Constructive Criticism for Daz3D
omedhue_196e22b81c
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I have been a bit busy in 2013, so I just got around to looking at the new Genesis 2. Basically, as a content creator and animator, I'm not happy at all. Not really about anything to do with Genesis 2, but the perceived strategy of Daz3D, which seems to be to release a whole new figure every couple of years. Does Daz3D understand at all what this does to content creators? This strategy seriously makes me not want to create for this platform, cause in 2 years you'll release another human character.
It doesn't just hurt the content creators, but also the customers that now have to choose which figure they should use. As a customer, I've invested hundreds of dollars in content for Genesis. I have hundreds of morphs. I would be buying more, but what is the point now, if the NEW figure is Genesis 2. Why wasn't this all just done on the Genesis rig and made completely compatible? Again, this looks to be a strategy by Daz3D to force every1 to repurchase things.
IMHO, the focus is totally wrong. When I'm looking for a character to use for some project, I'm looking for something with millions of options. That is what I was hoping for with the Genesis series. This is why I promoted it. This is why I created for it. I even encouraged many other 3d artists to look at this platform. We now have Genesis 2, and yet there are less than 700 clothing items for the original Genesis. That is pitiful. Not to mention the texture options for those clothing items, which is included in that 700 number. By releasing a new Genesis, we are now starting all over again. Yes, some items will be compatible, but not all of them. None of the morphs will work, and we got less default morphs in G2 than we did with G1.
Allow me to explain a situation I was presented with earlier this year. I got an email from a creator friend that was asking about DazStudio. How to do this and if this or that is possible. Of course, being so gungho about Daz, I reassured him that everything they wanted to do could be done in DazStudio. The game company, he was working for, was already committed to using Dazstudio, but now he had to figure out how to do what they wanted, with the assets they already created. 2 days later, he contacted me again to ask if I was currently working on anything big, and to see if I could help their company out. 1 hour later, the management was having me sign a contract. My main job was to get their custom figures into Daz and get them rigged and working. They immediately hired me because no1 else knew how to get these figures to work, and be able to use all the Daz assets, not even the Daz staff that they contacted. After I had to show their lead designer what he had to do to get these characters to work, so that at least we had 2 people that understood, I also had to show every1 else how to use all the other tools in daz. Now, because these were all newbies, fitting clothing became a serious chore, which lead to me working 60 hour weeks to extinguish all the fired cause by non compatible clothing, and explain to the purchaser what to look for when buying clothing, hair and accessories. At the end of my work there, the company had purchased almost every hair, and clothing item they could. They still did not have enough to make all the different characters they needed for the game. From there, we basically had to take the existing clothing and make our own versions of it.
So, what do I think would make Daz a better product, and will keep me using it?
First, better Documentation. The current documentation is haphazard, at best. There is literally no documentation on the new Genesis 2, at least that I found.
2nd, more video tutorial. This should be a fulltime thing. Some1 should ALWAYS be working on a tutorial. Here is a little hint for Daz3D. My website traffic is primarily driven by Youtube. Like 70% of the people come directly from Youtube. My Daz tutorials get more views than other tutorials that I do.
3rd, stop recreating the wheel. Is Genesis 2 impressive? Yes, in some ways, but it is currently useless without the content to alter and adorn it. Does the improvement to the figure really justify all the work for content creators and loss sales from the original Genesis items? I seriously doubt it.
4th, get more artist's in the Marketplace. There should be 10s of thousands of items for the figures, not less than 1000. I do not sell on the Daz MP because the wait is ridiculous, and there is no way in hell I'm allowing some1 else to take 50% and dictate to me what the price will be. Why would I do that when I can pay $40/month, except every CC on the planet plus bitcoin, have complete control over my product, able to talk directly to my customers, and not have to deal with a ridiculous approval system. Daz3D has created a system where the content creators barely have any incentive at all to create items for the figures. I'm sure there are some that do OK, but this requires Daz3D to favor the artist and to promote their items.
I tried to be as constructive as possible, while still being annoyed by what I see here. I honestly do want Daz3D to be better, and a place I can direct artists to. Right now, I'm not so enthusiastic about the platform. Oh, and a real particle system would be nice in DazStudio.
