chosenonestudios said: Im not ignoring TShirt see previous post ^^^^. You started the abusing by telling people you don't agree with to GTFO (albeit reworded)
That'll teach me for reading too quickly.
But I didn't say anything abusive or offensive. I said the truth. If you want to go, go. No one's asking you to stay here, or to leave. If you want to stay, please be a bit nicer.
POLYGAMe said: That'll teach me for reading too quickly.
But I didn't say anything abusive or offensive. I said the truth. If you want to go, go. No one's asking you to stay here, or to leave. If you want to stay, please be a bit nicer.
You did actually tell everyone who wasnt happy, and who were mentioning thinking of leaving, or looking at other tools to leave.... so you did stoke the fire just a teensy little bit
Chunkypixels said: You did actually tell everyone who wasnt happy, and who were mentioning thinking of leaving, or looking at other tools to leave.... so you did stoke the fire just a teensy little bit
That's what my shovel and coal are for :-D
EDIT: But I reiterate: If you want to leave, just do it. Or stick around and play nice. I think that's fair, don't you?
POLYGAMe said: That's what my shovel and coal are for :-D
EDIT: But I reiterate: If you want to leave, just do it. Or stick around and play nice. I think that's fair, don't you?
I think your spot on with the playing fair, and not going too far with the anger and abuse. Im not sure that telling people to go though is really being of any help.
People are upset, and confused. Theyre expressing how they feel. GameSalad will lose many current customers over this, thats inevitable now. But theres also a lot of people still with paid up accounts, who have games already in development, who will be sticking around to finish things off before they move on. Those are people that can still be retained as customers, under the right circumstances.
So telling everyone who is unhappy with things to go isnt really fair to the community, and isnt really in the best interest of GameSalad.
Chunkypixels said: I think your spot on with the playing fair, and not going too far with the anger and abuse. Im not sure that telling people to go though is really being of any help.
People are upset, and confused. Theyre expressing how they feel. GameSalad will lose many current customers over this, thats inevitable now. But theres also a lot of people still with paid up accounts, who have games already in development, who will be sticking around to finish things off before they move on. Those are people that can still be retained as customers, under the right circumstances.
So telling everyone who is unhappy with things to go isnt really fair to the community, and isnt really in the best interest of GameSalad.
And that's not what I said at all. They are more than welcome to stay, just play nice.
I fully understand why many people are pissed off about this. I do believe it's a step in the right direction for what GS wants to do (make game creation available to just about anyone) but at the same time it has obviously upset others.
As for my opinion of GameSalad Direct, I think it's great and I'll be using it... BUT... I do think that they should retain some sort of PRO service, for those of us who wish to continue publishing under their own names in the App Store. It wouldn't even need extra features, in fact I don't think it should have... just the ability to "indie" publish. Then we'd all be happy
We're hearing you. Please know that we are listening and that we're working very hard to try and address everyone's concerns. We'll have more soon. Thank you for your patience.
Yodapollo
"We'll have more soon"..... I think not. Given the track record of GS's communication.
Yodapollo said: Last week at GDC Online 2010, GameSalad announced a brand new publishing service for iOS games. We’re getting rid of annual fees and tiered memberships where some users get more functionality than others. With today’s announcement, GameSalad is now for everyone.
Introducing GameSalad Studio, which includes GameSalad Creator as well a redesigned GameSalad Viewer, and GameSalad Direct, the new publishing service. GameSalad Creator will remain entirely free to download, and now there’s no subscription or fees to pay unless creators choose to publish their games on iTunes. This new pricing structure lowers the barrier to entry even further for independent game developers, and also eliminates the need to have an Apple iPhone developer account. As part of this change to GameSalad Direct, there will no longer be Express or Pro accounts offered and everyone will get the full set of features that were previously available only to those with Pro-level memberships.
In 1982 Adobe freed desktop publishing from the age old print shops and ushered in the era of the graphic designer. We're doing the same for game designers. In 2009 we democratized game creation. In 2010, with the launch of GameSalad Direct, we're democratizing mobile game publishing.
We'll have a lot more details and news on the new GameSalad Studio in the days leading up to it's release. This is only the beginning.
Just a thought... nowhere here does it say anything about royalties... just that users will pay if they choose to publish... this COULD just mean a one off fee... would make more sense, methinks.
Sorry if this has already been pointed out... I wasn't going to go back over a million pages of posts and I only just noticed it. LOL.
