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They haven't been nearly as successful* as, say, the Boss Light Set or SickleYield's breast helpers. But then, we don't have a "control" to compare them with (no parallel universe accessible where they were released unencrypted), and today's items haven't been wild sellers* either.
Also, I can't say for sure, but I doubt the store view algorithms take into account manual refunds by the customer service dept...
*Edited just to note - this isn't pure speculation on my part; I'm using the tools DAZ provides us (various store views) to make these assessments. If I'm wrong, it means the store views are not representative of reality.
I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the majority of customers probably don't care about the encrypted thing, because my expectation would be that most don't even notice it's there until they hit a snag and it gets in their way. I also doubt that the majority of customers are the longtime users who have been around for years and years buying thousands of dollars of content, but rather come and go being replaced fairly regularly.
Supposedly Connect was created because customer service's biggest complaint was customers being unable to find content they'd moved due to trying to fix organising it, but by my observations that isn't exactly the biggest complaint I see on the forums, so those affected by breaking their own file systems are probably more casual in nature.
These are just guesses based on observations and balance of probabilty though, not presented as fact~
Oh I am not worried about accidently buying an encrypted Item. I am not comfortable with the direction DAZ is going an I don't feel comfortable giving them money as long as they do. It's a principle thing.
Also it is just a hobby and I got a ton of stuff I still need to use and the other stores are more than good enough if I need something specific.
Almost everything you buy has a part that is encrypted; what we're talking about here is DRM; a totally different concept, and one that is not popular with customers amongst a variety of products.
I agree, but that is in part because of its name; DRM is different, more care about that, although that would vary too.
For many of us here, the encryption itself is just as much a problem. There is a lot more going on here than just a dissagreement with connect.
Oh I agree, not being able to fix issues because they are encrypted is a problem; I'm not keen on having a database on my system (in addition to the one called regedit that is); I suppose I could try using phpMyAdmin to check it out, but no idea if I would have access to it, and have uninstalled the SQL components so can't even do a test, and am not installing it all to find out.
On the one hand, cynicism isn't ungrounded.
On the other hand, it WAS user suggestions that got the 1 year timer on encrypted-only content, and they do listen sometimes.
They do actually listen to customers, it's just that no company can afford to do whatever loud customers want. In the end, they have to make an evaluation of what they think is a good policy. We can certainly disagree with their decisions and reasons for doing so, but it doesn't come from 'not listening to customers.'
I mean, I think piracy is a boogyman and they are being stupid buying into the piracy hysteria. But it's the sort of hard to prove murky faith argument that we can't really argue them out of. The one year thing, at least, means that the only people who stand to lose out by their weird belief is, well, Daz; if we are right about DRM costing sales, it costs Daz. Meanwhile, if we really need that content? We can get it, eventually.
If you don't still want it a year later, maybe that's a good thing you didn't buy it? :)
Well perhaps for some, some of the time at a reduced, and after a year a greatly reduced price is likely. So some revenue later is better than none, which would perhaps have been the case with it never being encrypted.
Yes it was a user suggestion, but it was also a great piece of positive publicity for them, which I certainly don't blame them from taking advantage of; it seemed to me, that there was quite a lot of ill-will because of what had happened - was it? No idea, but it seemed so.
Is it costing them sales? Well I know I spent $130 at rendo yesterday (I'm not just posting about it, the image adds some confirmation to my statement); it was cash I had ready for when there was a gift card offer; the one that appeared didn't appeal to me, then DRM reared its head again.
So to make sure I couldn't spend it at Daz, I took steps; I'm letting my cash do the talking too.
Losses to pirates are annoying and frustrating, but quantifying that loss is difficult; however, it's easy to see when you sales figures drop because of DRM's introduction; presuming they have. Although, it's my belief that if DRM had been received with at least apathy, everything would be encrypted by now; I can't see Daz dropping it easily, as I imagine it has cost a serious amount of investment to implement.
I foolishly hoped DRM had been forgotten; because of that, my purchasing habits were largely back to what they had been previously (if to a lesser volume), I won't be so naive in future.
I will be very cautious about spending the credit I do have; it has to last beyond the introduction of G4; I am now seriously interested in what happens when its introduced. Who knows, maybe we really will see Studio 5; speculation (and some guesswork and opinion) I know; but this speculation, guesswork, and opinion are the result of this resurgence of DRM products.
