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

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

    @Approw said:
    What the ....... It almost seems like the Apple story all over again, but then I don't know in which direction...

    Toyman, apparently, when straight out the window and down.

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

    @tiger27 said:
    dgackey Just to be clear if I don't have a Pro membership, but I do have a regular paying account, I will not be able to publish on the app store, internet, etc.?

    With a basic membership you can:

    • Build your game using all the behaviors and tools available
    • Publish your game to the GS Arcade
    • Test your game via the GS Viewer

    You need a Pro membership to:

    • Publish your games to iOS, Android, Amazon, Tizen, Mac, or any other platform.

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

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

    @BlackCloakGS said:
    Socks Toyman is no longer with the company

    Thanks for the reply, sad to hear, I hope someone is going to pick-up on his rending engine work, it sounded very exciting.

  • DeadlySeriousMediaDeadlySeriousMedia ArizonaMember Posts: 838

    I don't mind how the GS business gets structured as long as we start getting engine upgrades at a faster pace like Google Play services, custom fonts, (at least semi) custom poly collisions, and joints...maybe even .exe builds for steam. These things alone would do wonders at keeping me from even glancing at other engines. :wink:

  • ApprowApprow Member Posts: 703

    @francis.charland@videotron.ca said:
    It's a bad mentality to think that everything should be accessible for free IMAO.

    I absolutely agree with that. But the fact that so manny people have this mentality could potentially kill gamesalad in a long run. Imagine yourself, you tried gamesalad for 15 days, you kind of learned something, but not enough. You can either pay 20 or 30 bucks a month, not knowing if you will be able to finish your game, or... find another engine thats free, with even more features/possibilities, with more platforms to publish too, that also has a great community to help you with your game. What would you do? Getting loyal users within 15 days is very likely, but maybe I will be proven wrong. Only the future can tell:)

    @Socks said:
    Toyman, apparently, when straight out the window and down.

    hahaha. Even in threads where people are really furious at eachother you can make me laugh. Keep the good spirit alive @Socks ;) I do hope the new render engine will be finished in the near future. I was so excited about it.

  • supafly129supafly129 Member Posts: 454
    edited July 2015

    @Franto said:
    I was abou to suggest what supafly did.

    Construct 2 has a free version with a limit to how much you can put in a game as well as limited features. I remember somebody was building a game on the free version, unaware of the limit, they were very invested in the project, and upon reaching the limit, they forked over cash to have access to the full product.

    It might work with a free version of gamesalad, although increase it a little than what was suggested, I'd say 2 scenes, and 10 max actors. That way, new users can try out the tutorials and build small practice games until they know enough of the engine to be hooked and invested in it that they fork over cash to take one of their games they are invested in for the full ride.

    15 day limit might only work for people who are on vacation. If they are busy working but interested in GS, they might only get to work on it a few times during that period.

    OH, another suggestion is to have the option to choose between 15 days OR a set a time limit of say 15 hours to use the program for free. For those who can only learn every other night.

    The key to getting new users is retaining them with these methods. Make them invested and unable to walk away from something they worked on.

    Agreed - I'm thinking that after the 15-day trial is over, the user will be given 3 options ( Free-limited version, Basic, and Pro). The free version would have zero publishing capabilities and would also limit the number of scenes, actors, attributes, project file size etc.

    That way, users who haven't learned enough or aren't ready to commit after 15-days can simply work with a limited version of GS that is only feasible for very small ideas and continued learning + GS gets to nurture these users into future Pro users, whereas the majority of us would likely need more than 10 actors/3 global attributes/5MB project size to continue building out our ideas and will be paying anyways...so in the end Free and Pro users are mostly satisfied for their own personal needs.

  • TheFrogeekTheFrogeek Member Posts: 97

    @Hoodloc said:
    I'm a pro member and I'll stay pro because I like GameSalad a lot.

    Yeah!

    @Hoodloc said:
    ... Something as basic as building a small tilebased platformer level is a pain in the ass

    Hell Yeah!

    There's no grid,

    I make that dream every night! And it snap!!!

    there's no zooming,

    Yeah no zooming!

    there's no group selection,

    A waste of time!

    actors land on weird decimal spots and you have to open each and every one of them to change their position.

    I see dead MacBook Pro every where... they are dead but they don't know it!

