Invision Community Marketplace Closure

[skyline]

We would like to take this opportunity to inform you of an important decision we've made with regard to the Invision Community Marketplace. After careful evaluation and consideration, we have decided to discontinue the Invision Community Marketplace, effective October 30, 2023.

Over the past several years, we have noticed a decrease in usage of the Marketplace, with a staggering 75% decline in sales. In addition, we have observed a growing trend away from off the shelf customizations towards bespoke tailoring of a community by working more closely with developers. While it has been a platform for many dedicated and talented contributors to share their work, we believe it is time to re-focus our efforts and resources to better serve your present and future needs.

We understand that change can be unsettling, but we are excited to share with you our new direction. We are putting our efforts into enhancing the newly introduced Providers Directory, a platform that will enable you to connect with third-party providers for a wide range of services, including custom development, community management/support, conversion services, and other valuable resources. Additionally, many providers will have independent websites you will be able to visit to explore and obtain existing and new premade resources.

More details are to follow soon, but we would like to highlight a few key points:
• Marketplace renewals will cease effective immediately
• New purchases will end September 15, 2023
• The Marketplace will be removed in the October release and disabled on October 30, 2023
• You will continue to be able to install and manage existing and new resources via the methods provided by their respective authors
• You will be able to obtain a key for each of your current Marketplace purchases and provide that key to authors to transfer your purchases directly to the author
We invite you to visit the Providers Directory and start exploring the opportunities it offers. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the database and the resources it will provide in greater depth. Many of the current Marketplace contributors have already created their profiles – please check them out!
Of course, this does not mean the end of aftermarket development with Invision Community. We are currently building new development tools for Invision Community 5 which have easier ways to add new functionality.

We want to express our sincere gratitude for your ongoing support and trust in Invision Community. We believe these changes will enable us to better position ourselves to continue moving forward in meeting the present and future needs of our customer base.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Thank you for being a part of the Invision Community family.
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[Cedric]

I think the Providers Directory is a great way for developers to be recognized. It allows them to fully develop their own company without the interference of Invision Community. It seems not every Dev is on the same page, but this change is for the better. Must admit when I first read about the removal it kinda surprised me even though it's been obvious the Marketplace has been declining for years now. So, hopefully they'll experience an easy transition to the new system.

 

[kensonplays]

This gives me less incentive and less reason to even consider IPS now. If I could even afford the insane license pricing, I would not be able to also get custom coding done since that'd likely be another couple hundred for each one.

 

[Cedric]

This gives me less incentive and less reason to even consider IPS now. If I could even afford the insane license pricing, I would not be able to also get custom coding done since that'd likely be another couple hundred for each one.

Several developers have their own website selling their applications, and those who do not, will most likely do so in the near future. Don't know if the pricing will change when they offer it on their own website, but most applications will be converted to v5.

 

[Tracy]

everal developers have their own website selling their applications, and those who do not, will most likely do so in the near future. Don't know if the pricing will change when they offer it on their own website, but most applications will be converted to v5.

Is their "providers directory" or whatever they are calling it going to be similar to XF's resource manager, or is it simply going to be a link directory similar to what Bob's add-on does?

 

[Cedric]

Is their "providers directory" or whatever they are calling it going to be similar to XF's resource manager, or is it simply going to be a link directory similar to what Bob's add-on does?

It's basically a profile directory that shows active developers and their abilities, available for hire or not. You get accepted in that directory after some online courses but nothing too difficult.

 

[kensonplays]

Several developers have their own website selling their applications, and those who do not, will most likely do so in the near future. Don't know if the pricing will change when they offer it on their own website, but most applications will be converted to v5.

As long as they don't start doubling the prices of their already created addons haha.

 

[CharlesW]

As long as they don't start doubling the prices of their already created addons haha.

I would hope they do increase their prices actually. You have to pay a good price for good work and to ensure you have good developers.

 

[Cedric]

As long as they don't start doubling the prices of their already created addons haha.

That's up to the developers, really. But yeah, I suspect such action would end up losing sales instead at first instance, but in the end it would be more profitable. Can't really blame Invision Community though as they have been losing more money with offering a marketplace rather than earning despite their 10% commission.

 

[Joeychgo]

Just my 2 cents...

Being someone who owns a number of forums, and big boards at that, the prospect of changing software is one I take very seriously. A number of years ago I had decided to move away from vBulletin for all my sites. I investigated both Xenforo and Invision. The primary factor in making my decision to move to XF was the differences in the addon community of each. I found Invision's addon community lacking severely by comparison.

