Sure, because that's how a business works. Pretty sure they'll listen to helpful feedback but its not going to happen at the snap of your fingers.
'Snap of your fingers' ≠ Three years of requests and bug reports and petitioning and polls and general begging.
)
I don't think the general theme here is one of people just chancing across some interface issue or noticing a bug for the first time and demanding they are resolved immediately (or at the snap of their fingers), I think the criticism aimed at the length of time these issues (specifically to do with the Creator's UI) take to get addressed (or remain unaddressed) seems reasonable enough given the slow (deathly slow) response. In fact the response has been so slow that I've personally come to realise that it's not realistic to imagine that GameSalad will get features like joints any time soon, or more likely they will never come to GameSalad (at least not in my lifetime : ) ).
Sure brickamator's post is not an insightful parsing of modern business practices, it's more of a frustrated and desperate cry for help ) but it's just as valid.
Sure, because that's how a business works. Pretty sure they'll listen to helpful feedback but its not going to happen at the snap of your fingers.
'Snap of your fingers' ≠ Three years of requests and bug reports and petitioning and polls and general begging.
)
I don't think the general theme here is one of people just chancing across some interface issue or noticing a bug for the first time and demanding they are resolved immediately (or at the snap of their fingers), I think the criticism aimed at the length of time these issues (specifically to do with the Creator's UI) take to get addressed (or remain unaddressed) seems reasonable enough given the slow (deathly slow) response. In fact the response has been so slow that I've personally come to realise that it's not realistic to imagine that GameSalad will get features like joints any time soon, or more likely they will never come to GameSalad (at least not in my lifetime : ) ).
Sure brickamator's post is not an insightful parsing of modern business practices, it's more of a frustrated and desperate cry for help ) but it's just as valid.
Just wondering, is there any chance that a RevMob integration might be added by the time you guys release your next stable version of GS?
I know there are important things on your guys agenda, but I would say getting RevMob in asap should be pretty high on that list because currently us devs are very limited on our ad options.
iAd = poop Playhaven = meh only on iOS atm Mobclix = never pays
RevMob = android / ios amazing revenue and a million thumbs up
FYI not blaming you guys for those ad networks. Not your fault they just suck.
Just wondering, is there any chance that a RevMob integration might be added by the time you guys release your next stable version of GS?
I know there are important things on your guys agenda, but I would say getting RevMob in asap should be pretty high on that list because currently us devs are very limited on our ad options.
iAd = poop Playhaven = meh only on iOS atm Mobclix = never pays
RevMob = android / ios amazing revenue and a million thumbs up
FYI not blaming you guys for those ad networks. Not your fault they just suck.
I've got to agree, I personally would love to see Revmob before any of the creator improvements, as important as they are.
If they concentrate on creator issues, the monetary ones suffer. And vice versa.
They can't please everyone all the time, eh?
QS
I don't see this as a real problem, I think there just needs to be a balance, it's not a case of concentrating on Creator and ignoring monetization or concentrating on monetization and ignoring Creator, I'm sure they could do both (and I think we can all agree that they would need to do both), but even a cursory look over what Manto1 has done in just a few days demolishes the idea that users need to wait for years (literally years) for simple and basic functionality, long requested workflow improvements and bug fixes in Creator.
I don't think they need to exclusively concentrate on Creator at the expense of monetization schemes, but I think the evidence shows that handing it all over to one guy (regardless of how brilliant he might be as a programmer) for who Creator is not even his first priority, and wait times measured in years suggests it's simply not important to GameSalad - or not as important as it is to the users.
Sure, because that's how a business works. Pretty sure they'll listen to helpful feedback but its not going to happen at the snap of your fingers.
'Snap of your fingers' ≠ Three years of requests and bug reports and petitioning and polls and general begging.
)
I don't think the general theme here is one of people just chancing across some interface issue or noticing a bug for the first time and demanding they are resolved immediately (or at the snap of their fingers), I think the criticism aimed at the length of time these issues (specifically to do with the Creator's UI) take to get addressed (or remain unaddressed) seems reasonable enough given the slow (deathly slow) response. In fact the response has been so slow that I've personally come to realise that it's not realistic to imagine that GameSalad will get features like joints any time soon, or more likely they will never come to GameSalad (at least not in my lifetime : ) ).
