It's Not Raining Men
gerterasmus
Posts: 287
Theother day I asked for some male specific masks in the product suggestion thread, and, lo and behold, today there are the monst amazing masks in the store. All very feminine. for G3F.
The Daz Universe does not revolve around Daz females, or, more recently, G3F. I feel Daz should put in some incentive for people to create more (and more usefull) mae content.
Post edited by fixmypcmike on
Comments
I don't think it's discrimination per se... Just what sells more... It's like that old argument about why are there fewer stalls in a men's room, and no urinals in a ladies room.
Okay bad example... But I do agree there is a lack of stuff for males characters... For example, I recently bought some boobie and butt morphs that were on sale... I figured they might come in handy for someone leaning on stuff or sitting on the edge of a chair... I looked to see what the male equivalent had... Nothing... There was none... Odd, I figured maybe something action oriented or at least just for leaning or sitting... But nothing.
But anyway, I don't think anyone is blocking stuff from being sold, it's just the content creators hedge a bet on what will sell and make accordingly.
I hate it, but we can't expect the creators to take it upon themselves to work for nothing.
Instead, get upset that your fellow customers aren't buying enough male stuff. That's what I do. I drink my wine and fume. grrr
I start small fires and shout at squirrels...
How can I buy something that hasn't been made?
If it's for G3, for now, that is all you would be able to get as the male has not yet been released, so it doesn't really apply as far as G3 is concerned.
With money that is not in circulation? ;)
So, two things to start: (1) I am not affiliated with Daz, nor am I any sort of representative for them. (Thank heavens. My head would be going all explodey today if I were.) And also (2) I don't create content for sale.
That said:
(1) The Daz Universe pretty much does revolve around females and female content. That's what several content creators have said, over and over and over. They create content for males, it goes over like a lead balloon, they create the 9,689th version of "armor" for females, and it sells like it's going out of style any second now. You can see that when you look at the numbers of items made for the different figures in the shop's "Figure" drop down. Back in June 2015, when I last checked this:
(2) You should be able to smart-prop these masks to any figure you want. All you need to do is put them in the scene *WITHOUT* selecting the figure, and then parent it to the figure's head.
(3) No, there aren't any specifically male textures, unfortunately, but then, for a Genesis 3 mask, there wouldn't be, just yet.
Yes, it does.
It always has.
It always will.
Or perhaps its just a western-centric view of masculine and feminine. There are hordes of Bisho-yaoiesque characters out there that would look perfectly at home in these masks.
Don't see a problem where there isn't one. At least not of the sort you post indicates.
If I were a PA I would make sure I made products that produced the most income for me; I don't know about you, but I prefer to be paid more, not less.
The female form is more popular than the male.
It would be interesting to see from Daz the difference between male and female. It could be official internal stats, that out of context, didn't give anything away that a competitor might use.
I mean, this must've been partially the reason why Genesis 1 was developed, right? To unify male and female figures, and to have more cross-gender content?
At any rate, the biggest problem against male content is because, unfortunately, the male figure is considered less aesthetically pleasing than the female figure. It's not just DAZ but nearly everything in the modern art world for the past 100 or so years.
Call me stupid, but I bought many many products of G2M (M4, M5, etc) but never seem to use them. Yes, I am more partial to females in general. A big factor is the clothing. For some reason clothing made for the females are better looking and fitting in general. The male clothing out there, I find look really comical. Except for Uzilite's http://www.daz3d.com/m601-for-genesis-2-male-s, which I grabbed right away when I saw it, but hmmm...wonder if I would really put it to use?!
I don't know about the female form being more aesthetically pleasing. There have been cultures where this isn't so and I certainly prefer looking at men. :-) But that seems to be true here especially with the sexy pinup focus at the store.
Pas always say men's stuff doesn't sell but I also don't think men's stuff is very well marketed or is marketed nearly enough and to the right demographic. As always these debates pop up from time and no one agrees.
i do think since gen 3 female was introduced the already overwhelming female content focus went into overdrive and has been a bit much.
I have a couple of male characters for what I need, and some male clothing - yes it doesn't look real. One thing dynamics did was make much of what I had look convincing; creases in trousers are still rare though.
I prefer looking at the female form to the male, I'm a guy so that's a given for the majority of us. I create more diversity in my female characters than male. As a consequence I need more of one.
Ultimately, it comes down to what sells. If someone puts in weeks of work to make something, they need income to put food on the table and keep the landlord at bay. That income comes from their sales, so it becomes a case of whether the payoff is worth the time spent making it. Time and time again we've seen the pattern repeat. People say they want more stuff for men, but the sales often speak very differently. For the vocal few crying for menswear, there's a silent majority spending their money on ladieswear and the new girl on the block.
