Future of GameSalad!!!
candemirag@candemirag.com
Member, PRO Posts: 8
After all my experience in the last 1-2 months of being pro, i am really worried about the future of GameSalad.
- No High Sierra support (and no estimated time of solution)
- Currently not able to upload binaries created by GameSalad for days. (Which makes Gamesalad useless for now)
These are not basic problems and i am really worried if my time is wasted trying to expertise on GameSalad. My problem is not taking my money back, i like using game salad. However I'm not sure that GameSalad has a bright future.
Currently i've started to look for alternatives for GameSalad.
I think the responsible, managers etc have to make a clear explanation about what is happening.
Thank you.
Comments
I wouldn't be really worried I'd be seriously worried. Count your investment in GS gone, at least you didn't flush 3-4 years worth like I did. Your on the right track looking for an alternative game engine. I really liked GS once and it had good potential but GS's focus is on the web version which is ridiculous (you don't see any other game engines doing this nonsense) and educational market. The lack of features such as linkages, associated elements and real-time collision shape editing makes the engine useless for a quality game experience.
GS is like having your first car, it might start, it might embarrassingly get you to your destination and you surely cant depend on it always. Then comes the time to throw the towel in suck it up and pay for that new shiny car. That being said everyone starts somewhere and has to move on to something alot better, see you out there
I believe gamesalad is an excellent starting point, but if you want to make anything other than 2D, single-player mobile games for the rest of your existence on this planet, I recommend you start learning C#. Don't try to find a game engine that can build without code, just learn C#, no matter how long it takes. You will always be a slave to the templates and preset codes provided by the system unless you learn the language. I cannot stress it enough.
TreeHouse has an outstanding course to help you get started. Here it is:
https://teamtreehouse.com/learn/csharp?utm_source=google&cid=1352&gclid=CLnu8bjczdcCFcydfgodwKMHEA&gclsrc=ds
If you do take this path I wish you luck.
When choosing a game engine you need to ask your self few questions ,
Does the game engine fit your needs , does it have the features you want , does the end product run well on the devices , whats the learning curve of the engine , does it have a good workflow , is it a reliable engine , are there enough resources to learn the engine , do you have the time to learn the engine , do you plan on starting a career with the engine , does it support the platforms you want to publish to etc..
If you think GS is the best choice stick to it , if not then you did not waste any time . In the end no matter what engine you use , they will all break down to the same concepts. For example
Comparing few engines out there you can see the similarity.
They all break down to the same logic , just different ways to approach it. You will end up having the same logic using the same behaviours.
If your serious about game development though then you will probably end up choosing another game engine at some point , an advanced engine that can carry your ambitions and push it further. GS is the perfect starting point , its a fun organised way to learn programming/game development , and when your ready to switch engines , you will take all the knowledge with you. I mainly use unity right now and i still use gamesalad code and translate it to c# . its not that difficult to switch to a new engine if you know the basics. But thanks to 3 years using gamesalad , it is much easier now.
Regarding gamesalad and the issues you see , this happened before. Apple releases an update that breaks gamesalad apart. The community rages , demanding GS to give updates/estimated time . GS team take a while to fix it and they usually end up fixing the issues , but sometimes it takes a lot of time. To avoid this , they made the web version of GS and that will help them focus their development on one code base / one creator using html5 and adding more features .Estimated time to fix an issue can never be accurate thats why they avoid saying anything about it , imagine having a bug in your game and you spend time trying to fix it and the players keep asking you to give an estimated time , you will probably answer , i will release it as soon as the bugs are fixed
Anyway i need to stop talking
I like doing this too. Imagining yourself in a similar situation always helps me keep things in perspective.
Given the resources GS has, could I get out an update faster if I was in there shoes?
Probably not.
So I try and wait patiently(ish) for the tool I like to use to get updates.
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Thank you for all comments. These are really valuable. I've started to look for alternatives. However GS was a good starting point.
Neverthless i am still waiting for a fix by GS developers. I think i've got a strong connection with GS
I would say future of Gamesalad is not looking good at all. Case in point the team page link below states Gamesalad only has 3 employees. http://gamesalad.com/people
Just to give you guys a perspective Unity3d has 1500 employees. So all this talk about things not getting updated in a timely manner and lack of communication is because of this. Gamesalad for years has been going in the opposite direction as far as employee count. That to me along with the fact we are putting our game development futures in the hands of 3 people is extremely risky. Even the CEO of Gamesalad doesn't even list his employment of Gamesalad on LinkedIn. At least from what I can see by not logging in.
