State of GameSalad on 6/30/2015...

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  • DerfMilarDerfMilar Member Posts: 27

    Awesome news! I love seeing this drive to increase quality. I'll happily pay for such a great service.

  • WebWarriorWebWarrior Member, PRO Posts: 62

    @KnightStar said:
    Hmm...good point.. What happens if users do not update their versions of GS? I'm knee-deep in a project now and am holding off updating versions until I can wrap things up and submit to Apple.. I'm a proud paying Pro user but I don't to introduce anything that'll upset the cart..

    We're planning on making old versions continue to work with our servers, at least for PRO subscribers.

  • CodeWizardCodeWizard Inactive, Chef Emeritus Posts: 1,143

    @KnightStar said:
    Hmm...good point.. What happens if users do not update their versions of GS? I'm knee-deep in a project now and am holding off updating versions until I can wrap things up and submit to Apple.. I'm a proud paying Pro user but I don't to introduce anything that'll upset the cart..

    Pro users can continue using old versions.

  • RPRP Member Posts: 1,990

    Getting serious up in here! I like it!

  • BlackCloakGSBlackCloakGS Member, PRO Posts: 2,250

    If you are a Pro subscriber you may continue using older versions. Otherwise you will need to upgrade to the newest version of GameSalad Creator.

  • app_sauceapp_sauce Member, PRO Posts: 206

    I like the no free meal mentality. But, it seems like the $199 menu item wont get much love... I could be wrong but who is that aimed at?

    SocializeTwitter , **My Site ** **Play Loop Zen Free **iOS HERE, Google Play HERE

  • CodeWizardCodeWizard Inactive, Chef Emeritus Posts: 1,143

    @bktennis12 I think $19/month is a great deal for an easy-to-use tool that you can use to learn game making. But, we've just released the new plan. Who knows what kind of pricing changes and coupons may happen?

  • RThurmanRThurman Member, Sous Chef, PRO Posts: 2,879

    Any news on educational plans? Still a discount through Studica?
    Any plans for school computer labs (site licenses)?

  • dgackeydgackey Austin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef Emeritus Posts: 699

    @RThurman yes and yes :)

    Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com

  • RondoRocketRondoRocket Member Posts: 411

    Awesome news! I'm especially excited about getting a stable build of 0.14 and having FB integration.

    Although I'm a little bummed about Graphene only because I had such high hopes for something beyond layers when sorting actors. I guess I'll just have to continue to dream... :)

  • NimbleBugNimbleBug Member Posts: 483

    @CodeWizard Any independence day discount.... or extra months on pro plan

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828
    edited June 2015

    OK in all honesty. Why would someone pay 199$ a year or 20$ a month. Just to see their game on The Gamesalad Arcade. What actually is the purpose for the Gamesalad arcade? Is there any financial value or gain to having your 200$ a year investment setting in the Arcade? The biggest use of the arcade that Ive seen so far is people being able to link their progress to someone in a chat or a email. " Go here.. this is what Im working on." To me the arcade only benefit Gamesalad. Anyone who clicks the link basically goes there and learns that there is a cool software that is "easy" to use, that made al these cool games you see.

    So people are paying GS 200$ a year to advertise for GS. Im sorry but thats all I can see coming from the arcade.

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,327

    Since the Basic plan means a big push for the Arcade, any chance it'll be getting some serious love soon? It's pretty broken at the moment. I'd be very disappointed if I bought Basic right now as a lot of games simply can't be tested or played on Arcade in its current state.

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828

    THANK YOU. I see the GSA as some broken unfinished invention setting over in the corner. That got left behind for better things. But now all of a sudden Its the reason for GS to charge 199$ a year. SO yes Please tell us you are making some drastic changes to the GSA. And that the 199$ investment into the GSA will have the ability to make a return on the investment in some case. If not. We are paying you to advertise for you.

  • gingagaminggingagaming FREELANCE GS DEV Member Posts: 1,685

    @Armelline said:
    Since the Basic plan means a big push for the Arcade, any chance it'll be getting some serious love soon? It's pretty broken at the moment. I'd be very disappointed if I bought Basic right now as a lot of games simply can't be tested or played on Arcade in its current state.