The new model incorporating royalties was mentioned in press releases over on other sites.... mostly investment related sites from what i remember. There should be a couple of links in the earlier pages of the thread.
Then it was further strengthened by comments from Sous-chefs that had signed the NDA stuff.
tshirtbooth said: The Austin, Texas-based company says that no programming knowledge is necessary for people to use its tools and create their own apps that run on iOS, Apple’s operating system that runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The studio tool combines GameSalad Creator, GameSalad Viewer, and GameSalad Direct all in a single suite. Users pay no fees until they decide to publish their games. A small fee covers the cost of submission. Free games require no extra fee, while paid games require a revenue split.
Finally decided I would throw my two cents into the mix.
Theres no way we should have to pay a fee to submit an app and then also split the revenue, one or the other but not both. Heres how I would suggest they do it...
Option 1 - Game Salad Direct Cost: free Features: Access to everything Publisher: Gendai/Game Salad Notes: If you want to submit a free app then you must pay an upfront uploading cost of $xx. If you want to submit a paid app then Gs will pay the uploading fee but will take a %x revenue cut.
Option 2 - Game Salad Pro Cost: $xxx/m Features: Access to everything Publisher: User Notes: If a user wants to submit apps under there own name then they must pay a monthly fee as well as the $99/y apple developer fee. If they make the cost monthly instead of the original yearly fee Gendai will receive a more steady revenue. This will also make the cost more affordable for "everyone" and will encourage the people who don't want to pay the $2,000 for a year long commitment to something they're not sure they will stick with.
Would be interested on hearing what people think about this suggestion, thanks.
BackUpAndDown said: Finally decided I would throw my two cents into the mix.
Theres no way we should have to pay a fee to submit an app and then also split the revenue, one or the other but not both. Heres how I would suggest they do it...
Option 1 - Game Salad Direct Cost: free Features: Access to everything Publisher: Gendai/Game Salad Notes: If you want to submit a free app then you must pay an upfront uploading cost of $xx. If you want to submit a paid app then Gs will pay the uploading fee but will take a %x revenue cut.
Option 2 - Game Salad Pro Cost: $xxx/m Features: Access to everything Publisher: User Notes: If a user wants to submit apps under there own name then they must pay a monthly fee as well as the $99/y apple developer fee. If they make the cost monthly instead of the original yearly fee Gendai will receive a more steady revenue. This will also make the cost more affordable for "everyone" and will encourage the people who don't want to pay the $2,000 for a year long commitment to something they're not sure they will stick with.
Would be interested on hearing what people think about this suggestion, thanks.
Some good ideas. I think though if the 'pro' fee were monthly, people would develop one of more apps before signing up, pay for a month and submit their completed apps, then cancel and repeat.
Yeah, I like the idea but pro should still remain yearly in my opinion. I do think they should retain pro, though. I also think that they should just charge a fee per app submitted, not royalties. To be honest, royalties on 90 percent of GS stuff will be next to nothing anyway.
Thats true for many GS users, polygame, but there are still many of us that make our livings with GS games, I would imagine. Or maybe I'm the only one, lol. So if I'm making 5k a month then 40%, 20%, or even 10% would be a huge cut. I definitely would prefer the per app charge, regardless of how much it was, that is if switching over to GS as the developer didn't take 100% of my profits away to begin with, along with tens of thousands of paying and updating customers.
I don't mean to rant, I'm just worried like everyone else.
BackUpAndDown said: Finally decided I would throw my two cents into the mix.
Theres no way we should have to pay a fee to submit an app and then also split the revenue, one or the other but not both. Heres how I would suggest they do it...
Option 1 - Game Salad Direct Cost: free Features: Access to everything Publisher: Gendai/Game Salad Notes: If you want to submit a free app then you must pay an upfront uploading cost of $xx. If you want to submit a paid app then Gs will pay the uploading fee but will take a %x revenue cut.
Option 2 - Game Salad Pro Cost: $xxx/m Features: Access to everything Publisher: User Notes: If a user wants to submit apps under there own name then they must pay a monthly fee as well as the $99/y apple developer fee. If they make the cost monthly instead of the original yearly fee Gendai will receive a more steady revenue. This will also make the cost more affordable for "everyone" and will encourage the people who don't want to pay the $2,000 for a year long commitment to something they're not sure they will stick with.
Would be interested on hearing what people think about this suggestion, thanks.