    I know that there's an external solution for this but the people who are new to GameSalad don't know (and nobody should have to pay another 50$ or so to get such basic functionality anyway).

    Yeah that's a shame!

    I'm just scratching the surface of stuff that is missing here, there's much much more if we're talking about advanced game making... the particle system is incredibly underwhelming, no support for animation software (Spriter for example), no masks, no custom fonts, no custom polygon collision, etc.

    This guy just opened my head to steal my thoughts! Give me back my head!

    What people will see is a lot of missing functionality for 19$/month which they get with nearly every other comparable engine for free.

    tl;dr: If GameSalad really wants to compete without a free version the Creator has to be improved A LOT and fast. Otherwise I don't think this will end well with so much competition on the market.

    Amen!

    Stop working on Graphene and finish the job with GameSalad.
    I think that:
    If you want people to gives you money (yeah I own the truth), they have to be able to make a game. 15 days aren't just not enough. It took me two years for my first game (it was a big one and my first one). If you asked me 19$/month 15 days after I started, I would never continue working with GS.
    Another option after 15 days is Stencyl.
    Stencyl isn't easier as GS, but is quite easy too. So, now take a look at Stencyl and take a look at your baby (ok it's your baby so it's the better one :) ), for someone who really want to learn making games, Stencyl is an really interesting option after 15 days on GS. And it's free.
    GameMaker is free, Construct 2 is free, Unity is free and PlayMaker price is around 70$ "forever".
    GS is an awesome idea! But too many things still missing to put GS to something more than "an awesome idea".
    Stop focussing on your money problem and start focussing on making the easiest and the better way, in the world, to create awesome games, this is what GS is in going to be, the money will naturally follow (I am Truth).
    It looks like you are running out of time. GS team looks like: "I need money, NOW!".
    I want to help you, but as an simple user what can I do?... Go on Kickstarter... You want an other bad idea? I have a lot of them in my sick brain.

    I think that luck is what loosers need, so in France we say "bon courage".
    "courage" for bravery, valiance.
    Sorry for my bad English.

    Bon courage.

  • RossmanBrothersGamesRossmanBrothersGames Member Posts: 659
    edited July 2015

    @Approw

    I have to agree. The reason I chose Gamesalad over gamemaker was that I could dive into it and figure everything out and start building my game for free. I knew my game was going to take a while to build and had no idea what time frame my always changing schedule would allow for. I agree that GameSalad needs to make money to give us a great tool. But I fear the jump from free to 20 bucks a month may push away vast amounts of beginners. At least for me I benefited from the previous model, and when my game releases next month, hopefully it will do well enough to cover costs for my next game and keep using GS. Most likely I will be able to stick with Gamesalad, however if this was the model when I first was looking, I probably would have looked elsewhere... not saying that would be the best decision, it is just the decision I would have made.

    I hope the best for Gamesalad though, I agree with everyone's point there is no easier game making solution. Was really looking forward to graphene for more power for some of my future ideas. Maybe with more attention game salad can get there?

    Good work on the current updates GS team! Very exciting to see where we go next. I really do hope the new model works great. Hope I don't sound like I'm complaining! Just thought I would give my input.

  • FrantoFranto Member Posts: 779

    @supafly129 Yes, I agree, as you mentioned, such a limit could allow people to make something small to learn with, but not enough to make an actual game without paying.

  • app_sauceapp_sauce Member, PRO Posts: 206

    @CodeWizard I think the 15 day trial would fit in great with the game jam circuit. Ludum Dare would be a great promotional opportunity. I did the last Ludum Dare with another engine but now that I'm back with gs I will be using it for the upcoming compo. Its not ideal cuz gamesalad doesn't have a true html export but I have my own website so I will just post my finished project to my site (and I might even simultaneously release to android and put that link on my Ludum Dare page). They have a tools section and guess which sdk is missing??

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

  • RossmanBrothersGamesRossmanBrothersGames Member Posts: 659
    edited July 2015

    I just read this comment on another thread by @WebWarrior : "We now consider the GameSalad learning experience to be a product itself, and we're now focused on making that experience something worth paying for!"

    Does make me rethink my previous thoughts. It does make sense, if people are using game salad with no intentions of publishing they should still pay since they are benefiting. I hope it does turn into something this people will pay for!

