You know what's quite nice? Having all the PRO members messaging in the same thread together. It's kind of like one big family together - all concerned and uninformed. Could this be Gamesalad's last throw of the dice?
@Armelline said:
Really not sure why the religious beliefs of the new CEO are being made such a big thing here. It seems unlikely that GameSalad is about to turn into a faith-based tool. If anything, a CEO with strong Christian credentials is going to help in their educational push.
My concerns are twofold:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I look forward to hearing what GameSalad have to say about their future and plans. Let's just hope they don't leave things too long...
Got to agree with Armelline.
I don't really think the CEO's religious beliefs will/should have a lot of impact on the tool. Perhaps he/they will use the tool to create faith based games on their own but hopefully that is outside of the main tools development and support. We'll see where it all falls.
Braydon_SFXMember, Sous Chef, Bowlboy SidekickPosts: 9,273
@Armelline said:
Really not sure why the religious beliefs of the new CEO are being made such a big thing here. It seems unlikely that GameSalad is about to turn into a faith-based tool. If anything, a CEO with strong Christian credentials is going to help in their educational push.
My concerns are twofold:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I look forward to hearing what GameSalad have to say about their future and plans. Let's just hope they don't leave things too long...
@Armelline said:
Really not sure why the religious beliefs of the new CEO are being made such a big thing here. It seems unlikely that GameSalad is about to turn into a faith-based tool. If anything, a CEO with strong Christian credentials is going to help in their educational push.
My concerns are twofold:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I look forward to hearing what GameSalad have to say about their future and plans. Let's just hope they don't leave things too long...
@Armelline said:
Really not sure why the religious beliefs of the new CEO are being made such a big thing here. It seems unlikely that GameSalad is about to turn into a faith-based tool. If anything, a CEO with strong Christian credentials is going to help in their educational push.
My concerns are twofold:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I look forward to hearing what GameSalad have to say about their future and plans. Let's just hope they don't leave things too long...
My sentiments exactly.
GameSalad is a TOOL. If you buy a hammer from a Jewish hardware store, you can still use it to build a Buddhist temple. Sure seems like a lot of religious-phobia in this post.
GameSalad HQ is based in Texas. Texas is up there in the top 25% percent of conservatively religious US states. So, no real surprise there.
If this guy is serious about his job and helping GameSalad stand firmly on its feet, it can only be a good thing.
ForumNinjaKey Master, Head Chef, Member, PROPosts: 554
Hey guys,
Brent (the new CEO) is working on a formal response to help ease everyone's nerves. To answer a couple of the questions here:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
I believe we can, yes. We're still working on getting a contract set up with CodeWizard (it's taking longer than desired, but is still in the works), and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I think the most notable thing that this means for you guys, is that the development we do will be prioritizing issues that plague our education users, and that updates will be a little less frequent. On the bright side, a lot of the changes we plan on making (UI improvements etc) will benefit you guys as well, and will be after we fix the major slowdown issue of course.
By the by - and not to go too offtopic, did you guys just update the theme on the forum looks different, some buttons are missing (no more quote, or feedback buttons on posts) and some are broken (the forums link next to activity is hidden for me, but still clickable).
Edit: also, now the link to the forums in the top nav is broken and redirects to the homepage
My pro account expired a few days ago and I was ready to reactivate it but then I saw this post and really can't understand why nobody from GS has informed us about the situation.
Updated to 1.25.54 and the creator is unusable, so buying Pro is pointless unless you like to spend money for a broken product.
And don't forget about the new users that buy gs subscription and then find out it's not working, i could imagine they would feel scammed.
Well all I'll say is if your a pro member and feel confident enough in your GS skills YOU could teach game salad and game design and probably earn a lot more a month than your games do!
In the UK you can command around £50 to £100 an hour rates in education for teaching computer sciences, also if the schools an academy you don't need to be a qualified teacher, you just need to know your stuff and be professional, or you can set up your own teaching class in the city you live!
Brent (the new CEO) is working on a formal response to help ease everyone's nerves. To answer a couple of the questions here:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
I believe we can, yes. We're still working on getting a contract set up with CodeWizard (it's taking longer than desired, but is still in the works), and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I think the most notable thing that this means for you guys, is that the development we do will be prioritizing issues that plague our education users, and that updates will be a little less frequent. On the bright side, a lot of the changes we plan on making (UI improvements etc) will benefit you guys as well, and will be after we fix the major slowdown issue of course.