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Comments
You must be talking about a different market place. I've never once had to change a price or had a price suggested for me here. Elsewhere there are clear cut price minimums and so forth but there are no set rules about it here.
Genesis 2 is really not reinventing the wheel. Did the change it some? Refine it? Yes. But the concept of sharing clothing and textures with older figures is still the same.
Like Khory mentioned, there was lots of complaints about the video because not everyone could follow it, and not everyone is a native English speaker.
3rd, stop recreating the wheel. Is Genesis 2 impressive? Yes, in some ways, but it is currently useless without the content to alter and adorn it. Does the improvement to the figure really justify all the work for content creators and loss sales from the original Genesis items? I seriously doubt it.
This goes back to my technology argument. Tech changes. If you don't feel it should, then content creation on a digital platform really isn't for you.
There are really thousands of artists in the DAZ market place. Some are active, some are not. That said, DAZ has an approval process that not everyone's products can pass. I've sure had my share of rejections. But you don't want so many that you can't manage them or their items get quickly buried by pages of new stuff, so customers have to scour pages for things and miss a lot of stuff unless they check regularly.
Like I said, I don't sell on the Daz MP, so I would not know. I was obviously assuming, probably because the prices seem somewhat strange to me. As far as compatibility, I've already read a thread about texture mapping differences. Why do this? There are also numerous problems with refitting clothing, especially with the feet. It also has issues with animations, which doesn't make any sense, especially when you look at the problems in the animation on this new figure. Morphs also do not work at all. So the only thing that is marginally compatible are clothing items. Again, I don't see the benefits outweighing the losses.
@Male-M3dia - I learn a new program almost every other month, so I well know that technology changes. The question is always whether the improvements equate to a better product, and more sales. This, to me, is questionable. You're stating your opinions, which is fine, but they are not facts. As far as the marketplace, the amount of creators or items is relative to what your experiences are. My experience is, that products only get drowned out if no1 is looking for them, or the quality is not good. There is a search engine, and it should work. When it comes to the approval system, I would seriously cut it back, massively. Once an artist get's approved the first time, they shouldn't need to get other similar products approved. The artist will likely know better than Daz what the customers want, especially when he can talk to them directly. What most people in business do not understand, is that the customer is king. When the creators knows his customers better, than he will make more products that they like. By giving the creators more freedom to post what they think the customers want, he can take chances with what he creates, and have a much faster work flow. The more products they have to offer, the more money they make, the more they are incentivised to create. Too many items is a total and complete myth, like I said, search engines do work. Plus, their approval process still let's many problems through. Daz's Marketplace is easily the most confusing MP, as far as knowing exactly what you are buying. Maybe that is just the nature of having so many different figures.
No, around here it is a fact. G2 sales are far better than sales for G1 products. And people were really pleased with G1 sales. Not only that but the content creators seem far more excited and interested in creating for the g2 line. G2M/M6 intro products will be coming out for several days because there were so many done for him. And this is for a male figure which we all know is notoriously under produced for. I even noticed a pretty exciting sales jump with my one G2 product. That was a pose set and those are not generally considered big sellers.
Now, when it comes to this environment I'm merely a hobbyist and that's it. I've managed to gain quite a bit of experience with the software provided by Daz (Daz Studio, Bryce and Hexagon) but all on a hobbyist level.
Having that out of the way I still think that you're overlooking something obvious here. Just because Genesis 2 came out doesn't mean that Genesis has been dropped all of a sudden. When I check out the New Releases section of this website I definitely come across a lot of Genesis 2 (male/female) based products, sure, but also stuff like Genesis Musician Conductors; something made for Victoria & Michael 5. Here shows my inexperience because I had to look them up, but Victoria 5 is a Gensis figure.
And it's not as if that's it. Donovan for Genesis, Eye surface for Genesis, Tormented for horror movie patient (required product: horror movie patient for Genesis), and maybe more stuff I missed but I doubt it. Sure; I agree that right now most of the stuff is coming out for Genesis 2 and most certainly Genesis 2 male. That's not quite the point: thing is that Genesis maybe dated, it hasn't been made obsolete. People still use it, people still create for it and Daz also provides people a place to sell stuff for it.
I would have agreed with your argument if Daz had shut the lid on Genesis and also stopped selling anything for it. But they're not.
