Genesis 2 Product Line and Pricing
JohnDelaquiox
Posts: 1,195
I hope it is just me. But it honestly seems like Genesis 2 has the most expensive product line Daz has put out, even with PC+ Discounts and coupons. I have had very little interest in any of the products from the line and the few items I have purchased have been deeply discounted.
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Nah it's not just you. But it's also not just Genesis 2 stuff; the price of all new products has increased quite noticeably (since at least Keiko's release). The PC/PC+ coupons obviously aren't as effective since it's a flat number discount (percentages would be better).
I've voted with my wallet and have been spending far less here than I used to.
I just spent like 40 dollars, on Genesis 1 Content that was at over 50 percent off. I guess it was like a Pre-March-Madness type thing. I was looking for a dark skinned character for V6 for a render I am working on and am unable to find one. I see Monique, but shes not just a character and cost $44.95 regular price and $31.47 with the PC+ Discount. I find that kind of absurd. I really hate the Genesis two product line but there are products for it that I actually require for work so I am forced to get it. But I can only get it while its on sale. Last thing I Purchased was the Bot Armor for Genesis 2 Female from Parris and I love the look of it. But it only supports Genesis two or Victoria 6 textures which there are hardly any of. All of the ones I have seen require the V4 to V6 thing which I don't have nor do I plan on getting it because it does not work on the bot armor.
I still use M4 V4 and Genesis 1 as my primary figures. I really don't like the Genesis two product line. I got the Girl 6 and Aiko 6 Because there was not The Girl 5 which pissed me off and I got them both cheap.
It's not just that the prices are going up, but also a steady erosion of what's being included with both the base figures and the bundles. When the G2 line started, a pro bundle contained 17 items (that's counting the base poses included with V6 but not the free starter essentials) while the Tyler and Monique Pro Bundles come with just ten items AND a higher price tag. Towards the end of Genesis 1 I was buying the new figures as fast as they came out and I bought bought mostly Pro Bundles. With Genesis 2 I've been a lot slower to pick up the figures and am buying more starter bundles when I do buy. With the two new additions, there are now seven human figures that I haven't bought and the only one I have a real interest in picking up anytime soon is Brodie, who never even got a Pro Bundle. Add in the fact that most of the new UV sets aren't even being supported by the PAs... not even on the products included in their bundles... and it only makes the relative value of those base figures even lower. It's kind of like an automotive company trying to make a selling point out of having a smaller gas tank or a weaker engine.
End result - I've been buying fewer and fewer new character sets here at DAZ, as the V5/M5 texture sets seem to have become the default UVs for the majority of the PAs I buy from, while the V4/M4 UVs work more than well enough to fill in the gaps. And when I DO buy, it's either because something is on a massive sale or because purchasing it will allow me to get a massive discount on something else.
This is definitely an expensive hobby.
Really the only way I have been able to maintain any fiscal sanity (if you could call it that, and I'm not sure you can!) is to put stuff on my wish list and then sit on them until they go on sale. I also like that the wishlist can be sorted low-high now. I try to keep my purchases to items < $20 and if possible < $10, unless it is a bundle and I am getting a huge value -- like when I got all the AoA advanced lights on sale as a bundle for like the price of 1 and a half of them separately.
I always look for deals.
Sometimes you have no choice, if you really need something right now and it is not on sale. But since the Webcomic I'm producing is not slated to come out until months from now, I can be patient.
I'm glad that Genesis1 is considered enough 'old tech' that they are starting to phase in periodic 'category' sales for Genesis1 in much the same manner as they are doing for V4/M4.
I'm not that impressed with Genesis2 anyway, just barely got off the fence enough to grab the V6pro and M6pro bundles when they were in fastgrab for 70% off and also able to use a coupon on each to get them at a pretty steep discount.
All the prior V4/M4 and Genesis1 stuff is imo very high quality stuff, so there's a big part of me that's kind of glad that Genesis2 is the 'current generation' that has the high pricing; if it wasn't I doubt I would be able to pick up so much V4/M4/Genesis1 content at such steep discounts :)
But yeah, I don't disagree with the assertion that generally the Genesis2 stuff is pretty high priced (not to mention all the 'buy 1 item from Category Z, another 6 items from selection 42, collect 5000 punches, cross your eyes and hop on one foot while singing London bridges backwards in latin, and you'll get a mystery discount that isn't a discount' sales that seem to go along with the Genesis2 stuff; all of that makes me just plain not purchase).
Really? I find the bundles to be similarly priced. If you go back a few years to the release of good old Victoria 4, the bundles were far more expensive, given currency value at the time. They've certainly come a long way in terms of cost, and they're still very comparable to most other content out there.
