An open letter to Gamesalad's management
Dear Gamesalad,
I firstly wanted to say I have loved the freedom that Gamesalad has given me. I've worked in game development for 12 years as a game designer, producer and have run 2 companies. I've released loads of games on many different platforms.
But I could never program the games I wanted...I'm not a coder. I stumbled across Gamesalad over a year ago, and was lucky enough to meet a few members of the GS team at GDC. I launched my first game in September which got into the top 10 on the australian app store. I've been loving being able to see my games come to fruition.
But..and there is a but. The more I use Gamesalad the more frustrated I get. and its not just me. Gamesalad could be the most awesomely fantastic game development tool the world has ever seen. But right now, its not capable of developing a top 10 game.
And having a top 10 game made by gamesalad will see your user base explode! It will allow many more developers to take up being a Gamesalad developer full time. The games will get better, more people will be drawn to it through the success of other developers.
We're not being given the tools and features we need to make a top 10 game. And that is what's bugging me and so many other people on here.
It seems the focus of Gamesalad is introducing new features before we have basic features. And whilst many of those features are really cool - HTML5, Marketplace, Kiip Rewards...these are not things that are going to help us make a top 10 game.
What's going to make us a top 10 games are features that will enable us to make deeper games, without issues plaguing performance. In app purchases are also a must because most revenue is derived from IAP.
Unity has 750,000 paying developers, how many has Gamesalad got? The reason Unity is so popular is because the tools are good enough so that people can make top 10 games, and earn an income. GS is not at that level yet.
So I'm asking you, please, focus on us....focus on your developers....your customers. Ask us what we want...and please do your best to make it happen. We're a pretty understanding lot, if you explain things to us rationally we're most likely to be sympathetic. But the lack of any communication from upper management on the delays in basic features is not good enough.
Here is a recent blog post from the CEO of Ansca Mobile (the creators of Corona), who also posts regularly on their forum.
****************
So what is next?
Simple. We are going to add the features that have been brought up by many of you for quite sometime now, and we are going to strictly focus on the features that have been “missing” and plaguing us for a while now. They are, in no particular order:
Android in-app purchases
Game Center without OpenFeint
iOS Mail with attachments and without leaving the app.
Map view on Android
Push notifications (remote) for iOS
URLSchema for iPhone
Intents for Android
WebPopup redux
More social gaming features
Twitter integration for iOS5
Messages/SMS in app for iOS
Graphics engine improvements
Debugger enhancements
These are some of the first and foremost important features that we will focus on immediately. Some of them will end up on iOS first, and then Android if the feature is available — or vice-versa.
********************
And Corona has many of the performance, physics features and IAP that we desperately need.
In August we were all so rapt that the roadmap had been updated, and many of the features we had been asking for had been prioritised to the top.
September
In-App Purchase
Game Center Achievements
Joints
Chrome Store Publishing
Lion Updates *
October
Tables
Android Publishing *
Facebook and Twitter Integration
Snap-to-grid
Of all those things, we only got Lion Updates and Android Publishing. And now its near the end of December and looking unlikely that we won't get any of those things in 2011.
the explanation given to us for not giving us those features was that GS wanted to focus on performance, but overall it hasn't really seemed to improve all that much. There's been a slew of bugs in updates and we're not seeing any new features of note coming through.
So I'm asking, please listen to us. Please listen to your customers, and give us the features that we need to make top 10 games. When we do, we'll all wiin. The developers and especially Gamesalad. If we can make top 10 games with Gamesalad, your user base will expand massively. and thats a win for everyone.
Cheers
Mick
I firstly wanted to say I have loved the freedom that Gamesalad has given me. I've worked in game development for 12 years as a game designer, producer and have run 2 companies. I've released loads of games on many different platforms.
But I could never program the games I wanted...I'm not a coder. I stumbled across Gamesalad over a year ago, and was lucky enough to meet a few members of the GS team at GDC. I launched my first game in September which got into the top 10 on the australian app store. I've been loving being able to see my games come to fruition.
But..and there is a but. The more I use Gamesalad the more frustrated I get. and its not just me. Gamesalad could be the most awesomely fantastic game development tool the world has ever seen. But right now, its not capable of developing a top 10 game.
And having a top 10 game made by gamesalad will see your user base explode! It will allow many more developers to take up being a Gamesalad developer full time. The games will get better, more people will be drawn to it through the success of other developers.
We're not being given the tools and features we need to make a top 10 game. And that is what's bugging me and so many other people on here.
It seems the focus of Gamesalad is introducing new features before we have basic features. And whilst many of those features are really cool - HTML5, Marketplace, Kiip Rewards...these are not things that are going to help us make a top 10 game.
What's going to make us a top 10 games are features that will enable us to make deeper games, without issues plaguing performance. In app purchases are also a must because most revenue is derived from IAP.
Unity has 750,000 paying developers, how many has Gamesalad got? The reason Unity is so popular is because the tools are good enough so that people can make top 10 games, and earn an income. GS is not at that level yet.