Sure brickamator's post is not an insightful parsing of modern business practices, it's more of a frustrated and desperate cry for help ) but it's just as valid.
Not suggesting it wasn't based on years of frustration but the comment of "can't GS do what we want them to do?" Was asinine, unrealistic and silly. Or maybe it was sarcasm. Although public shaming did work for Xbox one and a reversal of policy took place so who knows. All the things mentioned are good for them to know so no issue with that.
Not suggesting it wasn't based on years of frustration but the comment of "can't GS do what we want them to do?" Was asinine, unrealistic and silly. Or maybe it was sarcasm.
No, I think you were right, I think it was genuine, but I'm just saying that the frustration is - somewhat - justified.
And, of course, I recognise that GS can't simply do what they want, they need to meet business demands every bit as much as user's demands.
If they concentrate on creator issues, the monetary ones suffer. And vice versa.
They can't please everyone all the time, eh?
QS
I don't see this as a real problem, I think there just needs to be a balance, it's not a case of concentrating on Creator and ignoring monetization or concentrating on monetization and ignoring Creator, I'm sure they could do both (and I think we can all agree that they would need to do both), but even a cursory look over what Manto1 has done in just a few days demolishes the idea that users need to wait for years (literally years) for simple and basic functionality, long requested workflow improvements and bug fixes in Creator.
I don't think they need to exclusively concentrate on Creator at the expense of monetization schemes, but I think the evidence shows that handing it all over to one guy (regardless of how brilliant he might be as a programmer) for who Creator is not even his first priority, and wait times measured in years suggests it's simply not important to GameSalad - or not as important as it is to the users.
I agree, it's when they spread themselves too thin, trying to do so many things instead of just focusing on what really matters, and actually getting it done.
Sorry for all the buzz @CodeWizard, I think there have just been too many weekly status updates that have looked the same: with good things just over the horizon and out of reach. I truly believe that you have done a great job of turning things around with the development, but it's time to refocus. - Thomas
I'd written out a huge reply, but it comes down to this really:
No, they can't seem to balance things. Their resources really do seem to be spread that thin.
They have to prioritise based on what they want in, and what we all want in (game, money and tool features)
I don't want to argue with you - I agree with your main thrust - but I just don't think they have the resources to balance the output the way things are set up right now.
If they concentrate on creator issues, the monetary ones suffer. And vice versa.
They can't please everyone all the time, eh?
QS
I agree that they can't please everyone, and there will always be someone wanting/requesting some other missing/new feature, but it's taken one member to knock out a promising level editor with all of the missing features in about 3 days. At the end of day that's embarrassing!
If GameSalad prioritised those and took say 2 to 3 weeks to do the same with 1 or 2 people they could easily quieten the mass and start working on all the other bells and whistles people want afterwards.
I've got to agree, I personally would love to see Revmob before any of the creator improvements, as important as they are.
And there's the problem.
If they concentrate on creator issues, the monetary ones suffer. And vice versa.
They can't please everyone all the time, eh?
QS
It's important to note that so far I've only built small games with GS; it's quite likely that if I'd spent many hours a day with creator trying to build a larger game, as other have, then the creator problems would have been much worse for me and would likely be my priority.
So I guess I was kind of highlighting the point that we all us GS in different ways and as such we all have different priorities. For me I'd rather have a few niggles whilst building the game and a world class ad provider that could make a huge difference in how much I earn from that game.
But seeing as how well Manto1 has done in just a few days I'm sure the idea of all the GS devs jumping on to the creator problems for a few weeks would iron out many of the problems everyone faces, and I doubt it would slow the progress of new features too much, seeing as they're quite thin on the ground already.
This is all my uneducated guesswork of course, I have no idea how easy it is to implement Manto1's work within creator itself, and I certainly don't want to patronise the GS devs by telling them how easy/hard something is to do when I have no clue.
. . . but I just don't think they have the resources to balance the output the way things are set up right now. . .
