TurboSquid just blocked my account so now I'm a CGT exlusive seller :D

3 month ago my ts account blocked without an explanation , i know that feel

welcome

Sorry to hear that IndieArt - you're definitely welcome here. Have you tried selling on a personal website? Though I'm not sure if you have more 3D models in your portfolio for that. :)

Designers with strong opinions - good or bad - are always appreciated here. It helps us improve as a community. Feel free to contact me directly or write another forum topic if you have any questions or suggestions!

Cheers,
Eddie, CGTrader

I followed that discussion and i'm really shocked that you get ban for esentially nothing, just for expressing your opinion. Even in most severely moderated community you can expect ban from forum for a week at most, but to remove entire account and even forbid to sell models? That's ludicrous. I spent my childhood and good part of teenage years living in Soviet republic under strong censorship and propaganda and i can tell you that whole atmosphere in TS forums feels very reminiscent, almost nostalgic to me :]

I'm so glad that CGT takes completely different approach. You can crticize them as much as you want without risking to loose your account, as long as you do it in polite and cilvilized manner ;]

CGT is definitely another thing, it feels free and friendly, you can talk to the crew with confidence and you have always an answer, I can´t understand why someone would accept less.

Imagine that you are working in a restaurant. And then one day, you climb on a table at the middle of the dining room and you scream at all the customers:
"Hey guys, the restaurant just across the street is much better than this one, you should go there"
I bet the chief of the restuarant would kick your ass .. and it seems normal to me.

It's a dangerous game, because by spitting into all plates, you end up nibbling crumbs on the sidewalk

Welcome!
I also completely left the TS and do not regret it.
The SG team is more loyal and I hope it will always be like that.

@Supercigale

The thing is, they are not our employers, it's a partnership. We share a part of our revenues in exchange of exposure etc. It should be a win win situation.
Artist should be able to express concern or criticize, without risking a ban.

@hend-z

There is a different way of criticizing. But intervening in the TS forum and encouraging exclusive members to move away from the competition is purely suicidal (and completely stupid)
We are may be partner and not employers, but we do not bite the hand that feeds

I always reacted on all forums when CGT was attacked by members of the SG, but this time I understand the reaction of TS

@Supercigale

I get what you're saying, but to be fair, they often criticize CGT in TS forum and since many artists sell on both websites, we'll always have that bickering between pro CGT and pro TS.
It's a forum, people are allowed to express their opinion. Or simply ban discussions around rival websites.
Allowing criticism only is just wrong.

@Hend-z

It is quite healthy and normal to criticize, forums are done for this, but you have to know to set the cursor, and always keep in mind that if you are banned from TS or CGT, it will never be TS or CGT Loser it's just a pragmatic thought.

Making advertising by exposing a Dashboard of sale on a TS forum Has provoked a defense reaction of TS staff . But obviously, IndieArt had anticipated this reaction, that is what he wanted and his efforts paid because he was banned. So where is the problem?

Welcome to the club "banned on the TS"
Already half a year as I do not trade on the TS and absolutely do not regret it ....
over the past couple of years it has strongly rolled down

I don't know if I'm relating to the same campaign, your comments indeed seem lost, but yeah Ts recently is trying out ways of getting CGt look bad, bottom line still remains though, Ts is a very expensive service while CGt now delivers a great service for the fraction of the cost, that is the real problem for Ts.

Meany exclusives probably start concluding themselves now that exclusivity is indeed not the best option if you see how everything has changed over the years (meany new interesting ways to market your work now).

Some of them (probably even more that don't speak out jet?) are openly venting frustrations here in the forum, seeking to come here but fear it could have legal consequences for them, you can almost feel them lingering to just ignore it anyways.

Maybe this helps, CGtrader delivers a great digital transaction platform for the artists (great value for the buck), it just cost a fraction to upload, store and sell models here and it is widely popular now, because of that artists can deliver models at a more affordable price, keep a fair part and sell more with the advanced tools for presentation, communication and marketing.

The relations here with artists and CGt staff are healthy, its like working on common goals and values, they know that the artists deliver the goods and they the platform to sell them on and that we need each other to make it work. You can speak out freely here and they always react in diplomatic fashion, even if people get upset for rwong reasons and talk complete nonsense.

On Ts side the relation is different, its more like a sort of factory mentality and the main tone is basically devote yourself completely and shut up and let them do business with your stuff, besides that you basically do not matter that mush to them and certainly not if you have negative comments.

Ts recently started a campaign against CGt, telling things about pirated models, (probably hoping that would spread fear for CGt or something?) and also using that opportunity to move forward on pushing own policies against piracy and promising to deliver better on that part.

All good and well, but is that why we need to pay 60% cut, so that there would be less pirates or something?

Also, hoe believes there are no Ts models leaking out to pirate websites?
Promising to push out bad actors maybe is fine but would it make Ts better at its core?
Is the service going to get less expensive as is now?

Something ells, I was victim to creditcard fraud on Ts few occasions and they had absolutely no problem shedding off all responsibility for it (they simply deduced the money from other models I had sold there), after informing about what was going on I was shocked to hear that the 60% cut and the nice share they had gained so far not earned me even a bit of insurance against their own failing to be secure.

