Why is everything so expensive?
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You're on my auto-buy list and I'm sure many other people's too.
I see your point, but I also feel you should care more if this hobby is something you don't want to lose. Over the past few years I have lost places and persons that provided me great products and service both virtually and in reality and in many cases nothing has been able to fill that void. My fav coffee shop, where I ate breakfast once a week closed due to lack of business and now I wish I had eaten there more and or spread the word somehow. If DAZ had to shut down for whatever reason it would leave a big void because like it or not, there are no other options on this level of quality and technology out there at this price point. Users that then tried to make this work with a modeling app like blender would soon discover that mesh outside of DS doesn't work together the same or have autofit. They would then also have to shell out money for apps like CC3 or stick with lower end free posing apps like XNAlara, or worse yet, move to poser.
I get that and I think most PA's didn't raise their prices and yes, it is a dilemma between the amount of work that goes into products and a fair sales price, but I think also discounts for quality items are less attractive than before, but it isn't the fault of the PA's. I would like to see that PA's are well-paid for their work and this would be in my interest as a customer as well.
Unfortunatly a single customer can't pay the real work from the PA's that goes into the prodcts, that's the dilemma, only the mass of customers is able to pay their work. Under normal circumstances the price tag fits to the needs of the customers and then PA's have their work paid. If I get a suitable discount I could buy my wishlist all at once and with an empty wishlist I would be interested in new products, but if the price tag remains expensive over a long period, I buy probably nothing at all and my wishlist remains full, that's the dilemma of a customer.
Daz3d claimed in 2012 that they paid professional artists $100 million dollars and Daz3d makes the creation of 3D art and animation accessible to millions of customers. I think if this is in parts the truth, then a fair amount should go to PA's for their work. But probably this wasn't the truth now and then, but I don't know really.
RE: Prices. Honestly, stuff seems like a reasonable price to me. I wish QA would improve, its annoying to have to contact CS so much. But all in all its not like shopping here is ruining my life.
No...no, it's not.
I agree what you said and I have no really good answer for this (or for you) and can only speak for myself, I depend on nothing in life, even if I lose a hobby, there is nothing in life that is really important, but this is a philosophical question.
I worked as a busboy and a bagboy for 12 years and in all that time of customer facing work I only had one customer be unreasonable and that was some fellow visiting the Kentucky Derby from England who was irate because I didn't know what a lavoratory was when he asked me where one was. I thought why was he looking for a lab in a tourist hotel?
Once I even had a grocery cart I parked while I helped a lady that had fallen get blown by the wind and escape and hit this man's car and dent it and he didn't even wince. Super nice customers.
it is a hobby you know. Hobbies should be expensive.
In the 7-8 years I have been buying at this store the only prices I have seen move significantly are the prices of the DAZ Original character bundles. Back in the Genesis 2 days the pro bundle's base price was 125 dollars and for that you sometimes got as many as 17 items. The number of items dropped to about 11 over the following years, and the base price was increased by 10 dollars to 135. Since summer last year we now get anywhere between 4 and 8 items for a character bundle, with the price varying from around 90 to above 150 dollars, so the price per item has probably more than doubled compared to 8 years or so ago.
Either DAZ are making more money on those bundles, or it is paying more cash to the PAs to obtain the DOs it needs to stuff the bundles, I have no idea which one is the case.
Having said that I rarely buy bundles on release unless they are heavily discounted and/or come with significant additional give aways. If you're willing to wait the bundles can be be picked up very cheap later. I paid just $3 each for the Daisy 8 and Kanade 8 pro bundles on New Years day this year, so sometimes they are super cheap.
Well no, but I had to say that they could, because we really have no idea of the thinking behind the new pricing for the bundles.
They could have cloned Gunnar and a couple of other CS agents... it's pretty easy nowadays... all you need is some hair or a toe and you can set the CloneMaster 3D Cloner to print as many copies as you need... of course after the first two or three, the rest start to fall apart after a day or two, but as long as you have enough chicken gizzards or hog snouts in the hopper you can keep going for a while.
If they didn't clone them, then I really feel sorry for them...
One observation from the other side of the fence (and I worked on all the generations from Posette back in the day ) - the work and expertise involved in making items more than doubled or even tripled in that time. A lot of the DO products now have up to 7 or 8 pieces them, each requiring rigging, texturing with PBR maps, morphs etc - not to mention preparing items for dforce with rigid follow nodes, dforce weightmaps etc. So though there's less products I feel like there's more individual items.
