Announcing The Platinum Club Plus [Beta] Program
This discussion has been closed.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
That's Platinum Club New releases, not DO's
Generous
but
This seems to imply that this is much more than a beta!
I took it to apply to the whole sentence.
I don't have much of a problem with most of the changes. Truth is, I rarely pick up the PC new releases anyway and I've already picked up most of the older stuff I was interested in. Having two coupons is nice, especially the one that can be used on anything in the store (except new items). I've often gone a month and struggled to find something to use my coupon on because there didn't happen to be a DO I was interested in.
One thing I did notice, looking at my wishlist, is that the very old back catalog of PC items got a big price bump (I guess it's not really any different than the new PC items), but these were things for Vicky 1 or Aiko that I struggled to find value in at the $1.99 price (thus still being in the wishlist and not bought). At the new prices, I don't think I could ever consider purchasing them.
As a suggestion, you might do something similar to a certain other online store and have a Platinum Club Archive or something similar. Stuff that's several years old and gets a deeper discount because of it.
I buy most $1.99 items because of the price not because I really need or want them. Very rarely are they something I consider worth having or essential so if they double in price I just won't buy them. The $6 coupon is just about worthwhile as 'new' products become eligible. It's a shame DAZ doesn't have "render rewards". That might just about seem worthwhile.
It excludes Platinum Club new releases but not other new releases. It work exactly like the current coupon except for the addition of platinum club items (excluding new release Platinum Club Items). Hope that clears it up.
As Sassy Wench has said it does work on new releases. She just tried it.
That's a good point - and one where the % off, rather than a fixed price, is well suited to give us flexibility for older items.
Several people were asking about how PA's included will work and how often they'll be rotated through.
Right now the plan is to rotate PA's on a weekly or semi-weekly basis. However, nothing is set in stone. We want to find something that works for both the PA's and the members. The current thought is that rotating on a weekly basis is good.
In terms of numbers I can say that as of right now 62 of our top 100 PA's have opted in to be rotating PA's and 117 PA's in total have opted in. Hopefully this will ease some concern that about only seeing the same PA's on sale all the time.
Hello. My english is not so good.
Can everybody help me to understand this?
Write me in german?
Thank you :)
Ich bin Platinum Member bis maerz 15. Muss ich etwas dazu bezahlen, wenn ich zu Platinum Member Plus wechsel oder bleibt alles so? Nach der testphase werde ich wieder Platinum Member?
People (myself included) are always resistant to change. I forced myself not to read any of these posts, just the ad page with the details of the BETA, and then I quickly opted IN on the BETA to see how it works out. I realize it may not be for everyone, but what will it really hurt for people to give it a shot? So what if something you wanted is a little more for a few weeks? Then wait until the BETA is over and buy it later. Yes, they may end up changing the PC permanently, but other giving feedback and protesting, there won't be anything else buyers can do about it anyway. You can't blame DAZ for trying out new things, they are after all, a business and there isn't a single business out there that isn't in it to make money.
I will say that one of my biggest pet peeves in all of the years that I've been a member of DAZ and the PC, is that there are many of the brokered artists that very rarely or NEVER put their items on sale, and coupons are rarely useable on their items. This may be a chance to get at least some kind of a discount on those items I wouldn't have otherwise purchased because of the steep price. With that said, I will also say that on the other side of that coin, I understand just how much work goes in to making models and that most of the artists do this as their living, so while as a buyer it's a pet peeve, I understand it from their point of view as well. Just so those artists understand that most of the buyers are hobbyists and aren't always as willing to pay full price for items for a few hours of fun designing.
To DAZ, I can say that I do agree with many of the other posters that because the prices of the regularly $1.99 items has increased with the BETA, and the coupons can only be used once per month, I will end up spending much less money per month than I have been doing. It's still worth a try to see how it works on a longer term basis, but only time will really tell.
That's my thinking too, I don't see a reason not to try it, my initial concern was the cost of pc items but if the prices are within a range then on intro price it shouldn't be any more than $5
+ 1 On this sentiment. I think the PLUS should be a POWER USER CLUB that may cost like $15-20/month and offer tremendous value or mabe a PC GAMER version where the EULA includes 3d publishing rights, I purchase DO almost exclusively because of this option , exists (w/ game licenses) as some day (sooner than later) most of my renders will be published in 3d. Keep that in mind when you build your library for the future.
I'm not averse to change but I do mind voting for xmas especially if I'm the Turkey.
Not trying to sound offensive. If you would read those posts, you'd find myriad answers to your question.
I own it and it's great but it's developed by one person and, as far as I'm aware, with no input or support from DAZ. OR is becoming a standard and with v2 it has advanced incredibly unlike DS. Likewise support for and integration with Lightwave and other software is limited at best. If DAZ wants more customers it needs to reach out instead of relying primarily on customers using its relatively closed and rather dated software. I love using DS but that's in spite of its limitations.
