Nightprowler:
I believe that this would be "premium" Skins IE ones made by either stardock or one of the For profit skinning outfits. NOT to download skins from Wincusto.

Although if stardock releases 200+ individual pieces I wonder how that would effect the "for free" skinners? Would more of them turn to for profit and contract with stardock?

To maintain the community there has to be more free than pay skins. I hate to see the community turn to all for profit.

Again I'll suggest raising the price of all or part of the OD stuff slightly to compensate for stardock hiring some skinners to produce premium suites that would be distributed for free(in a sense). I can spend the money in renewal easier than another seperate charge.

Thank god other people feel as me i am not averse to purchasing premium suites if i like them and i believe i already show my support i just feel people should be given the choice.the only skin i've really used a lot of the various pieces is Tiggz GT2 and even then only windowblinds,cursor xp,wallpaper and iconpack. hope my point of view helps .... Oh Merry Christmas to all and a very groggy new year!

In my opinion, the 200+ package wouldn't be a bad deal as long as it wasn't really high. Plus it would only be the best of the best and probably be open to those that are in best quality. It would bring some extra profit back to the company from all this bull crap that is going on and it would give back to the community.

Although if stardock releases 200+ individual pieces I wonder how that would effect the "for free" skinners? Would more of them turn to for profit and contract with stardock?

The fact about this is, the people that I know that would make on the list for the "package" would still make skins and stuff for free. The reason being is, they love doing this. If they go to full profit then they were only out for money in the long run. I seriously don't see the problem getting paid a little for the hard work they put into the skins.

This would also could be a incentive for those that would like to get in the package to try harder to get better. It's like the wallpaper section (ok, used to be the wallpaper section), for many if it didn't get accepted then you tried harder and longer to come up with a much better wallpaper. After a while of getting rejected, you got accepted and then you feel better because you created something really amazing compared to your first entry.

Weaksid thinks this is enough for now.

I'm all for it. I chose $49.95 I'll pay that. For the time and effort these skinners put into their work it's well worth it.

Hum, interesting.

WOM is wondering out load.

If there are 100-200 skins and there are 10,000+ subscribers and they download all the skins, what are the skin authors going to get, a penny per download?

If its anything more than that, it would be hard for the site to pay for its self.

But

WOM is on the outside looking in.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

The main limitation would be that the # of skin authors would be limited (i.e. not just any skin author could do this, they would have to become master access or higher first).

Secondly, there would be a limit on the # of premium skins per month. It would be a fairly high limit but enough of one so that people wouldn't just download every skin out there. We want some way so taht the user is choosing particular skins.

The payments to skin authors would be based on a ratio of downloads X a "complexity" rating we would assign (i.e. so we could allow somethign relatively simple but not have it count as much as say a full blown suite or something).

Elvee: What we would do is start promoting more people to be Master.

I.e. there would be a reason to promote people to Master (right onw it's just prestige).

hmmm...well based on the talent I see out there, looks like The Master group is going to get quite crowded

Hey IP! How ya doing?



[Message Edited]

Next year we'd like to see WinCustomize become it's own independent company from Stardock. But for that to happen, it needs to be able to pay for itself.

Time to comment

What Frogboy has said after I made my first post is awesome. I seriously think that the more serious skinners would try harder to get that rank if they aren't already. Since it's for the one's that are good at what they do because of time, skill, and dedication.

At this moment I would need to do alot to try to get up to that level and I'm fine with that. I really think it would push me to try to do better and make whatever I create more professional. It seems like I see alot of stuff that was just thrown together on the fly then posted. I believe the main people that will get in on this are ones that try to make each thing better then the previous project they have done. At least this is one trait of a very successful person. Plus they don't give up. I'm just lacking motivation and dang those games distracting me.

Weaksid 's ramble is done.

I voted for the $49.95. I would even work to become the level of master. But first I would have to even create one skin lol. I started paying for the Object Desktop a few years back and like wom the Logon Studio doesn’t work on my computer. I’m wondering if that is the same problem I am having with Skin Studio or if I just don’t get it. I can skin my own .exe that I create so I know I get how the boarders work. I just wish I could find one of you skin masters that would create one with me.

Its all about the girls man!