With March Madness in full swing, I picked up both Pro bundles for Monique and Darius at just a little over £40 (about $68) which might seem expensive at first glance, but contains plenty of good content which justifies it. I get that not everyone has much disposable income, but considering my other 'hobby' is video games it costs about the same as a standard PS4 disc. Only I get a lot more mileage out of the Daz stuff than I do from most triple-A games :D
I see the price of the Bases being the more expensive part of the whole. I try and avoid bundles. Granted I do have the M4 V5 Pro bundles. Bundles often have too many items I would not use.
After all of the discounts (50% 2xIntro + 30% PC + 10% MM Bonus) + 30% Feb 23/24/25 Coupon) both Monique and Darius Pro Bundles were $29.76 out the door at 78% off. Although each Pro Bundle only contained 10 items, the average per item cost was less than $2.98 per product. That's the lowest I've ever paid for a Pro Bundle on release day and lowest on a per average cost per item within a Pro Bundle.
That extra 30% off coupon was earned for buying a $1.99 PC new release. That was a huge surprise.
Sorry, but i think 44.95$ for a "simple" additional Genesis 2 figure (even when it's reduced at 30%...) is absurd. Both Darius and Monique are fine models, but they are modifications of G2 and not a "new generation" - you can get rather similar results with existing morphs and textures... Or look at Omri Hair for G2Male and G2Female; quite identical for each 22.95$. (16.07 reduced...)
Perhaps the high pricing level is a reaction to the fact that there are pirate download sites. Perhaps the pirate download sites are a reaction to the pricing level.
I doubt pirate sites are the reason for the price increase, as they've been around for years. I suspect the higher pricing is the result of adding in the 3D Printing. I've no doubt DAZ has pre-printed a certain number of the order-able figures in anticipation of sales, and there's the cost of the printing service itself.
Then again it could be simple inflation, too.
In my opinion the higher prices are due to DAZ being trapped (by itself) into offering ever higher discounts, and so needs to increase the base costs to compensate. There was a time when 30-50% off was the norm, but after some of the sales of the last 6 months or so we have become accustomed to discounts of 60, 70 or even 90% off.
That is why you can not just take a base price and claim it is too high, as I suspect the majority of customers never buy much, if anything, at the base price. You just need to be patient, and willing to wait for the right moment to grab something at the price you think it is worth. Sometimes that moment may be when the item is released (particularly with the steep discounts we have seen offered today), other times it could be 6 months or more down the road. It all depends on how much you need the item compared to what you are willing to pay (classic capitalism in action)
If you are looking for great African figures for Gn2 Female/V6, Raiya has some great ones and they are HD as well.
http://www.daz3d.com/cara-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/felicity-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/elene-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/tyler-hd-for-michael-6
Keep an eye out as Raiya's stuff goes on sale often.
...that is is my suspicion as well.
Though I'm still a but buggered about the base poses now being an extra add on.
We don't have to go as far back as V4 to see the rise in price. We don't even have to go back two years:
The Steph 6, Girl 6, Giselle & Olympia Pro bundles all have 15 items in them, 16 if you count the poses that come with the base figure.
The LIlith, AIko 6 and Mei Lin Pro bundles come with 13 items, plus the pose set that came with the figure for a total of 14 items.
Then the Belle bundle had just 12 items, counting the base figure poses.
With Keiko, even with the poses that used to come with the base figure now officially counted as one of the items, there are only 11 items in her Pro Bundle.
Now the Monique and Darius Pro Bundles only have 10 items each. That's a 33% reduction in the number of items in a PB in less than a year.
Or, to look at it another way, a Pro Bundle now contains just two items more than were included in the original V6 Starter Bundle, while the Keiko Mega bundle, which has the same number of items as the V6 Pro bundle, now has a base price of $183.95, a price increase of over $50.
...that is is my suspicion as well.
Though I'm still a but buggered about the base poses now being an extra add on.
I honestly think the base poses being pulled out was more of a saturation issue. How many hundreds of poses do you own by now? And how many of the new release ones are genuinely "new". I bet if you go back through yer library you've got matches or ones very close to them.
I personally prefer them to be separate so I can just avoid them all together. It can take hours to go through the ones I have to get what I'm thinking of. And now with the awesome Pose builder there really isn't a need for more of the same.
....yeah beginning feel like us "starving 3D artists" are being squeezed out.
Thankfully Stonemason's store was on Flash Sale yesterday.
I honestly think the base poses being pulled out was more of a saturation issue. How many hundreds of poses do you own by now? And how many of the new release ones are genuinely "new". I bet if you go back through yer library you've got matches or ones very close to them.
I personally prefer them to be separate so I can just avoid them all together. It can take hours to go through the ones I have to get what I'm thinking of. And now with the awesome Pose builder there really isn't a need for more of the same.
...the base poses are not the same for every character. To me, any poses are useful as I often use preset poses as a basis and adjust them further for my needs. I find them a real workflow saver as well on my tight budget, a money saver.