And this isn't isolated to Daz 3D. Just look at other sites. RDNA, Renderosity, Hivewire. All of them have a distinct majority in female items, simply because they sell better. Heck, even in the real world I see the female clothing aisles take up three quarters of a store, while the menswear is shoved into a tiny corner. That's just the way things are.
For the longest time, children were even less well represented than men. This has significantly eased over the last few years, thanks to Genesis technology allowing us to blend age groups, and even some great new young characters being released. I suspect once G3M arrives, things may improve, but that could be some time away.
Whatever happens, if the sales aren't there, people won't be able to justify spending the hours on it. PA's are people too, and this is their livelihood, so they're going to want to make a product that pays the bills. So, if you want to show your support for menswear, do it the best way possible - by buying.
I always hear that people aren't buying men's content but erm... Yeah I do.
I think it depends on what your goals are.
I mean, yeah, I like sexy women. But that's utterly irrelevant to what I purchase, because I use Daz to create scenes, comics, and similar. It's like having a play or a movie and only hiring women. I mean, yeah, that might be something you do for a specific purpose, but generally speaking? I'm going to need males showing up and doing stuff, too.
No, what PAs say is that fewer people buy male content, which is based on their and other PAs' experience. No one says no one buys male content.
Sickleyield, I think it was, gave some general info based on her products...the female stuff was generally the better selling.
Solve this issue. What I mean is that Daz is willing to offer 817 items for the G2M in the store (according to a post above). Is there any reason to believe that Daz would not offer an additional 30 items, or 50, or 75, or... if people created the content and approached Daz? Active bias is what most people think of when someone is accused of discrimination like the title of the thread, but I don't hear anyone saying that Daz wouldn't sell male content of appropriate quality if it was brought to them, even if the average sales were lower than for female items. But the world is not limited to the current list of Daz PAs. I genuinely encourage people who believe that (1) bias explains the numerical imbalance of content in the Daz store whether active or passive, and (2) current PAs are wrong when they say male items don't sell, to help solve this poblem. Encourage people to create such content. Support them when they do.
I anticipate the familiar refrain that PAs have great skills developed by experience and training. Yes, good PAs do. Hooray for them. But they all started sometime. Encourage new people to make content. Experience follows naturally. They won't be as good when they start. They will get better. There are all sorts of tutorials out there. Maybe you could be that person? But it won't be enough for a new PA to quit the day job? Then don't quit your day job.
Now, do we need another dozen impractical G2M fantasy loincloth barbarians with leather boots and metal arm bands? Here is my contribution (and this is the start of my first attempt to build my own scene in Daz Studio). Not pretending these meshes/uvmaps are of appropriate quality, but I threw them together quickly. A little tongue in cheek, but what kind of content are people asking for? Many male business suits and casual clothes can be had by simply morphing and retexturing existing items, so I could see how PAs would be hesitant to make new variations. On the other hand, I admit to being surprised that there are not more historical uniforms, occupational clothing, etc. Would period pieces be satisfactory? Or are people looking for a long sleeve golf shirt and a short sleeve golf shirt? What kinds of scenes are difficult to do because of the lack of male content?
Aside - I am a beginner to Studio (been using Carrara), so if folks have suggestions for quickly learning Studio, I'd be grateful.
Other vendors (eg. 3DUniverse) as well have posted that their female characters sell roughly five times the amount that their male characters do. There are quite a few of us who buy most of the male content that comes out, but there's just not enough of us.
-- Walt Sterdan
It is the repetition and the way it is said. It could be nicer. What I hear too often is "men's content doesn't sell" It gets tiresome to hear when you *DO" buy a lot of it. No, I don't buy everything. What more can we do?
I may not buy the latest hot pink, seamless, men's go-go outfit, therfor I am not supporting men's clothing development. Can you imagine if people who bought women's clothing (which is your target audience) were treated half the way men's content lovers are treated? It is often like a bad relationiship, "Buy our content, every last b it... Or you don't love me enough and I won't make more." Wuh?
My question is what is DAZ marketing doing to improve sales? How can this be better? Instead of just pushing female items and giving up, maybe there is something that could be done from a sales viewpoint?
Hopefully something, as I'm working on an experiment-- I have eleven female characters on the build right now, that go with thirteen males. The current plan is to try a mix of bunde and single sales to see what gets the most attention. What exactly will be in the various bundles is subject to change as of now. Nearly all the girls have their shapes, with three left to make and two that have want for some revision. The boys will start development as soon as I have the core model in my hot little hands.