In fact, personally I prefer Genesis at the time of writing. Could be my inexperience, the way the models work, perhaps the morphs, I don't know. I like the Genesis figure and I heavily admire the diversity in it. And the best part: there's still TONS of material to grab for Genesis out there.
And well; isn't more diversity something everyone can profit from in the end?
LOL, sorry I had to laugh at that. You think a company that actually has marketing trends of their products would know less than someone speaking with just a few customers?
Wrong, wrong, wrong. This is the best way for an artist to spend time on a product that will BOMB.
When the creators knows his customers better, than he will make more products that they like. By giving the creators more freedom to post what they think the customers want, he can take chances with what he creates, and have a much faster work flow. The more products they have to offer, the more money they make, the more they are incentivised to create. Too many items is a total and complete myth, like I said, search engines do work. Plus, their approval process still let's many problems through. Daz's Marketplace is easily the most confusing MP, as far as knowing exactly what you are buying. Maybe that is just the nature of having so many different figures.
Refer to my previous comment. If you're actually a vendor, honestly, you've got a lot to learn about marketing and selling. This line of thinking is the quickest way to put yourself out of business.
I think people will continue to use G1.. and I strongly suspect that they will use g2 products on it just as people are going to use older products on G2.
I try not to think of the genesis Victoria and mikes as unique characters so much as a full shape. And in that way I'm perfectly comfortable using them as a component rather than "just" when I make a character to render. I feel a bit stronger about the M6 because I think the base figure is pretty dull. Thankfully because of the overall genesis tech it isn't as big a deal to dial up a unique character that has loads of "bits" of other characters. With the older tech that could lead to serious hair pulling and simply wasn't always a possibility. All in all the whole thing is so much less stressful than when I very first started it is amazing.
I've had DAZ say no to several products. One I still think they were off but at the same time I understand why. If I did the same product today it might not be turned down but at the time the logic was sound. I have another that they turned down and at the time I was gutted. I thought it was brilliant. I looked back at the promos I sent them not long ago and just cringed. I was able to turn part of it around and have another part I have plans for. But there is a good half of the work that I won't resubmit to DAZ in any form. Not because the work is really flawed but because the product is just so narrow. Pretty much every PA gets turned down at some point and in the long run it is better for all of us that there is a bar that always has to be met. Does it hurt to have a product refused? Youbetcha! I get wildly depressed for a few days. But the reality is that sometimes we have to be told no for our own good.
Every PA here has to go through an approval process with every pack. I've had a pack or two turned down until I made changes that they wanted
Yes!
There are three generations of content now that can be used on Genesis AND Genesis 2. If you don't choose to do so, that's on you. There has /never/ been this many textures, poses and clothing that could be used on two generations of figures.
This is why I put my heart and soul into making conversion facilitators - I really believe in versatility, and DAZ has proven that they do, too, by approving AND PROMOTING those same products.
@Male-M3dia - I sell in every single market there is for 3D products. I've also been creating fulltime for over 7 years now. When this is your living, you tend not to slack too much on quality. Actually, you generally get better and better, as you know the market you are selling to. Quality is all dependent on the market and the prices people are willing to pay. You don't make high poly models for a game engine market. When it comes to animation, I'm not going to sell motion capture in a market that cannot afford it. I've always been my own boss, when it comes to 3D, and I think I know the 3D markets pretty well. I don't talk to a few customers. I have hundreds of customers that buy from me every single day. I rarely ever have to do any customer service concerning problems customers have with the product, but I do have customers contact me on a daily basis about custom jobs, requests, or contract jobs. Most of the custom and contract jobs I turn down, as I don't need the work and have my own projects to work on. A few months ago, I did a massive update for 1 of my products, with a completely new and innovative avatar. I sent over 2500 updates out for that product. That's over 2500 sales on 1 of my most expensive products, over a 3 year span. Of course, the update was free.
What I think you fail to see, is that most corporations are not very efficient. They might have data, but the data still needs to be interpreted by a competent person, and the data can be specific to a market, which the interpreter likely has no knowledge of. Looking at what Daz3D does from a business standpoint, the approval process is a cost to the company. It's not a small cost either. They likely have to take 50% of each sale because they have this slow approval process. If the approval process was revamped, it would seriously lower Daz's costs, allowing them to take less commission, giving more to the creators. I'm simply making suggestions to Daz based on my experiences. Maybe they just allow merchants with 10 products that were approved, post products on their own. I'm pretty sure Midnight Stories doesn't need Daz to hold his hand.
