Is skinning a community or a market?
Frogblog: February 2008
https://forums.wincustomize.com/?forumid=19&aid=176998
WinCustomize Forums
When skinning first got started, there was a kind of unspoken understanding between the people who made software and the people who used the software. There would be a symbiotic relationship between 3 groups. The first group, the developers, would create software to customize the look and feel of your applications and desktop. The second group, the skinners, would create the content for these programs. And the third group, the users, would work with the first two groups to help test and ensure the software worked fine by giving detailed reports on betas and even releases to help perfect the program in general. In return, the software was far far cheaper than software in other markets. Thus was borne the "skinning community".
Even into 2008, where a typical new game is $50 to $70 and the typical utility software is $50 to $70, the most popular desktop enhancement software programs remain $20 or less. In fact, Object Desktop, an entire collection of desktop enhancements, is only $50. To put it in collection, WinRar, which is most commonly (let's be honest here) used to compress pirated software, is about $40 all by itself.
As skinning has become more mainstream, the relationship between the three parties has evolved. Increasingly, the content creation is shouldered by fewer and fewer people. We created the Master Skinning program as an effort (a successful one) to encourage skinners with high degrees of talent to continue sharing their creations. The net result is that content is starting to cost money because so few new users are creating it (even for relatively simple things). Similarly, users are much less inclined to participate in open beta programs. Look at the CursorFX release. There's multiple posts complaining in the vaguest terms that it doesn't work on their systems. It works here just fine. Nearly everyone here is running CursorFX on XP or Vista without incident. We had an open beta but we received very few reports on it.
The reality is, while the skinning "community" still exists, it is now a small sub-section of the "skinning market" which is made up of traditional consumers who simply expect (with good reason) to pay money in exchange for a program and content that just works. There's nothing wrong with that. That's how every other market works. But those markets don't support products that are $10 to $20. Those products are $50 to $70. The only reason WindowBlinds isn't already a $40 program is because of the skinners and that it still gets significant help from the community in testing new beta versions (though drastically less than in the old days when, ironically, it had far fewer users).
Skinning is continuing to evolve. It's evolving increasingly into a more traditional consumer-oriented market. Stardock, I suspect, will have to adapt with some system that allows users who are contributing time and effort to the community to get credits which lets them buy the software at a less expensive price while traditional consumers pay the un-subsidized rate for the products.
I've written an article that goes into more detail. Click the link below to check it out.
I think it's having to transition from the "shareware' attitude of the early 90s into a "real" business. I think the success (and more standard model) of the games side of the company has helped illustrate what other options are available.