I'm not the only person here who needs to be thrifty as possible. particularly these days with RL expenses going up all the time.
And, needless to say, the fact that the poses were dropped at almost the same time the price of the standalone figures also went up makes it doubly perplexing.
Mind you, I can see a price raise on the newer figures coming out, as the trend over the last few sets of figures has been the mining smaller and smaller niche markets, so the ultimate base of sales for those figures is probably never going to get close to the early G2s. The huge base of Poser users in Asia may have made Lee and Mei Lin logical line extensions (especially since Miki has far and away been Smith Micro's most successful stand-alone character,) but Belle, Brodie and Keiko are all second passes at markets that had already been tapped once in G2, not to mention in the iconic shapes and in original Genesis. So while M6, D6 and the others above are all beautiful pieces of sculpture, enough DS and Poser users are already going to have more than enough shapes, morphs and textures for G2F and G2M that these simply won't be required purchases. But that should really be MORE incentive to add additional whistles and bells in order to get people to buy the figures that they're on the fence about, shouldn't it? Because raising the price AND cutting the features simultaneously just makes them look like a bad deal.
As nice as these figures are they will go in my wishlist and I will sit on them. I didn't notice the original slight increase in price but when I went to look at these bundles I was like wait a minute it's missing some things and I noticed the fewer items included. So on my tight budget I can not justify buying a bundle for the same price as other bundles in the store but getting less.
So I will wait. Thankfully as this is a hobby I have the luxury.
If you are looking for great African figures for Gn2 Female/V6, Raiya has some great ones and they are HD as well.
http://www.daz3d.com/cara-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/felicity-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/elene-hd-for-victoria-6
http://www.daz3d.com/tyler-hd-for-michael-6
Keep an eye out as Raiya's stuff goes on sale often.
I agree. Raiya is probably the most skilled content creator when it comes to human characters right now, imho.
I agree with what you say here, but considering the release of many major shapes in Generation 6 that were achievable with morph packs before (think of the staple sets like Evolution, Ethnicity and Creature Creator bundles), it is a try on DAZ's site to target total newbies, people who don't know yet what they can do in DS, BUT want sexy pinups and thus the galore of many - often quite similar - Gen2F girls screaming "Buy me, drop me into a temple with a sword (both shipped with DS) and press RENDER". And they want them quick, so seeing a ready pack is a no-brainer (besides, they may not know the prices).
When it comes to me, I don't need to buy poses. I like the premade assets, but they're only starting points for me as I tweak them. With a European (thus non-dollar, in other words, left for exchange rates) budget, I don't see a point most of the time in buying poses, because that's something I can make quickly. It just requires a working knowledge of human anatomy and luckily I don't have to worry about that. There are many free pose packs and I simply use them as a starting point. If you ask me, excluding poses from major shapes would be good - IF it went along with at least a bit of price decrease. But it's the other way around - Keiko was more expensive AND without poses.
Not for me. I bought Teen Josie the day she came out for $48.73. Counting the poses as an item the way M6 and D6 do, that's 17 items, so that makes the items in Pro Bundle just $2.86 each. Lilith, with 14 items (not counting the gens), was $39.18 the day she came out, which works out to $2.78 EACH. But the champ for me was Teen Jayden, bought on release for $44.09, so the 16 items ended up costing $2.75 each.
Actually, now that I think about it, with the way the actual numbers work out, if you had paid full price ($124.95) for either the Teen Josie or V6 Pro bundles on the day they came out, you would have actually ended up paying just over half per item as on Monique and Darius.
124.95 divided by 17 = 7.35 per item
134.95 divided by 10 = 13.45 per item
I agree. Raiya is probably the most skilled content creator when it comes to human characters right now, imho.
She's definitely one of the best at DAZ. There are some really amazing artists out there, though, and I think everyone has their favorites for different reasons. That said, if I had to pick just one as THE best, it would probably be Blackhearted, even though he's only done a handful of characters. Seeing his Irina 2.0 for Sp3 was what got me to come visit DAZ in the first place and she STILL looks great by today's standards. The Girl Next Door 4 still ranks one of the best sets ever created for V4 (though don't ask me to pick between it and Aery Soul's Alice.) The real kicker, though, was transforming a so-so figure like Alyson into Anastassia. that's not scuplting, that's alchemy. Now if only we could get him to tackle G2F...
...some of the base figures are useful for us "veterans" though.
I've had the Growing Up morphs for G2F since the day they came out and augmented with several morph resource kits and at first hedged on Josie and then Belle.
Well, ended up getting just the base characters for each at a fairly good discount (before the price increase) along with my PC coupon. (I think I paid something like 8$ & change for Josie and around the same for Belle). I've used both and indeed they do contribute nicely to what I call my "gene pool".
