OFFICIAL GameMaker changes and Publishing

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Misty

Guest
I really don't believe most people think in the terms of hours. When I took guitar lessons years ago, it was like 50 bucks a month. It was a one hour per week schedule. When someone asked how long did I take guitar lessons for, I didn't say 12 hours. I said a few months. I'm pretty sure most parents aren't thinking, "my kid has been doing this activity for 8 hours." They are thinking "our kid has been taking game design lessons for about a month".
Maybe not, but maybe they should. Maybe the way people think is simply inaccurate and out of date. Why, people thought urine was a health elixir...even in this century.

Times change, and people eventually upgrade their way of thinking.

Such as accepting the idea, that 30 days trial, measured in per hours used, is actually brilliant and will increase sales. What is more effective? A casual gamer, who downloads Game Maker one day, with vague and lazy ideas of games. Gives it one use, then forgets about it. Then, many months later, he is inspired to have a brilliant game idea. But sadly, his free 30 day trial has expired. It has a feeling of never getting a chance. Like he was jipped. He will probably uninstall out of frustration and dejection.

But instead...imagine this. Imagine he has a 30 day trial based on hours used. He builds his game for many, many hours, creating a game like he always imagined. And when his game is 90% done, suddenly he runs out of hours. He has invested so much time into this he can't quit now. He will immediately run to the marketplace and buy it, no questions asked.

Tell me...is this not a better strategy?
 
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Rattlejaw

Guest
Maybe not, but maybe they should. Maybe the way people think is simply inaccurate and out of date. Why, people thought urine was a health elixir...even in this century.

Times change, and people eventually upgrade their way of thinking.

Such as accepting the idea, that 30 days trial, measured in per hours used, is actually brilliant and will increase sales. What is more effective? A casual gamer, who downloads Game Maker one day, with vague and lazy ideas of games. Gives it one use, then forgets about it. Then, many months later, he is inspired to have a brilliant game idea. But sadly, his free 30 day trial has expired. It has a feeling of never getting a chance. Like he was jipped. He will probably uninstall out of frustration and dejection.

But instead...imagine this. Imagine he has a 30 day trial based on hours used. He builds his game for many, many hours, creating a game like he always imagined. And when his game is 90% done, suddenly he runs out of hours. He has invested so much time into this he can't quit now. He will immediately run to the marketplace and buy it, no questions asked.

Tell me...is this not a better strategy?
I don't know. I'm sure they have their reasons for the change. Maybe a combination of things could happen. A 30 day trial with all the features, but after 30 days, it reverts to a more gimped version of what the old free version was, like 5 total objects, 5 total sprites, 1 room, 5 scripts, 1 tileset, etc... If someone new to GM made progress on a tutorial or a project, they might go ahead and drop 39 bucks, maybe even 99 bucks after 30 days. I used the free version of GMS2 for like 8 months as a learning tool before I bought it, but yoyo said the free version was never intended to be a learning tool. It was meant to try it out before purchasing.

I don't think 39 bucks is a big cost barrier. That's pretty much the price of a new video game that's on sale.
 
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Arconious

Guest
I don't want to get in a big OT debate about it, but I find it very hard to believe that a parent would be fine with paying for private tutoring for their child to learn game dev, and then cause a fuss and balk at the idea of having to pay $40 for the software to allow them to carry on learning to code in their own time for the next year after they had attended weekly 2hr classes for a month and really enjoyed them.

I might think differently if you were running free community classes in low income communites or something similar, but you're not, you're a private tutor giving paid lessons and I would assume that your company charges close to (if not more) than $40 for 8hrs of tutoring, so they have already made an investment in the child that is going to be completely wasted by not allowing them to continue their learning, and I also would fully expect a child to be capable of following the YYG Tutorials on their own after 8hrs of tutoring.

I coach football to children so I have experience with teaching, and in over 20yrs of doing it I have never had a parent pay to enroll their child on a coaching course, have their child enjoy themselves, learn new skills and want to do it regularly and then kick up a fuss and refuse to buy them boots, shinpads, shorts etc to allow them to continue playing football after the course had ended.

It'd be like paying for music lessons and then being shocked when the child asks for their own $40 flute to carry on playing and learning at home.
My point is that it's an expected expense that when you enroll them on the course that they will eventually need their own instrument.