I think they have the resources but those resources are focused elsewhere, like I've said the idea that these Creator UI improvements are beyond the resources of GameSalad is questionable given what Manto1 has done in just a few days, and like I say the idea that it's a question of resources (rather than priorities) is further undermined given the many things they have found time to work on (GameCircle, Amazon IAP, Async, HTML, marketplace, Tencent, PlayHaven, Homeschool Buyers Co-op, Twitter integration, Tizen, Kiip . . . . etc etc).
I really do think everything points to these issues simply not being a priority rather than it being a lack of resources, they certainly have the talent and managed to find the resources to invest in things like IceCap Games long after people were clamouring for basic UI features.
.This is all my uneducated guesswork of course, I have no idea how easy it is to implement Manto1's work within creator itself, and I certainly don't want to patronise the GS devs by telling them how easy/hard something is to do when I have no clue.
This is probably true for the vast majority of us, there's a lot of guesswork going on here, not only do I have no clue about programming but I have less of a clue about the various business pressures GS will be under, but hopefully there are enough clues here to make some reasonably educated guesses.
I'm not sure Manto1's tool would even need to be integrated within GameSalad for it to be viable, I would happily jump between a layout tool and Creator if it saved me hours/days of repetitive tasks.
Yeah Manto1's tool could exist outside of GS, just like the dba tools. However that makes me slightly concerned that the creator improvements from GS would take even longer to appear if we all stop requesting them. But if Manto1's tool becomes quite polished its feasible that this is the way gamesalad will progress, a bit like corona where the majority of devs rely on established third party tools which become almost essential to the workflow. I guess we'll have to see how this all pans out.
I agree that the creator has some much needed improvements, but I know what I'm working with. I know what I have to do to get what I want out of the creator. What I'm held back by is the stuff we have no control over, facebook integration, different ad models, IAP for other platforms, multiplayer.
remember code wizard only started 5 mths ago, and in 5 mths think of all that has changed. there has been some massive course correction this year for the better. stuff like snap to grid or the creator's windows being persistent is not going to help you make a better game, just help you do it faster. (which I'm all for)
The problem with third part tools they need to updated with creator updates. Not knocking anyone putting this effort in but can you rely on their dedication to update them? This is an unknown. I think for GS adding another monetization tool comes down to making a deal with the service more than the code. I think that after async is done and they finish Tizen they should refocus on a good run of creator maybe having one person who only works on creator full time and float other people in and out as needed until they can get more engineers. how I see it is GS keeps trying to find that vain of revenue. But it seems after three years they have hit a wall for growing this company. They need another big investor, a merger or a sale to a larger company to get it to the next level.
My honest opinion here Can you tell me why is tizen getting even love from gamesalad? I mean instead of tizen, you coułd have supported windows phone. Also within the development time of tizen, gamesalad could have implemented google play services, a feature I am sure people developing for android would love to have. Google has already implemented the multiplayer parts for android and as far as I have read up, it is cross platform as well. Also I would have loved to see basic features, like auto save to cloud etc implemented. Now I have lost 4months of work due to a hard drive error. If gamesalad had even thought about such stuff, I am sure people would not have gotten so emotional and demanding here. The creator DESPERATELY needs reshuffling. Sometimes, finding actors can be a pain in the a$s, especially while programming. What do they do instead, waste time supporting tizen. Sorry if you find my post offensive but I am pretty pissed off, having high hopes for gamesalad, which has tons of potential but not getting supported. Just my $0.02
Wow! I take a weekend off the forums and see what happens? Brace yourselves for a painfully detailed response.
I agree with you that we should be focusing our efforts on Creator / Engine improvements. It's my personal view that the core business is Creator / Engine and we should be focusing on that. Hey, the entire executive team agrees with this.
You might be surprised to know that's exactly what we're doing.
A big problem facing the development team is paying off the significant amount of tech debt that we've accumulated over the years. What is tech debt? It's the unfortunate side effect of programmers taking shortcuts to "get stuff done" that cause future maintenance problems. Read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt
This is a real problem. And we're working on several aspects of the core tech to deal with it. This is taking weeks of work away from more short-term feature development gains. It needs to be dealt with.