    A very valid point +1

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,327
    edited July 2015

    @FINNBOGG said:
    OK in all honesty. Why would someone pay 199$ a year or 20$ a month.

    Realistically, the changes mean you can't be making games in GameSalad for free any more, like you used to.

    What this means is that to keep making your game, you need to buy either the Basic or the Pro plan.

    If you aren't ready to publish your game, you don't actually need to pay the extra for Pro. You can still develop and test your game. Only when you actually publish your game do you need to pay the extra for Pro.

    So in essence, for a lot of users GameSalad is going to be costing them a little over $200 a year now, instead of $300. Why? Because 11 of those 12 months they'll be on the Basic plan, not the Pro one, upgrading to Pro to actually publish their game.

    For power users who publish often, they'll need to stick to Pro all year around. But for a lot of users who publish rarely, GameSalad just got cheaper.

    GameSalad Arcade isn't a reason to get Basic. It's just a little extra you get so you can share your game if you don't need to publish to iOS etc. The selling point of this plan is that every month you don't need to publish, you can pay less.

    The big question becomes:

    If I'm in day 10 of a month of Basic and I want to publish, can I immediately buy a month of Pro, or does to the Pro month get added to the end of the Basic month? Or can I even pay the difference (the whole difference for the month, not just the days remaining) and get the remaining days as Pro days?

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822
    edited July 2015

    @FINNBOGG said:
    OK in all honesty. Why would someone pay 199$ a year or 20$ a month. Just to see their game on The Gamesalad Arcade.

    There's no indication that the idea behind the Basic plan is to get your game onto the Gamesalad Arcade ? Can you not imagine anything else you could do with a year's access to an SDK like this ? Develop a game for commercial release on the iOS maybe ? Produce and demo apps for clients and preview them on your mobile device ? Or use it to learn to make your own games / apps ? (etc) ?

    @FINNBOGG said:
    So people are paying GS 200$ a year to advertise for GS. Im sorry but thats all I can see coming from the arcade.

    The why focus on the arcade ? If you don't think the arcade is useful (and I kind of agree with you, it serves a limited role) why focus on the arcade as the sole purpose of an SDK like GameSalad ?

  • The_Gamesalad_GuruThe_Gamesalad_Guru Member Posts: 9,922

    Exactly i don't think some people understand you won't be able to use the software period. The software will not function unless you log in to a paid account.

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828

    woooo woooo wait a minute. So I pay 199$. I work on my game....... its ready its done. IM ready to publish to apple/android/google. SO then I turn around and pay 300$ to publish it? Now Im in for 500$?

    I was refering to the use of GS Arcade.

    Pay us 200 and you can advertise for us on our Arcade. If you dont want to pay us to advertise for us. Then you can pay another 300$.

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828

    So you are saying. "HEY!!!! looky here..... for just 200$ a year you can learn how to use our Software. Continue to pay us 200 a year with no opportunity to get a return on your investment unless you bump up to 300 a year.

    Basically you better learn GS Creator in less than a year. Then jump up to Pro for 300 a year. If not youre burning money.

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @Armelline said:
    Since the Basic plan means a big push for the Arcade . . .

    I'm not sure that necessarily follows (of course I could be wrong here), I can see no reason why the Arcade would become more of a focus for developers, from what I can see people would continue work with the basic version as they always have with the free version, and when they have a finished game/app they can purchase Pro and upload to iOS/Google/Amazon ?

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,327

    @FINNBOGG said:
    woooo woooo wait a minute. So I pay 199$. I work on my game....... its ready its done. IM ready to publish to apple/android/google. SO then I turn around and pay 300$ to publish it? Now Im in for 500$?

    I was refering to the use of GS Arcade.

    Pay us 200 and you can advertise for us on our Arcade. If you dont want to pay us to advertise for us. Then you can pay another 300$.

    Where on earth are you getting this info from?

    You pay $19 a month to work on your game. When you're finished, you pay the $29 a month fee for a month of Pro. You then publish your game. If you don't expect to publish any updates or new games the next month, you revert back to $19 a month.

    It's entirely possible to create and publish a game in far less than a month, and if you can do that you're paying $29 now instead of $299.