As a business man, I've never feared competition, and I know that competition makes everything better for every1. If I can't make it in the market, then I'm not afraid to completely change directions. Heck, I'm constantly in flux anyways. All the arguments for limiting a market are about protectionism. By engaging in protectionism, you are forming a bubble in the market, which will burst 1 day. When that bubble bursts, a ton of people that thought they had viable business models, now are scraping for scraps. In a totally open market, you always know where your business stands, and your decisions are based more in reality, not the bubble you put yourself in. As I do sell in every 3D market, I frequently hear how this or that platform is awesome, or how they do everything right. Those people are in their own bubble. They have no idea how other platforms work, or they listen to others that couldn't make it in that other market, so they just don't try.
If you are really interested in sending Daz3D comments you'll might want to look at raising a ticket to general feedback. Posting here all you'll do is get into discussions, heated or otherwise with people whose comments are coloured by their association to Daz.
I've had DAZ say no to several products. One I still think they were off but at the same time I understand why. If I did the same product today it might not be turned down but at the time the logic was sound. I have another that they turned down and at the time I was gutted. I thought it was brilliant. I looked back at the promos I sent them not long ago and just cringed. I was able to turn part of it around and have another part I have plans for. But there is a good half of the work that I won't resubmit to DAZ in any form. Not because the work is really flawed but because the product is just so narrow. Pretty much every PA gets turned down at some point and in the long run it is better for all of us that there is a bar that always has to be met. Does it hurt to have a product refused? Youbetcha! I get wildly depressed for a few days. But the reality is that sometimes we have to be told no for our own good.
I hear you, but this doesn't account for your experience. Yes, Daz might have their opinions, but that doesn't mean they are right. The only way to know who is right, is to test it in the market. There are all kinds of creators that think up numerous ways to achieve a similar result. Does any1 at Daz have the experience to know what is the best way is every single market? In my experience, and many others, no they do not. They couldn't even answer the questions correctly for the client I worked for. If Daz had, the game company likely would not have needed me. Because of what I've seen and dealt with over the years, I have very little faith in a corporation's decisions or opinions. At some point, no matter how good they used to be, the company gets bigger than 1 man can handle, and certain areas really start to slip. I guarantee you that customer support is a huge issue. Again tho, if creators dealt directly with the customers, Daz would lower their costs, and could provide more money back to the creators.
Without proper knowledge, how do you know that didn't happen Gen 2 was created? I think that's the part you're failing to see with your hundreds of customers when DAZ has thousands at the very least. I'm looking at your site offerings compared to DAZ and I fail to see how you could know more than them considering all the items they offer versus your small subset.
Correct, however if you wish to keep your standards at a certain level, then you better make sure EACH product that goes in your store meets the standard... not take one then accept carte blanche for any future items without needing approval. You are running a business, not Boy Scouts. You can't just put an honor system in place and hope no one violates that trust. In a business setting that's a pretty naïve position to take, and it will always end up costing more money AND reputation because you let substandard products in your store that you didn't even bother to check, just to save some money.
I could continue this, but I'm going to stand by my previous statement about you needing to learn more about how to sell and market, because you've said some pretty eyebrow raising things that doubt any business would be in good financial shape following them.
That's an interesting thing to say. However, if you have no basis at all to make an formed opinion, why even make it? If someone has background and experience regardless of where they sell that's one thing, but sometimes opinions as facts can color the opinions of those that have things against DAZ as well.
There are also many people who still use Victoria 4 and still buy stuff for V4 !!!
Ever thought why this is so?
If you haven't noticed yet, I very much LOVE a debate. I appreciate the advice tho.
This is not for you, Anikad, I just don't want to post another comment. When I first started selling products for this market, I started talking to different video creators and even did contract jobs for a few that used Daz products, not necessarily Dazstudio. They all were using Micheal 4 models, which I did not have animation ready to go for. I asked them why, when Genesis was so awesome. They basically told me that they had thousands of dollars invested in M4, and didn't feel like changing to Genesis. I probably got them to invest in Genesis. Hmmm, I wonder what they think now. I think it is great that Daz has a system to convert the clothing, but again, that is all that will work with the figures, nothing else will. Personally, I will likely not make much of an investment into Genesis 2, simply because I really do have alot for G1. I might sell some products for it, but I certainly won't be buying much, if any.
