Here is the new face of skins in Wincustomize now. All the skins on Page 1 are Master Skins. Page 2 and Page 3 have only 2 free skins out of 9 on each page. Guess this is how it all rolls now?
With my post I did not realize that I was unleashing a can of worms.
I was just pointing out that WindowBlinds is sprinting towards a dying area and I no longer think that Stardock has a strong leadership in Windows customization. I think games must be a money maker or else this business proposition is no longer viable. If I was running Stardock with my money and Windowblinds was my cash cow...considering today's state I would be considering to close shop. Skinners are what makes WindowBlinds/Object Desktop sell and as almost all of you have mentioned there are "so few left".
Prejudice aside: Consider that I am a new guy in this area.
1. I look at the software...Okay I need to pay to get the software2. I look at the skins...Okay I need to pay to get any skins...wtf3. After a while...I am getting bored I need new skin...pay again...pay again...pay again.I am no longer interested as the only thing "Consistent" is "I have to pay". Finally I move out...Who are the losers in this scenario? Stardock and its skinners.
The best solution now for Stardock is:1. Hire good skinners to get the excitement of the product going2. Make skins free to users by paying skinners per skin instead of giving "cents to a dollar" for each Master Skin purchase as LightStar and others have said in other threads.3. Kill the product as it is no longer profitable as development time vs income from sale is no longer worth the time of development.
* LightStar: Sorry for mentioning your name in this post. You are one of the only few left who actually give good stuff for free by not making some of your skins a master skin. My words "skins free to users by paying skinners per skin" was meant for you and don5318 as only the 2 of you have provided free skins in the recent past that is "Decent and useable". I can make skins too but trust me, if it was my original work you will never want to skin again!
We are already in the stage where 1 of the 3 will start to play out. Interesting times...(for those who try to pick meaning from words...I am not predicting doom or anything...just saying that we have reached a new era in skinning where 1 of the 3 scenarios will play out soon). Master skins were a band-aid to keep the excitement of buying WindowBlinds going so that Stardock can sell WindowBlinds but we have reached a point where the band-aid has taken over everything. Now nothing left as all you can see on the WindowBlinds page is Band-aid/Master skins.
Master skinners...you all have a dedicated group of purchasers which is why you are all seeing $'s in your account and thinking Master skins are the best. This $ will not go up as there is no excitement created on the product...infact it will go down over time as skin fatigue may occur or people just do not want to spend the money or are short a month or two....No more growth here as Master skins are suffocating and killing everything in and around this concept.
I think Stardock did hire skinners for free/paid skins per se at years back,the crux is either the market has changed or pies are not good enough or both,SD discontinued the practice. Trend comes and goes,for those people who like to customize their system will always find the way and stay,those don't,they just stop by and gone.
-I guess in a perfect world the Games (and The skins we make) would be free, but that's just not the way things work.
Edit:
KUDOS to Lightstar for releasing Free skins, but in my current situation I can't afford to miss out on this extra income, hence I charge for my work.
You have no idea what your talking about, Stardock has been selling master skins since it began.
The system isnt broken.
Stardock runs a profit from skins and software sales and its a great business plan. And it obvously works
since Brad is successful.
You need to accept that people from all over the globe now days earn a living on the internet.
Not just this site, but every site.
Living costs money, you really need to wake up and smell reality.
Look at things this way. These Master skinners spent years giving away ALL their work. After considerable time and effort, they attain the Master status. (There are 3 other ranks to get through before making Master). Now they have EARNED the ability to get a little, and I mean a little, pay for their years of effort and honing their skills.
Now, I understand that there aren't as many skinners here as there used to be. Due to this fact, most of the ones that are left are long time skinners who have attained the Master rank. So it only follows that most new skins are Master skins.
To fix this, and make sure there are free skins available that are up to date, we can do two things:
Either those wanting new free skins can start skinning themselves. This would make for more free skins, plus, in time, you could make Master and sell your own. There'd be more variety too.
The other thing is just an idea of mine. Masters, don't shoot me, I'm just trying to be the peacemaker.
What if Stardock altered the Master skins procedure and made a new rule that every 4th skin had to be free? (Or something along those lines). I think more new free skins might just revitalize things around here a little.
Just an idea. Being a Master, who chooses not to sell skins, it's easy for me to say. But I think it's an idea worth considering.
Just my 2 cents.
OK, this is now becoming one of those stupid to even have been posted threads kushalnagar. Selling my work, as well as other people doing so, may be a necessary source of income. A person should not have to explain the reason they need to sell their work, but here you go. I cannot work, I am a 22 year USAF Retired, 100% Disabled Veteran, 66 years old and still have two others living at home. Enough said, I really need the income, as small as it may be.
Also, there are others who submit free WB skins, DaveBax does too, and his are decent and usable also. I am also looking forward to don5318 becoming a Master Skinner in the future, his work is excellent.
Please, can someone lock this useless thread? I really feel like puking.
Actually nothing of the sort.
The opportunity given by Stardock to long-time skinners to be reimbursed for all their work/dedication over the years was simple appreciation for their efforts, nothing more.
Long before anyone had reached 'Master level', doom and gloom was being touted by 'experts' with the advent of paid-for skins....[actually before Wincustomize began].
The world didn't end. 15+ years later we're still here. People are still skinning. People are still disillusioned by Microsoft's GUI.