I suggested similar as well, but my post seems to have been skipped. It would be extremely beneficial if Gendai kept their old licensing options and ran them along side the GS Direct option. Then everyone would be happy with an option. The most crucial thing that Gendai would get out of it is data. If they ran both the Direct and Express/Pro options for a year or 2 side by side, then they would have enough data to show which licensing model is the most favorable and most beneficial for both them and GS devs.
Not to mention, this would also give any devs who still prefer the old licensing option a chance to test out the Direct option so that they can see for themselves as well if it works or not without risking their own brands.
Forcing the Direct option on everyone will drive many away. Likewise, there maybe those who could really benefit from the umbrella marketing under Direct.
I don't think they should charge royalties or take a cut there not the ones making the apps just submitting them a monkey can do that for a banana. The fees per app should be tiered at like $15-$20 extra so even if people hold off and wait till they have like 5 apps to summit that'd be $100 if they go $20 per app, which I think it's fare. If they want to charge a monthly fee I think that's also fare they will make some money but they better not think it's going to be $50 a month that's BS. The fee should be $9.99 thats what $119 extra a year which will add up with all the users here and soon more to come if GameSalad Direct does things right I still vote keep both express and pro just charge $199-$299 a year.
Edit: Also I want to publish my own games not have them do it for me.
Oh before I forget if there bent on getting a cut of the profits then why not take 20% of the first 100 apps then after that no more cut. That's fare I think we are the developers.
FIRST: Let me tell you a little about myself, since no one really knows me.
I was until a few short months ago a Lead Technical Designer at a game company here in Atlanta. Now Im unemployed, and have been for about 2 months. Before that I was working as a Sr, and Lead Designer for such companies as EA, THQ, and a few other small companies over the years. I've worked on games such as Medal of Honor, Spongebob, Cars, some pretty big budget stuff also, so I've been around the block when it comes to making games professionally.
The studio I was working at last year (THQ) Imploded when the economy took a dump, like a lot of studios did. So another designer and I (my current business partner) decided to take a crack at the mobile market on our own and see if we can hit the lottery like a lot of the success stories we keep hearing about out there.
We did a lot of homework. I went to GDC in San Francisco this year, and talked to a lot of successful mobile devs. Looked at a lot of engines, seminars on marketing your product etc. And the first thing we found was, making a game from scratch takes a lot of money. The barrier to entry isn't anywhere near what a console game, or Xbox Live game is, but its still not cheap. Most, if not all the money would go in code as mobile games tend to lean more towards the programming end. And as we all know, programmers are not cheap, they cost a lot, especially the good ones. If you have tried to get into making mobile games of any quality you probably found this out by now....otherwise you wouldn't be here right? Most contracted ones are looking at between $50 - $100 an hour. Depending on how complex of a game you want to make, you could end up spending 10-20k on engineering a game from scratch.
And since there is no magic formula for making money with games, every game is a crap shoot. The more money you spend, the more you will lose if it doesn't catch on. Thats why people aren't throwing VC money out to mobile devs, and thats why a lot of programmers aren't working for spec, unless its for themselves. Why do you think there are so many doodle games? Have you ever seen programmer art? But hey. thats another story.
Ok, now that I got that out. I am a CS grad, but Im no genius programmer. I am a fairly accomplished scripter, and have worked with Unreal script, C, Ruby, LUA, and a few other scripting languages, so I figured, ok, Ill teach myself Objective-C, how hard can it be right?.....yeah I started learning it 6 months ago, and Im still very far off from coding a game from scratch by myself in a short enough time span to make a product viable. Therefore, we looked at Unity, Torque, and a few other options including here.
THUS LEADS ME TO....MY GAME:
When I found this tool, I was really excited. I found that this tool was great to get things working in a semi-fast order. I was able to get playable results in a tenth of the time it took by hand in XCODE. But, as we have all found, GS has its limits....lots of them. Therefore releasing a game on this platform with the features we wanted in our game was impossible. Like Facebook integration, in-app purchase, having more then 10 objects moving on screen without lagging like a bizwhich....come on laugh, its funny.
