EDIT
oh, I just saw that is says "once out of beta", so it doesn't currently apply :/
Yeah I almost wrote about the free licence myself, but as you said it says "once out of beta".
It's a little ambiguous in the wording - I'm not sure if that means that you get a free licence for 1.4 only if you wait to buy GMS2 when it's actually released, or that even if you buy it in beta you will get a 1.4 licence once GMS2 is released at a later date?
So I played it safe
Oh..... but that still sounds good....
For people using the Beta product, is it a complete, workable thing, sort of how Gmail was in beta for 8 years but worked just fine? Or would I just end up using GM1 anyway at the moment?
Thank you for the help!
If you just want to develop for Windows/Mac/Linux then it's a usable product - there are still bugs and quirks as is expected in a product that is in beta. Have a read of the GMS2 forum for an idea of the experiences of other beta users to give you an idea of what to expect.
If you are looking to target any other platforms (Android / iOS etc) then GMS2 won't have the exports for these targets until Q1 2017 and that is the planned "beta" release for the exports, so again there might be bugs and teething problems in the beta exports.
The roadmap for GMS2 is
here which outlines rough plans for the release of various GMS2 components.
You will get a discount for any of the exports you own in GMS1 when purchasing the same exports in GMS2, but it's really up to you as to what targets you want to export to, how much spending money you have, are you on a timescale etc.
Also note that GMS1 won't be getting any further additional functionality (there is one more update coming "soon" which adds more Spine functionality and
hopefully some other stuff), but YYG have said they will be supporting it for the foreseeable future with critical fixes and updates to ensure 1.4 still works with various export targets (App store changes etc).