Make a Wish props are no longer encrypted.
Thanks for the heads up - lists updated.
Has anyone installed Make a Wish Props http://www.daz3d.com/make-a-wish-props with DIM?
No, but for the other unencrypted items, I had to Change the filter to "Connect Available" to make them Show up.And if you had installed via Connect, check Connect Installed too - though if the Connect version is still installed those files will be the ones used.
LOL That was easy. Downloading now.
Thanks Bee and Richard.
Which crazy member was this?
Instead of following such bothering suggestions (encrypted content), the DAZ team should better concentrate of eliminating basic bugs related to the iRay render.
Since iRay was released, DAZ still feeds some wrong parameters related to refraction. So you get broken shadowlines and with most sun setups only dark water. Even dark eyes if using eye-realism.
Bug reports open since over a year.
We have timmins.william to thank, and personally, it was a good idea poorly executed by Daz imo. Six months would have been too long IMO.
... But I'm biased; I don't do DRM, with the exception of films via Netflix and similar, which is some form of DRM.
It was my suggestion, though I had suggested something like 1-3 months.
The point is that they do listen, but they necessarily make their own decisions.
Sometimes stupid ones. :)
After the arbitrary-period-encryption-then-release idea was adopted, DAZ seemed to go quiet on the previously discussed solution of a legally-independently held release code for encrypted items (in the event of company closure). Perhaps the current system replaces that entirely. If so, timmins.william's $1000 store credit was cheap at ten times the price.
Can't load the props !!
Today I found the "Make a Wish Props" in my DIM for download. I purchased it a year ago as "Connect" content. Now it is "freed".
But
After new start of DAZ I still fail to load the props into my scene.
In smart content they still appear as connect-only.
In my content library they're now on the same folders as all my "normal" stuff (real .duf files). But to load them still fails.
Where can I find the announced Error Log? to see more detailed information?
What else to do to "really free" those products?
If you want the DIM install, you first have to uninstall the Connect-installation you made a year ago (as Richard kindly pointed out in reply to another user question). Otherwise, DAZ Studio will keep using the Connect installed files.
I just installed "Make a Wish Props" using DIM and I had no problems loading or rendering them.
To check your log go to Help->Troubleshooting->View Log File
So what to do now?
manually remove it as well as from my content library as from the DIM install path?
- How the deinstall the "connect" content? -
Afterwards DIM will assume, I never installed it and offer the download like for every other newly purchased product?
And that "Richard kindly pointed out ..." is nice, but DIM don't know it and you as a user that moment don't think about it.
This method of DAZ is really uncomfortabel.
Customer friendlyness is a real different kind of behaviour !!
@Bee:
It would be really kind to show the corresponding hint of Richard. Or do you think it is easy to find out of these over 1000 entries in this thread?
You're really funny.
Uninstalling products installed with Connect (I am copying somebody elses answer from the PC forums, as I DON'T use Connect):
Under products (working from either the Content Library tab or the Smart Content tab) if you right click on a particular product it will open a pop-up menu which has an "uninstall" option on it.
Has anyone tried to download the file straight from the site and manually install it that way? I don't use DIM or connect (That is a given I think) I download all of my files to a folder in my downloads folder and then unzip them all into one content folder before installing. This allows me to remove all of the vanity folders and icons before merging them with my primary content folder.
I am thinking if you haven't ever loaded the files you should be able to do it that way and work around what is sounding like a connect/DIM conflict.
The zip downloded no worrys. Didn't instal from there 'cos once I changed my filters there was no proplem installng with DIM (hadn't installed wih conect).
Manual download and manual installations with no isues here. Once the files become available at all, that is.
And now the Canoes are unlocked. Good-oh.
Thanks for mentioning this. To think I have waited a year for this moment.
Loved the canoes when they first appeared and was so disappointed to see they had been encrypted.....BUT....Daz has also been waiting a year for me to spend the money on these items too.
Off now to do some canoe shopping.
I got them free back in February 2016; so now they appeared in DIM and I installed them
Free is even better.
There was another Daz original item I wanted, so with the spend $20 on Daz Originals and get $10 off offer, I got the canoes cheaper than expected, and Daz got a sale. So I'm happy with the outcome.