Because hand coding was taking a long time, and we couldn't find a programmer to work at the speed we needed or work for the money we had to offer, we bit the bullet and made a decision a month or two back (when we lost a very high paying game gig) that we would remove some features in our GS version prototype version, and eat in-app purchases and just release the game on GS just to get some money coming in. But we didn't want to use the Express Membership I bought because we really wanted URL forwarding and removing the GS logo as, lets be honest here as we are among friends here....the GS logo is forever tainted. No one is going to take you serious when they find out you were made on GS, mostly because of the massive amounts of Shovelware that comes from the GS community. I admit there are some decent games I have seen made here, but nothing complex and they are far and few between.
This lead us to the conclusion we needed to buy the PRO version. And we were ready to do it a few weeks back, but we held off in hopes that they would fix performance, and possibly introduce GameCenter integration. And maybe, with all the complaining, lower the price, as lets face it, $2000 was a lot for what you were getting. If you want $2000 worth of bugginess...ill send you my xcode.proj for my game :P
Needless to say I was livid when I saw the post for the changes they are making. I have wasted the last two months making changes to get a great game to fit on this platform. Thats two months I will never get back, and sadly they knew about these changes for at least a month or more ago, and they knew what the reaction was going to be.
Look, I've been in this business for a long time, I've worked for EA, so when it comes to shady business practices, I have seen it all, trust me. But this, I don't know how to react to this. Either Gendai has become delusional, blind, or have drank way too much of the GS coolaide. Becoming a publisher isn't just something you decide one day and having it just happen. You have to build relationships, and a solid industry reputation. Things that this company hasn't done very well in my opinion. You got on Attack of the show...congrats, but remember these people didn't try and make a game with this tool....so don't get a big head. If fact, that same network when it was TechTV had my Mod for Quake3 as Lan Party of the week on the ScreenSavers show for many weeks, but that doesn't mean our Mod team was going to get any game deals, or we were real developers.
Even if you magically fix all the ills of GS, and add the features that are almost standard in every other game out there....I don't see how you can fix your reputation, especially with reviewers out there. And from your actions here of late, you really have wounded it with your existing userbase, which you managed to singlehandedly sink in a heartbeat.
IS IT A LOST CAUSE? SHOULD WE JUST BUY UNITY or LEARN OBJECTIVE-C?
Actually, Its not too late to lose everyone other then a handful of sycophants (most of whom probably aren't really sold on what you announced here, but are so deeply invested in GS have to stick it out)
Here is a laundry list of things you can do to fix both your reputation, and your relationship with your user community:
1. Give an option of a pro version, and make sure who you are selling it are actually PRO's. aka, people that have a clue. Epic, and CryTek just don't hand out licenses to any geek off the street with 400k, This is your product, and if you want to build a solid reputation, your pro licenses should only be sent out to those that have a clue about making a game. Im willing to pay 2k, heck, 3k if GS was worth it (more on worth it later)
2. Branding is huge, some of us got into this to build IP, not to have it lumped in with poor quality games. Try and get a game published with NGmoco, they dont waste time with n00bs. If N00bs, and poor quality is your business model, sweet.....good luck with that. If its not, and you really want to be a publisher, learn to say no.
3. Add features that matter....Facebook, Game Center, In App Purchase. HINT: Faster loading times is not a feature.
4. Fix the bugs....for the love of god. Restarting GS every 20seconds and waiting an hour for an actor to open is ridiculous.
5. Some sort of script access, for arrays, and a decent game loop. We had an editor when I worked at THQ that used something very similar to how you are using .xml for game scripting, but we still had access to LUA, or C. We had some API's and script methods we could call, and I know thats work, but what the hell isn't.
6. Interact with the community in a meaningful fashion. Companies like ID, and Epic do this rather well, especially with the Unreal Developers Network. Also, we are not the enemy, we are your customers, I think listening to us...ALL OF US, and not just a few people here with the customer is always right attitude will get you far. This we are doing "X" and screw you if you don't like it, go somewhere else.....because people will go somewhere else attitude will get you exactly the response you have seen so far from this thread.
7. If you are hellbent on being a publisher, you need to be better at well...being professional and communicating then you have been to date. Right now I don't think there are many people that would trust you with holding on to their money as a publisher right now. And if you pay out money to devs with the same responsiveness and efficiency as your updates, or forum replys....this place is a ghost town in a month.
Sorry if this post is snarky, but hey....Im a paying customer, so Im allowed.
Sorry for the misspelling...Im really drunk right now...lol. Yes, this announcement has driven me to tie one on.
how about like a hosting package, u can pay monthly and/or yearly? hosting sites just provide the server space and u do what u want with your space.
in this model, similar to what @devil said, you could publish one game a month for a fee of $29.99, up to 5 games a month for $99 or unlimited for $799 per year.