So I'm asking you, please, focus on us....focus on your developers....your customers. Ask us what we want...and please do your best to make it happen. We're a pretty understanding lot, if you explain things to us rationally we're most likely to be sympathetic. But the lack of any communication from upper management on the delays in basic features is not good enough.
Here is a recent blog post from the CEO of Ansca Mobile (the creators of Corona), who also posts regularly on their forum.
****************
So what is next?
Simple. We are going to add the features that have been brought up by many of you for quite sometime now, and we are going to strictly focus on the features that have been “missing” and plaguing us for a while now. They are, in no particular order:
Android in-app purchases
Game Center without OpenFeint
iOS Mail with attachments and without leaving the app.
Map view on Android
Push notifications (remote) for iOS
URLSchema for iPhone
Intents for Android
WebPopup redux
More social gaming features
Twitter integration for iOS5
Messages/SMS in app for iOS
Graphics engine improvements
Debugger enhancements
These are some of the first and foremost important features that we will focus on immediately. Some of them will end up on iOS first, and then Android if the feature is available — or vice-versa.
********************
And Corona has many of the performance, physics features and IAP that we desperately need.
In August we were all so rapt that the roadmap had been updated, and many of the features we had been asking for had been prioritised to the top.
September
In-App Purchase
Game Center Achievements
Joints
Chrome Store Publishing
Lion Updates *
October
Tables
Android Publishing *
Facebook and Twitter Integration
Snap-to-grid
Of all those things, we only got Lion Updates and Android Publishing. And now its near the end of December and looking unlikely that we won't get any of those things in 2011.
the explanation given to us for not giving us those features was that GS wanted to focus on performance, but overall it hasn't really seemed to improve all that much. There's been a slew of bugs in updates and we're not seeing any new features of note coming through.
So I'm asking, please listen to us. Please listen to your customers, and give us the features that we need to make top 10 games. When we do, we'll all wiin. The developers and especially Gamesalad. If we can make top 10 games with Gamesalad, your user base will expand massively. and thats a win for everyone.
Cheers
Mick
Comments
September
In-App Purchase
Game Center Achievements
Joints
Chrome Store Publishing
Lion Updates
October
Tables
Android Publishing
Facebook and Twitter Integration
Snap-to-grid
I don't like when the team just text some word and don't care anymore
we only get 2 out of 9 in more then 2 and a have months(and lion does not even count cause we don't have autosave and such), so please say you can't do when you can't, don't say you can do a lot of thing but overall that is not true at all
thanks,
CAlvin
I've been learning lua in my spare time just in case I feel the need to move away from GS to corona. I also watch construct2, they have awesome/frequent updates.
GS does seem very out of touch with the needs of its userbase...
Who really cares about a marketplace or a new forum? Wouldn't everyone rather have IAP, joints, Tables etc...
Who really cares about a marketplace or a new forum? Wouldn't everyone rather have IAP, joints, Tables etc...
I don't agree, all of them is important
Calvin
I'm just saying that GS should dedicate more of its resources to the creator, because, that's its only product and the only reason a forum/marketplace is needed.
it's true that we don't care about market place except (well except for the high quality templates, or even better free templates)
Oh custom load screens would be nice. Damn loading icon is to distracting.
HTML5 - Now that Flash is clearly the loser in the Flash vs HTML5 war, what is the replacement for creating interactive web content. I think GameSalad could be that software, but it has to release some of the restrictions and add significant improvements to HTML5 games. Quite frankly, I think the party is over for App development. I've seen apps given away for free and people still complain about them. There was a race to the bottom and the developers lost. Marathon, Pigs in Trees, Jaws, Flight Control, Streets of Rage 2, Bejeweled 2, Hard Lines... can the average GameSalad developer truly expect to compete with games like this... when games like this can be downloaded for free?
About your question - If GS had all the features that enable us to make those games, and also gave us IAP then yes, we could compete with those games. Andreas Illiger made Tiny Wings by himself. If he can do it, why can't we? There's plenty of other smaller guys making good money on the app store with very niche games. I believe its also about being smart about your concept, marketing and positioning and having a very polished game that people can understand the concept easily. That's half the battle. The other half is about having tools to make games that don't take 45 seconds to load a simple game. that can do simple, fun collisions and can be upgraded easily. Its not all about Gamesalad, its also about you and your concepts.
The core focus of Gamesalad is skewed - it should be about "making tools that non-coders can make top 10 games with". Not trying to release pie in the sky stuff every couple of months - while that looks great to potential investors, it means that the core tool suffers...and it has been.
If they just focussed all their resources on creator, got it to a point where it had all the features we needed, then you start to see much better games being made. And with that developers would start making enough money to do it full time, and then quality would then increase again.
The goal should be that a GS game is number 1 on the app store, then they'd have amazing publicity "non coder made number 1 game with gamesalad" and you'd get hundreds of thousands of people all starting to use GS - and converting many of them to pro users. Quality keeps going up etc etc.
