Roundtable: Support crisis for professional users

Status
Not open for further replies.

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
I have been on the GMC for 15 years, and I have not seen as much discontentment and "I'm thinking about quitting GM for good" posts among professional GM users as the past several months. It could be the next major crisis facing GM since the 1.1.666 vandalism scandal, and I can no longer stand by.

Sure, the Switch export and the new publishing arm are great things to have as a professional, and Humble Bundle promotions generate much needed attention from new users. But the resulting neglect of support tickets from professional/institutional users and the chronic tardiness on export-breaking bugs have, in my opinion, reached a breaking point. YoYo is actively damaging the trust and goodwill of the same users most important for GM's continued survival, just to get a little more buzz in the short run.

And before any YoYo staff member uses the "please file a ticket on helpdesk or we won't know" line, I'll stop and say that we all have tickets months in advance. We have exhausted our options through sanctioned channels, and YoYo is now forcing us to either quit or make ourselves heard unconventionally.

So here are my requests in summary:
  • If you are a professional user with tickets languishing on Mantis or the helpdesk, please list them here and state how their neglect has affected your business. I know many of you have posted elsewhere and have lots of work to do, but please take some time to re-post it here for emphasis and better awareness. If YoYo staff members or developers post back, please cooperate and let them know what changes would help prevent the delays you experienced.
  • If you are a YoYo staff member or developer, please take time to read through the impact statements and think about what could be done differently. In the short run, please help with the tickets listed in the replies if possible. In the long run, please show more consideration for businesses relying on your product for survival. Make exceptions to the release cycle for urgent runner updates, be more responsive to professional/institutional clients, and stop going all-in for new initiatives.
As a gesture of protest, I will no longer reply on the Q&A or tech support sections for topics not related to neglected tickets, until YoYo consults with the professional community and implements preventative measures that safeguard GMS's usability for professionals. I can no longer sleep at night knowing that I could be teaching fellow users down a path like this, and the least I could do is to help make sure this neglect isn't in their future.

Update: Since a YoYo admin has replied to me privately about what's going on, I will be posting normally again. So let's focus on what to improve on going forward.
 
Last edited:
I don't have any outstanding tickets (that I'm aware of), but just wanted to comment that I agree with all you are saying Frosty. I'm also wondering if any of the problems, issues, lack of communication, etc. is due to PlayTech changing the business model of YYG as it appears that since PT took over things have been steadily going downhill - especially in regards to communication and releases. YYG were never brilliant with communication, but you would quite often find Mike and Russel on here getting involved in discussions and problem-solving, and it just seems strange that they appear to be cut off from the community nowadays.

Even with a community manager, the output from YYG is almost non-existent.

I'll be interested to see how this topic goes as I agree that this is something that needs to be addressed.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
When GameMaker Studio 2 ran into that issue with not being able to login, their response took several days. This prevented me from using GameMaker Studio 2 for a whole weekend. I am heading into the direction of eventually being paid by a professional client I currently program games for. He has told me time and time again due to the amount of issues we've had with GameMaker, he cannot take the software seriously. He has been pushing me to use Unity for the past year or so, and I have been gradually making the learning steps needed to move on to that engine. We have been very upset with the lack of support and the amount of bugs we have run into, some taking years to be resolved and still are not fixed.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

JeffJ

Member
This is interesting - no more than a few weeks ago I was actually in the process of writing up a similar thread. In the end I decided not to post it, because I feel like I've already exhaused my limit of "complaining" and would be wasting my breath... So it's actually really refreshing to see I'm not the only "veteran" who feels like this. Like OP I have also been around for 15 years, and I too have never seen this much dissatisfaction from new and old users alike, ever - and personally have never been as dissatisfied and pessimistic about the future for GMS as I am now. To the point where I'm still actively looking into permanent alternatives once I finish up my current project.

To me it seems as if ever since around the GMS2 launch, things have really, seriously started to go down hill.

I have been steadily growing more and more impatient for the past year, but my final breaking point was reached about a month ago, when a showstopping bug was introduced via a forced update that gave me no option to rollback, in a place in time where I was preparing the first demo of our new project to be publicly shown off at an expo - the culmination of more than 18 months of work - and with a schedule where every single day mattered because of a very tight deadline, this ended up taking somewhere between 1 and 2 full weeks of productivity. And the worst part is, that's actually me being "lucky" - because I am in a very privileged position where I got what you could call premium support. I will give YYG credit here - they have some of the most dedicated and hardworking people I have ever met - and I am still amazed at the lengths especially Russell went to to help me out. For that I will always be grateful. The thing is - this shouldn't be an issue in the first place - and what about the "little guy" who is not in a good spot as I am? Something like this would have probably been stopping them for months.

I will also add my support to people saying that YYG has been more silent than ever before - yes, even with a community manager. I really don't know what the hell is going on, but it seems as if everything happens at 50% speed of what it used to - at best. Everything. For more than a year now. Sometimes I legitimately worry if YYG is a sinking ship and none of us knows - will this business be here in 5 years? Because it really does seem like everything has been stagnating for a while. And as someone who's built his livelihood on it, it's very, very worrying.

My personal breaking point bug was fixed, so to be fair, everything I have now in my tickets is not showstopper material - however, they are all things that have made my GMS2 experience objectively inferior to GMS1, and they have been reported for god knows how long now - not just by me. A million little things that just completely cripple any workflow and productivity in a version that is supposed to be better. The tickets that have gotten a reply have just gotten the standard "We'll pass this along" BS and then been marked as solved.

Here's a few. Most of these are things that already existed and worked great in GMS1 and have no viable alternative in GMS2.
They are all things that have cost me a significant chunk of time - and many of them continue to do so on a daily basis.