For there to be no increase with all the work involved would not make business sense. Is your salary the same as 8 years ago - especially when you add extra work and expertise? :)
...and sign me up for the Cloner - I need 3 more of me to keep up with work lol
I've always found Emma to be the absolute star of customer service. I hope she is still there.
Gunnar isn't totally alone, I often get Emma H too! And sometimes Jack pops into the forums to see what we're whining about voicing concerns over.
Not sure if I am allowed to say this, but... I had a recent conversation with Emma. She is still there and she is also (officially) helping out QA by communicating the repeat issues directly to QA.
and a lot of modelling/texturing programs have gotten more expensive and or rent only so vendor expenses have also gone up.
blender nonwithstanding
I'm glad to hear this.
Unfortunately, this is the exact reality of many Americans right now. But no, that doesn't make it right.
I have an unpleasant relationship with DAZ. Its love hate with all their Herb Tarlec style pressure sale tactics. I find it disrespectful and annoying.
I do feel that prices are up, however I find that for the most part quality is up. From way back I used Reality for rendering, and guys, 3Delight quality did not translate Reality, and lets face it, Iray. If you look around there are also a few threads complaining about the install size of some products. Gigabyte installs are just plain scary for some older folks. And how about SubD4 on Genesis 8 for some models? I don't feel that prices at shops are higher, but quality tends to be more hit or miss.
Now that I'm on a more limited budget these days, I'm having to be more careful about what I buy. If prices are higher, then logically, DAZ is telling us to buy fewer products and be more choosy.
Oh look AeonSoul has something new! Oh my wallet. My aching aching wallet;
https://www.artstation.com/aeonsoul
I got out of the product creation business because the return wasn't worth the effort. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I'd prefer if that didn't happen to everybody.
the covid economy?
hopefully it doesn't lead to a new great depression.
genesis needs a new pair of shoes
To what everyone else said above I don't mind price inflation for more complexity in the products and people haveing to make a living etc. A lot of "good" PAs who've been around a long time like some who've chimed in here in this thread, I don't mind paying for because I know what I get.
But I have to disagree with you on the quality point. My main problem is paying $18 or $25 or more for things such as the following: products with no description at all in the store page (see for example https://www.daz3d.com/animation-megapack), products with assets not categorized correctly that go into Lost and Found, products with assets tagged to incompatible figures, products that give download errors or missing thumbnails in DAZ Connect, products with assets under Saved Files, products with missing geometry, characters that reuse texture maps from other characters. These are examples of the most common of my hundreds of tickets some of which are 4 years old!
DAZ has increased prices, no problem. PAs are getting paid more (I hope), no problem. The software and the content is getting better and more complex, no problem. But the *quality* which is what the DAZ brand used to be known for has been rapidly eroding for years. The only reason I still shop here is because there isn't a good enough alternative - yet.
Yeah like golf. I play just as good or even better then those dudes with the $1500 set of clubs. Go ahead diss my $400 dollars clubs. Besides who shot 5 under par this round? My buddy just dumped close to $1200 bucks on clubs and he still can't stop slicing LOL!
On 3D content I never pay full price. I patiently wait for sales then I strike.
In my experience, PC+ products and PC+ freebies are the most error prone. Lately I get things with ridiculously dense mesh, incorrect file structure, missing files, hierarchical preset errors, LIE preset positioning errors, etc. I have recently uninstalled a bunch of such junk. This kind of thing really reduces the value of PC+ club. I have another several months already on the books. After that, I may not rejoin if things don't turn around. The frustration is over the top with this stuff. Hmmm - how many hours have I wasted reporting these errors?
...not directly, but when someone would go out of his/her way to verbally abuse my employees for something trivial (which qualifeid them as an "arse"), I politely mentioned they could take their business elsewhere..
...I've seen some dodgy stuff even at the pro sites which they charge a lot more for.
...indeed. I was also into sport kiting and could easily drop 250 - 300$ on a single kite, 30 - 40$ for the lines (not just the old fashioned kite strings but made from Spectra™ fibre, which is also used for parachute lines as it has almost 0% stretch). A big single line parafoil kite can easily cost more than 1,000$
Then there's the cost of travelling to kite festivals and meets (usually held at coastal beaches) which included transportation and lodging during the event as well as entry fees for competition meets.
Fortunately at the time I was working in a decent paying occupation.when I got into that.
Poor people deserve hobbies too. I'm not saying this hobby, necessarily. But I hope you guys aren't being serious about this "hobbies should be expensive" stuff.
his hd addon is 40bux?