Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL


Subject: Is Poser development dead?

aeilkema opened this issue on May 09, 2018 ยท 270 posts


FlagonsWorkshop posted Thu, 21 June 2018 at 2:22 PM

It seems to me the topic has gotten a bit off track. For Smith Micro (or anybody else for that matter) to continue development work on Poser, there has to be the financial means to support said development work, it isn't cheap to do. Smith Micro's graphics revenue has been falling down a hole as of late, read the quarterly reports if you're interested in the details. DAZ made the decision back in 2010 or so that the development work would be supported by content sales - either their own, or through their brokered site, rather than direct sales from the program itself. Apparently that model is working.

Smith Micro is still trying to support Poser Development by selling upgrades to Poser. That has never worked particularly well as evidenced by all the versions of Poser that are still in use, contributing to the support hell for PA's. Right now it isn't working at all, and unless Smith Micro can figure out how to market Poser to a new group of users as well as sell upgrades to existing ones. In other words, it's a marketing problem.

It isn't a matter of Daz Studio's merits vs Poser, or V4's merits vs the Genesis Line vs Poser Human figures, or even PA support for Poser here, it's a matter of Smith Micro figuring out how to position its own products to support continuing development.

If they can't come up with a coherent positioning of Poser as a product to a sufficient number of artists to maintain development then it's going to fail.

Sadly Smith Micro's focus is not marketing to a retail environment - it's primarily a business to business company. Which is why it's graphics division has suffered since it is primarily retail.