Request for fixing "Find & Replace" - pretty basic IDE stuff that always worked in GMS1 - originally reported in august 2017:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/140378

Request for same search features we've always had in GMS1 - once again, pretty basic IDE stuff - reported in february 2018:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/140195

Request for bringing back ctrl+arrow up/down scrolling in text editor like we had in GMS1 - reported in february 2018:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/140355

Request for room instance deletion with mouse like in GMS1 - basic ergonomic support - reported in january 2018:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/139282

Request for bringing back "Check References" feature from GMS1:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/145745

Allow importing of multiple resources - this is my report from last month, but I know this has been heavily requested since day 1:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/145749

Allow export/import of GMZ (or GMS2 equivalent) - this is my report from last month, but I know this has been heavily requested since day 1:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/145748

Bug: "Select from any layer" keeps disabling itself:
https://help.yoyogames.com/hc/en-us/requests/145783

----

And these are just a few. Mind you - not one single ticket above is requesting any new features - they are all either bug reports or requests for getting back basic IDE functionality that we've had for more than half a decade!

To underline how grave this is, most of it is basic freaking IDE stuff that has always been around in GMS1, and some of them (like multiple resource import) have actually seen unofficial support from the community. We are now living in an era of YYG where the community - the paying customers - have to provide some of the most basic and fundamental IDE features. This is... I... I am beyond words. Especially seeing just how long some of this has been reported - and with absolutely no form of even acknowledgement if they are even going to be fixed. It'll be a long shot before GMS2 is even on par with GMS1, let alone better. I really don't feel like we're asking for much. Actually, I don't think we're asking for anything.

There so many more things I feel like saying, but the bottom line is, things have never seen worse than they do now - and I know that I am far from the only user who thinks so. Doesn't matter if you've been here 15 days or 15 years - it's painfully obvious. And as someone who really roots for YYG and GMS, I am genuinely saddened and worried - equal measures - by the current state of affairs.
 
Last edited:
When GameMaker Studio 2 ran into that issue with not being able to login, their response took several days.
Also with this, it appears that 99% of the communication around issues (most recently the login problems) have been done on the YYG Support Twitter account - but virtually nothing was being posted here in the community where 99% of the people actually hang out for information. Wonder if this is also another "business model" sort of change whereby the GMC is now only really for the community to discuss things, and the "official" channels for YYG are now only Twitter & Facebook. Would be disappointing if this was the case, as the GMC has been the backbone for a number of years and it would be a shame for it to start losing longtime users now.

I am usually an advocate for YYG and, mainly because I don't think I have had any really major issues with GMS2 (touch wood), I still see it as a great piece of software to use - but it is the lack of communications and releases that are starting to grind at people here (myself included to a degree). If I was a fulltime GMS2 user needing it for my main income (like a lot of people are) I would be weighing up the time difference between waiting for fixes and releases, compared to the time needed to convert to another program - and I am sure several people are looking at things that way now. It's sad that it has come to this.
 
E

Engineer

Guest
Being an avid GMS user since 1.1, I had to shelve GMS2 about a year and a half ago through frustration about the way it turned out and the lack of on-going bug-fix support. Haven't touched game dev since, the experience has made me loathe the idea of coding now.

I loved YYG when they were the underdog. But now...

I did download GoDot this morning though and its present state looks frankly 'fantastic'. Looks like there is a new underdog in town, and it is open source. If something doesn't work or I wan't to extend upon its core, I am free to do so. Whether I re-iginte the passion for coding again remains to be seen.

As for the bug reports, my oldest unresolved issue is 3 years 4 months old. Sure, it has been marked as 'resolved' though, with the usual 'we acknowledge there is a bug and it will be fixed ASAP'.
 

TheSpydog

Member
Since I started making games with GM 6.0 in 2006, I have been loyal to GameMaker. I've used GM to make more than 30 freeware games, and I've taught dozens of classes on how to use GameMaker.

While I've been a hobbyist most of my life, I've still paid close attention to the state of the platform.

I remember when YYG first came onto the scene.
I remember their infamous GM logo contest.
I remember their first stab at being a mobile games publisher.
I remember the piracy debacle.
I remember the short-lived GameMaker: HTML5. (And the awful orange IDE still haunts me...)
I was a GMS1 Master Collection user, and now I own all the GMS2 modules (minus UWP and the consoles).

GM used to be my unequivocal recommendation for getting started with game development, and I defended it fiercely over alternatives like Unity.

Earlier this year, after I graduated from university, I decided to set out on my own as a full-time independent game developer. The first decision I had to make was which engine I wanted to use to make my game. And to be honest, I'm still trying to figure that out. For months now, I have been full of anxiety trying to determine which tools to use. Why haven't I just gone with GameMaker?

Because I have no idea what's going on with GM or YYG, and I'm scared to bet my business on them.

Like everyone else, I've had months go by with no response for tickets I've submitted to the helpdesk. These have been predominantly basic issues with the macOS export -- like fullscreen and window handling being broken in all kinds of weird ways. (In the past, YYG has blamed these bugs on "Apple being Apple" -- even though no non-GM game I've tried exhibits this behavior.)

The only issue that did get logged to Mantis (not being able to remove a splash screen even for test builds) is actually kind of a big quality-of-life deal that impacts the development cycle of every macOS IDE user -- but it hasn't received any attention yet, despite having been logged since January.

YYG has, on a few occasions now, quietly deviated from their published roadmap, the only semi-reliable source of information we have for the future of GM. And on top of that, compared to almost any other game engine, updates are extremely infrequent. (Heck, Construct comes out with an update every week. And they've only got like 3 developers! I know YYG has more platforms to support, but I mean...come on.)

I've given up on the mobile export entirely due to YYG's near-total lack of modern third-party extension support, and the HTML5 export due to it somehow not supporting basic features. (Apparently they forgot to wire up the instance layer property. Whoops! But seriously...how did that not get caught in a unit test?)

And the really sucky thing is, like everyone else in this thread, I really want to use GameMaker in a professional capacity. In my opinion, it has the best workflow and export options of any 2D game engine I've come across. But the black-box nature of YYG is completely inappropriate for a development tool-oriented company. I feel like the company could just suddenly dissolve one day, and nobody would know what happened. The GM servers would go down, and people would assume it's just another outage. They've lasted days before without official recognition, after all.

For that matter, does anyone else remember when the forums were down for two months with barely a word spoken about it? Or when a whole year (2015) came and went without a peep about the next big GM release?

