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It's untenable to imagine the products aren't worth the asking prices due to how many long hours some of the artist simply must be putting into the creation of the really nice items. Alas, I agree that "worth" truly comes down to what they are worth to you in regards to your specific budget. I've really had to change my buying habbits as well.
I don't know about that. Last time. There were some pretty hot accusations flying around when this subject was brought up. I don't really see DAZ goods as being the luxury items, personally.
You are certainly entitled to have your own personal view on things, but in the common area of language where words have definitions in order so that we can all communicate, DAZ products are most certainly luxury items.
There are expensive luxury items and cheap luxury items, but if you don't need something to live and you tend to buy more of it with increasing disposable income, it is a luxury.
Lets not devolve into picking eachothers words apart. The moment people start arguing about what people mean and how words are defined threads tend to go south pretty quickly.
I mean yes and no. A painting could sell for $10 or $1,000,000 and have taken months or minutes depending on circumstances and who was willing to buy. A movie costs hundreds of millions these days (not that I think most of them are worth it) but they don't sell movies for thousands of dollars. Obviously this is because they're selling to a much larger audience, but the point is that it's more complicated than time put in.
Honestly I can't really imagine making content for Studio and Poser being enough to replace a full time career but if PAs are making it work that way, more power to them. The only time I get concerned is when Daz starts making statements like "we'll have to raise prices because piracy exists" (which is faulty logic.) But then prices have edged up and people are obviously still buying, so they can do what they want. I think that the list price for most items is reasonable considering the extended licence offered. If people want to disagree with that, that's fine. I can't afford a hobby at those prices regardless, but I have pretty much everything I actually need by now so I'm not so bothered about not being able to afford things.
Yes, I've heard you say that before.
To me 3d items are art supplies. That could by strict definition be a luxury, but it could also be a tool to do one's job.
At any rate, regardless of how I define luxury personally, I still feel the items are too expensive for me.
Not only do I completely agree with everything you said, your first post pretty much capures my thought process pretty much every time I post.
For the expense stuff, I find its a difference etween "Thats too expensive" and "man this is an expensive hobby" or even "Thats too expensive for me" (I'm big on qualifying statements) The first one has a bit more of a value judgement feel, Its much easier to read as saying that the PAs should lower prices (which given that PAs have mentioned in previous threads that products often pay essentially minimum wage given hours put in vs money earned, can seem a bit unfair) wheras the latter can be more easily read as "I wish I had more money", which is something I think we all can get behind.
I suspect it is a lot more that 1% using DAZ models commercially. I use them to create virtually all the graphics I need for my mobile apps, and I do make my living off those apps. The graphics in my apps are secondary to the overall app experience, so I would not say I am "making a living off rendering", but I am certainly using what I do create commercially. It is one reason I prefer using models from here (and similar stores). With freebies you have to hunt around for the readme (if they have included one) to see if I am permitted to use them.
But never fear. When things get slow in the market DAZ or somebody will gen up another female with a birthmark on her cheek instead of her forehead, and sell her out to the world as the latest lady in the house.
Totally agree that luxury isn't art supplies to me either. I think the PAs have so many things to consider when doing pricing, they have to keep in mind sale discounts, stacking discounts, time invested (and never come close to getting what they put into it) and I appreciate what they do. Frankly, I don't care what it's called.
In setting prices the PA's not only have to take into consideration time involved and work that needs to be done to get that product out but the tools needed to do it. If you are only going to use an item a few times then yes paying $20-40 might seem a bit high, specially on a tight budget like many of us are. Beleive me I understand the tight budget thing... I'm on a very fixed income myself...
On the other hand the tools needed to create content properly can be far more expensive than that... 3D modelling apps can easily run into the hundreds of dollars (specially for the high end ones)... use a texture generator like Filter Forge and there's another 100 bucks (or more), need a good uv mapping program or painting program and the potential cost goes up again... need a private beta-tester or a developement team and there's more cost...
Then there is the cost of all the items they need to set up decent promo images... and the list and cost keeps growing!
After that, they have to factor how much the brokerage will take, how much they'll have to pay out in taxes (some brokerages automatically take taxes off of every sale depending on the business laws where they are located), how much will come off in discounts, etc. When you start adding up all the costs a vendor has just to be able to create a product the price would be well beyond most of us very quickly...
Now, in theory, they will sell enough items at a lower cost to make all that expense back, but reality very seldome matches theory...
Out of curiousity, what is tax like in US and Europe? If you are a vendor doing this for a living, you declare your earnings for tax....in other countries, can you then claim against the software and other things you purchase to help you create? And get it back in your tax refund?
You can get deductions for things like software you need to buy, generally, so that reduces the income you need to pay taxes on (which, of course, is not the full cost of the software).
In Canada it's roughly 15% in sales taxes on every product that has to be added to the price and paid at tax time... but varies from province to province... unless I'm mistaken... If you work from home then you can "write-off" part of the costs for required programs/supplies etc needed for your work, but you only get a small part of that back if at all... A lot of it depends greatly on how much you made vs how much had to be paid out as base taxes on that income...
Not sure about the US
You deduct your costs from your income, which includes your programs. You don't get it "back" unless your expenses are more than your profit/income. By deducting the expenses, your final number is your income and that's what is taxed. So while the deductions help, you don't get the money back unless you are in the hole. At least that was the way it was with my brick and mortar business.
And in most cases. even if you're operating in the red you don't get it all back -- at best you don't pay any tax and might be able to carry over the excess expenses until the next year.