And just as a hosting, you could have packages to go with that, GameSalad Direct (no dev and/or Apple fee) or your own brand (like it is right now, they'll give your the .app file for you to take it on your own to submit and pay Apple for dev license).
Along the package, it should have the same benefits of having 'iAds', 'URL' and any new feature that they might add in the future.
I don't know, just brainstorming out loud...and since Yodapolo posted "we're listening", I figured we might add some additional options that could benefit the majority.
I don't really have a problem with Gs taking royalties or publishing my apps for me... what I don't like is the submission fee. I'm still pretty young, I don't have a job and don't have a way to afford a pay-per-submit system, at least not until my apps start selling.
I realize a lot of people here are "professionals" and have a reputation to uphold. So only having a system where GS publishes everyones apps isn't an option, but people like me who don't have an income or are just starting won't be able to afford the uploading fee or pro account. When Gs announced that they were taking away all the fees and putting in place a royalty sharing system I thought i was dreaming, despite everyone thinking it was a nightmare.
@ joemauke I don't agree with the1st suggestion well not all of it. I don't think that the license should be sold to specific people because it's not fare to the ones like me that are willing to learn and actually cough up money to actual artist to do there artwork for games. I've only had GS for a month and I am learning the curve with it now so don't say that only pro developers should have the best membership because I'm also willing to cough the money up for it once I learn how to use it properly.
joemauke said: 7. If you are hellbent on being a publisher, you need to be better at well...being professional and communicating then you have been to date. Right now I don't think there are many people that would trust you with holding on to their money as a publisher right now. And if you pay out money to devs with the same responsiveness and efficiency as your updates, or forum replys....this place is a ghost town in a month.
Comments
But I didn't say anything abusive or offensive. I said the truth. If you want to go, go. No one's asking you to stay here, or to leave. If you want to stay, please be a bit nicer.
EDIT: But I reiterate: If you want to leave, just do it. Or stick around and play nice. I think that's fair, don't you?
@toastkitten:
FYI for images, type *img src="placeimagehere.jpg"*
But replace * with < at the front and > at the end ;-)
FYI for images, type *img src="placeimagehere.jpg"*
But replace * with < at the front and > at the end ;-)
Im not sure that telling people to go though is really being of any help.
People are upset, and confused. Theyre expressing how they feel. GameSalad will lose many current customers over this, thats inevitable now. But theres also a lot of people still with paid up accounts, who have games already in development, who will be sticking around to finish things off before they move on. Those are people that can still be retained as customers, under the right circumstances.
So telling everyone who is unhappy with things to go isnt really fair to the community, and isnt really in the best interest of GameSalad.
I fully understand why many people are pissed off about this. I do believe it's a step in the right direction for what GS wants to do (make game creation available to just about anyone) but at the same time it has obviously upset others.
As for my opinion of GameSalad Direct, I think it's great and I'll be using it... BUT... I do think that they should retain some sort of PRO service, for those of us who wish to continue publishing under their own names in the App Store. It wouldn't even need extra features, in fact I don't think it should have... just the ability to "indie" publish. Then we'd all be happy
Do would I still use the quotations after src=?
Sorry if this has already been pointed out... I wasn't going to go back over a million pages of posts and I only just noticed it. LOL.
plus, am sure tshirt or someone in the know said so
The new model incorporating royalties was mentioned in press releases over on other sites.... mostly investment related sites from what i remember. There should be a couple of links in the earlier pages of the thread.
Then it was further strengthened by comments from Sous-chefs that had signed the NDA stuff.
Theres no way we should have to pay a fee to submit an app and then also split the revenue, one or the other but not both. Heres how I would suggest they do it...
Option 1 - Game Salad Direct
Cost: free
Features: Access to everything
Publisher: Gendai/Game Salad
Notes: If you want to submit a free app then you must pay an upfront uploading cost of $xx. If you want to submit a paid app then Gs will pay the uploading fee but will take a %x revenue cut.
Option 2 - Game Salad Pro
Cost: $xxx/m
Features: Access to everything
Publisher: User
Notes: If a user wants to submit apps under there own name then they must pay a monthly fee as well as the $99/y apple developer fee. If they make the cost monthly instead of the original yearly fee Gendai will receive a more steady revenue. This will also make the cost more affordable for "everyone" and will encourage the people who don't want to pay the $2,000 for a year long commitment to something they're not sure they will stick with.