I have very little faith in YYG at this point to communicate ANYTHING. Unless something major happens (like they publicly dedicate most of their efforts to bug fixes and remedying this current mess), I don't think GM has much of a future for anyone but hobbyists. And if hobbyists are the target market...then why are so many resources being devoted to Switch development, which only a tiiiiny fraction of GM developers will ever use? Nothing YYG is doing makes sense from the outside, and they do nothing to clarify what they're thinking on the inside. I've never seen a company be this opaque about their plans.

So what are we supposed to do? We've been told to be patient and wait for updates, but I'm trying to build a business using this product, and I don't have much longer I can wait.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Whilst I'm not a professional or a 15yr veteran, I agree with pretty much everything that has been said and so won't reiterate it.

In terms of this being a thread for "professional" users, I understand why Frosty has done that, but in terms of the bigger picture the issues are much more widespread than just with those using GMS in a professional capacity.

Whilst I understand that "professional" users would get higher priority support from YYG (after all those games will be held up as beacons of what GMS can do when in the right hands, and that would hopefully drive YYGs sales to the rest of the non-professionals or new users wanting to get into gamedev via using GMS) I feel that the disparity between the support "professional" users get compared to the "average joe" is just way too large.

We all pay the same amount of money for the licences, but "professionals" have their issues prioritised and fixed ASAP, and the rest of use who laid out the same amount of cash are left waiting months to even get a response to an email - that's much too big of a difference IMO.

As I said I understand that "professionals" would get priority support and I expect that, but those games would be used to drive sales of GMS to the "average joes" who might read the devlogs of those games and think how awesome it is when they read how YYG went above and beyond to facilitate the devs process by working directly with them to fix bugs and send out special builds of the runner etc to hit deadlines.

The majority won't get that - of course they won't, that's not what I'm saying - but when they drop ~£500 on licences for desktop, mobile and HTML5 and then realise things aren't quite what they seem (see True Valhalla's posts re: HTML5 export for example) and then have to sit twiddling their thumbs for months before support even acknowledges they exist, wait months between updates that fix 10 things but break 5 others, include new bugs that leave you scratching your head as to how it even got through QA without anyone noticing, lock you out of downgrading to a working runtime after said bugs have been introduced, have no handle on where GMS2 is going in the future due to the roadmap being a list of things that "might or might not happen in no particular order, which may be changed and removed as we see fit", and then realise that for the majority of us the relationship between YYG and themselves is a wall of silence with a "we'll speak to you when we want to" attitude - well that's a bitter pill to swallow.

Just to reiterate - I'm not expecting instant 1 on 1 support for everyone, but 3mths for a first response from support is just ridiculous - whether I'm professional or not.

In terms of Frosty boycotting his use of the forum in terms of helping people, I have kinda done the same thing without vocalising it after having my enthusiasm for GMS2 gradually worn down so much that I have actually been using Unity for the last couple of months and enjoying it - the kicker being that there have been about 4-5 updates in that time, it's just so refreshing!
(..and no I'm not comparing Unity with GMS or YYG team size v Unity team size here, just the fact that regular meaningful updates and communication are a great thing)

As I said I'm no veteran but I've been around almost 2yrs and was one of the most active users of the forum, 99% of my posts answering questions and helping people out, with a smattering of attitude for the folks that "post first, search later" just to keep me sane! ;)

However the last couple of months I've still had a quick look at the New Posts list, but haven't posted and I've just lost the inclination to spend my time on here or use GMS2 much at all, and that is from someone who used GMS2 pretty much every day before and have felt (like some others) the need to look at other engines to get what I need and want from the people who create, provide and support my engine of choice.

That is down to YYG and how they have just seemingly abandoned any sort of meaningful interaction with the community, support has gone downhill to the point you are lucky to get a reply within a month, updates are sparse and the time between them is getting bigger etc, none of which would be such big issues if they just communicated wtf was going on and provide the information to let people make informed decisions as to whether they are happy with the product and where it's headed going forward. People cannot stake their time, energy, effort and potential livelyhood on a black box and wall of silence.

The community is one of ther best features of GMS - here, reddit and the Discord server all have great people willing to help others just because we enjoy it and enjoyed using GMS, but that is starting to change and if the community starts to disappear or turn sour then GMS loses it's heart.

Ever looked into buying some software, seen 100 posts in a year old forum and changed your mind, or seen customers grievances with regards to things I've discussed above?
The numbers are bigger for GMS but the principle is the same - it's not enticing to new users which is what YYG consistently needs due to the licencing model they use.

I do think that the issues mentioned are adownside of the "pay once, own forever" model, that being that they already have our money so there is no external force or incentive to provide top quality versions of the things I have just mentioned above (support, updates, turnaround, bugs etc) and they can run on their own schedule and tell us nothing - as we are seeing now.

If they worked on a subscription then there would be external pressure to keep the bar as high as possible otherwise the monthly income would disappear as people cancelled their subscriptions due to them feeling like it was a waste of money. However this is why I feel it would never go subscription - people just wouldn't accept this kind of customer support (or lack of) for a monthly fee.

This is way longer than I intended so I'm gonna stop now, but like the rest of you my frustration and anger comes from a good place.
I want to use GMS2, I want it to be as good as it can be, be stable, have less bugs, more users etc, but the current direction it is headed doesn't lead to any of those things and I feel something needs to change before too much damage is done to the relationship between YYG and paying customers and people start to move on to other pastures.

Some of us already have.

PS. I predict one of 3 things for these recent threads:
1) Crickets, tumbleweed, no response or acknowledgment.
2) Thread lock.
3) A reply that doesn't answer any of the issues raised in any meaningful way.

Hopefully it's none of the above and YYG realise they need to do something and can open some sort of meaningful, ongoing dialogue with customers / the community going forward to try and at least make a start to try and repair the damage that has been / is being done to their engines brand and reputation by this "fingers in our ears" attitude they seem to currently be currently projecting.
 
Last edited:

Jabbers

Member
I've worked on several games over the past several years (mostly iOS apps, but also Mac app store and Steam) and I've also used GM when creating fast prototypes / concepts of apps for companies (inhouse / internal stuff). I had favoured GameMaker for the way it can be used to rapidly develop ideas esp. when you have a very small team or budget, or you want to demonstrate a design concept.