As I said I don't think the 30day trial is a great decision, but I also think that a months private use with their own licence along with 4 x 2hr tutoring sessions is enough time for the parent to decide whether or not it is something that the child is interested in and is getting something out of - and thus whether I think it is worth spending $40 on the software they they are using to allow them to carry this on.

They've already spent money on lessons and $40 for a years licence works out at ~$3 per month for something the child is obviously enjoying, and that is cheaper than many other hobbies where once the child starts doing it regularly requires purchasing kit and equipment etc to allow them to do so.
Isn't this essentially just "I don't believe your experience, instead here's my tangentially related experience"? It sounds like MileThatcher has personal experience with parents being fussing over paying for software, so not sure why you wouldn't believe it. Beyond the nuances involved with teaching children (and people in general, really), there are a lot of differences between the examples you listed -- football/sports, flute/music -- and teaching software & game development.
 
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Lonewolff

Guest
especialy when the initial product was dédicated for studying !
What initial product? 'Animo' in the late 90's? It has changed ownership a couple of times since then.


It was nice meeting you ... /uninstall
As they say "don't let the door hit you on the way out" :)
 

rIKmAN

Member
The big difference between paying for an instrument or sports equipment and paying for software is that there are free alternatives for the software and these free alternatives are even somewhat of a standard in educational environments.
Correct, there are - but the learning curve with those other engines is massively different to that of GameMaker.

The time needed to learn those other engines and achieve similar results goes up massively when compared to GMS2, so the parent would end up spending way more in the extra paid private lessons required to get the child to an equivalent level in the "free" engine, than they would by buying a 12mth Creators Licence for $40, or even a permanent $99 Desktop Licence for that matter.
The university where I've studied game design had classes for Unity, Unreal and GameMaker. And although the GameMaker course was the shortest it was the only (game engine) software the university was paying for.
There is a reason for that and I mentioned it above - those engine have a much higher learning curve than GMS2 and are nowhere near as accesible to new students, especially children who are trying to learn game dev who would need many more lessons in those engines and to gain the same level of proficiency as they would in GMS2 in less than half the time and at much less expense in private lesson fees.
After GMS1.4 Standard Edition was discontinued and there was no way for students to use a free version of GameMaker on their own devices for project work the GameMaker course was cancelled.
I can't comment on the cost of the Educational Licences as I've never looked into it, but they could have easily rolled the cost of a 12mth Creators Licence for each student to register and use at home for the year into the course fees and it would have been almost unnoticable.

I would think that the reason the course was cancelled was because of the Educational Licences that would have been required to run the course, rather than not wanting the students to pay the whopping $39 to be able to do their homework.

We're going OT here anyway as private tutors are not in the same position as real educational establishments anyway, but simply as a hobbyist / home user you can't expect GM to be free just because Unity and Unreal are.

Those engines have thousands of employees and multiple revenue streams which bring in hundreds of millions of dollars every year (£300m for Unity for example), whether it be AAA studios licencing the engine source code, people paying to attend seminars all over the world, the yearly licence fees from users going over the $100k/$200k revenue limits, royalty cuts, the cut from the very active Asset Stores that have thousands of assets, publishing (ie. Epic with Fortnite) etc, and who knows whatever else they have going on to bring money in.

GMS2 has none of these (other than a marketplace that doesn't even warrant comparison) - it's a one time $99 payment and that's the entire outlay until the next major version - and that's it, done!
Same with all the other exports other than console, which from what YYG have previously said regarding it are fees passed on from the console manufacturers that were previously covered by Microsoft and Sony and I would hope some additional fees to cover the cost of the continual development and updating of the console SDKs.

To say "Well Unity and Unreal are free and you have to pay for GMS2" just comes off as a naive thing to say when you factor in the differences between the software itself and the companies that develop them.
Isn't this essentially just "I don't believe your experience, instead here's my tangentially related experience"?
Not really, it's me saying that in 20yrs of coaching sports and teaching kids in various subjects including IT and languages that I have never had to deal with a parent who had signed their child up to paid private lessons for anything, and didn't have the knowledge and/or expectation of a future outlay for equipment / kit / books / software etc if their child showed an interest in the subject and wanted to continue persuing things in their own time as an actual hobby and start taking part in the activity on a regular basis.
It sounds like MileThatcher has personal experience with parents being fussing over paying for software, so not sure why you wouldn't believe it.
I find it hard to believe because I have 20 years of personal experience of the opposite.