Hi ForumNinja,
Thanks for your hard work, so then it's official, Brent Dusing:
...once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
I certainly hope the contract works out for all. But to be honest this is more disconcerting than encouraging to me. If a software development company relies on one single person to get updates made, that is not a positive sign to me.
Hope all goes well though, GS is a great tool and I hope to keep using it for years to come.
Brent (the new CEO) is working on a formal response to help ease everyone's nerves. To answer a couple of the questions here:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
I believe we can, yes. We're still working on getting a contract set up with CodeWizard (it's taking longer than desired, but is still in the works), and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I think the most notable thing that this means for you guys, is that the development we do will be prioritizing issues that plague our education users, and that updates will be a little less frequent. On the bright side, a lot of the changes we plan on making (UI improvements etc) will benefit you guys as well, and will be after we fix the major slowdown issue of course.
Thank you for an official response. The creator is in a good place other then the lag caused by the newest OSX changes. I think you guys can indeed come back from the staff loss.
What concerns me most however, is that we continue to get updates for things such as support for new versions of iOS, etc. So we can continue to both learn and publish with the tool.
Thank you, looking forward to meeting the new staff.
I appreciate the update however, the lack of communicate throughout this process has been very unprofessional. I can't say I feel any better about things, maybe once CodeWizard is back, we'll see.
ForumNinjaKey Master, Head Chef, Member, PROPosts: 554
@UncloudedStudio said:
My pro account expired a few days ago and I was ready to reactivate it but then I saw this post and really can't understand why nobody from GS has informed us about the situation.
Updated to 1.25.54 and the creator is unusable, so buying Pro is pointless unless you like to spend money for a broken product.
And don't forget about the new users that buy gs subscription and then find out it's not working, i could imagine they would feel scammed.
It's a shame because I really like Gamesalad.
Agreed, I find it bizarre that there's a known issue whereby downloading (or updating to) the latest version and running it on an up to date OS breaks the product . . . and even though GameSalad have been aware of this for a while there is no official warning anywhere, no sticky at the top of the forum warning people not to upgrade to OSX 10.11.5 or if they are on 10.11.5 then not to upgrade to 1.25.54, there is nothing in the specs page on the download section, no indication or note that this software won't work on the latest OS . . . so it's not surprising that people will continue to upgrade either GS or their OS (or both) and get caught out by the same issue many others have.
To be honest this has been a bit frustrating and somewhat seems like a lack of care or concern for users who have been around a while. (I know that very well may not be the case, but it is what it comes across with). With random promises given in the past and then no updates when those plans were dropped. I remember Dan mentioning .exe being one of the many exciting things coming in 2015 and then it all being dropped.
Where I see the lack of concern is that many of us are hobby developers sinking in countless hours on projects that we expect we are going to be able to publish on a professional competitive level as has been the goal in the past. I currently am well into a project that I believe displays how great a tool game salad is (as are many other users), yet now I have a fear of where Gamesalad might be in a year or so when my project is ready to publish.
I guess my question is do you plan to keep support for the already implemented items as iOS changes (video reward ads, performance, publishing platforms) or is it possible that things we rely on and have entered into projects expecting previously promised support for may be dropped. If I know I can keep developing with no fear of that great, but the thing is your loyal customers should know. Right away.
It makes sense from a business that wants to take money to not inform users of changes that might cause others to jump ship, but it doesn't make sense from a company that cares about its users as fellow game developers to keep them in the dark (potentially wasting their energy, time, and money) and I believe the Gamesalad team does care about its users. I guess I have just been a little baffled by the lack of communication the last 6 months. Not 6 weeks, or couple months... 6 months where I have been sinking a lot into a project all the while become more and more stressed if I am wasting my time. I really hope not to sound harsh or unappreciative of the Gamesalad team, all I really am asking for is communication on what we should be expecting rather than just "our focus has shifted to eduction, we have been open about this..." That statement can mean a million different things.
Hoping for the best, thanks for the great tool, hope it continues to be great, and hope to make great games with it. But also need to use my limited time and resources well, and can't do that without knowing what to expect.