Even though DS is free that's not an excuse for it not developing significantly. If necessary charge for new features in the same way that plugins must be bought.
While I don't want to get too much into it, given the comments in this thread I would think the reaction to increasing the cost (from free) would be met with a certain amount of 'resistance' :D
Actually, I've been shocked that DS Pro is free. Frankly, no one should expect to get it for free. I see the PC club as being valuable for discounts but if you need to add revenue, which is understandable, then sell the software. It doesnt have to be expensive. Maybe that compromise will help it go down easier.
They did charge for it for a while. I'm assuming that didn't work out too well since they switched back to offering it for free.
My understanding is that they're using the free software to lure in new people to the hobby. I know way back when (2004 I think) when I first looked into 3D I didn't know if I would like it and I didn't want to pay for Poser only to find out I hated it. I learned about the new beta testing for DS and got in on that. It hooked me in. I started off by combing for freebies from the various stores, but it wasn't long before I was buying a whole bunch of stuff, much of it from DAZ. I've cut way back on my spending these last few years, but I believe the initial buying frenzy I fell into is fairly common for folks new to the hobby. Therefore, offering the software for free is the perfect carrot.
I'm not averse to change but I do mind voting for xmas especially if I'm the Turkey.
I have my doubts that those PA's who rarely participate in sales will suddenly opt in. Others will opt in to see if it offers them a larger market share. If it proves to be a losing proposition, vendors will opt out.
huh?
in other words, greater than 39.79, i suspect.
Yep. Cliff Bowman did some math on the pricing differences between the standard PC price of a couple of the latest releases and what the Plus prices would be. Basically it showed a better than 100% increase in your pricing. On average you seem to spend about $31.80 on PC items in a month. Roughly buy about 8 PC items per month. Instead of knowing you can buy 8 items and still be in your budget, you would have to keep track of what you've already spent and how much you have left. Not fun.
yeah, not fun. feeling like the party is over. there's no fun in buying one pc item.
like when amazon raised their free shipping threshold to 35. i used to spend 25 out of my weekly salary, more often than than i should have, on a couple cds. dvds,,paperbacks. now i tell myself, wait for the end of the month to buy it all together and meet the 35. end of month comes and it's not pocket change anymore.and i end up spending a more comfortable amount in the daz store. :lol:
i understand the pc artists want to make more money for their work.
and it's hit or miss, so it needs to average out. i wasn't really interested in the viking outfit, so i didn't buy the texture sets either. i luv the scifi boxes and would have spent a few extra bucks if the price was higher, but i wouldn't need the boxes if i didn't already buy the robot, but i wouldn't have spent more the 1.99 on the robot.
i wonder how many pages this thread has gained during the time it took me to think about this. :)
Well no matter what, the PC will *always* have the lowest priced content in the store. Ok, it might not be historically as low as 1.99 (more around $3.50).. but the cost of procuring content has gone up.. it's not simply about DAZ wanting to make more money.
THEN DO THAT... Offer a BEST PRICE assurance for any store product as a PC member. If you figure club premiums are a up front margin, then you really need only cover the cost of the sale. So when a PC member puts an item in the cart, the lowest possible price the product will ever go on sale for. It makes sense because members joined at DAZ's request, terms and timing. PC members are "pre-hooped & hurdled.
Therefore they should then should be eligible for NON TIME sensitive price protection. Many people are asking for less confusion but with all the conflicting sales. YOU CAN sometimes find better deals when you factor out all the collateral expenses in meeting the complex sales criteria. I have seen vendor products at other stores compete, and I have seen DAZ compete in various sale categories against its own promos. Even if inadvertently it these frequent "mistakes" are consequence of the promo complexity and that creates a feeling inequity and suspicion in the consumers.
While I don't want to get too much into it, given the comments in this thread I would think the reaction to increasing the cost (from free) would be met with a certain amount of 'resistance' :D
Actually, I've been shocked that DS Pro is free. Frankly, no one should expect to get it for free. I see the PC club as being valuable for discounts but if you need to add revenue, which is understandable, then sell the software. It doesnt have to be expensive. Maybe that compromise will help it go down easier.
From the start, the base DS has been free. The philosophy was that so long as content sales supported it's development, it would remain free.
DS was meant to be modular. Users would get the base free and could expand by buying modules and plugins to expand it's abilities as they needed. DS3Advanced was the first for pay version. DS4 was originally planned as 5 versions. A free web-only version. A free lite version (scaled back version of standard), a for pay Standard ($49.95), Advanced and Pro. Upgrade and Sidegrades were available as well as separate purchases of various plugins. DS4 Standard was first out and free until they could get the two lower versions out. Advanced and Pro were released shortly after standard and were not free.