Would be interested on hearing what people think about this suggestion, thanks.
I don't mean to rant, I'm just worried like everyone else.
Not to mention, this would also give any devs who still prefer the old licensing option a chance to test out the Direct option so that they can see for themselves as well if it works or not without risking their own brands.
Forcing the Direct option on everyone will drive many away. Likewise, there maybe those who could really benefit from the umbrella marketing under Direct.
Edit: Also I want to publish my own games not have them do it for me.
FIRST: Let me tell you a little about myself, since no one really knows me.
I was until a few short months ago a Lead Technical Designer at a game company here in Atlanta. Now Im unemployed, and have been for about 2 months. Before that I was working as a Sr, and Lead Designer for such companies as EA, THQ, and a few other small companies over the years. I've worked on games such as Medal of Honor, Spongebob, Cars, some pretty big budget stuff also, so I've been around the block when it comes to making games professionally.
The studio I was working at last year (THQ) Imploded when the economy took a dump, like a lot of studios did. So another designer and I (my current business partner) decided to take a crack at the mobile market on our own and see if we can hit the lottery like a lot of the success stories we keep hearing about out there.
We did a lot of homework. I went to GDC in San Francisco this year, and talked to a lot of successful mobile devs. Looked at a lot of engines, seminars on marketing your product etc. And the first thing we found was, making a game from scratch takes a lot of money. The barrier to entry isn't anywhere near what a console game, or Xbox Live game is, but its still not cheap. Most, if not all the money would go in code as mobile games tend to lean more towards the programming end. And as we all know, programmers are not cheap, they cost a lot, especially the good ones. If you have tried to get into making mobile games of any quality you probably found this out by now....otherwise you wouldn't be here right? Most contracted ones are looking at between $50 - $100 an hour. Depending on how complex of a game you want to make, you could end up spending 10-20k on engineering a game from scratch.
And since there is no magic formula for making money with games, every game is a crap shoot. The more money you spend, the more you will lose if it doesn't catch on. Thats why people aren't throwing VC money out to mobile devs, and thats why a lot of programmers aren't working for spec, unless its for themselves. Why do you think there are so many doodle games? Have you ever seen programmer art? But hey. thats another story.
Ok, now that I got that out. I am a CS grad, but Im no genius programmer. I am a fairly accomplished scripter, and have worked with Unreal script, C, Ruby, LUA, and a few other scripting languages, so I figured, ok, Ill teach myself Objective-C, how hard can it be right?.....yeah I started learning it 6 months ago, and Im still very far off from coding a game from scratch by myself in a short enough time span to make a product viable. Therefore, we looked at Unity, Torque, and a few other options including here.
THUS LEADS ME TO....MY GAME:
When I found this tool, I was really excited. I found that this tool was great to get things working in a semi-fast order. I was able to get playable results in a tenth of the time it took by hand in XCODE. But, as we have all found, GS has its limits....lots of them. Therefore releasing a game on this platform with the features we wanted in our game was impossible. Like Facebook integration, in-app purchase, having more then 10 objects moving on screen without lagging like a bizwhich....come on laugh, its funny.
Because hand coding was taking a long time, and we couldn't find a programmer to work at the speed we needed or work for the money we had to offer, we bit the bullet and made a decision a month or two back (when we lost a very high paying game gig) that we would remove some features in our GS version prototype version, and eat in-app purchases and just release the game on GS just to get some money coming in. But we didn't want to use the Express Membership I bought because we really wanted URL forwarding and removing the GS logo as, lets be honest here as we are among friends here....the GS logo is forever tainted. No one is going to take you serious when they find out you were made on GS, mostly because of the massive amounts of Shovelware that comes from the GS community. I admit there are some decent games I have seen made here, but nothing complex and they are far and few between.
This lead us to the conclusion we needed to buy the PRO version. And we were ready to do it a few weeks back, but we held off in hopes that they would fix performance, and possibly introduce GameCenter integration. And maybe, with all the complaining, lower the price, as lets face it, $2000 was a lot for what you were getting. If you want $2000 worth of bugginess...ill send you my xcode.proj for my game :P
Needless to say I was livid when I saw the post for the changes they are making. I have wasted the last two months making changes to get a great game to fit on this platform. Thats two months I will never get back, and sadly they knew about these changes for at least a month or more ago, and they knew what the reaction was going to be.