There are two main areas of tech debt we're focusing on right now:
Build System
The core way we build and manage our software was poorly designed and implemented. This has caused lots of extra work (and unintentional bugs) as we add more to the code. We've been reworking this to make it sane, manageable and flexible.
The engineer that I'd like to see working on new performance improvements has been neck deep in this for the past 6 weeks. But it's necessary work...
One of the side effects of this work is that it opens up the possibility for native plugins in the engine. So, it serves two purposes: making adding new features to the engine easier and solving a core part of the native plugin system.
What problem does this solve for native plugins? Simple. Apple doesn't allow apps to dynamically load code at runtime. So, in order to allow third party folks to add native code to the engine, we need to support custom linking of app binaries. Based on how our build system worked previously this was, quite literally, impossible. Our new solution solves this problem nicely.
Another issue with how our previous build system worked was its fragility. We have one poor programmer that has to spend a day or so each week wrangling the mess that we call a build server. So, we're spending the necessary time to get that cleaned up so it "just works."
Engine Architecture
There are several aspects of our core engine that need architectural work. We're currently spending lots of time dealing with those issues. Most recently, that focus has been on the HTML5 engine side. This is because of our contractual obligation to support the Tizen platform. We've been slow burning Tizen support for a long time this year. But, as deadlines approach, we're turning up the heat on it.
Unfortunately this requires more engine refactoring because some of the choices made in our engine are not very good for these lower end JavaScript platforms. That is, things that work just fine on the desktop browsers are God awful on the mobile device. So, we're spending tons of time fixing that.
The upside is that the core engine is getting significantly more performant. The downside is that those weeks spent working on the core engine architecture don't manifest in obvious new features for you.
The same issues we're solving on the JavaScript engine are directly applicable to the Lua engine. So, that's really handy too.
We're spending lots of time to clean these systems up. And, like lifting weights to build your muscles, the benefits of this work are noticed later (they're more long term). Tech debt is undoubtedly taking a lot of our development energy right now.
There's something else to consider here as well...
Contractual Obligations
We've got several third-party initiatives that have been in the works for a while now: Tizen support, Amazon support, AppBoy integration, History Fighter and async multiplayer support. These things are the result of longer term planning -- on the order of 6 months or more.
We generally negotiate and sign agreements with third parties to generate additional revenue for the company. Revenue is critical because it enables us to keep working on the core tech. These agreements take time to manifest and, once they do, take development effort away from the creator and engine features.
Well, that's not entirely true. It just redirects effort to other features that support the third-party we're partnering with.
So, Tizen support will open your apps up to that new platform. Amazon support will provide you with IAP / GameCircle support on Amazon stores (along with free Kindle Fire publishing). AppBoy integration will give you access to segmented push notifications and an in-app customer service tool. History Fighter development prompted us to create several features that you'll be able to take advantage of. Async multiplayer gives you an entirely new way to create compelling and socially addicting games.
While the above features aren't snap-to-grid or folders, they are pretty awesome I think.
All this being said, I think there's a more central issue here that's rightfully inflaming some of you...
Release Delays
I think this is the 800lb gorilla. You want more rapid releases. Our transition to regular nightly builds has caused an "accordion effect" in the official release schedule. We've got several months of features and improvements that our test team is trying to catch up on. The reason we're behind on that is because of internal staffing changes and the resulting test strategy direction changes.
That's causing official release delays. Once we've caught up then we should be better equipped to have a shorter release cycle. Although, to be fair, Pro users have access to the current cutting edge stuff. You can take advantage of the latest improvements and enhancements without waiting for an official release.
Can't wait until we're caught up on that.
Current Priorities & Summary
Our current priorities are really clear to me:
1. Engine Improvements -- Focused on paying off our tech debt, improving performance, laying the groundwork for future extensibility and fixing bugs.
2. Feature Addition -- Focused on additional platform support, advanced feature development and long-term vision.
3. Creator Improvements -- Focused on UI / workflow fixes in Creator as well as long-term cross platform Creator development.
We could discuss the relative values of those priorities. But, from my point of view, they are the right priorities.