Why the changes and decisions were made to not follow through as they had is known only to those who were in the meetings. But, in the end, Pro was made free (for a limited time if you read the product page) and the other versions were dropped.
Since it was and is still free, I'd have to hazard a guess and state that content sales still supports it's development.
If proves inconclusive then we'll look at the options of either running a longer beta, tweaking the format etc, like I've said, nothing is off the table, nor set in stone :)
The 70% PC discount will apply to PC items only. The only stacking will be the intro 30% discount, and additional savings via the $6 coupon on back-catalogue products. It won't affect brokered items - that part of the change comes via the 30% discount (stacking subject to the PA's wishes) which could then stack on any additional promo that PA is taking part in.
RE PC discount - that's not exactly what I was asking. To be specific, with the very occasional exception for certain sales, we currently have a situation where PC products are exempt from all other sales modifiers, so no matter what the current sale is, PC items are always $1.99 and value items are always $2.99. By having the PC products given a perpetual 70% off, does that mean that they will also be locked into that exact discount, and therefore ALWAYS just 70% off, and not subject to any other added sales discount? So, to pull a real world example, if there's an 80% off sale going on, like there is right now, will items that are currently $1.99 to PC members like Soothsayer and Crazy Nights be locked at $2.98 and $5.08 for PC+ members, whereas NON-PC members would actually be getting them for less at $1.99 and $3.39? And when PC items ARE set on sale, like the recent batch of 99 cent sales, what happens to the PC+ members? Are they still going to be locked into 70% while the regular PC folks are getting discounts as high as 94%? This is the kind of thing that should be spelled out in advance before the first time it hits in the store and everyone goes berserk... as it did with the Value Items, where the terms were only qualified retroactively. And given that there are a couple of bits of verbiage in the printed ads that that seem artificially vague and open to retroactive reinterpretation, like "Discount on significant selection of Premier Artist Stores", the fact that we have to come to the forum and wade through a pile of posts in the HOPE of getting a definitive answer, it really gives the vibe of "we don't want to tell you the whole deal, because we're reserving room to change it later."
Beyond that, there's not much to say except that the math of this program really doesn't work out when combined with the current DAZ policy of putting PA products on sale for 50% off on a nearly monthly basis. In fact, given that the vast majority of older PC products will spike enormously, it goes completely against the logic of trying to get older product moving again when DAZ's standard M.O. for the entire history of the company's successful marketing has been Sale! Sale! FREE ITEM! Sale! I won't speak for anyone else (though I suspect I do,) but I know the reason that I frequently don't buy the new PC products is because DAZ is almost guaranteed to repackage them within a year in some kind of bundle for even less. Likewise, the reason I don't see the weekly free models as that great an incentive anymore is because I know that DAZ usually just turns around and gives them away for free to non-members in a few months ANYWAY. In short, the biggest problem DAZ has with the PC isn't the product selection or the pricing, but the fact that DAZ's Marketing people are constantly undermining the very foundation that it's supposed to be built on.
RE PC discount - that's not exactly what I was asking. To be specific, with the very occasional exception for certain sales, we currently have a situation where PC products are exempt from all other sales modifiers, so no matter what the current sale is, PC items are always $1.99 and value items are always $2.99. By having the PC products given a perpetual 70% off, does that mean that they will also be locked into that exact discount, and therefore ALWAYS just 70% off, and not subject to any other added sales discount? So, to pull a real world example, if there's an 80% off sale going on, like there is right now, will items that are currently $1.99 to PC members like Soothsayer and Crazy Nights be locked at $2.98 and $5.08 for PC+ members, whereas NON-PC members would actually be getting them for less at $1.99 and $3.39? And when PC items ARE set on sale, like the recent batch of 99 cent sales, what happens to the PC+ members? Are they still going to be locked into 70% while the regular PC folks are getting discounts as high as 94%? This is the kind of thing that should be spelled out in advance before the first time it hits in the store and everyone goes berserk... as it did with the Value Items, where the terms were only qualified retroactively. And given that there are a couple of bits of verbiage in the printed ads that that seem artificially vague and open to retroactive reinterpretation, like "Discount on significant selection of Premier Artist Stores", the fact that we have to come to the forum and wade through a pile of posts in the HOPE of getting a definitive answer, it really gives the vibe of "we don't want to tell you the whole deal, because we're reserving room to change it later."
