randym77 posted at 11:19AM Sat, 20 July 2019 - #4357557

Not sure I buy that one. People have been predicting the imminent demise of DAZ since they released DS, if not longer. But they're still here. I don't shop there much any more, because I don't use DS or Genesis, but clearly, others do.

Those huge sales have always been part of the DAZ marketing plan, and I don't think it means anything about their cash flow. It just means that if you buy at full price at DAZ, you've overpaid.

Most of those people were predicting that because of there emotional involvement with Poser and DAZ. DAZ has made multiple attempts to wean their user base off sales - all have failed. My personal favorite was the It's not fair! thread a couple forum reboots ago.

I would not have predicted DAZ failing during G1, G2, or G3, or even the early part of the G8 era.

Some of the things that I think are significant at the store (but don't tie in with what Wolf is talking about - he is operating out of a different space (animation) than I am and is providing more data points:

1. A lot of vendors didn't make the jump from G3 to G8. The "cool kids" are still cranking out stuff, but a lot of folks that don't have access to the secret sauce tools appear to be bowing out. A lot of the DS vendors I liked are no longer making content at DAZ (ironman13 in particular)

2. They are also running out of ideas. They have redone Aiko 3 and the teenager 3 times already - neither the 2nd or the 3rd iteration have any significant differences. How many upscale hotel rooms can you reasonably sell - How many living rooms with only 1 door can you sell? (Crap like that would have never made it past QA in the V4/M4 era). QA is another issue - a bikini with 1Gb of textures. Seriously? A 3 piece suit that can only be worn standing up (and doesn't button to boot?!)

3. A lot of G8 content is recycled G3 content (like we don't notice that Riversoft's conversion scripts exist.)

4. The frequency sales, and what is being sold at 70% off, along with what is being given away (They no longer give away new content - they have a collection of about 100 items and they just recycle them through the freebie's page - and nothing for G8).

5. Gift Card sales are becoming more frequent - that has gone from being a rare thing, to a thing that is done at the end of a fiscal quarter, to a fairly regular occurrence. People buy those and then use them with.....

6. 70% off sales - those have gone from a few items to literally thousands of items. And DAZ isn't even doing it intelligently. It is one thing to put legacy figures on sale for 58 - 72% off. It is a whole 'nuther ball of wax to also do that with sets and props - those can be used with any figure. When they started putting Stonemason's stuff on heavy discount - cash flow problems....

7. The real thing that has me thinking this is the stealth additions of PCFs for Genesis 1 & 2 content. If you were around during the schism , you know how insistent they were that they would never do anything to make using G figures in Poser easy.

I am not talking about things that were released with PCFs, I am talking about all of my G1 & G2 content (purchased a number of years ago) that suddenly sprouted PCFs sometime in the past year or so - they certainly didn't send me a notice about it.

DAZ may talk about us - but they don't appear to be able to live without us.....