There is definitely a feeling that YoYo are biting off more than they can chew. I really enjoyed using GameMaker 1.4 but there were always problems and the ticket system was too slow. What alarmed me the most was the time I was told that I needed to send YoYo my game project upon reporting any issue-- when I said that wasn't possible, I was told they didn't have the time to try and test and recreate the problem, and that they wouldn't fix it.

This suggests there just aren't enough resources to analyse and fix the product effectively, and that the onus is put on users to police for bugs and provide our code to be analysed. Those of us who cannot provide entire game source code, sometimes for legal reasons, are essentially told nothing can be done. How can one expect to build a good product with that attitude?

I was never seriously impacted by the delays but some projects did come close to running overtime and ultimately I've moved away from using GM as a tool for any non-hobbyist work.

Despite being an early adopter of GMS2, I find that I can't use it to develop games. It isn't stable enough. It wasn't a year a go and it isn't today. I can't even save my projects without it sometimes locking up and freezing randomly. I don't want to blame YoYo for this necessarily because I'm not sure of what the cause is. However, it made me wonder if people should keep waiting for improvements and fixes to existing issues. Given how GMS 1.4 turned out (arguably never fully "fixed") you have to ask yourself, what are we really waiting for, and what can we reasonably expect?
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
Also with this, it appears that 99% of the communication around issues (most recently the login problems) have been done on the YYG Support Twitter account - but virtually nothing was being posted here in the community where 99% of the people actually hang out for information. Wonder if this is also another "business model" sort of change whereby the GMC is now only really for the community to discuss things, and the "official" channels for YYG are now only Twitter & Facebook. Would be disappointing if this was the case, as the GMC has been the backbone for a number of years and it would be a shame for it to start losing longtime users now.
I've just messaged YoYo's account on Twitter asking for a response on this topic. Hopefully that would get their attention, however discreetly.

I have been steadily growing more and more impatient for the past year, but my final breaking point was reached about a month ago, when a showstopping bug was introduced via a forced update that gave me no option to rollback, in a place in time where I was preparing the first demo of our new project to be publicly shown off at an expo - the culmination of more than 18 months of work - and with a schedule where every single day mattered because of a very tight deadline, this ended up taking somewhere between 1 and 2 full weeks of productivity. And the worst part is, that's actually me being "lucky" - because I am in a very privileged position where I got what you could call premium support. I will give YYG credit here - they have some of the most dedicated and hardworking people I have ever met - and I am still amazed at the lengths especially Russell went to to help me out. For that I will always be grateful. The thing is - this shouldn't be an issue in the first place - and what about the "little guy" who is not in a good spot as I am? Something like this would have probably been stopping them for months.
I can also corroborate on individual support developers doing a good job, but being hindered by administrators and red tape.

In 2012, source control compatibility and bugs in the built-in integration were a major problem in GMS 1.x. When I was finally assigned a dedicated contact and temporary red build access in 2014, I was finally able to report more than a dozen bugs directly at the source and get immediate attention. The developer assigned to my tickets was stellar and made quick work most of them in the span of a week or so. That I must give him credit for.

In many cases, I think the individual developers are wonderful and responsive. But the old administrative policy of forcing many features into singular, sporadically released service packs nullifies their value to professional developers. YoYo is still operating as though runtimes aren't downloadable and interchangeable. They are making completely unrelated concerns contingent upon each other for the right to be released, and in the end all of the concerns end up late. Why make the libpng security bulletin in Android wait for the Spine runtime, for example?

This suggests there just aren't enough resources to analyse and fix the product effectively, and that the onus is put on users to police for bugs and provide our code to be analysed. Those of us who cannot provide entire game source code, sometimes for legal reasons, are essentially told nothing can be done. How can one expect to build a good product with that attitude?
Yes, YoYo is quite frequently negligent in pre-release testing, particularly in HTML5. But even if they improve, they're still human, and like any other engine there will be deep corner cases not anticipated in early testing. While YoYo should do a better job anticipating and testing professional use cases, when they don't despite their best efforts, I think it's still our job to report in isolated, reproducible chunks.
 
Last edited:
Over in the other topic about the lack of a release, gnysek said this about what has been found in Mantis and the Roadmap:
From what I noticed on Mantis (before they hidden roadmaps etc.), there was 2.2.x in QA already, and they switched back to 2.1.5 update (probably because of iOS x64 changes ?).

Usually when new version is out, when you look into release notes, the date is around 5-10 days before, so it's the time that QA checks software (2.1.4.295 was released on 22nd of May, but in release notes there's 17th of May). According to this, and other observations I've made but don't want to share too much, 2.1.5.x should come... today/tomorrow, or they are waiting to release it both with GMS 1.4 next week.

Edit: Mantis Roadmap seems to be public again, and there's one ticket awaiting to complete for 2.1.5 https://bugs.yoyogames.com/roadmap_page.php - so seems that iOS issue postponed all releases and messed their plans.
Even if it is an iOS issue that has delayed everything, it is the lack of communication that is what really frustrates people. It should have been a 1 minute job to put out a post to say that there are some delays because of the problems they have encountered.
 
E

Engineer

Guest
Let's not forget that Playtech is a very smart company. Their core business model is to 'sell dreams'. They make millions on their gambling machines by 'dangling the carrot'.

GameMaker is that same carrot to a different demographic. Once you bite that carrot, your hard earned is with them. Does it really matter how the carrot tastes after that? The dream is sold knowing that 99.9% of users will never likely make a cent anyway.

As someone mentioned earlier, maybe a subscription model might not be so bad after all.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
I would also like to add that I reported 8 days ago that the Mac IDE is completely unuseable for me. An error message is preventing me from building my game, even the test run and debug buttons are throwing the same show-stopping error. I am logged in properly and have rightfully bought the Desktop and Web Editions of GameMaker Studio 2. I have been unable to use it for over a week now because of this problem YoYo still hasn't even responded to on their helpdesk. It's like the good-old login error all over again, several weeks later, but worse. The login wasted a weekend's worth of work. This however has ruined over a week's worth of productivity... ?
 

chance

predictably random
Forum Staff
Moderator
EDIT: I hid some off topic comments that were a distraction from the original topic.

