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Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:17 am Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
From the stand point of a purchaser of 3D products and a Soon-to-be-merchant, I would like to quote a line of text that Teyon previously posted.
"To be quiet honest with you, no one outside of the poser universe would expect to pay $29 or less for a fully rigged model. That's just nuts by "professional" standards."
For my own needs, I search for a product that is of the highest quality that fits the purpose I have in mind. Price is secondary. I wouldn't expect a toaster priced at $10 to be of the same quality as an $80 toaster. In that line of logic, why should a 3D Artist invest sometimes 100's of hour into a product from which they'll receive only a token reward. We all have to eat, right? Products should be priced according to quality, detail and usefulness. I believe if the prices reflected these criteria, everyone will know what they are getting. For 10$ Toaster you’ll get 3 months of toast – for $80 Toaster 2 years of toast.
Testing, of course! All products should be tested before appearing in a Store. If the tester is dissatisfied with the product for one reason or another, the product should be returned to the merchant for alterations. In this way Stores will be able to retain a high standard of quality, merchants will receive an additional level of quality control. Who knows, maybe the tester has found a glitch that was over-looked by the merchant.
Last note, if you want high quality products then I believe the merchant should receive a larger portion of the profits. How are we supposed to survive to produce even more creative an advanced products when we receive so little reward.
You want professional standard products, then pay for them. I’m willing.
[/quote]
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 7:45 am Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
I was only able to render using Daz studio, until their versions became unusable on my obsolete computer.
What would have helped me would have been reviews on which products work in which formats or programs, and how to tweak them to make them work. I forgot to record how many of the products I tried wouldn't work, some were incompatible with Daz Studio, some were for different versions of models (V1, V2, V3 and low res versions) and I wasted a lot of time before I discovered that DS didn't support morphs and magnets.
Some products were unusable and I have no idea why. I think key codes may have been omitted, but don't know if it was a download error or if the file was in a product the readme file didn't mention as required. So, If anyone can find a way to use the review to correct issues like these it would be useful.
Comments like "it's ugly/pretty" aren't that helpful. I can see the photos on the ads myself to decide. Now, if the product doesn't match the ad, that would be a useful warning, otherwise advice on making the product work would be best.
Another point: Advertisers, remember that some of your customers are newbies. When the readme file said: "insert the CR2 file into this poser folder, and use this application from that menu" I was LOST! Now, some of this goes to the software MFR, who should take responsibiltiy for translating instructions on how to use their product. The rest goes to experience. Please use enough detail that a baboon like me could use your instructions.
Thanks,
Arthur
Last note, if you want high quality products then I believe the merchant should receive a larger portion of the profits. How are we supposed to survive to produce even more creative an advanced products when we receive so little reward.
Pythonslayer, let me remind you of just how much work it is and how much it costs to run the sites/stores you might be selling your products in and then you tell me if you would do it for less.
First off, there are servers and bandwidth. The larger the site, the larger the expense. We're talking thousands of dollars a month here, not tens or hundreds. Then you have programmers and systems administrators and web designers and other administrators to pay. While a lot of the moderator work on these sites is done on a volunteer basis, the above things are not. Try more thousands. These things are all necessary to bring the traffic to the site and store to buy your products. We do the site/server maintenence you would have to do yourelf if you weren't selling in someone else's store. We're paying the overhead, bringing in the traffic and giving you more time to do products.
Then there's advertising. Even if a site isn't doing paid advertising, someone still has to spend time getting the site out there. More time you can spend making product if you don't have to do it. More money we have to spend.
Then there's product testing. Almost all the stores pay something somewhere in that process, whether it be to store managers, testing coordinators and/or testers.
Then there's credit card processing. Take 5-10% right off the top for that. More if you get very many chargebacks. And some people couldn't even get a merchant account on their own.
Last, but not least, there's frontline customer service. Who do you think deals with the customer who has a problem, whatever it may be? And where does the money come for that?
If the prices and the volume in the Poser stores were much, much higher, we might could talk about a different split. As it stands now, 50/50 is the only way I can do it and make it seem even minimally worth my time.
Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 769 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 7:01 pm Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
Ideally, I think the way the "quality question" should be answered is via quality control at the pre-release level, rather than a post-release thumbs-up/thumbs-down reaction. Like Hasdrubal said, there is a TON of crap in the stores today -- all the stores. I mentioned this once before somewhere (can't remember whether it was here or not -- something tells me it was PoserPros), but nowadays free stuff contributions are dwindling while items that in the pre-Pro Pack days would have been freebies are now being put in the stores. Even really simple items and items that are so basic in terms of production value that they have no business being associated with a price tag. There's one individual I won't name (not that it really matters -- I've seen them here anyway) who, before they were even what I would consider competent with the software began submitting items to the various stores. This person continues to produce products that are among the simplest, most uncomplicated and least labour-intensive items I have ever seen. In my opinion, that is the kind of thing that needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed before release. Now, I think part of the reason for the deluge of crap is that people don't really want an honest review of their work, they just want it to go into the store without any fuss and start earning them some money. Which is understandable, to a certain extent -- no one wants to be told to fix something and no one wants to be told their product sucks, even if it does. That's why several merchants I know of use a "beta testing team" that consists only of their closest friends who will flood the galleries with "Oooh, it's soooooooo wonderful I just had an orgasm" renders. I have friends on my beta list, too, but they're on their because I know they won't just kiss my ass, they'll actually BETA TEST. Plus, I also change up my testers for each release -- i.e. 3 from group A and 2 from group B will test one product, then 1 from group A and 4 from group B will test the next, etc. -- to avoid any tendency that may exist to give good reviews simply because they get free stuff.
Anyway, to return from my tangent...
I like Pengy's idea, but I really think this kind of thing needs to be done post-beta, pre-release. Reviewing after release rather than having some kind of QA/QC system won't fix the crap problem -- we'll still have a marketplace flooded with subpar items, but we'll also have an erruption of anger from those many merchants who end up on the naughty list but feel they should be on the nice list. _________________ Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com
Jim, yes, it would be ideal if it was addressed pre-release, but how do you solve the problem of the different store criteria? You have rosity on one end who only cares if the zip file opens and there are no GLARING errors. They refuse to place any subjective judgement on whether or not something SHOULD be sold. Then you have varying degrees of subjective quality judgements going on in all the other stores. None of us are perfect. But I do see a disturbing trend toward accepting anything and everything, even at DAZ.
It wouldn't be so bad if the "free stuff" quality items were selling for 50¢ and the really good stuff for $50, but the quality merchants have been coerced into competing pricewise with the hobbyists putting out stuff that really shouldn't even be sold.
I'm really not sure HOW to combat that. We see it in the "real" world, too. Look at the success of WalMart.
Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 7:52 pm Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
Just an idea,peraphs not the best in the world,surely not the best in the world...needing extra work for lots of persons...and money(increased cost)....
The creator of the product could test it how he want,but the seller could have his/her own test "squad",peoples who will make the final decision about the product...with a list of the negative and positive points of the product by said persons published at the same time on the site which sell it
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 12:37 am Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
DTHUREGRIF,
The main jest of my comments from yesterday was simply, prices should reflect item complexity, detail and quality. Someone that slaps an item together and submits it to a store compared to someone that has invested weeks into an item should not be sold on the same price scale. If store products are sold too cheaply they will undermine the entire market. This in turn will cause the higher level developers to loss interest from inadequate return on development, leaving only the lower quality products.
I do realize the cost of having a store selling products from 1000’s of developers. Administrative, server, advertisement … etc. 50/50 in this situation is understandable as long as your intentions are not ONLY to make a profit on your side but also an interest in perpetuating further high quality development from your merchants. Face it, we are all in it to produce an income, but if we cheapen the market to a point where neither of us can survive, we all lose.
The main jest of my comments from yesterday was simply, prices should reflect item complexity, detail and quality. Someone that slaps an item together and submits it to a store compared to someone that has invested weeks into an item should not be sold on the same price scale. If store products are sold too cheaply they will undermine the entire market. This in turn will cause the higher level developers to loss interest from inadequate return on development, leaving only the lower quality products.
Problem you have there is that the vendors ultimately set their prices according to what they think the buyers will pay, Python'.
AND - there's a general belief in this community - right or wrong - that the customers generally won't pay too high. A belief that's borne out at least opinionwise by the "We want better, more, bigger, more options/morphs/textures/morphs/watever but CHEAPER TOO!!!" in multiple forum threads across the various sites whenever the question is asked. Daz, Poserpros, Rosity, here, wherever usually. A lot of vendors look at that, and lower their prices while adding more, driving other vendors down to compete.
A minimum pricing just artifically inflates all prices up to the minimum when imposed: including what you might percieve as "the crap".