Because they don't want to stop using Poser, and without leaving Poser they can't continue using their large V4 content libraries. That's pretty much the only good reason; otherwise Dawn, Roxie and Rex, and Alyson and Ryan all bend better in Poser, and Genesis and Genesis 2 bend better in DS.
Not sure that's relevant to this convo since we're speaking of DAZ. But there are certainly places that V4 drives their sales; however, if you look at DAZ's store sale page and the top 30, she's poorly represented here. So why is that so?
Well, I buy the products also, and I seriously don't see these standards you talk about. I'm not saying the products are bad looking. Most of the time, it's not the looks that are the problem. I just used a pair of shoes that was more polygons than the whole avatar and all his clothing. I kept thinking it was the hair that was slowing things down, but it was the shoes. Where was quality control in this case? I've seen countless products that have issues like this and many others. Thankfully, in this latest issue, I was using it all in Blender and could easily reduce the shoes in a few seconds, with absolutely no visible difference in the shoes. Unless the person checking is an artist specifically knowledge able about every aspect of that which they are checking, then the quality control is superficial, at best. We had countless issues with many products when I worked for that game company. Quality control in art is not the same as quality control in pipe fixing. It's more or less opinion based, outside of obvious flaws. Daz's animation requirements state that all feet should be flat on the ground when appropriate. Do they understand that most people don't walk around in bare feet, and soles are generally pretty thick. See, you trust in a system that is flawed to start with.
Not sure that's relevant to this convo since we're speaking of DAZ. But there are certainly places that V4 drives their sales; however, if you look at DAZ's store sale page and the top 30, she's poorly represented here. So why is that so?
It is completely relevant, as this discussion is not just about Daz products. It's 3D content and can be used in any 3D program. Most jobs that I have done that involve Daz assets, were using Poser, 3ds Max, and Blender. As a 3D merchant, I really don't care where they use it, just that my offerings are usable there. Every1 thinks about costs, if they have no reason to invest in a whole new character, why would they? I'm not arguing whether G2 sales are good or not. If you promote something, it will sell. The question is, will it sell when you aren't promoting it.
To me, Daz does not clearly label things, so if you aren't familiar with it, you can make all kinds of assumption that aren't true. The game company I was contracted thru bought all kinds of stuff they could not really use at all, yet we had to make them work, as there weren't any other options besides making it ourselves. This brings me back to there being so few products for G1. It doesn't make any sense for Daz to limit their market. In their case, they should want the market to be as large as possible. They should want there to be everything under the sun here. That is impossible under the condition they are currently working. They have a major bottleneck that is processed by hand.
Diversity depends on what you are talking about. In my option, the G1 figure met that diversity. The reason I jumped into G1, was that I thought Daz had created something that would last. See the problem that I see in 3D content is that nothing is really compatible from avatar to avatar. I thought G1 was going to change all that. When all the creators are working on 1 avatar, you get massive diversity. It makes the figure valuable, especially when any1 can sell those assets they make. You never know what people are going to want or need. By separating the market with another new Genesis, that is incompatible, outside of clothing, you ruin the value of G1, from a customers standpoint, and creators standpoint. I really don't expect to see many people still creating for G1. What exactly would be the point? I'm really not saying G2 was a bad idea, just that making it incompatible with everything else was not smart. This is why I question whether it was done on purpose. Maybe it was not, and G2 had to be different. I need to take a better look at the skeleton, as the animation differences in G1 and G2 are very strange. I've applied the same animation to 2 completely different skeletons and don't see these kinds of differences. There is no real documentation, so I can only fiddle around with G2 to figure out why it's so different.
I think you're missing a very critical point; Genesis can use quite a bit from Gen4 characters right out of the box using the Autofit capability; I have quite a library of free content for Victoria 4, both poses and clothing items, plus a bunch of stuff from Michael 4 and it all works with Genesis. The same is true of G2; even though I'm not really a fan of the change myself, I will adapt and build content for both generations of Genesis, and maybe even do some things for V4 and M4 while I'm at it.