They just used the occasion to try lure me in for the exclusivity trap, promising insurance if I sell out (get in squidguild and that problem would be salved, that's what they said), I was basically frustrated at that point and felt powerless and now I would need to totally devote to them?
It shows that they really do not care what people feel or think, they just want the stuff and get you selling out to them.

I’m glad I never did and never will.

Anyways, CGt is gaining ever greater popularity very fast and the Ts wall is cracking, meany more artists and clients will eventually end up here.

Bottom line, your not missing out that much if they kick you out after speaking freely, so don't be afraid anymore, if you have something to say then just say it.

Hehe that factory comparison is pretty accurate. Factory with more work and lower wages every month :).

Also one of most ugly things for me was that they are hiding special SG terms not in "terms and conditions" but in something what they call "policies". Every time you Checkmate your model it must stay exclusive on TS for another 12 months. Almost no one known that until I started spreading it on TS forum because who is really reading something called "policy" accessible by only one small link. And there wasn't any public terms or policies for StemCell yet when I left but I'm sure they will be even worse.

It speaks a lot about your company when you need to hide things like this.

@HQModel

StemCell is overhyped automatized exporter fo SG members. There are pros and cons.

You create your model in 3DS Max and they export it to Maya and vice versa + they plan more softwares in future.

- it saves some time for customers but it is definetly not a breakthru mumbo jumbo.
- that is great for sellers who does not own software licences because they would not need to buy them anymore.
- that is horrible for people who already bought software licences and invested time into proper exporting into another softwares because now they will have much more unfair competition
- Here is the catch and it is just my speculation since StemCell terms are not publicly available. You can't legally sell Maya models if you don't have Maya licence. So I expect TurboSquid to be "owner" of your StemCell exported models. People should be really carefull and read StemCell publisher Terms and especially all hidden "policies". I would feel ok sharing ownership of my models with company like CGT but definetly not with company like Turbosquid.
- I expect that StemCell models would need to stay exclusive on TS for at least 12 months as Checkmate models but I think it is possible it will be even more since TS is TS.

There is a second part os StemCell and that is the game engine exporter. TurboSquid killed selling of game-ready models few years ago and focused on hipoly models. Lots of sellers including me complained but they were ignored by TS because TS was clueless about that part of 3D industry.

Then they recently made a customer survey and realised that mayority of they customers are game developers. WHAT A SURPRISE! They didn't have to make a survey, they should just read the CGT infographics.

So they thought "hmm, we killed game ready models, so lets implement game engine exporter into StemCell and sell hipoly models as game ready models, because game devs are idiots anyway".

StemCell:
- Will be offering non game ready models as game ready. Thats is very sad for real game ready model makers, it is like punch in their face from TS.
- saves from 1 to 5 minutes of customer time but in most cases will force him to spent much more time on clean up of StemCell models.
- saves about 5 to 10 minutes of seller time in exchange of losing control about what are you selling to your customers.
- can be used only for basic objects with basic materials.

If I will have time in winter I will do few thigns to help CGT beginner game ready modelers with better and nicer publishing/presentation of their models which I think will be much more sensible than StemCell.

I have one funny point about TS security. On Sunday I accidentally noticed that I'm still logged in in TS forums :). My forum posts were reason for my ban so it surprised me a bit.
Anyway here's the thing - when you log out from your TS account you are still logged in TS forums. You can access forum and do everything without being logged in to your TS account. Even TS staff doesn't known about it obviously. They probably do now, because I wrote few posts before they logged me out yesterday :).
So, if you logged in to your TS account from any public computer and then logged out, your forum account is still accessible from that computer.

On your place, I would calm down and start working on CGTrader.
Believe me - I went this way. Long correspondence with the TS will not give a positive solution.
According to my observations, you downloaded 12 models.
What have you been trading all these years? Do you no longer have models?

@dust I wasn't talking with TS but with same guy who sell also here because it was boring Sunday afternoon.
I like my "portofilo" clean so I'm removing old models.
I do 3D for online selling as a hobby in my free time because it is not profitable if you don't live in a very cheap country.
In my "main" job I get about 10x more money for the same time invested so I don't have much motivation to do more.

Ok. understand

I often criticized TS on their forum for their low royalty rates. Never received ban. Community there was always friendly to me. But i understand it can be frustrating when you receive so little for your work with their royalty rates if you are non exclusive. Still, i think it is good idea to be friendly with everyone.
Anyway, welcome here IndieArt. And happy selling. CG Trader have grown a lot since i joined here almost 2 years ago... There is one thing i don't like here. I don't like to often discounts they have. It is "spoiling" buyers who are now getting use to even lower prices, driving the industry down. But there is option to turn that off at any time for your models. This is what i do most of the time. Except now, my models are on discount, but wont be for long. :)

TS also switched to discounts :-)
You can disable discounts

For the "we do not bite the hand that feeds" people, ¿have you ever thought that in fact is just the opposite? ¿who is feeding who?

Lasseter tells it much better :)
A Bug's Life - ''Then they ALL might stand up to us''
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLbWnJGlyMU

The funny part is that most people voluntarily provide there energy and make such systems big and then find it normal as most do the same thing.

In short, what most people do is considered normal.