This would solve a lot of issues, and also means that not many resources would be taken away from the main team.
And from a coders standpoint, corona is nothing special
Frequent crashes, there main concern is monetization features and choose that above way more important stuff, no intergration of native libraries or code, sucks to debug and the simulator misses alot sometimes, and your projects are compiled on there server and returned to you as a executable just like gamesalad does.
Also theres the fact the gamesalad is still in beta, and theres tons to come before any official 1.0 release.
"In the first part of 2012, we will be releasing IAP, Tables, GameCenter Achievements and Twitter/FB integration."
First part meaning January ? or by saying "first part" you mean April-May ?
We're waiting for these features forever , it seems like there's always a half year delay !
Roy.
Don't get me wrong I agree with what you say, but I still think that the current GS engine is a big limitation that prevents us from reaching those high ranks..
For example my last game "Spin The Nut: Christmas Is Coming" reached to top 50# overall in Japan and china , and got high ranks in many more countries and I got countless reviews and mails complaining about the loading times, and the lack of gamecenter achievements ..
The lack of Facebook and twitter integration is also limiting our "native advertisement" that our games should have..
Also the lack of IAP prevents us from getting high ranks in the Top Grossing section and this also stops the snow ball from growing..
We need those features ( Tables, GameCenter Achievements and Twitter/FB integration ect) and i honestly think that the lack of them is killing our games!
I love gamesalad but this long waiting for Those trivial features is starting to get Irritating..
Roy.
Sprite sheets and tables will make the code 10 times more efficient, and will consume less CPU power and RAM.
Using them will make our games much better. .
Roy.
Early next year!? Outrageous!
Your web and creator team work independently of each other? That's nice, fire half of your web team and hire that many people to work on the creator.
Or,
Hire better coders for the creator.
-a highly disappointed customer-
This year has deffo had more improvements (as well as a few dodgy buggy releases). But looking long term, things are better now than have been before.
Roll on 2012. Lets make things even better.
Also, GS has more competition now right? They'd better kick it up a notch.
@SSS what about Kiip? I don't really care all that much about this feature but it was slotted for mid dec. is this yet another feature undelivered.
If GS were a pizza man, there would be a lot of free pizzas being delivered
it still has big room for improvement, and most of us choose to stick around because we do see great potential. but like any gemstone. potential means nothing if you don't cut it, polish it, and finesse it to perfection... so get to work GS team.
I hope that is true, not just telling everyone anymore
Calvin
Here's to 2012!
I think its time we started putting our own pressure on GS to start focussing on us. Its not good enough to just hope that we'll get the features we need to make better games.
We are GS' customers, their revenue base. Why don't we get a say? How many people on here would have voted for marketplace, HTML5 if we had a say? While GS say that they listen to us, they clearly don't. The last roadmap was written with us in mind, then thrown out the door pretty much straight away.
The simple fact is that GS is not focussed on their customers. It's not acceptable for any middleware vendor to take over a year to support key functions in a device manufacturers API. I don't buy the "beta" thing either. It's been in beta for 3 years, its just another way for them to avoid responsibility for releasing buggy software. So if you're going to release "Beta" software then don't charge us. Or else call it a release version and make sure its not buggy.
All I'm saying is we need to be a little more proactive and organised if we're going to get what we want. If you went to a restaurant and your ordered a steak, but they delivered a bowl of pasta would you complain? Or would you just eat it and hope that next time around they got the order right?
GameSalad also needs to stay focused on what people want also.
I do like the ability to do things like this with HTML,although I would much prefer joints, IAP, arrays, tables, vectors, etc. No one asked GameSalad for a forum update or Klip. I personally think Klip is interesting, but GameSalad should have at least asked us about it first.
I know people make mistakes - but this doesn't seem to be about making mistakes. they have fallen way behind and the company's focus is not on the customer anymore. What happened 6 months ago is not relevant to what's happening now, because right now we're getting features that long term might be great, but aren't really helping us.
Construct 2 is written by a 2 man team. that's right. there's 2 of them, and the tool seems to be a far more featured tool than GS with much better performance (in HTML5). If Construct supported native iOS games you wouldn't be hearing from me in this thread because I'd be happily using Construct 2. and thats the reality of what Gamesalad is facing, and why they need to start focussing more on the customers and less on the things that are going to secure their next round of investment (and focussing on their customers will actually increase the likelihood of getting more investment).
I (like others) are quickly developing a loyalty and nostalgia for GS (like I did for Flash and Director) but I can see here others who have been around GS longer have lost that to frustration and dare I say impatience....give me 6 months and I may join you.
After seeing the post about Corona I will go and look at the competition - it is in MY interests to do so. If they (Corona etc.) are better or prove themselves the winner simply because they out market GS (like Adobe over Macromedia) then so be it - it is a tough world in software. I am glad I am not part of it but I am held hostage to it and the decisions of who I support or dump. My nostalgic side is hoping GS will last even if it is bought out by one of the big boys.
These poor GS engineers are clearly working their guts out and I feel for them - good luck with it.