long term. No new releases means the market will slowly die and so will Poser.

SM has seen this and are now trying to breath new life into poser by exploring a new market with different customers, different needs. Problem is that DAZ tried this not too long ago and failed miserably, let's see if SM will do better.

If vendors want to survive, they may need to adjust their license, at the moment Rendo does not allow the content to be used in games. I'm wondering if vendors will go along and stores will change policy and revive the whole content market perhaps. But... knowing how uptight Rendo is, I see them cling unto what they have even more, instead of being open minded and embrace new attempts in the market.

Yes, it is shrinking.

Why?

In the beginning there was only Poser.
Now there are more and more apps coming into the competition, cutting into the Poser user base.

All depends on what do I get for my dollar?
End user friendly?
Bug free and crash proof?
And yes, content creater friendly too?

The market is driven by its customers.
And sometimes customers look at the competition.

The best way to keep Poser on its rails is to release the next versions with more native high quality content and become as end user friendly and as bullet proof as possible.
Just my 2 cents.

Wait ,we can't sell game meshes & licensing here at Renderosity ?

As with any area of business, things get diluted as time goes on.  You get one price comparison site, then there's a million and only the fittest survive.  You get one popular MP3 player and then you get a million clones and again, only the fittest survive.  You get a 3D content website such as this (one of the first) and then there's a million others and yet again, only the fittest survive.

Because of that, I'd say that any 3D content business packing up is doing so because they're not one of the fittest.  You either market and run your business successfully in a manner that is attractive enough to keep your business afloat, or you don't.  Businesses generally only close because they failed to achieve their goal, but that should never be taken as an indicator of the state of the industry it failed in.

I do believe that Game Engines such as Unreal are a direct threat to programs such as Poser though.  I was taking a good look at Unreal a few months back and it's mind-blowing what can be done, no need even to wait for a photoreal reneder, it's done in real time.  I reckon both DAZ and Smith Micro need to get those viewports replaced with a realtime render implementation as soon as possible.  Those game engines could suck-up their custom like a sponge if they don't!

Quote - Yes, it is shrinking.

Why?

In the beginning there was only Poser.
Now there are more and more apps coming into the competition, cutting into the Poser user base.

All depends on what do I get for my dollar?
End user friendly?
Bug free and crash proof?
And yes, content creater friendly too?

The market is driven by its customers.
And sometimes customers look at the competition.

The best way to keep Poser on its rails is to release the next versions with more native high quality content and become as end user friendly and as bullet proof as possible.
Just my 2 cents.

Your argument presumes that there is a finite number of Poser users that isn't growing. 

Quote - I do believe that Game Engines such as Unreal are a direct threat to programs such as Poser though.  I was taking a good look at Unreal a few months back and it's mind-blowing what can be done, no need even to wait for a photoreal render, it's done in real time.  I reckon both DAZ and Smith Micro need to get those viewports replaced with a realtime render implementation as soon as possible.  Those game engines could suck-up their custom like a sponge if they don't!

While I support SMs move to market a game version of Poser I do not think that turning it into a game engine would be such a good move.  Already in this thread a number of game engines have been mentioned, a lot of the free so I do not see why this would be such a good move for SM

I have no interest in game development, I support the new game versions as I know others do have an interest and more power to them.  I may be very strange but I like Poser for what it can do now but only in the stills areana (assuming you regard selecting a single render from a simulation can be defined as a 'still'.  Really I have no need for a real time render, nor, come to think of it a Photo real render, but as I said maybe it is just me and I am strange.

Quote -
While I support SMs move to market a game version of Poser I do not think that turning it into a game engine would be such a good move.  Already in this thread a number of game engines have been mentioned, a lot of the free so I do not see why this would be such a good move for SM

I have no interest in game development, I support the new game versions as I know others do have an interest and more power to them.  I may be very strange but I like Poser for what it can do now but only in the stills areana (assuming you regard selecting a single render from a simulation can be defined as a 'still'.  Really I have no need for a real time render, nor, come to think of it a Photo real render, but as I said maybe it is just me and I am strange.

 

We are not the target audience for PoserGameDev - it is all about getting Poser into additional professional workflows with other applications. 

We are a secondary market - which is fine.  I use Poser for storyboarding graphic novels.  The addition of FBX inport/export means I have access to things that most Poser vendors are simply not interested in making - like quality furniture.  Figure baking, polyreduction and polyhide means I no longer have to laborously build multiple scenes and render in passes to get my final image.  My workflow is going to speed up - and I am all about that.

If my office had this version of Poser back in '08 - it would have been used extensively in our training development process.

ssgbryan.

I totally understand were you are coming from and I agree with your comments.  I was just responding to the suggestion that SM needs to move Poser to a real time renderer.  If that is added to as an option I would support that as well just not as a replacement for Firefly.