Hey all, It's been a while, and I just wanted to see how Gamesalad was doing at the moment. Its very sad to find out that its not going so well. However I feel really happy that I made the right decision a while ago to move on to Game Maker: Studio. I'm really happy with it because I have so much more creative freedom then before (and I figured out that writing code is so much fun! GML is quite easy to read and write). However, with Gamesalad I really learned how to make good game logic and things like that. And that might be one the most importand things in game development.
I really hope that Gamesalad will still be there in the upcomming years, so lots of starting/current developers can continue to benefit from the great tool.
@ForumNinja ...and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
Like @jamie_c already mentioned how is it possible a software development company relies on one single person? I'm baffled if that is really the case here.
And what if he isn't coming back? The end of GS since nobody is fixing the issues?
There should have been somebody working on the fix when it occurred and not leaving paying users in the dark for so long.
never mind saw this in another thread... so all hangs on code wizards contract. And what if he decides he doesn't want to work at game salad anymore? Huge bummer, the most recent versions of Gamesalad have been so great.
I guess my question is do you plan to keep support for the already implemented items as iOS changes (video reward ads, performance, publishing platforms) or is it possible that things we rely on and have entered into projects expecting previously promised support for may be dropped. If I know I can keep developing with no fear of that great, but the thing is your loyal customers should know. Right away.
Aptly summarizes my biggest fears, and i'm sure many other users feel this way. I would love to feel confident in Gamesalads future.
@RossmanBrothersGames said:
never mind saw this in another thread... so all hangs on code wizards contract. And what if he decides he doesn't want to work at game salad anymore? Huge bummer, the most recent versions of Gamesalad have been so great.
So true @CodeWizard and @GeorgeGS came around and were huge assets in improving GS as a tool. They brought hope to the engine and really helped turn some things around and kept bringing us better and better versions of GS.
I really hope it all gets worked out soon. It leaves us developers with some major decision to make, and a lot of it rides on how things play out. We are hugely invested in this product (despite things getting roudy in the forums sometimes) and only wish it the best, I hope that the staff can see that and work out a solid plan for moving forward.
I'm still not sold either. Gamesalad is now an education tool and that markets needs are now the priority. Yep time to move to a development enviroment that puts it's developers first.
@jamie_c said:
what's up with all the Flags on these posts?!
Clearly someone takes expressions of opinions about the valid religious questions as unacceptable. Sad.
I've spoken to the person in question. Although it does appear that way, their intent wasn't to undermine religious expression. It was more about their disappointment in the critical views expressed about GameSalad, Inc. I've asked them not to continue flagging posts as spam and they've agreed.
Clearly someone takes expressions of opinions about the valid religious questions as unacceptable. Sad.
@tatiang said:
I've spoken to the person in question. Although it does appear that way, their intent wasn't to undermine religious expression. It was more about their disappointment in the critical views expressed about GameSalad, Inc. I've asked them not to continue flagging posts as spam and they've agreed.
I couldn't believe that luke2125 got flagged for this!
Comments
You know what's quite nice? Having all the PRO members messaging in the same thread together. It's kind of like one big family together - all concerned and uninformed. Could this be Gamesalad's last throw of the dice?
Got to agree with Armelline.
I don't really think the CEO's religious beliefs will/should have a lot of impact on the tool. Perhaps he/they will use the tool to create faith based games on their own but hopefully that is outside of the main tools development and support. We'll see where it all falls.
http://jamie-cross.net/posts/ ✮ Udemy: Introduction to Mobile Games Development ✮ Learn Mobile Game Development in One Day Using Gamesalad ✮ My Patreon Page
Agree completely.
My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx
+1
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Amen.
Sorry about that
My sentiments exactly.
GameSalad is a TOOL. If you buy a hammer from a Jewish hardware store, you can still use it to build a Buddhist temple. Sure seems like a lot of religious-phobia in this post.
GameSalad HQ is based in Texas. Texas is up there in the top 25% percent of conservatively religious US states. So, no real surprise there.
If this guy is serious about his job and helping GameSalad stand firmly on its feet, it can only be a good thing.
