State Of GameSalad - What's happening!?!?
This message is directed towards the creators of GameSalad.
I've been a GameSalad fan for many years now, however I've been neglecting to use it for the past few months.
The first reason of this, is because of the lack of updates/staff inquiries about the state of GS on the forums. I haven't heard anything in a while.
I've posted this before, but I'd also like to take this time to request a removal of the grey background for the loading wheel. It very much clashes with the design. Second would be a request to remove the second window pop up on desktop publishing. (The window that allows you to show a logo). Is there anyway you could make that apart of the actual splash screen of the game window itself? Or at least remove it. I believe it should be a separate window as it seems messy/lazy.
I really want to use GameSalad more, but if there's not any updates or feedback as to what's happening behind the scenes, it really hesitates me from using the actual game creator.
EVEN Graphine's WEBSITE is not working...
So, what's the state of GameSalad at the moment? Are you low on staff? Are you abandoning GS? What's happening?
[Moderator edit: a new State of GameSalad was posted 8/25/16 at http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/93026/state-of-gamesalad-8-25-2016/p1]
Comments
You might need to tag the staff members you are aiming this at so they see your post.
Agreed, we should be able to position it where it will best work with our design, as well as having some control over the background colour as well as foreground elements.
Although updates over the past year have been nothing short of miraculous (custom fonts, speed and stability improvements, polygonal collisions, COM and Pin functions - etc etc - and numerous other smaller, but vital, fixes like image asset import stability, default black text, whole pixel placement of actors . . . and so on), but I'd agree that at the same time communication has all but collapsed, and this lack of communication really undermines confidence in GameSalad's future.
Development on Graphene was halted over a year ago, Graphene is no longer, so no need to maintain the website.
Would love that too. If I had to guess why this isn't in place already, I would say it might be because the app store requires at least some loading icon, and you could easily sneak a blank .png in there without a BG so nothing at all shows. Just a guess tho.
I think many of us would like to be more in the know. I certainly feel the same.
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We need an answer!!!
Seriously, i am with gamesalad for 5 years now. Gamesalad still have a lot of potential. I have plenty of games going to release. The lack of communication makes me think something going to happen in a bad way...
Also the forum is so quiet.
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@uptimistik @adent42
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AFAIK Uptimistik is not part of GS staff. He only handles GShelper.com.
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Am I one of the lucky few that has 0 problems or beef with GS right now?
I just work around the problems and move on. I'm mean if you want everything to work exactly how you like I would suggest learning to code, this is something I need to do for the long run I guess but right now I feel GS is meeting my needs, can't speak for everyone though so I do understand your points. But generally it's better right now than its been all year.
Yes and we need some help here
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There's no way to work around the state of Android games made with GS and that's half of the customer base or more for a lot of people here. Also you need to consider the recent events and understand that weeks or months of silence after something like that cause a lot of insecurity amongst the user base.
@Hoodloc sorry man, I see, didn't actually realise the state of android users actually, I've just been developing for iOS and not paying much attention apart from what's happening with updates, I've tought myself a few other engines too but learning the code side is taking its times, why I love GS still, I better hurry up and get my games released
I do this half for fun and half in the hope I'll make some money to develop a game full time without having to work my day job 
As I do work with gs full time I share the worries about the lack of communication from gs side.
That said as jay said the current version works fine, got some issue with video ads running over already started scenes but its ok and can be worked around. (pause screen before change scene..)
Ofc a different coloured bg for the loading wheel would be "nice" but thats all.
I don't see them prioritising this little "nice to have" over probably anything else they do right now.
If it doesn't fit your design you always have the option to align your design instead of having them to change it..
So is the none existing communication of gs scary, yes.
Should we have a different color for the loading wheel, not relevant at all.
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That's the core of it. A little communication can go a long way.
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GS need to make improvement on the core system first such as fast loading scene.(instant loading would be nice).
Loading times will always depend on what's being loaded. Even after improvements.