Let's keep the discussion focused on Frosty's original issues and concerns. While Playtech's business strategy may be related to YoYoGames' staffing level, that's not an issue anyone here is qualified to discuss.
 
Last edited:
E

Engineer

Guest
Although my faith in GMS2 has waivered in regards to making commercially stable releases, I still think of it as a great rapid prototyping tool for fleshing out ideas to then be built properly in more robust environments.
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
Let's get back on topic.

I'm not a professional, and I don't really use GMS2 anymore, but I share the exact same sentiment.
Communication is at an all time low, updates have slowed down, despite a growing number of bugs, some game breaking.
I understand that export modules take a lot of work, but I think most users would rather have a better product overall, than being able to export to switch. (Simply because most users won't make it big enough to export to switch)
With GMS2, it seems like YYG are more focused on appearances then actual functionality.
The chain workflow seems to be a lame attempt at a node system like the other big players use, despite it not actually conveying any useful information. (It shows what opened what, not what belongs to what... Very misleading if anything).
The exports are very nice for the users that already managed to make it big. And it will definitely help GM's brand awareness, but perhaps a better move would have been to improve the core functionality to ensure more great titles are released; mainly thinking of GML.

What also concerns me is the lack of very, very obvious features;
For instance, chained accessors.
This should not be a feature that needs to be worked in. It should naturally fall out of a well written language.
Code:
expr : ...
      | expr [ expr ]
Using the above BNF, chained accessors fall out naturally.
Heck, my very first language had this feature, and that was during my first year at uni (not to mention is faster than YYC...)
Yet it seems no one at YYG seemed to think about that when switching to GMS2.
If YYG wanted to stick to GML, they really should have hired someone who understands programming languages.

All these things make me worry for GM, and I don't think I will be investing much into it anymore, be it money or time.
 

2Dcube

Member
I disagree with GMWolf, there will always be something some people won't like about the language.
Personally I think keeping the language simple helps with Game Maker's strength as a good tool for beginners. I understand the temptation to add all sorts of functionality but it can make example code more difficult for beginners.
And I believe it's better to fix existing problems before adding more...

That notion aside as a long time user of Game Maker I agree with the sentiment of the topic.

I have used GM for 10+ years and use GMS2 profesionally at work and I love GM but it can be quite difficult.
For example, we have a game with multiple language support but it means that with each rebuild for Xcode I have to add each localization again, among other changes such as in the plist file.
With U***y it appends the Xcode project which means you keep your settings. (Unless there's a way in GMS2 that I'm unaware of).
I've learned quite a bit of Objective C and Java just to make work arounds for out-of-date features or integrate third party solutions.

I think YYG is amazing but also too small to keep up with all of these platforms.

One example: splash screens
They are always wrong (even with the latest version) so I just use all-black or all-white.
I would get portrait when it should be landscape or one for a different device.
There were (or still are?) built-in variables like device_ios_iphone6 and so on, but they just can't keep up with all of the new devices, so there's no point in using them (they have been incorrect or missing new devices).
 

GMWolf

aka fel666
I disagree with GMWolf, there will always be something some people won't like about the language.
Personally I think keeping the language simple helps with Game Maker's strength as a good tool for beginners.
It's not about massively extending the language.
It's about basic functionality which is missing.
Most of my time spent in GM lately has been about working around GM's shortcomings.
Basic things like constructors for objects, or methods, chained accessors, etc. Basic functionality
 
Last edited:

2Dcube

Member
I see. I'm fairly familiar with standard programming languages so I use Constructors but isn't that fairly similar to the Create event?

Sure, to do more you need to make your own systems, but I have never thought I missed Constructors and other things in Game Maker.
This may be because I learned programming over the years with Game Maker and moved to other languages later.
If you really want all that functionality why not write from the ground up in C++?
 
M

Misty

Guest
It's not about massively extending the language.
It's about basic functionality which is missing.
Most of my time spent in GM lately has been about working around GM's shortcomings.
Basic things like constructors for objects, or methods, chained accessors, etc. Basic functionality
You can kind of make your own constructors, by having an if or switch statement in the create. Like "If global such and such is a value, then value B and C is a value."
So what you could do is, before you create an instance just set a global variable to a value, and then check that global variable to see what the presets of the instance should be.
 

The-any-Key

Member
Here are some of my tickets. But all solved, so I am happy :)

In general I am happy about GM. You can quickly create and setup a game. True, there are bugs. True, there are things you wish for. But you only pay around $700 for GMS2 desktop and some export modules. And you pay it one time, then it's yours. You work and earn those $700 back. I can continue to work and make money with it. But Yoyo don't get a penny more. True, if you are on a subscription plan or have the console export you pay per month.

But the point is, I don't think there is enough money for Yoyo to work with and make it a pro platform.
If I want bugs to be fixed a week after they are reported, it will cost. If I want new features, it will cost. If I want updates every week, it will cost. To get pro support and respond an hour after I filed a ticket, it will cost.
I don't think Game maker have that many users to get a steady flow of money each month to support a big team of developers and a support team that works day and night.
Game maker also target users that are beginners and un-familiar with coding. Not professional coders. True, there are professional coders that do use Game maker.

All these boil down to that Game maker is more for beginners and indies that want to make a game for fun. And not for professionals that want weekly updates and tools to create the best game ever.

