If you are unaware, Smith Micro instigated 60 day "call in" verification for the continued operation of Poser Pro Game Dev 2014 some years back. This required the program to be connected to the internet so the program could validate it's license every 60 days. Otherwise it would stop working. This was an attempt by Smith Micro to prevent piracy of its software.

In September when Bondware bought Poser from Smith, the decision was made (no one really takes credit - each blaming the other - and I have emails to prove that) to simply discontinue renewing licenses for Smith's Poser 11.1 and Game Dev 2014. Now like many of you I didn't like and still don't like Poser 11. I was a member of the old Smith Beta team. The changes were good ideas but they were implemented in a horrible fashion leaving the new version operating with many new flaws and bugs. I remained (as many of you have) with prior versions. I continued to cling to my Game Dev until it finally ran out the last 60 day renewal in the first week of November. Like many of you I have upgraded to Poser Pro 11.2 hoping against all odds that the software was somewhat better than Smith's. I'll admit I like some of the changes. I am also having serious bugs with it that is interrupting my work flow and pipeline making me miss my Game Dev more and more.

There have been some back-and-forth over how to get PP2014 (a downgrade from Game Dev). I can tell you that it is possible and with much ease._ If you still have Game Dev installed on your computer, click the icon for it and you'll be presented with the registration popup. Simply enter your old PP2014 serial number (NOT Game Dev----GD is dead---go ahead and bury it apparently). Once you enter your name and original PP2014 serial, it will reactivate and begin to work. You'll of course lose your FBX features and other Game Dev enhancements but the program will revert back to functioning without any issues. I didn't even have to log onto the internet to reactivate it_. No call-in at all. The serial activates it alone.

So if you're like me and desperately need FBX features - use PP11 for it, export the items back out as object files or in some cases, saving the FBX as a PP2 in Poser11 can be read and opened in previous versions. I prefer straight out Object export myself. I have however successfully opened Pz3 and runtime files created or modified in PP11 in PP2014. You will receive the "newer version will attempt to open it" but it will generally work. You'll of course note that some items will hang up so it's not 100%. Figures, if using the higher subdivision levels in PP11 will not carry over that HD data to PP2014, but the basic shape will come through. My biggest issue was with the subdivision mess in PP11 anyway.

As long as you haven't moved anything around in your Runtimes, and still have the Game Dev installed as it was, you should be able to reactivate it permanently with the serial number for PP2014. Again though, the Game Dev serial does nothing anymore and never will again. Game Dev = RIP.

Hope this helps some of you out. I still miss my Game Dev features but using PP11 I can work-around that and still use the version I love.

BONDWARE ADDENDUM: Please fix the subdivision/GOZ issues so we can actually use PP11's incredible HD capabilities. Don't be like DAZ and restrict it to vendors only. Why give it if we can't use it fully?