I think at least part of the reason that DAZ developed and released G2 is to provide an option for those that weren't satisfied with how the G1 figures worked. Genesis was a very innovative development, but lacked "flexibility" in certain areas that lead DAZ to split the system into two "different but interconnected" figures.
Your guessing and again your guessing wrong. First the approval process is pretty fast. The only time I have had any real sort of delay was weekends and holidays. Other brokerages also do approval and I've sat waiting on that for nearly two weeks before a product went on to testing. Most of my products have been through every step of the process here before they would have even hit review at another brokerage. As for cost, I can't imagine that total it is adding more than 5-10 minutes to the whole process.
It isn't about protectionism or fear of competition. Limiting the number of x type products is more about limiting the flooding on the front page. No this is not a market place where your going to find textures for the same hair over and over and over again. I just can not see that as a bad thing from a customer or content creator point of view. Not that it does not mean that there are products that cover the same or similar ground. Heck we are getting two different types of zombies for M6 for example. And I am pretty sure there is a fairly wide variety of "metal shader presets" for DAZ Studio in the store. But I am also sure that if someone else comes up with a set of different style metal shaders that has killer promos they would be accepted. But it will take great promos or a totally new idea about metal shaders to get them in. What gets in or does not get in here really boils down to someone looking at the promos and getting excited for some reason. Sometimes they can "see around" bad promos to the product and that it really is more interesting than the promos are making it or that it has more potential than the promos are indicating. I can't really fault them for that. If I can't sell them on the product with my promos then there is a fair chance I won't be able to convince the customers to look either.
This isn't a protectionist market at all, actually. I've submitted a jeans product at almost the same time as another artist before. Neither of us was refused, because each of us did a good product with good renders. Instead, Marketing staggered release so that we did not compete directly with each other; jeans are a popular enough product in general that each of us had good sales when we didn't have to go head-to-head. True, we might be competing in catalog sales now, but I don't think any of us is terribly worried about that.
DAZ never refuses a product because "we have one of those already" if the renders are at the level of quality they expect, and they can figure out a way to successfully market both of them - after all, with their cut they then make twice as much as if they released only one product. The sheer number of pose packs you're going to see for Michael 6 proves this better than anything else of recent date. A lot of artists did a lot of great work. DAZ said "Hey, let's publish all of them, because people will buy all of these," instead of "let's refuse this and this one because they weren't first and we already have X number of pose packs for him."
And man am I glad of that because I am pretty sure that my pose set was last out of the gate.
@Male-M3dia
See, this, I have to bring up the bubble again. 30-50 items dumped into the market? You are joking, right? A typo? I seriously ROFL reading that. I deal with markets that get 10k items dropped into it in 1 day. This could go on for the next 10 years, and I would still have people coming to me asking, "can you make me this, cause I can't find 1 anywhere." There are no limits to what can be made, nor what people will want, and the only difference between making any of it, is how many people will buy it. Good, bad, really crappy, it doesn't matter. You will pay dearly for something really good tho. To the purchasers, it is truly like finding gold. It's no different here at Daz, in that aspect. It's not all gold, some of it is silver, and others are bronze. I have over 700 animators, or more, competing directly with me in the largest market I'm in. There are, at least, 30 different products that compete directly with my best selling product. What happens is that people figure out who sells the best whatever. They talk, they ask around. The word spreads. On the marketplace website, because my best selling product does so well, it ranks very high in it's category. It also is usually the #1 product for any search word related to it. You can literally look at the most searched words, and decide what your next product should be. I have products that are 7 years old, and still sells because it is just as good today, despite all the changes, as it was 7 years ago. Then there are others, I update regularly. All my actions are driven by what the market is telling me. How well does the product compete with others? I know that the more I slack off, the less my profits will be.