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828

    I thought if you signed up for monthly payments. You had to be obligated to a years worth. You cant just jump in and out. So the moment you pay 29. your still paying 29 for the next 11 months.

  • ArmellineArmelline Member, PRO Posts: 5,327

    @Socks said:
    I'm not sure that necessarily follows (of course I could be wrong here), I can see no reason why the Arcade would become more of a focus for developers, from what I can see people would continue work with the basic version as they always have with the free version, and when they have a finished game/app they can purchase Pro and upload to iOS/Google/Amazon ?

    If you don't want to or can't afford to upgrade to Pro to publish to other platforms, you'll still have the option of Arcade. So more users will likely end up doing that, even if most will still publish to mobiles.

    By big push I meant that it is now listed as a primary feature of one of the plans. If you're paying $19 a month and one of the selling points (but not the biggest, as I've explained elsewhere) is Arcade, you'd expect it to work perfectly.

    And, for that matter, to be able to publish HTML5 without branding. That should be a feature of Basic if it isn't.

  • scottharrrules43scottharrrules43 Tulsa, OklahomaMember, PRO Posts: 694
    edited July 2015

    This is an interesting approach. A lot of sdk like Corona and Unreal are almost completely free and Gamesalad is going for free trial.

    Side note you guys add some more features to pro like using playstogether.

    P.S. Time to update roadmap right?

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @FINNBOGG said:
    I thought if you signed up for monthly payments. You had to be obligated to a years worth. You cant just jump in and out. So the moment you pay 29. your still paying 29 for the next 11 months.

    I'd re-read this whole thread, there are a bunch of details spread around that explain how it works.

  • limbozonelimbozone Member, PRO Posts: 23

    Thanx for the update much appreciated hopefully google play services leaderboards etc and facebook sharing for android will hopefully come into play :)

  • CaptFinnCaptFinn Member Posts: 1,828

    Spread around. It wasnt to long ago they came out with monthly. That option said if you choose monthly you are obligated for 12 months. after that your obligated monthly. But if you skip one month and come back...... you are initially obligated for another 11 months and then back to monthly obligations. Has this changed with this new Basic and Pro Monthly system. Or are is it the same? Are you still obligate to 12 months then obligated monthly? Or is it now a in and out system. Pay 29$ I have 30 days after 30 days I pay another 29$ or I lose access. I come back in 2 month and start paying 29$?

  • SocksSocks London, UK.Member Posts: 12,822

    @Armelline said:
    If you don't want to or can't afford to upgrade to Pro to publish to other platforms, you'll still have the option of Arcade. So more users will likely end up doing that, even if most will still publish to mobiles.

    True, so in that respect perhaps it will get more traffic, but I think for people who work away on the free version, developing games, then buying Pro to publish, they will follow much the same path, although it will, as you say, probably work out cheaper for many.

    @Armelline said:
    By big push I meant that it is now listed as a primary feature of one of the plans. If you're paying $19 a month and one of the selling points (but not the biggest, as I've explained elsewhere) is Arcade, you'd expect it to work perfectly.

    Agreed, but like so many things peripheral to the core product, Creator, I'd always argue for putting all resources into that, every day spent improving the Arcade could be used fixing eternal issues like the default text/actor colour issue, sub-pixel actor placement (blah blah blah), but basically yep, I agree with what you are saying.

  • app_sauceapp_sauce Member, PRO Posts: 206

    @Socks and @Armelline I'm with @FINNBOGG , However I do see the benefit for someone learning how to make games, but they are better off just putting the extra hundo in and maybe publish to android if they splurge the $25 for life. But going with @The_Gamesalad_Guru maybe thats the point. The $199 seems to be a moot point. I dont know anything about middle schools and high schools subsidising copies of gs for their students but it probably fits somewhere into the equation, since @CodeWizard said they will be focusing heavily on education. I do however like how no one gets it for free, my opinion is either everyone gets it for free (open source) or no one. I would have loved to been a wall on the fly, scratch that fly on the wall when gs talked over the price elasticity of demand curve and if lower prices would lead to higher rev.

    SocializeTwitter , **My Site ** **Play Loop Zen Free **iOS HERE, Google Play HERE

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