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The original promo page/landing page stated that pass holders would get a head start in getting the figure and early access to the contest, I remember this because it didn't make any sense.
I'm not a PC+. Guess I need to go back to school. According to you.
The suggestion was just that the price of the SP for PC+ members was much less than for non-members. You could buy a 3 month PC+ membership and then buy the SP at member price, and your total cost for both would be less than what you spent for SP as a non-member. Its something to consider if you ever buy another SP.
The promo page, in no uncertain terms, said anyone could enter. It may have been changed before you guys saw it though, not trying to be rude.
Which in and of itself is a good deal. I just don't like the whole idea of all this. But that's not to say someone else won't like it or enjoy the grab bag nature of it.
And the way it was written, describing what would the season pass holders get if they finished in top 5, tells that it was not just a typo or badly formed sentence, but the original message was that the contest would be open to everybody.
Maybe DAZ should change the people who are writing the text on the promo pages, since there has been A LOT of mistakes and misleading information on them lately.
Thanks to the folk at web.archive.org, you can still see the April 6 version of the page here. If you click the next one, you'll see as of the 12th, one day before the Gold demotion/price increase, it was still allowing non-SP folks to compete. Here are some exctracts:
"Anyone (including non-Season Pass holders) can enter the contests, but due to your early access, you get a head start!" <- emphasis is by Daz, not me
"Runners-up will be awarded if other Season Pass holders finish in the top 5 of the contest." <- This one acknowledges the possibility of non-SP folk outplacing SP folk in the contest.
"Champion Flair and store credit will be awarded to the highest-finishing Season Pass holder. For example, if the best Season Pass holder render finishes 2nd, that Season Pass holder will be awarded Champion Flair." <- Emphasis mine. More explanation on the technicalities of non-SP folk placing ahead of SP ones.
"For example, if there are 2 renders from Season Pass holders that finish in the top 5 renders, there will be 1 Champion Flair awarded and 1 Runner-up awarded."
You should google 'Amazon' and 'dynamic pricing'...
FOMO combined with Lootboxes, GTFO of here Daz, I'm glad I've cancelled my membership when NFT hit. You'll not see a cent out of me with this attitude.
Ok, so I did. And I didn't see anything about reducing prices for recently purchasing something similar. I did see that that if they think you want to buy something, they may lower the price. If demand is high, they may adjust the price upward. They do change the prices all the time depending on who you are. So maybe they do reduce the price if you've purchased something similar. Or maybe they jack it up. I shop at Amazon and don't get told when I'm seeing a customized price, so that is a little disconcerting.
I do worry about the whole Rich get Richer dilemma... The more you buy, the more you can afford to buy. If you can afford to buy nice shoes, they last a long time and you can save money over the guy who can only afford cheap shoes and has to replace them every year. Likewise, the uber-buyers can get 20 new products for $100. People who can only afford $20 can't even get two. Luckily, stuff that's 6 months old here is still pretty nice, and fast grab is a thing. But the thought of this happening with food and basic essentials (Target and Wal-Mart are also experimenting with dynamic pricing) is a little depressing.
I'm constantly surprised at fluctuations in my Amazon wishlist prices - and I don't understand the underlying criteria of course, but prices can and do change several times a day for some items.
And I do agree about the Rich get Richer thing - if you can afford to buy quality stuff, it does often work out cheaper in the long run.
And to make it even better, someone in another city (or even someone a few streets over from you) may get completely different amazon price changes and times...
There's a lot of misinformation about what spec work actually entails, which has led to some people declaring perfectly legit contests predatory. I think I touched on this earlier, but: If a video game studio offers all players the opportunity to submit weapon or armor designs, and the prize is having them added to the game, this is way more work for the developers and far more expensive in terms of labor than just hiring a freelance designer. The prize means getting to equip bespoke items you had the idea for on your character. The studio is not trying to steal players' fan designs. As long as there are no suggestions that players should enter for any purpose other than wanting their design made, or hints that entering is a good career move, and they're not solely seeking professional artists, it's probably above board.
There are a few reasons I think this contest does fall into really sketchy territory, even though it was probably unintentional. The first is that Daz does leverage user-created work for marketing assets frequently. The second is that they're positioning "we get to benefit from your artwork" as part of the winning prize, implying that the goal of entering is to gain professional exposure. The third is, of course, having to buy something expensive to qualify.
The ultimate effect is not only asking artists to devalue their work--if it's good enough to put into an ad, it's worth compensating them for at standard rates--but it sets a really horrible tone for the "we support artists" stuff. Come on, if you really want to support people in art you need to go out of your way to not perpetuate the idea that art is so worthless that everyone has to pay up and jump into a gladiator arena just to get eyes on their work as some kind of favor.