Absolutely nothing of that has changed since Windows 8, 8.1, 10......
Nor will it.
Sorry Red, but I dont, some of us skinners NEED that money...period.
Its like asking you to forfeit every fourth pension....... dosent make sense does it?
Also, It's a contribution to the Site with 30% of the money going to Wincustomize/Stardock and I think that money is doing Good things for EVERYONE.
Hot topic!
Good points for all of you.
Windowblinds has changed into a different kind of product... depending on how you want to look at it.
No longer a group hobby oriented product.
There should be a new product fee design...
Make Windowblinds itself free to the casual user, license the skin creator through a fee if they sell it. If it is a free skin, then no charge Charge the skin creaters, then they can sell their master skin creations to recoup that cost. Windowblinds users would not feel they are being double charged. Master skinners would still get their money that they need, and a whole new generation of WB users would come from the free windowblinds. In fact, this whole model could be tested on only one Stardock product, windowblinds, which has the highest density of master skins. Similar free to play models, but in app purchases for those that want the better stuff. I call it: "Freemium"
Why not think outside the box to get more users. More users would end up with more buyers.
Another idea, would be a half off sale of all master skins every once in a while. Put a product on sale sometime. Increase number of sales might just be a good thing. Low sales now? Maybe... but more volume could over come that.
A free skin everyonce in a while from a master skinner may seem like a waste of time, but the exposure to get someone to try your product out could be just what the doctor ordered. Some do it. Although, they are not quite up to par with the pay ones. Premium skins are untestable, and really don't show the whole picture of what you can get unless you can try it out. "Gee, that skin looks cool!", buy it, but then come to find out that the skin bar edges are too big for your monitor... has some animation that doesn't look good, or something else that the master skinner has no control over for your particular setup. I have heard this one before "that feature isn't supported with your version of Windows". I like some of the master skins, but it's a gamble.
Maybe wincustomize can change things to where upgraded skins are simply upgraded and left where they were, not forced to the front of the skin que.
Thank you all for your work and creations.
I'm not going anywhere!
Makes all of us masters happy to hear
Familiar dude........https://forums.wincustomize.com/460532/page/1/#replies
I was looking for that and saw this post. I did laugh and glad you found it first. Funny how his great suggestions always involves free things. OH, one more thing. Mr. Pixel also wants the windowblind program to be free for him. But us Master skinners who want to charge for our skins have to pay for the program.
Why would one want it left where it was. If you have a WB you update to work on a newer OS, in this case win 10 you need people to know that. This isn't done for the skinner it's done for the people here. If they don't like the skin fine but if they do and can have it work good on another OS they will use it. When it on the beginning of the list people can see it.
Sorry folks I have been staying away from all these threads saying nothing. Damn tired of everyone wanting everything for free. For 2016 I have 9 free skins and 3 Master skins with another nice free Christmas skin to come in Dec. Last tired of hearing about the quality. I know all the skinners left here making skins. The quality is good on all skins. Not every color combo or design is going to appeal to everyone and that is understandable. Get it out of your heads that with free skins the quality is shit.
YOU GO DAVE!!!!
WOW!
We only get these threads on days ending in 'Y'....so they're pretty uncommon....
lol...I just made an interesting observation and it turned out to be a bashing between 2 ideas regarding having or not having master skins.
But that aside I think we need to get more skinners involved as almost everyone here have pointed out...there are not many left...
We used to have a lot of skinners but some quit as it conflicted with real life, some quit because they got pissed and some quit because it started getting harder as the OS's progressed.
And some quit because their skinning program of choice has been sunsetted....
(But then, this thread is about Master WB skinners. Not DesktopX Masters.)
What I find revolting and disgusting is that whenever someone brings in a valid concern or option they get treated like shit by the select elite. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I didn't see anyone saying that master skins should be eliminated. People just want what used to be the norm here. Some valid points were made and instantly poo-poo'd leaving the individual in an un-welcome state. Nice PR.
Yes it's sad that only a small small handful still do WB skins and it does explain the gallery overload of pay-to-play content. That, in and of itself tells the tale of the ultimate demise of WB in general at this current trend.
I think there should be a "How To Manual" of SkinStudio, not necessarily with pictures but with a list of how to's.
Example: How To change the Min,Max and Close buttons, than the answer would include the location where you can find it in SkinStudio and a brief description on what has to be done. Or even a part of SkinStudio with a search or help button.
If more people knew how to use it (including me) there would be more skinners. It's basically the only program that I have ever downloaded that doesn't have any instructions. I know I can ask questions here, but it might get repetitious after a while or you have to wait until someone reads it.
I have downloaded the SkinStudio Tutorial zip it's a little out dated and hard to find without asking someone even if it still exist.
I don't have a problem with MasterSkins, I say if you enjoy doing it and it helps pay the bills go for it.
2cents
and for the record, I DO agree with that statement.
Another thing to consider regarding the amount of skinners is how much new blood or young blood takes their talents to smartphones and tablets, hell of alot of very nice work gets done on customization apps. Lets face it desktops have been fading for years and will continue to, taking talented artists to other platforms.
Myself I do tend to buy most Master that fit my likes, would I like more free ones, sure of course. Should masters give away their work for free? That is up to them IMO, I do know that I wouldnt go and work 40 hours for free.
To all the skinners past and present I would like to say thank you, masters and not you make my time in front of my monitor interesting.
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