Hey guys,
Brent (the new CEO) is working on a formal response to help ease everyone's nerves. To answer a couple of the questions here:
Can GameSalad survive this latest staff loss?
I believe we can, yes. We're still working on getting a contract set up with CodeWizard (it's taking longer than desired, but is still in the works), and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
What impact will an educational shift have on us standard game producers?
I think the most notable thing that this means for you guys, is that the development we do will be prioritizing issues that plague our education users, and that updates will be a little less frequent. On the bright side, a lot of the changes we plan on making (UI improvements etc) will benefit you guys as well, and will be after we fix the major slowdown issue of course.
Thanks for the update @ForumNinja
By the by - and not to go too offtopic, did you guys just update the theme on the forum looks different, some buttons are missing (no more quote, or feedback buttons on posts) and some are broken (the forums link next to activity is hidden for me, but still clickable).
Edit: also, now the link to the forums in the top nav is broken and redirects to the homepage
My pro account expired a few days ago and I was ready to reactivate it but then I saw this post and really can't understand why nobody from GS has informed us about the situation.
Updated to 1.25.54 and the creator is unusable, so buying Pro is pointless unless you like to spend money for a broken product.
And don't forget about the new users that buy gs subscription and then find out it's not working, i could imagine they would feel scammed.
It's a shame because I really like Gamesalad.
Well all I'll say is if your a pro member and feel confident enough in your GS skills YOU could teach game salad and game design and probably earn a lot more a month than your games do!
In the UK you can command around £50 to £100 an hour rates in education for teaching computer sciences, also if the schools an academy you don't need to be a qualified teacher, you just need to know your stuff and be professional, or you can set up your own teaching class in the city you live!
Hi ForumNinja,
Thanks for your hard work, so then it's official, Brent Dusing:
https://findinggodinsiliconvalley.com/brent-dusing-founder-and-ceo-of-lightside-games-from-doing-things-my-way-to-doing-things-gods-way/
It's the new CEO for GameSalad.....?
God Bless....
Sincerely,
Sunday
@forumninja,
...once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
I certainly hope the contract works out for all. But to be honest this is more disconcerting than encouraging to me. If a software development company relies on one single person to get updates made, that is not a positive sign to me.
Hope all goes well though, GS is a great tool and I hope to keep using it for years to come.
http://jamie-cross.net/posts/ ✮ Udemy: Introduction to Mobile Games Development ✮ Learn Mobile Game Development in One Day Using Gamesalad ✮ My Patreon Page
Thank you for an official response. The creator is in a good place other then the lag caused by the newest OSX changes. I think you guys can indeed come back from the staff loss.
What concerns me most however, is that we continue to get updates for things such as support for new versions of iOS, etc. So we can continue to both learn and publish with the tool.
Thank you, looking forward to meeting the new staff.
Follow us: Twitter - Website
I appreciate the update however, the lack of communicate throughout this process has been very unprofessional. I can't say I feel any better about things, maybe once CodeWizard is back, we'll see.
@luke2125 Yes, Brent's the new CEO.
@jamie_c I understand where your concern is coming from, on the bright side the developer would be CodeWizard, and he's quite skillful.
@AlchimiaStudios I'm sure we'll keep updating GameSalad to support new OS versions that come out etc.
Hi ForumNinja,
Thanks for the confirmation.......
God Bless....
Sincerely,
Sunday
Agreed, I find it bizarre that there's a known issue whereby downloading (or updating to) the latest version and running it on an up to date OS breaks the product . . . and even though GameSalad have been aware of this for a while there is no official warning anywhere, no sticky at the top of the forum warning people not to upgrade to OSX 10.11.5 or if they are on 10.11.5 then not to upgrade to 1.25.54, there is nothing in the specs page on the download section, no indication or note that this software won't work on the latest OS . . . so it's not surprising that people will continue to upgrade either GS or their OS (or both) and get caught out by the same issue many others have.
Looking forward to the formal response.
To be honest this has been a bit frustrating and somewhat seems like a lack of care or concern for users who have been around a while. (I know that very well may not be the case, but it is what it comes across with). With random promises given in the past and then no updates when those plans were dropped. I remember Dan mentioning .exe being one of the many exciting things coming in 2015 and then it all being dropped.
