Splash screens for PROs or at least for the old PROs

gamesmold

OK, it seems as if there are no more personalized splash screens in GS, even for old PRO members (like me) who have paid $ 2000 for three main features: 1) iAds, 2) URL opening and 3) *no GS Splash Screen*.

Please GS team, I love this tool. But I can't use it any more if I can't design the entire app including the splash screen. Then I'd have to switch to Unity or some other tool immediately.
I am willing to pay a lot more than $ 499 for GS if it only shows my own splash screen. Maybe create a third price tier?
GS apps were able to appear absolutely professional - but no longer having a "powered with..." logo.

If you won't change your mind, please let at least the *old* publishing server run till the last old PRO membership subscription expires - so the old pro members get what they paid for.

BarkBarkCo

I think it's clear to everyone except the GS team that taking the custom splash screen away from existing PRO users was wrong. Since they seem to be turning a blind eye toward this issue, you (wronged PRO users) should either team up and threaten legal action (breach of contract), go to the press OR report GS to the region appropriate BBB (Better Business Bureau).

expired_012

I am really angry about this as well, and I won't stop annoying them until they bring back custom splash!

jonmulcahy

the only people who have a leg to stand on are the original pro members. They deserve to keep their own splash screens, or get a pro-rated refund for the duration of their membership.

everyone else really can't complain.

guru-at-zidware

I think it's just s business decision.....they have maybe 30 PRO members? If that......so in 1 year only 60k in revenue from that group....no profit share.......not much money.....

But if they blast our their logo to the new PROS....maybe 250 members +....then now they can exponentially reach a million new players who may come to the GS tool...250 x 1 game x 5000 downloads = 1.25m...then factor in gurus like FMG who hit 100k downloads......I am sure they are looking to 15k new members like Corona? Then it's 12m in revenue compared to 60k.....

So in effect they will grow the business from this marketing feature....the new GS animated splash.....remember they have investors now who want a return....on their million....quickly...

I followed up the new GS splash with a white splash (of my own) that fades out. Not so bad....but I lost some clients who do not want the GS logo....so what to do? All for $99.....a real deal...

John

expired_012

jonmulcahy said:
the only people who have a leg to stand on are the original pro members. They deserve to keep their own splash screens, or get a pro-rated refund for the duration of their membership.

everyone else really can't complain.

I have an account with the original 2k pro, so I want custom splash on that

Hunnenkoenig

Please tell me again, what I got for my neoPro (499)?
I forgot...

guru-at-zidware

I think it's called the shaft.....

patrick6987

yes i totally agree although im only a nooby with no clout in the gamesalad forums i have to agree that surely the old pros who have paid good money should be getting the personalised splash screen and what a cracking idea it would be to introduce the third tier option, then everyone could be happy and the pro's could do there private work and keep it that way and also have personalised splash screens for individual clients etc
so that's my tuppence worth

quantumsheep

I wrote a long post and lost it. Maybe for the best. It boiled down to:

Bitterly disappointed.
Bad decisions continue.
Not sure what to do anymore.
Tea.

Cheers,

QS

guru-at-zidware

But ultimately.....a good game will sell and makes it make it's mark.....has nothing
to do with the splash screen.....

gamesmold

guru-at-zidware said:
But ultimately.....a good game will sell and makes it make it's mark.....has nothing
to do with the splash screen.....

The first impression is always the most important one. Now my App says: "Hi, I'm an amateur game created by some random hobbyist" - ok for a free version, but nothing to start a serious business with your own label.

And aside from the fact that I have paid 2K for doing so, the current GS splash is (in my games) 30 secs pure white (feels like a crashed app) and then a blurry so-lala logo animation. A great invitation for bashers and haters to write some bad reviews.

Like quantumsheep wrote... Don't know what to do... Feeling helpless and disappointed. Here's hoping the GS team will understand and change this.
If you put so much effort and work into your app - for each and every detail - you just can't live with a game creation kit splash. Don't get me wrong, I really like GS. But without a custom splash, I can't use it any more.

TwistedMech

Let's see what happens next week. I spoke with a lawyer this weekend over a beer and spoke about this very issue regarding pro membership and people who were still in subscription. He said if they don't compensate existing pro users in some way or if the current situation can damage your company or lose business then you may want to consider a class action lawsuit. Either they will get their act together or you could let the courts sort it out. The main issue for gs would be on damage limitation as the press will love it and it's one thing they want to avoid.

I love gs and see it as one of the best tools out there but gs team need to sort out the bad planning which is causing all these problems. If they listened to quantumsheep and firemaple and everyone else who have made valid points then we would not be in this mess.

Warlock

I wrote emails to the GS team twice, neither of which has ever been replied to. I have clients who do not want the GS splash screen. I followed tshirt's advice and wrote Gendai about the splash screen, and they simply don't care to reply.

design219

I've email with no reply as well. I think that was supposed to be part of what I paid for with pro... direct customer support.

design219

quantumsheep said:
Bitterly disappointed.
Bad decisions continue.
Not sure what to do anymore.

Yeah, at this point I don't even feel like cranking out another xtra normal video about this. I've lost all energy and moved on to other things. I was angered with the whole "Direct" debacle, cautiously hopeful when they mentioned second thoughts, and then back to bitter disappointment with the new update.

Man, I know this is probably good for many users, but for some of us, it just sucks.

I'm not at all happy with how my work in Flash turning out (performance sucks), so I'd love to keep working with GS, but I don't know that even if they changed it at this point that I'd really care to anymore. The last couple months have been so discouraging.

rdcube

When the fiasco about GS direct came about, I started looking at my options (like butterbean said); I started playing with Flash CS5 and was able to pull a small one scene sample with pure actionscript 3 but performance was awful (Adobe has quite a few months to properly caught up).