I personally don't see much of a future with Gamesalad. I would love for them to be extremely transparent going forward. My biggest worry is all the time and investment put into projects that we might not be able to update much longer because who knows one day they might just close shop without a warning. All signs are pointing to this becoming reality.
Numerous CEO changes
Business Model Change to shift main focus to students
Drop in Employees
Complete change in the software direction
Less communication
Less updates
No more Gamesalad Marketplace
Seems to be a lot of love lost for GameSalad over the past couple of years, I work for a small software company so I know its difficult to give everyone what they want but frankly the turn around time for bug fixes and new features is shocking with GS.
unfortunately there doesn't seem to be many other choices out there for the non programmer that allows publishing to multiple devices, well not that iv seen.
looking at Unity it would be the logical next step in terms of game engine and the plus side its free unless you make more then 100k, form what I can tell it also allows publishing to all platforms.
you will however need to learn c# or unity script (java ?), there is also the option to use an add-on like playmaker which is a rules based engine like GameSalad and you can use it on both 3d and 2d projects.
@Bowhill Games ...and as @Socks mentions, the fairly new plugin Bolt looks interesting....
@Japster I haven't looked at Bolt yet but I do own playmaker and uscript. I got these when they were first released so went with GS as it was easier, but now I feel they are equal if not better then GS (in terms of functionality/ features they are massively better) slight learning cerve for these a Unity its self is a complex engine.
I will take a look at Bolt this weekend, it looks promising.
Bolt is very impressive. Great communication from its creator, quite clear and forward-looking roadmap. Check the developer’s site as well, not just the Unity Store page.
I got it during the Black Friday sale. Still need to invest time into it before switching from GameSalad, but so far it looks like a promising tool with a good future.
@pHghost
Ive looked at bolt but honestly have not tried it at all. Seems to trade one visual programming to another. But what happens in Bolt when you get stuck or "bugs".
Will you have to eventually read through the c#? Or relying on Bolt to be supported for a long time.......
At any point, if you are using a plug-in or service, you need to make that decision of trust. At this moment, from what I can see, there is commitment behind Bolt. Will it be there forever? Perhaps not. At that point, hopefully, I will have finally learned some proper coding.
@pHghost @Toque iv spent some time today looking into bolt and so far it looks promising, its form of logic (visual programming) is far more granular then that of GS, Playmaker, or uScript which is going to have its pros and cons.
For example its going to take you longer to do things in Bolt then it does in GS, or Playmaker at least in the beginning, however a nice feature is that you can save groups of behaviours for use in future games (across projects).
Because bolt is so granular your not going to find something you simply cant do / have to implement a work around / or even change your design as often as you do in GS or even Playmaker.
If you have ever used the node editor in tools like blender its a lot like that, you have to think of what you want to do in small chunks and build up more complex behaviours.
Unfortunately this is a new plugin only published to the store on 26 July 2017 so the community is just getting started, that said bugs that have been reported are often fixed within the same week.
To be honest its looking good, as a tool it seems to already on par if not better in terms of functionality then Playmaker which iv had for around three years and the roadmap looks good.
Currently this looks to be a promising tool, but there is always going to be a risk involved when picking a visual programming tool they are limited by there very nature the only way to over come this is to learn to program yourself.
But even programming languages themselves come and go, however they tend to stick around for a very very long time, and the big ones like Java or C# are so ingrained into everything we use today they will likely be around in one form or another longer then i will.
I think the owners of GSC should pitch this software to google. And let google build upon it. Take the torch.
Why not just make the new GS 2.0 beautiful and amazing?? If your remaking the engine anyways......... get people excited. Blow our minds?
I've said this before and I'll say it again. I've been with Gamesalad since day 1 and I was never very active in the community. But it's clear what Gamesalad actually needs:
1. A real CEO
2. Investment
3. A desktop strategy (no web-based nonsense)
Can you guys please achieve that in 2018? If not - can Brent step aside so we can actually fix what's broken?
I really hate absent CEOs and Brent seems to be dancing with the angels rather than stepping up and fixing the sinking ship.
Been PRO all these years and want to see GS work. Can we rescue your company please?
James
Hear hear.... +1
Hear, here! +2