Too much monkeying around with price setting by the brokerages starts getting into price fixing, and that opens up another can 'o worms. ;]
The really high end and top vendors already do their own market pricing: you pay what Wusamah, SanctumArts, DarkWhisper, or Billy-T charges, or you buy something else. And those vendors don't have many problems making sales at their prices. That's market forces at work - supply and demand - and that's what should set pricing. [Some artifical markets such as Platinum Club, Real Deals, Pro-club and other "loss leaders" skew that a bit on their own, but those have their own marketing forces working to compensate]
Pricing and quality are two different things. Inexpensive good is still good: it doesn't become "Bad" by being inexpensive. Expensive crap is still shite, and once someone gets a rep for overpricing their shite... word gets around. Would be nice if price and quality were always inextricably linked, but that's not the way it goes outside of the poser marketplaces either. I've bought some really expensive piece-of-crap electronics gear in my life, and some truly excellent low priced firearms and knives. Price and workmanship don't always go togther.
Sure: "prices should reflect item complexity, detail and quality" - but they don't. And that's not really the scope of the question at large.
The question at large is wether outside reviews aimed at customer awareness of quality are a Good Thing or a Bad Thing for this market and the community/customers as a whole, and wether our vendors are interested in pursuing that.
Voluntarily pursuing: quite frankly, if someone wants to set up a review site, buy all of the items, and then review them and publish the reviews as opinion with links, renders, screen caps, wireframes, zip test logs, and whatever to back their opinion - on their own site and bandwidth - no one can really stop them from doing so. The question at that point becomes "How much weight do I wish to give this review?"
Pricing is irrelevant to that question. Is the vendor a "hobbyist?" or a "pro?" is irrelevant to quality - when you stick a price tag on it and sell it, you become a "pro" wether you want to be or not: the criteria then becomes "do you have professionalism?" [which is a different thing]. Customers have a right to expect pro-quality wether you do it part time or full when they open their wallets; fi' dollar yankee or twenny-fi' all night sailor.
My opinion is that the stores and testing are an integral part of that eqation. So are the vendors. So are the vendor's beta testers. So are the customers. So are independant reviews, word of mouth, forum threads, articles, gallery images, store reputation, vendor reputation, sample freestuff, and anything else that can help the buyer make an informed choice in purchasing.
Quality can't be all a top down issue. It helps immensely if it permeates through the entire proccess, from members to stores. _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
I give Good Post now? Umm... shouldn't we be having that conversation at Rotica? This is a Family site. _________________ "I'd add a legitimate comment here, but that would mean reading everything, which I have no patience for." - Slynky
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 10:13 pm Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
Frankly, I'm just a hobbiest using Poser at best. 95% of my stuff is done using Freebies! Something has to be DAMNed good or has to fit into what I typically render over and over again before I'll pay one red cent for it. If you want to charge high prices for Poser figures then they'd bloody well better be of a quality that equals or surpasses what is already available for free. That means figures should be sold WITH Morphs DAZ! Of course now they've gone and released the mark3 Mike and Vicky for free and you must buy the morphs if you want them to be of any use. Too little too late and a totally bone headed maneuver if you ask this hobbiest.
So with all that said, you're damned right I think there should be some quality reviews out and available before a product hits the storefronts!
Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 769 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 8:13 am Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
Anyone waiting for a sale to get M3/V3 morphs should have taken advantage of the "Epic Fantasy" sale. The regular M3 and V3 weren't on sale, but you could have picked up the 3D Starter Content for $15 -- it included, among a whack of other stuff, the reduced-resolution M3 and V3, which come with all the morphs embedded in the CR2. _________________ Jim Harnock - ODS
www.OrcaDesignStudios.com
Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 8:32 am Post subject: Re: The quality issue – to review or not to review?
For myself, I generally depend the most on the previews of a product to determine whether I'll purchase it or not.
If there aren't sufficient close ups, I'll tend to pass over it.
One of the most notable areas of product deficiency I see is with conforming clothing. There's often no indication whether or not the joint parameters are sufficient to maintain the item's integrity through even the simplest of poses.
Morphs are another issue all together.
It would be nice if a standardized set of poses and morphs could be previewed for such products. There's nothing more disappointing than finding out that nice new dress you've purchased breaks the moment you change your figure proportions...
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The question at that point becomes "How much weight do I wish to give this review?"