140937 Mouse wheel won t work in GM projects Start the project on Ubuntu Test to scroll the mouse It should 5 months ago 4 months ago SOLVED
129312 When test run the project a with statement is automatically added in the scripts create event 1 Go to objects 1 year ago 6 months ago SOLVED
124229 You got 2 rooms room1 and room2 You got a obj_wall that is persistent You place one obj_wall in room1 1 year ago 6 months ago SOLVED
138434 http_post_string don t work in UWP export 1 Run project in ordinary windows export 2 Notice result in output window 7 months ago 7 months ago SOLVED
138383 Problem Animation event only return the name of the spine event not the values 1 Start the project 2 Notice 7 months ago 7 months ago SOLVED
127518 Can t use http_request to post buffer data that contain a buffer with mixed bytes and 0 bytes When trying 1 year ago 1 year ago SOLVED
118242 Activate parent wont work 2 years ago 2 years ago SOLVED
116912 Buffer_u64 dont return correct value 2 years ago 2 years ago SOLVED
102468 Network buffer bug 2 years ago 2 years ago SOLVED
91990 Renaming an object makes it not exist anymore 3 years ago 3 years ago SOLVED
90596 date to string to date not possible 3 years ago 3 years ago SOLVED
87849 instance_exists return true when not true 3 years ago 3 years ago SOLVED
86178 Marketplace wont download new version 3 years ago 3 years ago SOLVED
78867 Argument typo gives false syntax errors 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
75436 Game maker hangs with this typo 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
74578 Scaled spine animation not drawn. 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
72122 Android orientation Landscape and Landscape Flip 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
71493 Mouse pos error after scale 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
71113 Re: sprite_collision_mask user defined wont work 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
70848 sprite_collision_mask user defined wont work 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
71067 Can't find game error 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
67817 Spine: skeleton_animation_mix doesn't work any more 4 years ago 4 years ago SOLVED
 
Last edited:

Dr. Wolf

Member
I don't think a subscription fee is the way to go. To me, that'd take away one of the key advantages that GM offers. I'm not a hobbyist; I don't have some other job to cover the increased total cost that a subscription model would entail over the course of a long development cycle (and, if how things went the last time around are any indication, probably wouldn't have an easy time getting one, either). I like GM, but I need to cut costs wherever possible, and if GM becomes a cost, it's gonna get cut. At the same time, if losing future sales thanks to lack of positive recommendations from current users isn't enough to influence YYG's behavior, then losing subscription money probably isn't, either.

As for the support issues, they haven't affected me...because I'm still on GMS1 (despite owning GMS2), and expect to be there for over a year to come. Big portions of my codebase don't port to GMS2 without a lot of errors to fix, and I don't like the GMS2 interface, so my plan right now is to stick with GMS1 for the duration of my current project, and then decide whether to continue with GMS1, adopt GMS2, or move to a different engine entirely. Probably the biggest sticking point is that I'm not a fan of the current trend in software design towards "neat" interfaces, which always seem to make it harder to see what you want, where you want, when you want compared to the old window-based interface paradigm, and GMS2 seems to be all aboard the bandwagon on that one. Thus, if GMS2 still doesn't have the right options to enable a more GMS1-like workflow (and it actually only needs a couple: (a) "Open in new window", so you don't have to start with a full-screen tab and then drag it free, and b) "Keep windows in front", to solve the issue where clicking within the IDE's base layer to open a new tab moves the base layer in front of existing pop-out windows), that will count against it. But serious bugs that persist for long periods without being addressed won't do it any favors, either.
 
Z

zendraw

Guest
i dont really use gm2, but if yoyo dont provide for it big time, judgin from the complaints, i get the feeling gms1 will come back not long after its sunset. which is a good thing, who needs a fancy look to make games?
 

xDGameStudios

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
There is nothing I have to say here that I haven't said before!!
I'm really thinking quitting GMS2 and start using Godot or Unity... it will have a big learning curve but looking at the current situation might worth the time.
I've already spent $400 on GMS2 alone and almost the double with GMS1... that's a total of $1200 and I don't feel like I'm a customer for then... I don't feel treated as such it really is sad.

And the funny part is that it's not about getting things (updates/fixes) out, is about the way YYG leaves us in the dark and simple doesn't care.

Don't they have people to take care of the forums and address forum related problems?
Couldn't someone give us something as a simple as notice message, regarding update delays?

Even worst, now that YYG started a yearly payment system for licensing GMS2 it only seems logical for them to update the program as often as possible. Imagine I payed for a one year license and then this (delays on updates with bug fixes and becoming silent with the community) happened.
It would be unfair to spend money on a software that has bugs for half the time I paid it for, wouldn't it?!
 

Lukan

Gay Wizard Freak
I am hopeful that the recent update decrease has to do with the death of 1.4.
Maybe they're focusing on fixing what they can in that before it's final update?

Pure speculation, I know, but I hope that's what's happening.
More word from YoYo on what they're doing with all our money would be nice.
 
E

Engineer

Guest
can you elaborate on what you view a 'professional' user is?
Someone who's main income in derived from said profession.


and why you think they deserve something more than a user that isn't what you view as a 'professional' user
True though, all of us have paid for the software. Some of us have spent in to the thousands with YYG. As paid consumers we should be all equal. But some are more 'equal' than others.
 

TheSpydog

Member
can you elaborate on what you view a 'professional' user is?
and why you think they deserve something more than a user that isn't what you view as a 'professional' user
He's talking about someone who uses GameMaker for business purposes rather than simply as a hobby.

It's not so much that professional users are more deserving of anything (although that argument could be made since they contribute the most visibly to GM's reputation as an engine). It's more that their bug reports are more time-sensitive than a casual user's. Publisher deadlines, platform updates (e.g. iOS and Mac requiring 64-bit apps), etc. often require prompt responses and quick action. The slow update release schedule might be inconvenient for a hobbyist but could be devastating for someone whose income stream depends on GameMaker. If critical bugs aren't addressed in time, or important support tickets go unanswered for months/years, that could potentially cripple someone's business. Read the first few posts in the thread (and True Valhalla's recent postings) to get an idea of why this is a very bad thing.
 
Last edited:
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Yeah but I think professional users should in a lesser level also apply to people who are working for free for professional clients, which is the scenerio I happen to fall under. But don't smack me, I'm aware I'm not the same as someone who already is making living from their work, but I am more likely to get there than someone without the particular connections I am blessed with.
 
E

Engineer

Guest
It's not so much that professional users are more deserving of anything (although that argument could be made since they contribute the most visibly to GM's reputation as an engine). It's more that their bug reports are more time-sensitive than a casual user's. Publisher deadlines, platform updates (e.g. iOS and Mac requiring 64-bit apps), etc. often require prompt responses and quick action. The slow update release schedule might be inconvenient for a hobbyist but could be devastating for someone whose income stream depends on GameMaker. If critical bugs aren't addressed in time, or important support tickets go unanswered for months/years, that could potentially cripple someone's business. Read the first few posts in the thread (and True Valhalla's recent postings) to get an idea of why this is a very bad thing.
Fair point.

