AmbientShade posted at 1:47PM Thu, 02 February 2017 - #4296425

Razor42 posted at 11:45AM Thu, 02 February 2017 - #4296383

Something that hasn't been touched on in this thread is the issue of Poser software being the main profit device for Smith Micro in this portion of the market, not Poser content. This directly impacts on the content market state overall and the price point of products available for Poser.

For Smith Micro a large range of inexpensive content acts primarily to broaden their market attraction and "influence" purchases of their key product, Poser software. The viability or price point of content, or the profitability/sustainability of their content creators is totally irrelevant to Smith Micro's overall business plan in this segment. SM may be more inclined to flood inexpensive content into the market segment, which would aid them in their overall brand reach and increase the perceived value of their base software. You could actually go as far as to say it is actually is in their interest to drive down content prices for their own customers in the shorter term. Lots of free/cheap content is awesome for Smith Micro and while this may seem great from a consumer point of view at first, unfortunately it is likely to result in a decline in volume of content produced in the longer term and potentially effect the quality of the content available, as the primary content creator segment is made up from the the hobbyist and amateur pool whom have varying skill levels and specialisations. (No offence to amateurs out their, there is some great talent and serious skills in this group. Unfortunately they are probably a little under supported and under utilised in their overall contribution to the current Poser content market). Under these conditions many content creators who are interested in commercial viability are likely to move on to greener pastures as a result of the low price point established by some market places in this sector which can lead to lower ROI for themselves and their work. Also there is little attraction for new professional content creators to enter into the market sector, especially if their research leads them to a thread such as this one, with statements such as "that can be as low as 5-7c per sale".

Interesting and valid points you make here. However it wasn't SM that flooded the market with inexpensive content. By the time they came into the picture (by purchasing Poser, sometime around 2006-2008), the price of Poser/DS content had long been established, at about what it is now. And they never 'flooded the market' with anything. Content has always been an afterthought for whoever owned Poser over its history and mostly left to 3rd party providers. Even in the days of E-Frontier - (which was -IIRC- when Poser & Co. actually started releasing content separate from what was included in the software), those price ranges were already well established, and any official content released by Poser was priced in relation to the market at that time. I don't remember the exact details, but I recall the original Victoria figure being priced around $100-$200 for just the base figure. Then the platinum club came along, and all of that changed.

I have to agree with Shane here. SM has never been a power player in the content market, the way DAZ has. And while I had no intention of bring software into the conversation, let us not forget that the content king of the Poserverse was and still is DAZ. To be honest, I've always considered Renderosity tto be on the high priced end of the spectrum in the Poserverse rather than DAZ. Most of the stuff in my library that came from a store has come from DAZ and that has been purchase through DAZ's Platinum Club for a $1.99. That's not to say that those never ending March madness sales didn't do their share of filling up the library vault as well.