  • supafly129supafly129 Member Posts: 454

    I agree with @RossmanBrothersGames , time is money and if we all must pay moving forward to save us the time and frustration experienced in the past while having better performing games, I'm all in.

  • AlchimiaStudiosAlchimiaStudios Member Posts: 1,069

    @BlackCloakGS said:
    @Socks @Toyman is no longer with the company

    This makes me a bit sad, he was great at explaining how things work. I'd imagine one of the other programmers will pick up his work on the rendering engine going forward @CodeWizard ?

    Follow us: Twitter - Website

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

    @AlchimiaStudios said:
    This makes me a bit sad, he was great

    It made us all a bit sad as he was indeed great.

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

  • RainbrosRainbros Member Posts: 124

    So the only way to get the student discount is to buy the yearly commitment through Studica? Or is a monthly student discount coming?

  • AlchimiaStudiosAlchimiaStudios Member Posts: 1,069

    @BlackCloakGS @CodeWizard @dgackey

    So I have a question, kinda ties into my last post.

    Can we get an idea what is going to be worked on after engine crashes/optimization and the education website are wrapped up? The Roadmap hasn't seen some love in awhile.

    Are we still looking at a new rendering engine in 14 and .exe export in 15?

    Or is it not yet decided which direction things may go in the semi-distant future?

    Follow us: Twitter - Website

  • NimbleBugNimbleBug Member Posts: 483

    @CodeWizard so nightly build is available for basic and pro users or only pro users .

  • GeorgeGSGeorgeGS Member, PRO Posts: 478

    @NimbleBug said:
    CodeWizard so nightly build is available for basic and pro users or only pro users .

    Right now there are no nightly builds. We are pushing builds out directly as we have fixes/enhancements.

  • trashdinner@hotmail.comtrashdinner@hotmail.com Member Posts: 36
    edited July 2015

    @Socks said:Unity Pro 5 $1,500 or $75 month
    Unity iOS Pro 5 $1,500 or $75 month
    Unity Android Pro 5 $1,500 or $75 month

    the personal edition is free and you only have to buy a licence if you made more than 100 000$ in a year. If that happen I'll gladly buy the whole thing :O

  • xwrbnxxwrbnx Member Posts: 23

    15 days is not enough to learn and get familiar with the tool. I am almost 2 months yet I am still learning. Not every user comes from programming background, and everybody learn at different pace. Then suddenly this basic pricing comes up. Great tool but lack of documentation, most of the time is used for searching in google or forum...

  • MarcMySaladMarcMySalad Member Posts: 158

    15 days is enough to make a decision but if you start GS and the counter then starts counting down 15 days then I would guess that 99,9% of all the new users does NOT get to play with the tool for 15 days, maybe 3-4 days which is very far from enough.

    This is how I see this pan out for many new users:

    1 - It's Saturday. They start GS, 15 days trial begins, continue to experiment with GS during the weekend.
    2 - It's Monday, school or work begins and no time for GS
    3 - Saturday again! Partytime this weekend and no GS!
    4- Sunday, yeah let's do some GS learning again... 1 day left of the trial.. but but but.. I only used it for 2 days already.. I wonder if there is other tools like this... yes there is ok then...

    The 15 day trial would work if it actually counted the days that the user is using the tool and not just counting down 15 days from when the user started GS as a free user.

  • ApprowApprow Member Posts: 703
    edited July 2015

    @trashdinner@hotmail.com Yes that is correct! However, we can not compare gamesalad with unity though, but it is for free, and it does give the developers a 1000X more options. I think Unity is also trying to get newbie developers at the moment. They have tons of beginner tutorials, great documentation, a beautiful asset store, and ow it is powerful! Gamesalad in the other hand is fairly easy to start with, but if you want to make a more bigger/complex game, you end up with optimizing it for months because of the poor engine. So in the end you're probably better of with unity. Beginning developers will probably like gamesalad, but it's in the human nature to go forward, and if gamesalad keeps lacking important features, they will loose. The free option kept lots of developers here, and I think they should change their business model to completely free with no publishing options at all, and a one year payment (299) with all its features.