Nothing worse than being held to a deadline but there is nothing you can do about it. One of the dangers of deciding to run with a closed source environment though, which should be taken in to serious consideration when choosing an engine.
 

TheSpydog

Member
Yeah but I think professional users should in a lesser level also apply to people who are working for free for professional clients, which is the scenerio I happen to fall under. But don't smack me, I'm aware I'm not the same as someone who already is making living from their work, but I am more likely to get there than someone without the particular connections I am blessed with.
Sure! Didn't mean to exclude folks like you, or those who are otherwise connected to GM-based businesses. (I'm not making a living from my work yet either!) It's just hard to explain exactly what "professional" means without opening the definition too much. I edited my previous post to better clarify this.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
You didn't have to edit your post or anything but I appreciate it.

(I think we kinda drifted from the original point of the topic again so any further talk about what you think a professional user is can be talked about in PM's if it really matters that much to anyone.)
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
can you elaborate on what you view a 'professional' user is?
and why you think they deserve something more than a user that isn't what you view as a 'professional' user
Other users have understood my point and summed it up pretty well. "Professional users" are users who work with GMS as an employee or proprietor.

I think professional users deserve more attention than those who aren't, for several reasons.
  • Contractual and financial obligations aside, professional use of GMS has a large overlap with hobbyist use in skilled hands. A GMS that is well-supported for professional use values stability, usability, reliability and predictability --- good for the goose and also good for the gander.
  • Professional users have their livelihoods on the line, contingent on proper support for GMS when things go wrong at the engine or IDE level. Failing them discourages further purchase of higher tier GM products, is devastating on a personal level, and causes a huge loss of goodwill.
  • The subscription cash flow from console exports is exclusively dependent on the success of professional users. Screw those who are already on consoles, and YoYo loses the subscription. Shaft those working their way up to consoles, and YoYo loses future subscriptions.
  • Some professional users will eventually be part of YoYo's upcoming publishing gig. Karma will be a real b*tch if tardiness in YoYo's GMS dev team causes these professional users to miss deadlines set by YoYo's own publishing arm.
True though, all of us have paid for the software. Some of us have spent in to the thousands with YYG. As paid consumers we should be all equal. But some are more 'equal' than others.
I too have spent a 4-digit figure in GM over the years, and 90% of that time I am a hobbyist. But not once have I resented YoYo for the fraction of their work that goes into professionals away from me. In fact, over the years I have begun to resent how they didn't divert more work catering to professionals.

A timely bug fix in the runtime environment benefits virtually every user, whether you happen to be committed to your client's contract or your sense of artistry.

A quick resolution to a security bulletin benefits every developer using the affected export, whether you happen to be keeping a roof over your head or spare change in your slush fund.

A documented IDE plugin API plus an established library benefits every user in the ecosystem, whether you happen to have been using GM for 15 years or 15 days.

There seems to be this notion in YoYo (and to some degree, the GMC) that if GMS is designed and maintained for professionals, it intimidates rookies and discourages new sales. I think that's stupid. Once you realize what rookies will become, you'll see that this isn't a mindset conducive to growth.

We all know since kindergarten that sharp things can be dangerous. But for people who use cutting tools professionally --- chefs, machinists, surgeons, artisans --- all of them can agree that sharp cutting tools are safer than blunt ones. Blunt knives and bits may hurt less when you screw up with them, but they're less predictable and more likely to mess up anyways in anyone's hands. This is why cutting tool manufacturers make products that stay sharp for people who know what they're doing, not blunt ones that are superficially less intimidating for people who don't. Rookies may pay in blood a few times when they start, and some will give up from there. But with experience, a sharp, predictable tool will stay with those who remain.

More of YoYo's attention needs to go into things that people grow into, not things that people grow out of.
 

XanthorXIII

Member
Regardless if you are a professional or not, silence from YoYo is not a good thing. I’ve had tickets closed there for issues that I thought were pretty critical such as a background misalignment when trying to use the new fancy camera system. Sure I have a work around but that bug was never fixed if I recall and I had submitted that very early after GM2 was released. As I said before with the Publishing option YoYo needs to get their house in order before attempting to start something like this. I go on a monthly basis to a GameMaking Meeting and all they talk about there is Unity. I’m the only GM user there along with a guy who works in MonoGame. I would rather have it be more GM users but I can’t say anything positive about what YoYo is doing because all we get is silence.
 

XanthorXIII

Member
A day later and still no peep. I’m thinking I need to call The emergency number for over there 0118 999 881 999 119 725....3 to have someone do a wellness check.
 

rIKmAN

Member
A day later and still no peep. I’m thinking I need to call The emergency number for over there 0118 999 881 999 119 725....3 to have someone do a wellness check.
A day from your post, but this thread was made a week ago (5 days) and not a single rep of YYG could even be bothered to post in one of the threads that has been made about the discontent users are feeling with the way they are effectively being completely ignored.

Not even an acknowledgement.

What does the Community Manager do again?
I thought there might be a hint in the job title - interacting with the community - but evidently not.
But hey their Twitter is still active posting about the availability of the upgrade discount, go figure.

Looks like number 1 was the correct prediction...
PS. I predict one of 3 things for these recent threads:
1) Crickets, tumbleweed, no response or acknowledgment.
2) Thread lock.
3) A reply that doesn't answer any of the issues raised in any meaningful way.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Could it be an update is coming so YYG would rather just wait?

I really hope so but I'm pessimistic.
Well an update is coming, we know that much.
But why "rather just wait" in complete silence than actually inform the users that an update is imminent and apologise for the delay - like any normal company with paying customers would?

It doesn't make any sense at all, other than a lesson in how not to do customer relations and guarantee the loss of any goodwill and trust that had been built up over time.

I'm not even gonna go into how this complete and utter lack of communication taints the publishing thing - that's a whole other discussion - but is something which I would hope devs looking into it are taking note of.

The worst thing you can do with any problem is bury your head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. People respect communication and transparency, and if YYG did either of those things people would be a lot more understanding of the current situation - whatever that is.

I said these same things ~2yrs ago, yet nothing has changed - in fact it's gotten worse since then in terms of communication and interaction between YYG and the community.
 