Those three priorities above guide our decisions. Sadly, for now, numbers 1 and 2 are trumping Creator improvements. As we get out from under Tizen, Amazon, AppBoy, iOS 7 support and tech debt issues then we'll have some spare capacity to put toward Creator.
I hope you can remain patient while we work through the test "accordion effect," tech debt issues and heavier lifting engineering work. We will get to the Creator workflow improvements. I promise! We're busting our butts over here.
Wow! I take a weekend off the forums and see what happens?
Manto1 creates a GameSalad layout tool that includes alignment tools, multiple selections, multiple actor translations, zoom in and out, snap to grid with customisable grid sizes and grid offsets, a fit scene to screen zoom function, a select all function, on screen X/Y indicators for mouse position and individual actors . . .etc etc.
Long needed features are requested and ticked off in a matter of hours (rather than years) !
@Socks I think it's unwise to make the leap that just because a prototype tool has some features in it that those features are trivial to implement in an existing codebase.
There's the difference. Sure, if we wanted to spend a few days a whip up a prototype of these features then we could do so. But that's not helpful for us. We have an existing codebase to work with -- we don't have the luxury of just tossing that in the trash and rebuilding it from scratch.
Hats off to @Manto1 for his efforts. But that's no reflection on how difficult these features are to implement in our codebase (or in a fully functional editor). Nor on the relative priority of those features when compared to others.
It's tantamount to saying to an architect: "Look at this house frame I've put up over the weekend! Clearly you should be able to replace your frame with this one in no time." Sadly, it's just not that simple.
We'll get to these improvements when they float up in priority. Until then we'll continue to focus on core optimization, tech debt issues, engine extensibility, etc.
Comments
I'm certainly not trying quiet the "revolt" by any means. Id like to hear a response from some of this as well.
I don't think the general theme here is one of people just chancing across some interface issue or noticing a bug for the first time and demanding they are resolved immediately (or at the snap of their fingers), I think the criticism aimed at the length of time these issues (specifically to do with the Creator's UI) take to get addressed (or remain unaddressed) seems reasonable enough given the slow (deathly slow) response. In fact the response has been so slow that I've personally come to realise that it's not realistic to imagine that GameSalad will get features like joints any time soon, or more likely they will never come to GameSalad (at least not in my lifetime : ) ).
Sure brickamator's post is not an insightful parsing of modern business practices, it's more of a frustrated and desperate cry for help
Just wondering, is there any chance that a RevMob integration might be added by the time you guys release your next stable version of GS?
I know there are important things on your guys agenda, but I would say getting RevMob in asap should be pretty high on that list because currently us devs are very limited on our ad options.
iAd = poop
Playhaven = meh only on iOS atm
Mobclix = never pays
RevMob = android / ios amazing revenue and a million thumbs up
FYI not blaming you guys for those ad networks. Not your fault they just suck.
If they concentrate on creator issues, the monetary ones suffer. And vice versa.
They can't please everyone all the time, eh?
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
I don't think they need to exclusively concentrate on Creator at the expense of monetization schemes, but I think the evidence shows that handing it all over to one guy (regardless of how brilliant he might be as a programmer) for who Creator is not even his first priority, and wait times measured in years suggests it's simply not important to GameSalad - or not as important as it is to the users.
And, of course, I recognise that GS can't simply do what they want, they need to meet business demands every bit as much as user's demands.
Sorry for all the buzz @CodeWizard, I think there have just been too many weekly status updates that have looked the same: with good things just over the horizon and out of reach. I truly believe that you have done a great job of turning things around with the development, but it's time to refocus.
- Thomas
I'd written out a huge reply, but it comes down to this really:
No, they can't seem to balance things. Their resources really do seem to be spread that thin.
They have to prioritise based on what they want in, and what we all want in (game, money and tool features)
I don't want to argue with you - I agree with your main thrust - but I just don't think they have the resources to balance the output the way things are set up right now.
Cheers,
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
If GameSalad prioritised those and took say 2 to 3 weeks to do the same with 1 or 2 people they could easily quieten the mass and start working on all the other bells and whistles people want afterwards.