I recently did an experiment using Belle as the basis for my Leela character along with the Growing Up Morphs, various Morph Resource kits, and was extremely pleased with the results. For one, out of the box, Belle is almost the same height and proportion for my Leela character. YT5 Julie, while also being closer to Leela's physique, still looked somewhat more like "YT Julie." even with all the extra morphing I did (including the use of morph resources for the original Genesis and a few Gen4 morphs imported via GenX).
With Belle, I just needed to use the G2F figure without the GenX mods. This means less demand on system resources to create the scene. It also took me less time which I do not see as a bad thing (I still remember going though the struggles to turn the tall buxom supermodel V4 into my lithe little teen character).
I also now use a bit of Giselle as the base for her elf friend Tracey and she too looks a lot closer to the original concept.
So yes, there is a point to having these other basic shapes available even if you are used to doing extensive morphing.
Oh, I absolutely agree that it never hurts to add yet another shape to the gene pool. The question becomes how much is the shape, by itself, worth? With the Early G2 figures, there was a greater sense of value as, in addition a new shape and 20+ poses, you were also getting a new skin and UV map. However, most of those UV maps have proven to have little value, as few PAs have actually supported them. In fact, I'm trying to remember the last time we saw a new human UV set come out that was even supported by any item in that product's Pro Bundle. I'm thinking it was Lilith, which was what... seven figures back, not counting the monsters?
So, if DAZ really wanted to save a few bucks, rather than not including poses, I'd rather they just didn't bother with creating yet another UV set that no one will ever use. (Which, in turn, means it will have to be abandoned whenever we move up to Genesis 3, as who's going to waste time creating a UV map to fit a single skin onto the next gen figure?)
Definitely! Throw away so many UVs, leave the new ones just for extreme shapes like Minotaur and Reptilian (very refreshing major shapes, actually - not Caucasian and not skimpwear-enticing :lol:). Typical human figures just don't need them.
...I had no issues creating a custom skin for Giselle with the Skin Builder Pro (which is based on the V5 UV). So much for those "custom" Gen6 UVs.
At least Josie and Belle still included the basic pose sets. I believe it was the Minotaur which was the first new figure not to have poses included with it.
Not for me. I bought Teen Josie the day she came out for $48.73. Counting the poses as an item the way M6 and D6 do, that's 17 items, so that makes the items in Pro Bundle just $2.86 each. Lilith, with 14 items (not counting the gens), was $39.18 the day she came out, which works out to $2.78 EACH. But the champ for me was Teen Jayden, bought on release for $44.09, so the 16 items ended up costing $2.75 each.
Actually, now that I think about it, with the way the actual numbers work out, if you had paid full price ($124.95) for either the Teen Josie or V6 Pro bundles on the day they came out, you would have actually ended up paying just over half per item as on Monique and Darius.
124.95 divided by 17 = 7.35 per item
134.95 divided by 10 = 13.45 per item
Oops, I definitely stand corrected. My spreadsheet had noted average cost per item within a Pro Bundle based on the posted PC pricing before any additional bonus discounts. I was sloppy about noting the actual paid average cost per item within a Pro Bundle. I do hope we can see similar values with future Pro Bundles on release day even though the number of products included in the bundle are dwindling.
Oops, I definitely stand corrected. My spreadsheet had noted average cost per item within a Pro Bundle based on the posted PC pricing before any additional bonus discounts. I was sloppy about noting the actual paid average cost per item within a Pro Bundle. I do hope we can see similar values with future Pro Bundles on release day even though the number of products included in the bundle are dwindling.
If I'm reading Cybersox13's post correctly, he's using Teen Josie as an example of the "good-old-days", although the more recent Jayden and Giselle were even better deals. Josie's cost-per-item on release day is 4% more than Jayden's. Darius and Monique are only 4% more than Josie, so it doesn't seem to me that the difference is as drastic as it's being made to sound. What was the average or median price-per-item for the Pro bundles you've purchased?
Oops, I definitely stand corrected. My spreadsheet had noted average cost per item within a Pro Bundle based on the posted PC pricing before any additional bonus discounts. I was sloppy about noting the actual paid average cost per item within a Pro Bundle. I do hope we can see similar values with future Pro Bundles on release day even though the number of products included in the bundle are dwindling.
If I'm reading Cybersox13's post correctly, he's using Teen Josie as an example of the "good-old-days", although the more recent Jayden and Giselle were even better deals. Josie's cost-per-item on release day is 4% more than Jayden's. Darius and Monique are only 4% more than Josie, so it doesn't seem to me that the difference is as drastic as it's being made to sound. What was the average or median price-per-item for the Pro bundles you've purchased?
It comes down to this for me Josie had 16 items in her pro bundle and cost base price 134.95 at a cost of 8.43 per item and Darius 6 pro bundle 134.95 base price for a cost of 13.50 per item. that is roughly a 5 dollar increase per item in the set. That is before any discount as I wanted to compare just straight prices.