Important Changes to Royalties and Payouts

"We know changes to earnings can have a real impact". You got that right.

I have been creating for about 15 years now. I am fairly confident i do decent work. My personal sales over the years confirm this. Within the last year alone you put us behind a pay wall just to withdraw our own funds. Now you want to lessen what we make on yet another front. IMVU has gone down hill in every aspect in the last few years. From the time we log into IMVU our mail is CONSTANTLY BOMBARDED with some add trying to get us to buy credits. Believe it or not we ALL know how the game works and are going to buy credits regardless of the CONSTANT spam mail.( It is annoying!)  Also as a creator i hate receiving free items from IMVU. I have to go in and hide them constantly as well seeing as how we can not delete them. CREATORS MADE AND SUSTAIN IMVU. Always have. After 15 years i quit creating months ago after your great idea of making us pay to collect our own money. Forcing us to have VIP just to create and have our shops seen. This month for the first time i decided to stop paying for VIP. Our sales have dropped dramatically over the last few years from the changes you make. If you want to thrive, leave us alone. Go back to the basics of what IMVU Classic was. To me it all started going down hill about the time Imvu studio was trying to be forced on us. Maybe you will ignore us. You don't have to listen to us. But we don't have to create here either. It is a two way street. With all the older established creators leaving. And now new creators having to pay just to try and start a shop. Especially untrained or educated creators. I doubt you will have as many new creators coming in as you have older ones leaving. To be honest i am not sure i will go back to creating at this point. We are tired of it.

im awaiting verification still for the earn moeny program , how long does the process take and whats the criterias now for the earn money program in simple terms!

Are you guys having money issues? i don't see the reason for such drastic change. I totally do not agree whit this changes.

A better proposal needs to be presented. If you having profit issues or you really trying to fix any issues related to high markups, better to make a different approach, limit the price of a derivation based of a percentage of the original derivation, that way you fix markups whiteout capping anything. Even if you take the freedom for the person that derives to put his price, at least they can talk whit the original mesher that can upload a higher price that way custom works are saved.
IMVU, nowadays whit the future of computing and ai domination soon, you are doing everything wrong, you should be focusing on improving your platform for the future, improve the coding add custom body's custom skeletons, ai integrated, so many cool ideias you could be achieving at this point instead of touching what still makes IMVU work, which is the dev community.
Even phones can run videogames now, whit 2k and 4k textures, you are becoming old and outdated, the creativity freedom that you should implement you have done no such thing.
More future proof ideias, instead of grabbing a quick buck, otherwise the golden goose will run our of eggs.

@Goldilocks I agree but all im saying is a permanent ban feels harsh why not start with a suspension because i dont care how well you know them a video explains it better of what to look out for as well as a button to say hey this fails because it contains like say a Disney cartoon or this is likely a ZCD would also lesson those type of things they want to address with a cap

@ToriLane93 Regarding your suggestions for peer review:

If a person is unfamiliar with the creator agreement that was signed, the TOS and MCG, and are half asleep while doing peer review, that person probably shouldn't be doing peer review in the first place. There are stiff penalties for a reason.

We should not vote in peer review whether we believe a product is in violation of copyright. That is part of the DMCA process, which is a legal process, and only the original creator can control that. IMVU did give us tools to check for possible copyright infringement, however, if you believe your own work was infringed upon.

We should not be able to vote in peer review, whether or not a product is ZCD. It is allowed. When a mesher creates a product for their shop and receive derivations, that only expands their shop and customer base, resulting in more sales for the original mesher. If a creator overprices their derivation, they probably won't sell a lot, anyway. 

Finally, we should not be able to rate a product's price. My opinion is that nobody, including IMVU, should be able to control the prices in a creator's shop. IMVU reset our shop prices many years ago and there was a big uprising from the creator community, and rightly so, so I know I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

My other issue is that it shouldn't matter if you pay for VIP or not to get help for a creating issue including long peer review times. You should serve ALL users. The fact that there are employees straight out telling people on chat that unless you are Emerald VIP they won't help you is horrendous. But ya'll think the pay thing is broken and keep messing with it. Oh... and if I'm fixing an icon or adding a prod pic, then the item shouldn't have to go through peer review again unless I click that little link that says "edit product or edit settings". If I click "add html", then don't put the crap through peer again. That slows down the peer system for crap that doesn't need to go through.