TheSpydog

Member
What does the Community Manager do again?
I thought there might be a hint in the job title - interacting with the community - but evidently not.
But hey their Twitter is still active posting about the availability of the upgrade discount, go figure.

Looks like number 1 was the correct prediction...
I have a few suspicions why this might be the case.

1) Like GMWolf said, maybe they're waiting till GMS1 is deprecated to make public announcements about the state of GMS2. Granted, I don't understand why they would wait, but maybe they have their reasons.

2) It could be that the Community Manager is just not allowed to interact with the community in this way (fielding complaints/suggestions in a public manner). Even the higher-ups at YYG like Russell and Mike have said in the past that many of their business decisions are controlled by PlayTech, so maybe this "approach" to community interactions has been commanded from above.

3) Maybe neither of the above is the case, and YYG really is just really awful at customer service. But I feel that this is unlikely. Their silence is very uncharacteristic -- a couple years ago, Mike would have been in this thread posting squirrel emotes and telling everyone to calm down...
 

rIKmAN

Member
I have a few suspicions why this might be the case.

1) Like GMWolf said, maybe they're waiting till GMS1 is deprecated to make public announcements about the state of GMS2. Granted, I don't understand why they would wait, but maybe they have their reasons.

2) It could be that the Community Manager is just not allowed to interact with the community in this way (fielding complaints/suggestions in a public manner). Even the higher-ups at YYG like Russell and Mike have said in the past that many of their business decisions are controlled by PlayTech, so maybe this "approach" to community interactions has been commanded from above.

3) Maybe neither of the above is the case, and YYG really is just really awful at customer service. But I feel that this is unlikely. Their silence is very uncharacteristic -- a couple years ago, Mike would have been in this thread posting squirrel emotes and telling everyone to calm down...
I'm not expecting the Community Manager to be in here dropping knowledge, insider information or company secrets, and if they are waiting to sunset 1.4 before they talk about GMS2 going forward then why not just say that via the Community Manager?

I mean it makes sense, but why not communicate that information?

Complete silence is hurting them to the point that prominent long standing members of the community are voicing their displeasure - how can that ever be the better option than simply saying "We'll have news / an update / something once the 1.4 sunset date has elapsed."?

People would understand that and give some leeway to them as they have communicated. I may be on my own here but I just can't understand the thinking behind "Let's stay completely silent" being an actual decision that's been made.
 

XanthorXIII

Member
A day from your post, but this thread was made a week ago (5 days) and not a single rep of YYG could even be bothered to post in one of the threads that has been made about the discontent users are feeling with the way they are effectively being completely ignored.

Not even an acknowledgement.

What does the Community Manager do again?
I thought there might be a hint in the job title - interacting with the community - but evidently not.
But hey their Twitter is still active posting about the availability of the upgrade discount, go figure.

Looks like number 1 was the correct prediction...
It was more in line oh look another day has gone by without a peep from them. But yeah saddens me that we have this wonderful post and no devs stopping by to say hey guys!
 

Dog Slobber

Member
As much as many here want to pretend that this is a round table discussion because after all that's what the topic title says, it's not. It's a complaint thread.

I'm not suggesting that the complaints aren't valid, for the most part they all are. But the expectation that YYG takes place is naive. It is pretty standard procedure for companies not to take part or even acknowledge discussions like this. They have everything to lose and very little to gain.

At best what we can expect might be an acknowledgement through the form of an announcement, perhaps in a topic closing post. Companies simply don't openly discuss problems publicly, not unless it is so egregious that it can't be avoided.
 

XanthorXIII

Member
As much as many here want to pretend that this is a round table discussion because after all that's what the topic title says, it's not. It's a complaint thread.

I'm not suggesting that the complaints aren't valid, for the most part they all are. But the expectation that YYG takes place is naive. It is pretty standard procedure for companies not to take part or even acknowledge discussions like this. They have every thing to lose and very little to gain.

At best what we can expect might be an acknowledgement through the form of an announcement, perhaps in a topic closing post. Companies simply don't openly discuss problems publicly, not unless it is so egregious that it can't be avoided.
If they close the topic that would look very bad on their part. What they have to gain is their custom respect back. Being silent is a lose situation for them. You see all the other tools out there discussing plans and what they want to do with their software. Talking about bug fixes, engaging the base that drives them. I would be at the Gamedeveloper meetup each month going over new stuff that YoYo is doing, features/bugs fixed and trying to push for hobbyists and professionals to use this. But I can’t say anything as I don’t know anything as to what is going on.
 

FrostyCat

Redemption Seeker
I don’t think any of us are “Whining” (yes that’s how you spell it) We have significant concerns that are not being addressed about a product we all care greatly about.
I have reservations about this one. Something tells me this is an agitator's account.

Ross Manthorp is one of the founding accounts of the latest incarnation of the GMC. His account number is 7, has many official posts and a truthful profile: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?members/rmanthorp.7/

Now look at the account making that post. Its account number is 31913, has no posts other that one, and tells bold-faced lies on its profile: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?members/rmanthrop.31913/

I am sending a PM to the one with account number 7 asking for clarification of his stance and inviting him to the topic. Until then, hold your fire.
 

rIKmAN

Member
I have reservations about this one. Something tells me this is an agitator's account.

Ross Manthorp is one of the founding accounts of the latest incarnation of the GMC. His account number is 7, has many official posts and a truthful profile: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?members/rmanthorp.7/

Now look at the account making that post. Its account number is 31913, has no posts other that one, and tells bold-faced lies on its profile: https://forum.yoyogames.com/index.php?members/rmanthrop.31913/

I am sending a PM to the one with account number 7 asking for clarification of his stance and inviting him to the topic. Until then, hold your fire.
The username is also "rmanthrop", and not "rmanthorp" (ie. the official one you linked) which is the main give away, but also good spot with the account number.

People are trying to get real issues and concerns acknowledged and get YYG to open some kind of dialogue with the community to work towards a resolution that works for both sides, yet we have someone just trying to stir the pot and add fuel to the fire for no other reason than to cause problems.

I have an idea of who it might be, and it's just very sad - grow up.

Those few seconds where I thought it was the genuine account replying though... o_O :eek:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top