There is quite a lot of content already available for making renders of males. Perhaps the female content outnumbers male content by a wide margin, especially since the release of the new Genesis 3 figure, but it does not negate the quality of the previously released content. There are some excellent outfits available, like the Morphing Business Suit bundle for Genesis. I'm of the opinion that the older figures are still as useful and relevant as the new stuff. I'm often surprised that people seem to think that the older content is automatically made obsolete, and that they have to upgrade to the new figures and start all over again.
I mean, if you're churning out renders at all hours of the day for commercial purposes (making art for the company that you own or work for), then I could understand the need to have the widest possible variety of content spanning every available generation of figure. If it's just your hobby, and you already own everything that's worth owning for male figures, do the DAZ Gallery a favor by filling it up with the amazing renders you've made with male content to show everyone what you can do with what you've already bought.
As far as masks are concerned, I have to wonder whether the OP has checked the store? There are already products available for both males and females. http://www.daz3d.com/morphing-mask-for-genesis-and-genesis-2
Men's clothing in real life is pretty boring anyway. Shirt, slacks, variations thereof.
Could Daz use some banana hammocks or some other male-skank-wear? I guess.
Lingerie for women will sell more, though. Why should Daz "improve" sales of male items? If male items don't sell, this is the nature of the market. You cannot make me want to buy banana hammocks for something that is less about making art than it is for making some kind of statement (and I will avoid the "P" word since I've been hammered on that in the past).
I look forward to it. =-)
If only I had the time. I do illustrate plenty of men's things though, in my thread and in my gallery.
I'm not sure, I've seen some pretty snazy clothing for men. And not all men's clothing is contemporary. I like sci-fi, and military and there is always a need for more realistic armor, fatigues, and combat gear, which is sorely lacking here. Xurge and Hellfish do a great job but those content items arent' sold here.
Sure. We have plenty of similar women's outfits. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
Why not? DAZ wants to make money. So do the PA's, and I'm honestly not convinced it is the nature of the market either. There isn't a lot of advertising that goes beyond showing women in skimpy outfits. When that is all you advertise, that is the market and interested group you will attract.
For what it's worth, I'd buy more content if more of the offerings matched Uzilite's http://www.daz3d.com/m601-for-genesis-2-male-s in quality.
If the content you want isn't there, make it.
I started using daz studio around 2 months ago knowing absolutely nothing about 3d and thinking it was all magical mysterious super technology. While certainly still a beginner, I now know which products I could easily just make myself if I needed them, which I could make but are major timesavers to buy, and which I couldn't. I also started using Blender, which is free, and after an initial period of befuddlement, now wonder why every program isn't set up the way it is, and have made basic clothing and am currently concentrating on making lots of fun furniture designs that I like. All of these easily import into Daz and can be used in scenes etc.
Yes, 3d can be complicated and time consuming, but it isn't a locked wall. If you really want a thing, you can learn how to make it for yourself instead of trying to acuse a company of discrimination when that clearly isn't true.
Personally, I started learning because I wanted normal clothing that people actually wear, when all anyone seems to make is super specific fantasy outfit #587342423 or crazy fancy no one is really wearing these nightclub dress, etc. The current stuff may sell well, but personally I think most of the G3F etc. pre made stuff isn't particularly useful. I'd much rather more things like morph packs and OOT's multiuse hair shaders and superhose.
If you wanted a male mask, I bet it isn't hard to craft your own or buy the female ones and reshape them slightly in a 3d program maybe even using the texture setup or buying separate materials and using those.
I think the basic dolls (male and female) should be released at the same time... not have the male doll released 6 months later. Then let the PA's develop products for whichever one they want. I would think when the competition for say several hundred female products/clothes would inspire some PA's to try the smaller male doll market because even if the demand is less so is the competition.
I understand very well that female stuff might be selling better and being more fun to make because it's more versatile. But the female tilt is ridiculous and its getting more and more so for every year that's passing. Since Scott there has been next to nothing. Some characters by Jepe, the odd knight, bio-armor and hair. I mean M2 can need quite a few more cool sci-fi outfits.
Or we can just look at this last few weeks of horror content. A lot of witches and deamons and zombies and stuff. But were any of them male? No! I'd love to have a dark-hunter, an incubus, a Van Helsing inspired character and outfit. And some devils and other creatures from the world down under. Why not Lucifer for M2 perhaps? Or count Dracula for fate's sake, with a long cloak and high boots. But no, ain't happening. And that is so dissapointing.
Another area which is almost uncovered is the military one. There are some modern ones, a few hoplites and romans and the odd samurai. But everything in between is very empty.
And the M2 bot armor, what happened to that one?
I'd also love to have some male robot characters, similar to these one:
http://www.daz3d.com/krill-minima-cyborg-for-v4
http://www.daz3d.com/robogenii
And don't tell me it's not selling because the only reason its not selling is that it's not around!