While I'm fine with the prices, I have issues with this sort of reasoning.
One person (or a few) can create a video game by themselves, whether it takes days or months or years of learning and creating, and then sell it for $5-20 and asking any more will be considered unreasonable of them unless it contains a whole lot more content. Larger productions expecting many more sales invest a lot more money and people into making flashier games and sell them at higher prices (I believe $60 is average) after investing millions and then sell to millions.
You can spend thousands and thousands buying expensive 3D modelling and 2D software, or you can do pretty much all of it for free, or very, very cheap. Anyone is welcome to make the choice to invest money into software, but it is absolutely their choice and not a requirement to making content. I choose to pay for the software I prefer to use (Photoshop and Illustrator) but I'm well aware that there are many free alternatives I could go with instead in an emergency. I chose to go for the free Blender because it has very active development and support whereas the 3D software I made the mistake of buying doesn't. In both cases there were available avenues for expensive or cheap/free production, and it was my choice to go with them, not a customer's responsibility.
Yeah... that's fairly well accurate...
I didn't say it was a customers responsibility, it is how-ever a factor in the price that is passed on to the consumer when it comes time to pay at the check-out... for any business, not just our very specific one... that's just the nature and reality of the beast so-to-speak...
Well, fortunately, I always turned a profit, so that's why I wasn't sure about getting money back. I always dreaded keeping up with all those blasted receipts. With a brick and mortar store, the operating expenses are such a pain!
We could go back on forth on whether that's a good thing for them to charge that way or a bad thing forever.
Personally I prefer to think of it solely in terms of paying for the licence to use the product (it's not like you actually own it the way you usually do physical things.) I don't really like personal licences because I don't want to accidentally use the wrong product for the wrong purpose, so Daz stuff works fine for me, and for the same reason I tend to buy 2D resources from DesignCuts over using freebies because then I know that everything has the same licences and I don't have to worry if I want to switch to selling a free product.
On that we can agree... but that's more based on what I need the item for and it can absolutely be a major headache trying to make sure all the content you use is licensed for the intended use...
It's relevant though because for me, I think that $20 for an outfit is a good price if I know I can use it in personal or commercial renders. If Daz comes along tomorrow and releases Daz Spike Shoes 17 but they are now only allowed to be used in personal renders, but are still priced at $20, I no longer think that's worth it for me and stop buying, whether they were made on a gold plated render farm powered by diamonds or not. But people evaluate things differently, so that system won't work for everyone.
But say you make a free webcomic, and then someone wants to pick up the comic and pay you to host it all on their site. But you used Daz Spike Shoes 17 in several panels. You now have a headache of redo work (if you even remember...)
True... then again licensing is also a factor in pricing in most businesses... the price will be higher or lower to an extent depending on how much freedom the end user will have for that product... you can expect to pay far more for a commercial uses license than a personal use one in most cases... particularly in the Graphic Design industry...
You can also expect some fairly hefty fees if you want to be able to resell an item or to have distribution rights etc...
Wow this was interesting reading! As one of the people who rarely buys anything brand spanking new here...thats just because I can't afford to no income to cover it expect after saving for months on end. A good friend who's just starting into DAZ asked me what one of the bundles had in it. So I went looked and helped her out with the different products that was in it. Then took a look at the price and thought i could do two yea wishful thinking on that LOL. So I got my list narrowed down to 2 that i wanted so I went the eeni meenie miney mo and put the one that i decided to wait on till i could afford it later (dont' think the price will be as good as right now but thats ok i can deal)....I'm loving seeing all the deals even though most of my buys do not go towards the sales since they are older versions G2 is what i'm mostly using. Hoping next time i can add plat to my account and save a few more dollars there too
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The 50% DAZ and other stores charge for selling your stuff can also be deducted as an expense, so you won't have to pay tax from it (at least here in Denmark, not sure about other countries but I'd think it's the same).
For any income over $300 (I think it is still that) you pay 17% self employment tax. You calculate that after deductions. Of course you have to have the money to spend on things to be deducted later so that isn't always a big percentage.
As to the 50% we never see that so it doesn't count as income for us.
I agree that Daz products are art supplies and if there are art supplies that you want but can't afford at full price, then later there's a huge sale, you stock up and buy them while they are at the best price possible. You don't think about the manufacturer, you think about your own budget and what you want and need to create your art. So for me, nothing is personal towards the PAs or Daz, it's just about creating your art within your budget when you can afford it and taking advantage of big sales. I do the same thing at Aaron Brothers when they have their 1 cent frame sales or even the supermarket when there's a big sale on my favorite granola bars. It's just smart shopping. I think Daz actually has some amazing sales, too good, in fact, so I'm actually spending way more than I want because I'm loading up my cart with a ton of things for $2- $5.00, but even at that price it adds up, because I end up buying a LOT at those prices. The bundles are obviously more, but I do the math, and the individual items I want come out cheaper as part of the bundle than if I just cherry picked the items I wanted from the bundle. Some bundles for like $194 can come down to close to $30. Although, those are DOs, don't really affect the PAs. Anyway, I don't think the prices are too high because of the frequent huge sales. It's my own shopping habits that are breaking me for buying too much when there's a great sale! And their marketing strategy totally works in my eyes. I'm more likely to buy something that is $20.00 on sale for $7.00 than something that is full price at $7.00. It just feels good to to think you're getting a deal although the whole thing could be just smoke and mirrors...