So I guess I was kind of highlighting the point that we all us GS in different ways and as such we all have different priorities. For me I'd rather have a few niggles whilst building the game and a world class ad provider that could make a huge difference in how much I earn from that game.
But seeing as how well Manto1 has done in just a few days I'm sure the idea of all the GS devs jumping on to the creator problems for a few weeks would iron out many of the problems everyone faces, and I doubt it would slow the progress of new features too much, seeing as they're quite thin on the ground already.
This is all my uneducated guesswork of course, I have no idea how easy it is to implement Manto1's work within creator itself, and I certainly don't want to patronise the GS devs by telling them how easy/hard something is to do when I have no clue.
I really do think everything points to these issues simply not being a priority rather than it being a lack of resources, they certainly have the talent and managed to find the resources to invest in things like IceCap Games long after people were clamouring for basic UI features.
This is probably true for the vast majority of us, there's a lot of guesswork going on here, not only do I have no clue about programming but I have less of a clue about the various business pressures GS will be under, but hopefully there are enough clues here to make some reasonably educated guesses.
I'm not sure Manto1's tool would even need to be integrated within GameSalad for it to be viable, I would happily jump between a layout tool and Creator if it saved me hours/days of repetitive tasks.
remember code wizard only started 5 mths ago, and in 5 mths think of all that has changed. there has been some massive course correction this year for the better. stuff like snap to grid or the creator's windows being persistent is not going to help you make a better game, just help you do it faster. (which I'm all for)
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Can you tell me why is tizen getting even love from gamesalad? I mean instead of tizen, you coułd have supported windows phone. Also within the development time of tizen, gamesalad could have implemented google play services, a feature I am sure people developing for android would love to have. Google has already implemented the multiplayer parts for android and as far as I have read up, it is cross platform as well.
Also I would have loved to see basic features, like auto save to cloud etc implemented. Now I have lost 4months of work due to a hard drive error. If gamesalad had even thought about such stuff, I am sure people would not have gotten so emotional and demanding here.
The creator DESPERATELY needs reshuffling. Sometimes, finding actors can be a pain in the a$s, especially while programming. What do they do instead, waste time supporting tizen. Sorry if you find my post offensive but I am pretty pissed off, having high hopes for gamesalad, which has tons of potential but not getting supported.
Just my $0.02
I agree with you that we should be focusing our efforts on Creator / Engine improvements. It's my personal view that the core business is Creator / Engine and we should be focusing on that. Hey, the entire executive team agrees with this.
You might be surprised to know that's exactly what we're doing.
A big problem facing the development team is paying off the significant amount of tech debt that we've accumulated over the years. What is tech debt? It's the unfortunate side effect of programmers taking shortcuts to "get stuff done" that cause future maintenance problems. Read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt
This is a real problem. And we're working on several aspects of the core tech to deal with it. This is taking weeks of work away from more short-term feature development gains. It needs to be dealt with.
There are two main areas of tech debt we're focusing on right now:
Build System
The core way we build and manage our software was poorly designed and implemented. This has caused lots of extra work (and unintentional bugs) as we add more to the code. We've been reworking this to make it sane, manageable and flexible.
The engineer that I'd like to see working on new performance improvements has been neck deep in this for the past 6 weeks. But it's necessary work...
One of the side effects of this work is that it opens up the possibility for native plugins in the engine. So, it serves two purposes: making adding new features to the engine easier and solving a core part of the native plugin system.
What problem does this solve for native plugins? Simple. Apple doesn't allow apps to dynamically load code at runtime. So, in order to allow third party folks to add native code to the engine, we need to support custom linking of app binaries. Based on how our build system worked previously this was, quite literally, impossible. Our new solution solves this problem nicely.
Another issue with how our previous build system worked was its fragility. We have one poor programmer that has to spend a day or so each week wrangling the mess that we call a build server. So, we're spending the necessary time to get that cleaned up so it "just works."
Engine Architecture
There are several aspects of our core engine that need architectural work. We're currently spending lots of time dealing with those issues. Most recently, that focus has been on the HTML5 engine side. This is because of our contractual obligation to support the Tizen platform. We've been slow burning Tizen support for a long time this year. But, as deadlines approach, we're turning up the heat on it.