Look, I've been in this business for a long time, I've worked for EA, so when it comes to shady business practices, I have seen it all, trust me. But this, I don't know how to react to this. Either Gendai has become delusional, blind, or have drank way too much of the GS coolaide. Becoming a publisher isn't just something you decide one day and having it just happen. You have to build relationships, and a solid industry reputation. Things that this company hasn't done very well in my opinion. You got on Attack of the show...congrats, but remember these people didn't try and make a game with this tool....so don't get a big head. If fact, that same network when it was TechTV had my Mod for Quake3 as Lan Party of the week on the ScreenSavers show for many weeks, but that doesn't mean our Mod team was going to get any game deals, or we were real developers.
Even if you magically fix all the ills of GS, and add the features that are almost standard in every other game out there....I don't see how you can fix your reputation, especially with reviewers out there. And from your actions here of late, you really have wounded it with your existing userbase, which you managed to singlehandedly sink in a heartbeat.
IS IT A LOST CAUSE? SHOULD WE JUST BUY UNITY or LEARN OBJECTIVE-C?
Actually, Its not too late to lose everyone other then a handful of sycophants (most of whom probably aren't really sold on what you announced here, but are so deeply invested in GS have to stick it out)
Here is a laundry list of things you can do to fix both your reputation, and your relationship with your user community:
1. Give an option of a pro version, and make sure who you are selling it are actually PRO's. aka, people that have a clue. Epic, and CryTek just don't hand out licenses to any geek off the street with 400k, This is your product, and if you want to build a solid reputation, your pro licenses should only be sent out to those that have a clue about making a game. Im willing to pay 2k, heck, 3k if GS was worth it (more on worth it later)
2. Branding is huge, some of us got into this to build IP, not to have it lumped in with poor quality games. Try and get a game published with NGmoco, they dont waste time with n00bs. If N00bs, and poor quality is your business model, sweet.....good luck with that. If its not, and you really want to be a publisher, learn to say no.
3. Add features that matter....Facebook, Game Center, In App Purchase. HINT: Faster loading times is not a feature.
4. Fix the bugs....for the love of god. Restarting GS every 20seconds and waiting an hour for an actor to open is ridiculous.
5. Some sort of script access, for arrays, and a decent game loop. We had an editor when I worked at THQ that used something very similar to how you are using .xml for game scripting, but we still had access to LUA, or C. We had some API's and script methods we could call, and I know thats work, but what the hell isn't.
6. Interact with the community in a meaningful fashion. Companies like ID, and Epic do this rather well, especially with the Unreal Developers Network. Also, we are not the enemy, we are your customers, I think listening to us...ALL OF US, and not just a few people here with the customer is always right attitude will get you far. This we are doing "X" and screw you if you don't like it, go somewhere else.....because people will go somewhere else attitude will get you exactly the response you have seen so far from this thread.
7. If you are hellbent on being a publisher, you need to be better at well...being professional and communicating then you have been to date. Right now I don't think there are many people that would trust you with holding on to their money as a publisher right now. And if you pay out money to devs with the same responsiveness and efficiency as your updates, or forum replys....this place is a ghost town in a month.
Sorry if this post is snarky, but hey....Im a paying customer, so Im allowed.
Sorry for the misspelling...Im really drunk right now...lol. Yes, this announcement has driven me to tie one on.
hosting sites just provide the server space and u do what u want with your space.
in this model, similar to what @devil said, you could publish one game a month for a fee of $29.99, up to 5 games a month for $99 or unlimited for $799 per year.
And just as a hosting, you could have packages to go with that, GameSalad Direct (no dev and/or Apple fee) or your own brand (like it is right now, they'll give your the .app file for you to take it on your own to submit and pay Apple for dev license).
Along the package, it should have the same benefits of having 'iAds', 'URL' and any new feature that they might add in the future.
I don't know, just brainstorming out loud...and since Yodapolo posted "we're listening", I figured we might add some additional options that could benefit the majority.
-RD
I realize a lot of people here are "professionals" and have a reputation to uphold. So only having a system where GS publishes everyones apps isn't an option, but people like me who don't have an income or are just starting won't be able to afford the uploading fee or pro account. When Gs announced that they were taking away all the fees and putting in place a royalty sharing system I thought i was dreaming, despite everyone thinking it was a nightmare.
Visit over here and have a chat.