If you entered this contest and being chosen for visibility is at all important to you, I just want you to know that if you're skilled enough to win you're almost definitely skilled enough to look for average rates for the art you do and charge that, and companies will pay it if they're not dead set on negging artists into feeling worthless and accepting bad contracts.
I really don't think Daz thought this through, but it's also a really gross oversight for a company that isn't new to the needs of artists.
See attached link: https://sterlingmiller2014.wordpress.com/2018/06/18/ten-things-so-you-want-to-hold-a-contest-and-not-go-to-jail/
I had to use a very similar document when I ran contests for a local japanese animation convention. It was very important for us to have evidence that the prizes awared were done by merit of skill. Which required having specific judging criteria to go by.
I had a legal friend draft a basic document that could be referenced to cover any confusion or dispute.
As the link stresses, we had to remove all implication that awards were granted randomly. If you do that you get into a grey area of gambling. Particularly if there is any sort of monetary transaction required for entry (entry fee, admission fee to convention, membership fee, etc.)
To further cover us the awards were non-monetary; a showcase of the winning videos at a local movie theater. We also allowed entries from individuals that would not be attending the convention in person (i.e. did not buy admission either).
One year we tried a caveat where "non-attendees" had to still buy an admission for the day of the contest. Which served as the "entry fee." This turned out to be a questionable choice.
The next year we had a caveat where the run time of the contest was limited and attendees would be given first preference with regard to the exhibition. This was a less questionable rule from my legal contact's point of view.
Film festivals, screenplay contests and even some galleries require a submission fee. But that’s very different from what Daz is doing, I just think the marketing has become increasingly convoluted for the last several months. I’m not sure if they hired new people or what, but it’s certainly turning me and apparently many others off,
It's been like this for years now, so it's highly unlikely to change.
So, we have our winners. Congratulations to you all. You made some very beautiful renders.
https://www.daz3d.com/season-pass-2021
Now to the losers ramblings. I think the whole DAZ team should feel ashamed as they showed a serious lack of professionalism.
What I saw was:
-changing of rules (should never be done!)
-botched deadline
-botched gallery for submissions. Some of us could not upload (tag) our images.
-not fixing the gallery. I had hoped till today that all participating images would be put in the seasonpass gallery.
With all that I have to wonder. Did I even participate? I have no idea. My image is not in the seasonpass gallery and I got zero feedback from DAZ.
And another question keeps nagging me. How were multiple submissions handled? The first one uploaded? The better one?
Congrats to the winners!
I had fun with it, although it's not my kind of subject material.
I do agree with all the concerns & criticisms about the contest, though.
Only 23 in the gallery with the "seasonpass" category? That seems kind of weak. I don't know if it's the audience (not enough people with SP), the database (not accepting enough entries), or the subject material ("Business Industry")... but IMO, that's not a great turn out.
I had fun, but on the other hand, I can't pretend this was a great "normal".
I apologize if I'm not understanding correctly why you linked this, but to clarify, it's not that judging by skill is bad, or that restricting entry to a specific pool of people is inherently wrong. In the type of contest I mentioned at the beginning of my post, entries are judged according to skill (the design has to be something the devs can actually implement--sorting through and deciding is a big part of the labor), and usually always limited to people with a game account in good standing.
Where it gets iffy is implying the contest will be professionally helpful. If the contest takes the form of tryouts for an opportunity to do valuable work for a company for free or for a pittance, and the promised benefit is legitimacy by association with the company or access to the company's audience, and you have to pay to enter, that's bad. The company has just gotten you to pay them for your labor, if those are the things you wanted.
Daz could have run the exact same contest without making it sound like that.
I took it as a lesson. The only question is whether or not I'm willing to learn what I'm being taught.
Not sure where to post congrats to the winners... But I guess I'll do it here...
Congratzi!!!
I agree with the judges... All 3 portray Brooke in a nice professional atmosphere!
This is what the winning renders look like on a mobile phone.
The NFT version lol!
But it looks fine on an iPhone. Is that an Android?
I got that same look on my desktop browser, if you press refresh, the winning entries should show up, and are clickable.
Be careful; some browser developers have coded an extra function into the refresh button. If you use a browser with an activated account, you essential buy an NFT for the encrypted images in your browser tab, and your cryptocurrency is reduced for the nominal fee of the NFTs.
Luckily I'm on the safe side here for different reasons..
I ain't got a smartphone... I won't activate any browsers, even when me their developers would offer me their souls or firstborns or whatever... I don't have any cryptocurrency of any type... I don't really see a need to look at the winning entries of a contest in which I couldn't take part at...