 

[Tracy]

It's basically a profile directory that shows active developers and their abilities, available for hire or not. You get accepted in that directory after some online courses but nothing too difficult.

I really don't see that working out well in the long run for folks looking for specific types of add-ons. How am I supposed to know (without filtering through every developer) what add-ons they may offer?
That's the reason I was wondering if it was going to be more like XFRM so that it is broken into categories instead of simply a "telephone book yellow pages".
With the power of Pages, they could probably do some relational linkages to show the developer profiles in various "add-on" categories instead of them being stuck in one place.

 

[CharlesW]

A member of our community is making a new service for this that sounds good: https://invisioncommunity.com/forum...place-closure/?do=findComment&comment=2950901

 

[kensonplays]

A member of our community is making a new service for this that sounds good: https://invisioncommunity.com/forum...place-closure/?do=findComment&comment=2950901

You shouldn't need to rely on third-parties to provide what you currently offer in-app. Some people are not super tech savvy, so the built-in marketplace is very nice. After how downhill things are going in the IPS front, a friend of mine was considering developing another addon for you, but after he saw this, he is like "nope, I won't be returning to IPS" just like me.

 

[CharlesW]

There's nothing downhill at IPS. We provide regular updates to our platform and constant communication. Our client base grows each day. We're doing better than ever

That is a shame about your friend. The majority of Marketplace developers are excited about the ability to directly-engage with users rather than having to go through restrictions of the Marketplace. Hopefully your friend will take a breath and see that this change creates new flexibility and options. By removing the restrictions of the Marketplace, authors can do more now than they could before.

Feel free to PM me if you have specific concerns.

 

[joelr]

You shouldn't need to rely on third-parties to provide what you currently offer in-app. Some people are not super tech savvy, so the built-in marketplace is very nice. After how downhill things are going in the IPS front, a friend of mine was considering developing another addon for you, but after he saw this, he is like "nope, I won't be returning to IPS" just like me.

There's been a lot of knee jerk reactions. The new MP parameters are literally going to be the same as Xenforo, where everyone is invited to develop and offer mods. It's literally easier to develop for IPS than in the past 5 years.

I do agree that the drip of news can seem bad. Typical devs 😆. They want to close loose ends on v4 before they start posting the news on v5.

 

[CharlesW]

This is the last big change before we start talking about v5 goodness

 

[Clarice]

It was not a very good experience in the end. The reason why is I had no money to buy one of the dark premium skins and they were the ones that looked the best. I can do the light-colored ones myself but not the dark ones.

 

[Tracy]

There's been a lot of knee jerk reactions. The new MP parameters are literally going to be the same as Xenforo, where everyone is invited to develop and offer mods. It's literally easier to develop for IPS than in the past 5 years.

Yeah... I really personally have no issue with them doing away with the MarketPlace (as it pertains to their site).
That's why I was wondering how the proposed layout was going to be. Unless it is well thought out, with data points on the developer profiles of what type of add-ons/work they do (or have done) then it's not much more than a fancy version of the Yellow Pages. Hopefully it will allow users to leave reviews on those developer profiles.

But as with XF and their resources... you run into an issue that at least with the MarketPlace you didn't have... there was some base code quality checking. With XF, until somebody complains about an add-on not meeting the minimum coding standards that are required to be listed there people can be subject to that poor code.
There is a very prolific current XF developer that got hit with that in the past... and had to go in and clean up their code.

 

[Tyrsson]

As long as they don't start doubling the prices of their already created addons haha.

Most people have no idea the amount of work that goes into creating just the average forum modification. Honestly, it's really not just forum mods, or cms mods. It's prevalent today in nearly all markets. Folks want you to literally work your ass off, provide top notch support, and literally they get pennies in return after you factor in the amount of time they have invested in all fronts.

 

[Tracy]

Folks want you to literally work your ass off, provide top notch support, and literally they get pennies in return after you factor in the amount of time they have invested in all fronts.

It's called "wanting something for nothing"... and it's nothing new. I'm approaching 60 years on this planet, and even 45 of those ago I realized that. Seller wants as much as they can get, purchaser wants to pay as little as possible.
If one request a bespoke add-on that will not be distributed elsewhere then one should expect to pay a decent developer an average of about $25-30 an hour (more if they are accomplished and have a track record of good work and fulfilling the requirements). Simple add-ons (which yes, you and I both know there are many of those that only take 30 minutes to spin out) shouldn't be costing $25+ unless they ARE bespoke with agreement that the developer cannot release it or any derivative works from it to the public. That's also why when you do custom work for someone, you need to be very clear in the contract what you provide, how long the support is for and any hourly charges for customizations requested out of the base add-on parameters.