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I agree with almost everything you said @xJadonx. Updates have ben great, and really nice. However they have been the wrong kind of updates - ill get to that in a sec. Unfortunately GS have ditched the vast majority of their engine development team and have focussed on the marketing aspect of the software. I guess they've realised they can't compete with all these big game engines that are arguable better, as in faster, easier, and more features. They have therefore decided to go for the niche and target education (while still kind of maintaining current proper developers who jumped on board when GS was targeted at people who wanted to create games really fast (as opposed to really easily and for beginners))
However, there still are some devs over there updating gs. The new build has some really nice features - we are still beta testing it.
In terms of the wrong kinds of updates, GS have been pushing out new features as opposed to updates throughout this year. While it has been nice, I would have much preferred old problems to have been fixed first. I agree with you - whats the point of having a really cool game with lots of custom collisions and fonts etc when you can't even have leaderboards on android (properly)?? I think gamesalad should listen more the community.
Having said all this, it kind of reminds me of the third season of silicon valley, where Jack Barker takes over Pied Pieper as CEO and ignores the great compression algorithm they were originally based on, and transforms the company into a "stock" company where the product was the stock and 90% of the workforce were a marketing team. I hope this hasn't happened to GS. Unfortunately with the new CEO, I'm beginning to fear it has
Maybe, just maybe, GS would provide support for custom coded plugins - then they could let us focus on making it a better engine and they can focus on the marketing.
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If there are these many issues people have and they're plan is to have marketing higher on the list than the product's development, that's a problem and there needs to be a come to Jesus meeting at GameSalad.
This is a game dev community. News spreads fast over great content. If they take the time to make a quality engine (and tell us about it) rather than focus on marketing, then the marketing will take care of its self as blogs, videos, forums, will handle a large chunk.
Otherwise, as time goes on, they'll be marking a outdated s***y engine, thus being even FURTHER behind on the development vs the competitors.
(That's all meant if you are having the ideals of marketing > development. If those are currently not the intentions at GS, then more power to ya. Keep at it!)
I believe GS already has a great advantage, as theres nothing really like the "coding" in GS (aside from Scratch or Stencyl), as it's not hard Coding or Visual Scripting. It's like a great mix in between.
So, put a LOWER priority on marketing and focus on the engine's dev. You've still got people paying a subscription plan anyway, so it's not a 'pay once and hope more come in to survive...'
As to @BigDave response about the loading wheel. Game engines are the tool to help you create what you envision. If the engine forms your vision, that's not good. I want to design something that's beautiful to look at whilst enjoyable to play. For my game ThrowBall (on the AppStore) One of the main things pointed out was the loading wheel. They said it seems weird being there, and doesn't look too nice. If people are responding about a LOADING WHEEL... that's a problem.
Are you telling me you can't simply take roughly 30 seconds to a minute to make that background of the loading wheel transparent? It's obviously a transparent object, so just make it ALL THE WAY TRANSPARENT.
I get why they did it, (so the apps don't get rejected), but just forcefully add the default loading png unless we choose one. If we get rejected it's our fault...
Just get rid of that damn loading wheel background.
@ForumNinja @bdusing @adent42
I'd really like a response to the points made on this thread. From head staff at GS.
Excuse me if I seem agitated, but I do want what's best for GS (just like many others I'm sure). Just please give us info, even if the news is bad, that's fine... Insight is what's needed, not abandonment.
Developers are part of the marketing as well. I believe if they made good games with Gamesalad Engine, i am sure a lot of people would like to use GS too. If they focus on marketing instead of improving the engine, GS won't go anywhere. At the end, people get frustrated and leave. Please Make The Engine Great!!!
What if what is being loaded is a loading wheel ?
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This made me laugh lol
I think you got used to it by now.
@Socks, No humor allowed, Flag for you!
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if (user == xJadonx || user == ETGgames){ game.Loading.Background.Opacity() = 0; }
please
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The loading wheel has been addressed by GameSalad a few times. If I remember correctly, it's something that's coded in - it's not an image being displayed - and as such is not trivial to remove. When GameSalad was first being developed nearly a decade ago it was required that a wheel be there and the app store was a very different place. It made sense at the time.