Since then, I had gone thru a couple of trials (unity, torque, corona) while waiting for this update.

Again, my speciality are taptards and figured I could recreate my apps there, but coding and/or learning a new language takes time, which I don't have at this time.

I'm not too concern about having the GS splash screen on my games, but totally agree with y'all that there's gotta be an option to remove it; however, not pay to remove, but just an option like 'elite'.

I guess since some of you have considered and/or have gone looking outside, I recommend corona, I barely had some time this thanksgiving weekend to read and play with some Lua code (plus peachpellen helped a lot) and I can honestly say, that it's a great alternative if you're willing to dedicate a little of time and effort (just like we all did when learning GS).

Just look at it as another tool like PS, illustrator or gimp...if one doesn't give you what you need, you always have an option...and nothing is impossible...just takes time

revster

@guru-at-zidware,
you have a very good point there it defiantly seemed like a business decision. but like you said about making profit, they could have a million users with their current system who just dont pay the 500 dollars and make zero dollars, and if there is no incentive to pay the 500$ (eg removal of splash screen, then why would people pay if it's basicly the same thing as the free version.

wraithstaff

All I need out of Pro is: 1) The usability 2) The iAd support 3) The lack of splash screen and 4) (as opposed to the proposed express) to publish on my own App store account. I was willing to pay $2000, but it would be a pain, so I was happy when they decided to make it $500, but with THEIR splash, I don't know if it's worth it, really.

gamesmold

OK, I received an email from GS yesterday that the custom splashes will be back for the old PRO members very soon. There seems to have been a bug in the new server system and they fix it now.

Thank goodness! This is really good news.

Chunkypixels

Good to hear that the issue should be resolved for the people with the old $2000 pro subscription.

I still think they need to offer a subscription option going forward where users can opt for custom loading screens, as there's always going to be users that would prefer their own loading screens, and who are willing to pay extra for the ability to have them.

BarkBarkCo

So, that's what they're calling it, a "Bug"? Right...

If they've relented this much, there will likely be a 3rd tier with the custom load screen announced sooner or later...

tgaming

I am new to this, but not new to iPhone development. This environment would help me speed up dev for iPhone / iPad a lot and i'm willing to pay for that. But the Gamesalad splash screen is a blocking issue for us; if we cannot buy that away, we will not use this tool. They should reconsider; it's a weird choice to force that kind of branding on paying members. They would want quality game developers like our company to create games for them and put that in their site portfolio. With these kind of policies, they'll only get bad / crappy games as people will go to the competitors where you *can* buy off the splash. Gamesalad is quite good but this kind of thing just won't work. Shame, hope they change the policy. Hope they will tell me about it

imohammad

I'm in the Same situation as you @tgaming.
I'm just hopping they will fix this thing.

wraithstaff

I don't really care about "custom" splashes as long as they don't put up a GameSalad splash, you know?

imohammad

@wraithstaff I think it is already a gamesalad splash??

butterbean

I too, think they need to offer a subscription for "Elite" Pro users, and charge $1,000 or more to eliminate the splash screen. It's useful if you want to create apps for customers, and now that the GS splash screen is there, it prevents us from doing so.

I must also add, that having the GS splash screen is not going to make or break your game, or decrease sales.

While I agree that it's not pleasant having it in front of your game, especially given GS's rep with crap games, a hefty percentage of the app store consumers don't know what GS is, nor would they probably pay attention to the splash screen.

So using the splash screen as an excuse for not selling 1,000's of units of apps is purely a cop out.

But in a nutshell, I still want them to bring back the old Pro custom splash, and I am truly disappointed that they didn't continue to offer this as an option.

quantumsheep

butterbean said:
I must also add, that having the GS splash screen is not going to make or break your game, or decrease sales.

While I agree that it's not pleasant having it in front of your game, especially given GS's rep with crap games, a hefty percentage of the app store consumers don't know what GS is, nor would they probably pay attention to the splash screen.

So using the splash screen as an excuse for not selling 1,000's of units of apps is purely a cop out.

I kinda agree. It didn't stop 'Bumps', for example, selling 1000's of copies. And *not* having the splash screen on my apps for the past year didn't help any.

On the other hand though, it could still engender a negative attitude towards your app, rightly or wrongly, from reviewers or website editors. Thus potentially cutting off a source of promotion.

I just don't want it there. And for me, personally, it's a major, major issue.

QS

butterbean

@QS: I agree with you, and yes, some review sites will look at a GS app unfavorably, but I must say, that I recently submitted Dark Woods for review under 148apps, and their partner site reviewed my app pretty fairly, and favorably, and that app had the GS splash screen on it.

While it didn't do as well as I had wanted, it did receive some positive feedback from T.A members and reviewers, even though the splash screen was there. One person from T.A even commented that he was worried about the gameplay once he saw the splash screen, but was pleasantly surprised by the game, and gave favorable feedback.

So yes, in a nutshell, for the most part I agree with you, and I can appreciate why you wouldn't want it there. But for myself, it's not the end of the world, and while I hope GS comes to their senses, and offers a higher tiered plan to eliminate it, I will continue to make games, and apps, with the GS splash screen.

In trying to encourage new members, or perhaps even older members who have been discouraged, don't let a splash screen discourage you from making a game. Focus on making it the best you can, polish it up, and still keep your head up high! The GS splash screen alone won't deter you from making money.

rombowich

@butterbean
We are thinking to use GS for serious Apps. It's not possible at the moment because of the splash screen. I thing the 3rd teer is the best way to fix it.

cheers

PIXOMUSE

A third tier, that's ridiculous.

Just remove the splash altogether, then have

( a ) One package that has all features everyone wants for a decent price

or

( b ) Two package, a basic and pro, both resonably priced, pro has extra features obviously..