No1 needs to control the market, it is more than big enough for every1. When you seek to control it, you are swimming up stream. You waste money. You throw away profits, for some imaginary quality. There are good modelers and creators here, but there are also big time creators that are not here. Why aren't they? Could not every1 benefit? If you are good, you have nothing to fear but more people coming to search the marketplace, drawn in by all the talent. Don't think I'm putting myself in that group, as I definitely know I'm not the best or even close. I can serve a purpose in the market tho. I can fill a niche, as we all do. The whole point is that no good product will ever be drowned out by new products, cause not every1 is competing against each other. Look at the Daz Marketplace. There are literally a couple of alligator options, and 4 Werewolf options. Basically, if you just make anything that isn't out there yet, which is literally millions of items, then you will get sales occasionally. Even a market like hair, if you really make a nice set of hair, it will sell.
I seriously didn't realize how few products there actually is here until I worked for that game company. It was slim pickings after we all made about 8 characters each. After that, we kept getting things sent back to redo, because that hair was on this other girl, or this dress is same as this other girl. I just gave up with my last 8 characters and just started completely alter every piece of clothing, and doing all my own textures. There were only a few headphone options, and sunglasses options.
See, this, I have to bring up the bubble again. 30-50 items dumped into the market? You are joking, right? A typo? I seriously ROFL reading that. I deal with markets that get 10k items dropped into it in 1 day. This could go on for the next 10 years, and I would still have people coming to me asking, "can you make me this, cause I can't find 1 anywhere." There are no limits to what can be made, nor what people will want, and the only difference between making any of it, is how many people will buy it. Good, bad, really crappy, it doesn't matter. You will pay dearly for something really good tho. To the purchasers, it is truly like finding gold. It's no different here at Daz, in that aspect. It's not all gold, some of it is silver, and others are bronze. I have over 700 animators, or more, competing directly with me in the largest market I'm in. There are, at least, 30 different products that compete directly with my best selling product. What happens is that people figure out who sells the best whatever. They talk, they ask around. The word spreads. On the marketplace website, because my best selling product does so well, it ranks very high in it's category. It also is usually the #1 product for any search word related to it. You can literally look at the most searched words, and decide what your next product should be. I have products that are 7 years old, and still sells because it is just as good today, despite all the changes, as it was 7 years ago. Then there are others, I update regularly. All my actions are driven by what the market is telling me. How well does the product compete with others? I know that the more I slack off, the less my profits will be.
No1 needs to control the market, it is more than big enough for every1. When you seek to control it, you are swimming up stream. You waste money. You throw away profits, for some imaginary quality. There are good modelers and creators here, but there are also big time creators that are not here. Why aren't they? Could not every1 benefit? If you are good, you have nothing to fear but more people coming to search the marketplace, drawn in by all the talent. Don't think I'm putting myself in that group, as I definitely know I'm not the best or even close. I can serve a purpose in the market tho. I can fill a niche, as we all do. The whole point is that no good product will ever be drowned out by new products, cause not every1 is competing against each other. Look at the Daz Marketplace. There are literally a couple of alligator options, and 4 Werewolf options. Basically, if you just make anything that isn't out there yet, which is literally millions of items, then you will get sales occasionally. Even a market like hair, if you really make a nice set of hair, it will sell.
I seriously didn't realize how few products there actually is here until I worked for that game company. It was slim pickings after we all made about 8 characters each. After that, we kept getting things sent back to redo, because that hair was on this other girl, or this dress is same as this other girl. I just gave up with my last 8 characters and just started completely alter every piece of clothing, and doing all my own textures. There were only a few headphone options, and sunglasses options.
This isn't the Unity engine store, or any other part of the gaming industry. It isn't trying to be. And it's very difficult to make a living selling content freelance for game engines, which is one reason why we aren't (you may notice only DAZ originals are available for game licensing). Gaming companies with life expectancies longer than fruit flies do that in-house or, rarely, on commission; and games that don't suck have a unifying stylistic appearance to their content, which tends to rule out buying it from a store that also sells it to other people. That may change as the 2D gaming market for smartphones continues to expand and rendered sprites become more viable, of course.
Our target market is largely people wishing to make renders or animations, often for advertising, sometimes for education, sometimes for sequential art (although none of us really knows what gets used in what, of course). The benefit of using Poser and DAZ Studio is the ability to go from start to finish much faster than when you're buying unrigged models or starting from scratch. You're yelling about how bad we are at making oranges when we've basically cornered the apple market.
Given the point was to give Critique to DAZ3D the company and given the conversation seems to have explored all sides of the debate over it, I believe the topic has generally ran it's course. As such I am locking this thread...