There are details that still need to be improved, and if there was the possibility of mobile App customers also reviewing the items? (available only to users with a certain degree of experience with the App and IMVU) Making clear the rules to be followed at the time of the review, today there are thousands of people who have discovered the App and only use it, they have never logged into IMVU via computer, these numbers are missing to speed up the reviews more, Everything is possible, but it has to be done in a way that benefits both parties, not just giving a generalized punishment, send us feedback to express our ideas, help, interests, we just want our opinion to continue to be heard, and respected, we create because we love, because those who create only for financial interest, do not stay for so long, So value the creators who are faithful to this work, and ever making IMVU the largest virtual catalog IN THE WORLD! Without creators this title would never exist,

By capping royalties regardless of effort, IMVU is sending a message that all derivations are equal. They’re not. A creator who spends hours sculpting, texturing, and branding a set should not be limited with payout. This undermines the value of originality and discourages the kind of high-quality content that keeps the catalog vibrant, and the community engaged. We, the creators, are the backbone of IMVU’s economy. We drive innovation, seasonal trends, and immersive experiences. As another user rightly said: we are the ones keeping the communities alive. We should be trusted to evaluate what our work is worth. Let us price our effort fairly. Let us be rewarded for the value we bring. IMVU, please listen. Support the creators who build your world—not just the ones who skim its surface. Please do not just put this announcement on hold, please disregard it all together. Let's keep IMVU alive!

First I want to say, I greatly disagree with the policy and I do not appreciate how it was made to look as merely a suggestion and to make things better for us. This would only fill your pockets and cut ours.

What if you locked the derivation chain after the first texturer derived? So the chain would be: 

• IMVU base
• - Mesh
• -- Derivation
• --- Locked

That would stop people from doing ZCD endlessly off the fully textured derivation. 

Overpriced items will not sell so that should not be your concern. If creators manage to sell their product when it's expensive compared to the rest of the catalog, there must be a reason for it. Everyone in the chain still gets their fair cut, a cut they decided on. If the last person in the chain chooses to take a cut of 2k, I don't see how that harms anyone. 

Looking at the changes you were going to make, the goal had to be to take away cashflow going to the creators. The creators that ARE your catalog. There are competing platforms that will welcome these creators, our friends at SL are begging us to open our shop there. If you don't start showing some respect and appreciation to your creators, this place will bleed out. The successful creators can be successful elsewhere too, the creators that are still growing will not be able to fund being a creator anymore with even less income. Your reputation is greatly declining as well because of the backlash this caused, I suggest you start making IMVU a place where people actually want to invest their talents and time again.

Your heart is the right place! However, its the wrong action, I think I have a better idea. The peer review set up needs a new update. We, need to be able to see the dev chain in review, rate on weather or not it is a zero change dev, believed to  contain copy righted content, and last but not least rate its price, maybe even a note on the reason for failing the product. 

You could do so much more with a peer review update. I would love to see a huge overhaul on review ,as someone who creates daily and was removed from doing peer review due to 1 night of  voting half asleep. You could add a an option to change your vote for if it your vote was proven wrong. Maybe even  review tutorials that explain the policies. videos are usually better digested. the videos could also serve as a refresher course for those who do get removed from review to have privilege of reviewing restored should they spend x amount of hours watching the education videos. the options are endless.

I love what your trying do but this isn't the way! I hate seeing anyone charging anything over 5k credits when all they was change 1 texture.  On the other hand, Creators spend money at every angle of the chain. VIP, IMVU's retail markup changes the higher profit is set, photo shop, maya and most higher end software that are used to create cost on a monthly bases.  I am usually higher on the food chain so to speak mostly dev from the First mesher under IMVU but I am concerned about how rooms will be set so low that we will be unable to justify creating them on a whim meaning less rooms on vu as a whole because those take me hours sometimes days to change fully I wont create them if i cant price high enough to earn my cost back. when reading this my mind jumps to years ago when I simply created outfit bundles and the cap of 100 per sales was introduced I gave that up because I saw the profit cap to spite the dev cost still being 500 to simply sale the outfit if we are all charged the same fee to dev a lot will simply quit. 

When looking at this issue you must consider everything in real  is high as well now days, one should expect to see that cross over into IMVU. that being said creators don't panic too much I can say most of my lower set prices sale better one has made over $100s and that's one product set at 100 credits per sale so if you are a creator who does this as your full time job. YOU SHOULD BE FINE  you have a larger shop.

I’ve been on IMVU for 17 years, and at this point I need to speak plainly. The issues affecting creators are piling up and nothing meaningful is being done.

• Pricing & Credit Policies:
  IMVU says creators are free to set prices but then selectively enforces limits. I personally know of a situation where someone accidentally listed a room at 1 million credits and IMVU kept the credits rather than reimburse. Meanwhile, official IMVU “build kits” and creator bundles can still be listed at extremely high prices. This double standard needs to end.