    (off topic)
    Also, Apple loves it when the developers come up with new ideas to exploit their new API's, and gamesalad is soooo far behind... So getting featured or noticed by Apple because of creative use of new features, forget it. Besides that we can't even publish for steam, which is a shame. It's very strange, they were able to support Tizen in a short period of time, but not steam? I get it why there is no XBONE or PS4 support, and there will probably never be support for those platforms, but a simple .exe and .dmg export would be great, so we can profit from the wealthy steam community!

  • muoch10muoch10 Member Posts: 112

    I've used gamesalad on and off for like 5 years, so I feel like I should give my opinion.

    I think GS is best for people who have never made games before and want to do it casually or for the first time. The pay to use model will be a deal-breaker for them.

    It would be really awesome for that audience if you kept GS free to use and charged them to publish. This way you still attract new users and can monetize their using GS.

    a 'no coding needed' kind of tool sounds like it's aimed at people who have never made games before. But this 'pay to use' model will immediately drive those kinds of people away. I don't see any other types of people who would be interested in a tool like GS except for the people who have already been using it for ages and the occasional outliers.

    Regardless, if you feel this is what is needed to sustain yourselves, then you gotta do it.

  • HypnorabbitHypnorabbit SingaporeMember, PRO Posts: 263

    Happy about all the news guys. Have been using PRO for four years now and love the new, more focused, direction. If you ever implement custom fonts in the near future I'll love you forever. Full steam ahead with 0.14!

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

    @dgackey said:
    It made us all a bit sad as he was indeed great.

    Is the new rendering engine / mega-textures he was working on still scheduled for 14.1 ? Or did he grab and eat the plans just before you pushed him out the window ?

  • abinitioabinitio Member Posts: 1

    hmm another project that gets lost for money....
    you could still have a free version with limited options.
    lots of people use this tool because its free..
    cant you make at least a free edition with ads?

  • lycettebroslycettebros Member, PRO Posts: 1,598

    "Graphene is not dead yet" is a concerning statement.

  • TeamLava8TeamLava8 Member, BASIC Posts: 294

    I don't post too frequently in the forums these days, but I thought I might chime in here.

    I know it seems like the pay after 15 days strategy will drive away users, but I think that may be a misconception. And the focus on not only the engine but helping people learn how to make games is also a great move.

    Two names come to mind, as sketchy as they may be....Chad Mureta and Trey Smith. People without any prior experience making apps or games regularly pay these men thousands of dollars. Chad Provides only lessons and insights and Trey offers a product that is drag and drop called Buildbox ($2,675.00) that is actually his lowest priced offering in years. Not to mention riddled with bugs and very limited. I would take gamesalad over his tool any day.

    Plenty of people pay for these very expensive programs without any prior development experience. So $29 dollars a month seems like chicken scratch in comparison. I can easily spend 29 dollars on a nice sit-down dinner, a trip to the gas station, or many little outings throughout the month. Just look at gamesalad as a nice sit down dinner with yourself. Treat yo self.

    It isn't even that difficult to put up a small collection of small simple games on the app stores and bring in the amount you need to pay for it with ad revenues. If it is important to you make it happen. I have been around for 5 years now, and people always freak out at these types of changes. Typically those same people are around to complain the next time something changes.

    That being said I think GS is making the right move, I hope they do whatever it takes to stick around for a long long time. Over 5 years the creator has improved tremendously, the creativity of the things people are doing with the engine is ridiculous, and Im sure there is a fair amount of people making a living entirely because of this fine product. It's seen me through some tuff times for certain.

    Making the world better one pixel at a time!


    My Website
    Over 70 AWESOME Gamesalad Templates by me!
    HIRE ME!

  • TeamLava8TeamLava8 Member, BASIC Posts: 294

    That being said Buildbox did seem to make some sort of partnership with Ketchapp, that is giving it some sort of street cred. I know game team one is probably up to something back there, but maybe some strategic publishing partnerships might be a fun future idea for marketing purposes.

    Making the world better one pixel at a time!


    My Website
    Over 70 AWESOME Gamesalad Templates by me!
    HIRE ME!

  • ChunkypixelsChunkypixels Member Posts: 1,114
    edited July 2015

    @jayleedesigns I don't think game team one exists anymore... Most of the team that made game team one were let go towards the end of 2013 from what I remember, in that round of layoffs.

    I agree with your main point though, that GameSalad could do with a boost in credibility among the development community, and a strategic partnership with a big publisher or two might help along those lines.

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