Beyond that, there's not much to say except that the math of this program really doesn't work out when combined with the current DAZ policy of putting PA products on sale for 50% off on a nearly monthly basis. In fact, given that the vast majority of older PC products will spike enormously, it goes completely against the logic of trying to get older product moving again when DAZ's standard M.O. for the entire history of the company's successful marketing has been Sale! Sale! FREE ITEM! Sale! I won't speak for anyone else (though I suspect I do,) but I know the reason that I frequently don't buy the new PC products is because DAZ is almost guaranteed to repackage them within a year in some kind of bundle for even less. Likewise, the reason I don't see the weekly free models as that great an incentive anymore is because I know that DAZ usually just turns around and gives them away for free to non-members in a few months ANYWAY. In short, the biggest problem DAZ has with the PC isn't the product selection or the pricing, but the fact that DAZ's Marketing people are constantly undermining the very foundation that it's supposed to be built on.
It's a beta, I can't be any more open and honest about it. We're trying out a new approach - obviously we want to keep some parity between the PC/PC+, but I don't know of every possible situation. I know for a fact that we wont be having any 99c sales during the beta period, so there shouldn't be a situation where one is vastly differently to the other.
If there is, we'll address it as and when it comes up.
DAZ Studio is the perfect Heroineware - the first doze is free. I did pay for DS3A back when I started, and for DS4 Pro before it was free, but compared to what I've spent on content, that's was pretty cheap ;-)
I'm happy as long there is a fix in the store for me in the morning ;-)
Yea!
Ok all, I'm bowing out for the day.. done my 12 hours in here.. will catch you all on the flipside :)
I don't think DAZ has a choice EXCEPT to make DS4Pro free. In the end, maintaining multiple versions is more expensive than a single program unless they run at different levels of progress, and it becomes a nightmare for tech support to handle that many variations. At the same time, DAZ is really in the content business, and unless everyone out there has the most recent version of DS4, the newest products are going to be much harder to sell. That's made especially imperative, as there's no other program that runs the current generation of DAZ product as well as DS. In fact, probably the biggest misstep DAZ made during the whole Genesis launch wasn't the lack of compatibility with Poser, but the fact that it wasn't compatible with the in-house "premiere" program, Carrara. Had Carrara been able to run Genesis flawlessly from Day one, then a lesser version of DS4 as the lower price "razor" for the Genesis "blades" might have worked, but instead they found themselves in a situation where they'd created a state of the art product that wasn't going to appeal to the higher end (and higher spending) customer unless they made all the whistles and bells immediately available. As it is, both Carrara and Bryce have been completely outflanked in their markets by other programs that they used to be serious competition for, while DAZ the company is basically a one-trick pony giving away DS as a support system for fueling their continued content sales.
Not trying to sound offensive. If you would read those posts, you'd find myriad answers to your question.
No offense taken, and I do see your points. As I said, time will really tell during the BETA period. I can say that the one turn off for me, even before this BETA PC test, is that I don't use anything Genesis related, nor do I have any desire to at this time. As it has been going, most of the new clothing items from both the PC and the brokered artists, have been tailored to only Genesis these days. Not too many items being released are compatible around the block. That could be a real deal breaker for me for sure, BETA or no.
It's an option, yes - to just work to the budget and price point of 1.99, but all we could do with that is to create smaller products.. I doubt people would be happier with that option either.
Not certain of the concern regarding the flat rate pricing, but it seems like only one half of the equation is being looked at (by the fourm). I mean, if DAZ acquires content from PA, what they acquire it for and the type/complexity does not necessarily have to collateral to the sales if the distribution of value in the library is maintained. Seems this is being done today by parsing out the more complex items into multiple products using texture sets, add-on's and sets. Cost of complex products are offset by the simple ones like texture sets. Cost of a slap & paste texture set into a PS template from FF or such is minimal, so accessories ate a easy margin multiplier. Marketing renders are the most labor intensive for these products.If the parsing alone does not provide enough flexibility then you can adjust how product is purchased, or priced.
I think the PC emphasis should be on the value offered by DAZ Original branded products because I find that brand means the content is consistently high quality, easy to install and easy find in the smart content browser. Furthermore with guaranteed compatible with DAZ figures and best of all can be 3d publishable w the optional game license the value is hard to beat! I think that DO is a PREMIUM value branding and people can buy it with confidence so it should be worth more.
I do think the flat rate sells well, but I also realize that I am paying more like $6 not two for a dress and its extra texture sets. Also it expectations could spiral... vendors like RawARt include many extra's in thier base products to build value, adding pressure on DO's in the PC+.
This is not true.
This only became the norm with DAZ Studio 4.5.
As recently as 2011 I paid for DAZ Studio 4.5 when it first came out. The sales strategy switched shortly after that and refunds were issued.
Edited to add:
The strategy has waffled back and forth. Entirely free, free for a while, free only for PC members, free except for some functions, or not free at all.