Unfortunately this requires more engine refactoring because some of the choices made in our engine are not very good for these lower end JavaScript platforms. That is, things that work just fine on the desktop browsers are God awful on the mobile device. So, we're spending tons of time fixing that.
The upside is that the core engine is getting significantly more performant. The downside is that those weeks spent working on the core engine architecture don't manifest in obvious new features for you.
The same issues we're solving on the JavaScript engine are directly applicable to the Lua engine. So, that's really handy too.
We're spending lots of time to clean these systems up. And, like lifting weights to build your muscles, the benefits of this work are noticed later (they're more long term). Tech debt is undoubtedly taking a lot of our development energy right now.
There's something else to consider here as well...
Contractual Obligations
We've got several third-party initiatives that have been in the works for a while now: Tizen support, Amazon support, AppBoy integration, History Fighter and async multiplayer support. These things are the result of longer term planning -- on the order of 6 months or more.
We generally negotiate and sign agreements with third parties to generate additional revenue for the company. Revenue is critical because it enables us to keep working on the core tech. These agreements take time to manifest and, once they do, take development effort away from the creator and engine features.
Well, that's not entirely true. It just redirects effort to other features that support the third-party we're partnering with.
So, Tizen support will open your apps up to that new platform. Amazon support will provide you with IAP / GameCircle support on Amazon stores (along with free Kindle Fire publishing). AppBoy integration will give you access to segmented push notifications and an in-app customer service tool. History Fighter development prompted us to create several features that you'll be able to take advantage of. Async multiplayer gives you an entirely new way to create compelling and socially addicting games.
While the above features aren't snap-to-grid or folders, they are pretty awesome I think.
All this being said, I think there's a more central issue here that's rightfully inflaming some of you...
Release Delays
I think this is the 800lb gorilla. You want more rapid releases. Our transition to regular nightly builds has caused an "accordion effect" in the official release schedule. We've got several months of features and improvements that our test team is trying to catch up on. The reason we're behind on that is because of internal staffing changes and the resulting test strategy direction changes.
That's causing official release delays. Once we've caught up then we should be better equipped to have a shorter release cycle. Although, to be fair, Pro users have access to the current cutting edge stuff. You can take advantage of the latest improvements and enhancements without waiting for an official release.
Can't wait until we're caught up on that.
Current Priorities & Summary
Our current priorities are really clear to me:
1. Engine Improvements -- Focused on paying off our tech debt, improving performance, laying the groundwork for future extensibility and fixing bugs.
2. Feature Addition -- Focused on additional platform support, advanced feature development and long-term vision.
3. Creator Improvements -- Focused on UI / workflow fixes in Creator as well as long-term cross platform Creator development.
We could discuss the relative values of those priorities. But, from my point of view, they are the right priorities.
Those three priorities above guide our decisions. Sadly, for now, numbers 1 and 2 are trumping Creator improvements. As we get out from under Tizen, Amazon, AppBoy, iOS 7 support and tech debt issues then we'll have some spare capacity to put toward Creator.
I hope you can remain patient while we work through the test "accordion effect," tech debt issues and heavier lifting engineering work. We will get to the Creator workflow improvements. I promise! We're busting our butts over here.
Thanks for reading!
Long needed features are requested and ticked off in a matter of hours (rather than years) !
That's what happened over the weekend !
I think it's unwise to make the leap that just because a prototype tool has some features in it that those features are trivial to implement in an existing codebase.
There's the difference. Sure, if we wanted to spend a few days a whip up a prototype of these features then we could do so. But that's not helpful for us. We have an existing codebase to work with -- we don't have the luxury of just tossing that in the trash and rebuilding it from scratch.
Hats off to @Manto1 for his efforts. But that's no reflection on how difficult these features are to implement in our codebase (or in a fully functional editor). Nor on the relative priority of those features when compared to others.
It's tantamount to saying to an architect: "Look at this house frame I've put up over the weekend! Clearly you should be able to replace your frame with this one in no time." Sadly, it's just not that simple.
We'll get to these improvements when they float up in priority. Until then we'll continue to focus on core optimization, tech debt issues, engine extensibility, etc.