Where I see the lack of concern is that many of us are hobby developers sinking in countless hours on projects that we expect we are going to be able to publish on a professional competitive level as has been the goal in the past. I currently am well into a project that I believe displays how great a tool game salad is (as are many other users), yet now I have a fear of where Gamesalad might be in a year or so when my project is ready to publish.
I guess my question is do you plan to keep support for the already implemented items as iOS changes (video reward ads, performance, publishing platforms) or is it possible that things we rely on and have entered into projects expecting previously promised support for may be dropped. If I know I can keep developing with no fear of that great, but the thing is your loyal customers should know. Right away.
It makes sense from a business that wants to take money to not inform users of changes that might cause others to jump ship, but it doesn't make sense from a company that cares about its users as fellow game developers to keep them in the dark (potentially wasting their energy, time, and money) and I believe the Gamesalad team does care about its users. I guess I have just been a little baffled by the lack of communication the last 6 months. Not 6 weeks, or couple months... 6 months where I have been sinking a lot into a project all the while become more and more stressed if I am wasting my time. I really hope not to sound harsh or unappreciative of the Gamesalad team, all I really am asking for is communication on what we should be expecting rather than just "our focus has shifted to eduction, we have been open about this..." That statement can mean a million different things.
Hoping for the best, thanks for the great tool, hope it continues to be great, and hope to make great games with it. But also need to use my limited time and resources well, and can't do that without knowing what to expect.
www.rossmanbrosgames.com
Hey all, It's been a while, and I just wanted to see how Gamesalad was doing at the moment. Its very sad to find out that its not going so well. However I feel really happy that I made the right decision a while ago to move on to Game Maker: Studio. I'm really happy with it because I have so much more creative freedom then before (and I figured out that writing code is so much fun! GML is quite easy to read and write). However, with Gamesalad I really learned how to make good game logic and things like that. And that might be one the most importand things in game development.
I really hope that Gamesalad will still be there in the upcomming years, so lots of starting/current developers can continue to benefit from the great tool.
Goodluck to everyone, and hang in there!
Matthias
Ok so I'm reading between the lines but... is CodeWizard the only guy capable of working with the tool and he's now left GS to go freelance?
@ForumNinja ...and once he's back on board we'll have a fix out for the slowdown ASAP.
Like @jamie_c already mentioned how is it possible a software development company relies on one single person? I'm baffled if that is really the case here.
And what if he isn't coming back? The end of GS since nobody is fixing the issues?
There should have been somebody working on the fix when it occurred and not leaving paying users in the dark for so long.
Not sure if this has been noted but George isn't on the staff page anymore...
www.rossmanbrosgames.com
never mind saw this in another thread... so all hangs on code wizards contract. And what if he decides he doesn't want to work at game salad anymore? Huge bummer, the most recent versions of Gamesalad have been so great.
www.rossmanbrosgames.com
Aptly summarizes my biggest fears, and i'm sure many other users feel this way. I would love to feel confident in Gamesalads future.
So true @CodeWizard and @GeorgeGS came around and were huge assets in improving GS as a tool. They brought hope to the engine and really helped turn some things around and kept bringing us better and better versions of GS.
I really hope it all gets worked out soon. It leaves us developers with some major decision to make, and a lot of it rides on how things play out. We are hugely invested in this product (despite things getting roudy in the forums sometimes) and only wish it the best, I hope that the staff can see that and work out a solid plan for moving forward.
Follow us: Twitter - Website
Clearly someone takes expressions of opinions about the valid religious questions as unacceptable. Sad.
I'm still not sold either. Gamesalad is now an education tool and that markets needs are now the priority. Yep time to move to a development enviroment that puts it's developers first.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
I've spoken to the person in question. Although it does appear that way, their intent wasn't to undermine religious expression. It was more about their disappointment in the critical views expressed about GameSalad, Inc. I've asked them not to continue flagging posts as spam and they've agreed.
New to GameSalad? (FAQs) | Tutorials | Templates | Greenleaf Games | Educator & Certified GameSalad User
I couldn't believe that luke2125 got flagged for this!
He's never said anything mean or nasty about anyone.
Great you sorted it out because if the flags were coming from the top I would have cancelled my subscription immediately.
On a bright note -- I hear that Austin is starting to dry out from the storms/flooding.