Will they be able to remove it now? Maybe. But first they need to keep the doors open, and that means getting more customers. The first thing they tried was improving the Creator, which they did. Massively. Massively. That didn't bring in droves of new paying developers, so they're trying something else. If someone is willing to pay the salaries of new developers, I'm sure they'll be happy to employ them.
The bottom line is the mobile developer boom where everyone and their uncle wanted to make games is over. GameSalad was woefully mis-managed for years and fell behind the other engines in some areas, and now they're not exactly overflowing with options.
They've addressed a slew of longstanding issues over the past year. But there will always be more. Today's issue seems to be the loading wheel. Yesterday's was Google Play. The day before was custom fonts. The day before that was custom collision shapes. Before that, Creator crash fixes. People clamoured for these things, and one by one they've been getting delivered.
Frankly, if the biggest complaint right now is the loading wheel, it's a testament to the huge strides GameSalad has made. Let's give them the chance to get to the other things.
All that said, radio silence is, was, and always will be a really stupid corporate decision.
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Well said !
100% agree. I'd put GameSalad's lack of engagement with its own community as one of its worst moves, I'd rate it alongside the enforced-GS-logo-for-free-users move that pretty much ensured poorly made, low quality apps were branded with the GameSalad logo, whereas the better made apps where people had invested time and money in the process were rewarded by being able to remove the GS branding . . . what an insane move . . . it did just what you'd expect, it gave GameSalad a reputation for low quality amateurish games, while the makers of more impressive, and even brilliant, projects built with GameSalad were given the ability distance themselves from the brand.
But anyhow, that's in the past, but yeah, the lack of engagement / radio silence is really stupid, perhaps even dangerously stupid, for a digital product like GameSalad their website and forum is the product's shop window, it's where people go to check out what the software is all about, looking at the current forum anyone curious about GameSalad will see a lack of engagement from GS, questions aimed at GS unanswered for weeks, regular existential crises amongst even long term users, panic that the forum is going to be closed down, talk of GameSalad going bust, . . . and so on . . . as a new user checking out GameSalad would I invest time in the software after hearing those kinds of rumours ?
And on the same subject, I'd also argue that the little blue circle in the lower righthand corner (speak to the GS team) is on the same 'bad ideas' list as the [i]enforced-GS-logo-for-free-users[/i] idea . . . I will occasionally get someone asking me a GS question via GS's private messaging, and I always ask them to do it through the forum instead, the logic is simple enough, if you ask (and have answered) a question in private no one else can benefit from it, no one can search for it in the future, no one can join in and offer their opinion, no one can offer alternative / better solutions or point out mistakes you've made (and so on) . . . and importantly, you can be asked the same (or similar) questions over and over and over again, because no can see that it's been previously asked or find it on the forum (along with all the additions and improvements a thread often attracts) . . . so you might have exchanged a dozen messages, via PM, back and forth, over a couple of days, explaining to someone how to get an actor to move in a square path while firing rockets at incoming aliens (or whatever), and once the conversation is done all that information is essentially lost, it's turned into a one-time-use deal, it defeats the idea of a public forum being a repository of information.
I see the speak-to-the-GS-team little blue circle as falling into the same trap, the interaction with GS staff is hidden, information and insights lost to everyone except for the user involved, suggestions and solutions to issues unavailable to a forum search, and staff engagement that would otherwise make the forum a more active, involved place hidden from public sight.
For what it's worth...there is a bug report for this. Please add your votes...and then wait...and wait...and wait.............
http://bugs.gamesalad.com/show_bug.cgi?id=578
I really hope the game salad code is understandable / readable for new coders.
Else what if the last veteran leaves?
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@ForumNinja heard your cries and is to the rescue:
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/93026/state-of-gamesalad-8-25-2016#latest
Do you think Gamesalad would ever release the source code? Maybe for a paid price or something? That way users can attempt their own updates for certain features like camera interaction or such. Just an idea
The code has value. Investors or courts would sell it to recoup some of their $. I can't see them giving it away ever. I'm guessing what we think of GS are really employees of an investor group (unless they are investors themselves). Probably a small board of directors.