• Endless Loops of Tickets & Copy‑Paste Replies:
  When we try to resolve problems, we’re sent to moderators who give us links to submit tickets, and tickets send us back to the forum. It’s a vicious circle. Months go by without a real answer. It’s not respectful of creators’ time or livelihood.

• Peer Review & Delays:
  I recently decorated a room and couldn’t even take a picture of it because it hadn’t passed peer review. Some items now sit for a month waiting to clear. That means wasted time and lost income.

• Constant Rule Changes Without Transparency:
  Every other day there’s a new rule. Mods say “read the TOS” but IMVU keeps adding to it. Accounts are closed “just because” — sometimes for meshes or items that were purchased from top developers on IMVU itself. This is inconsistent and unfair.

• Monitoring & Privacy:
  When IMVU still had phone support, staff could tell me exactly what room I was in, who was there, and what client I was using. If you’re already monitoring all this, you can also see which users are minors in AP rooms. Yet minors continue to enter AP rooms and cuss, while veteran creators get punished over technicalities.

• Lack of Real Support & Transparency:
  IMVU has shifted to phones for buyers but removed phone support for creators. Mods copy and paste links, tickets get closed, and nothing gets fixed. Sales happen, but the cut comes from our earnings first. We wait weeks for payout while IMVU gets paid immediately.

I’m asking IMVU to:

1. Stop punishing creators for mistakes while allowing minors into AP rooms.

2. Give creators clear, consistent rules — not vague TOS changes.

3. Fix peer review delays so we can take pictures and sell our products.

4. Restore meaningful, direct support instead of endless links.

5. Respect the creators who have built this platform and pay taxes on their income.

I’m tired of copy‑paste answers. I’ve invested years, thousands of dollars, and over 60,000 items across my catalogs. I’m not asking for special treatment — I’m asking for fairness and real communication.

I have been a creator for 15 years. Ya'll keep messing with the pay system and it just makes it worse every time it gets messed with. Instead... why not fix the peer review system since most of us, especially the ones that don't pay for VIP (grandfathered accounts), are getting shafted with the extremely awful wait times of our stuff passing peer review. How about offering a creator VIP package that would be more help to the creators than the standard VIP packages. I'm pretty sure that most of us can say we don't really need a gazillion rooms open but there are other things that could help us out. Example... instead of the cost of deriving being lowered based on tier level, it could be based off of VIP level. There are some creators that struggle to make decent sales that haven't even cleared over maybe a tier 3. But their stuff is just as epic as those that do have tier 10. They just don't always interact with photos and such because they're busy trying to push out products to make some money. Instead of always picking a tier 10 creator to showcase.... choose one of the ones that is not. Heck some of these new creators aren't even doing the work themselves. They're just resubmitting the derivables that someone else did and earning money from it. What happened to the rule that we MUST change something on the product or it could be considered theft? As for the stickers... I have support stickers. I usually use them the same way that other creators, including Gaf, does. Time went into those as well. Honestly, I'd rather someone purchase a sticker for a custom, etc than send me the credits. Keeps it honest and able to check for fraudulent credits. That is why we wait for two weeks to get our earnings, right? Why keep messing with things that aren't broken and go after the crap that has been broken that ya'll like to ignore?

A solution would be simple, the more creators derive from the same products the more royalty cap they get.

A hard cap on royalties will result in creators not being paid appropriately for custom/exclusive products. Creators price products according to the exclusivity/custom work given to a product. Those products that are overpriced and not exclusive/custom products are generally bypassed by customers, anyway. It seems to me that IMVU wants to turn the shop into bargain basement shopping only, without giving customers the chance to purchase unique products, albeit at a higher cost. This should be the customer's choice.

Also, I'd like to address sticker royalties being discontinued. Many creators use stickers to get paid in advance for custom work. All too often, a customer will request a product be made at the expense of the creator, and then not purchase it. Prepaid sticker purchases prevent this problem for creators. This means that creators will only be able to be paid in advance with credits for custom work, no longer having the ability to cash out with the purchase of a sticker. In addition, as stated earlier, creators will also not be paid appropriately for their custom work. This will also end the sale of stickers to purchase badges.

I am hoping that a dramatic decrease in income for texture creators, due to the 50:50 Credits/Predits split will not happen, but I'll have to take a wait-and-see stance on how this works.

My overall concern about these changes is that these changes will result in less cash earning ability for creators. Perhaps that is the intended purpose of these changes?