As I said earlier I don't want to get into a massive debate on something that has already been decided and been actioned (and this post is already way too long), but I do hope that Miles and other tutors that aren't actual "educational establishments" can work something out that works for both of them as there should be a happy medium in there somewhere which would be a reasonable outcome for both sides - maybe a new licence type or something along those lines, who knows.

YYG has to earn money at the end of the day, and if they don't then the company goes bust and none of us will have an engine left to use.
 
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Coercive

Member
I personally don't care about 30 day trials. I usually purchase license for things I plan on using. Took me a few months to decide if I want to go the GM route or Monogames/Godot/or something else...

I didn't even touch GM until I purchased the license so I can't comment on any free version (frankly didn't know about it).

Instead of this 30 day trial non-sense, should have done a 60 day or 90 day trial period or like someone else suggested a hour based trial. Because after that amount of time. If they aren't going to purchase it after 60 or 90 days, there was no plan of purchasing it to begin with. If the goal is to get more sales then after that trail period update the screens in the app to say "Continue using on our monthly subscription plan or purchase a full license, etc.".

I can see why 30 days isn't long enough for most people. It definitely wouldn't have been long for me. Given like most of you I work 12 hour shifts that doesn't revolve around game development. The only time I have to allocate in my spare time is every other weekend.
I hope this topic makes a difference for those that want to join this growing community as it was my deciding factor for joining it. Potential to grow and a lot of resources to learn. I personally saw the market place assets which brought me in... so I would advise that be looked in to more. Just the idea of being able to find a barebone concept of a game I might be interested in making, is like icing on the cake!
 
M

Misty

Guest
We're going OT here anyway as private tutors are not in the same position as real educational establishments anyway, but simply as a hobbyist / home user you can't expect GM to be free just because Unity and Unreal are.

Those engines have thousands of employees and multiple revenue streams which bring in hundreds of millions of dollars every year (£300m for Unity for example), whether it be AAA studios licencing the engine source code, people paying to attend seminars all over the world, the yearly licence fees from users going over the $100k/$200k revenue limits, royalty cuts, the cut from the very active Asset Stores that have thousands of assets, publishing (ie. Epic with Fortnite) etc, and who knows whatever else they have going on to bring money in.


To say "Well Unity and Unreal are free and you have to pay for GMS2" just comes off as a naive thing to say when you factor in the differences between the software itself and the companies that develop them.
You can wish that rich people would stop releasing free software that ruins the market but unfortunately it exists anyway. The reality is YYG has to compete with free software. I stated in another thread that free software is unethical, especially if rich people do it because you can't compete that way. Unfortunately I dont make the laws. For now YYG must figure ways to compete with billionaires and their detached altruism which ends up being harmful to hardworking folk like YYG.
 
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Andy

Guest
You can wish that rich people would stop releasing free software that ruins the market but unfortunately it exists anyway. The reality is YYG has to compete with free software. I stated in another thread that free software is unethical, especially if rich people do it because you can't compete that way. Unfortunately I dont make the laws. For now YYG must figure ways to compete with billionaires and their detached altruism which ends up being harmful to hardworking folk like YYG.
I’d rather make 1 payment and own the software. I don’t want subscriptions, or free software that comes with strings attached.
 
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F

FallFlat

Guest
The good thing about 30 days trial is, i can now importing the project from GM:S1.4.
...Fatal Error right off the bat, even though this game works just fine in its predecessor. T.T
 
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Andy

Guest
Does the error message contain any useful information? The problem might be fixable without having to redo your whole project.
 
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FallFlat

Guest
@Andy I am really thankful for you help. But there are probably a lot of them hidden somewhere i have yet to notices. So recreating the game from the beginning, might be better.
 
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TinyGamesLab

Guest
Just my personal opinion with no data to back things up, but I can't help but think that the change to a 30 day trial is a bad move.

It's stopping potential future customers from learning at their own pace and forcing people to rush / cram any learning and usage of GMS2 that they might want to do around school / work / real life in general into 30days before they have to decide to buy or leave to use another engine.

With the plethora of free engines around I see this pushing more people away than it attracts, learning to code as a beginner is difficult enough at the best of times without having a time limit attached to what will be a hobby for 99.9% of new GMS2 users.

Also full versions of software that are "time limited" are pretty much always cracked to remove the time limit, and have been since I was at school in the 90's (and earlier). I'm sure YYG have done metrics (and again this is just my personal opinion) but I would say goodbye to a lot of possible conversions to Creator and Desktop licence purchases if the new 30 day trial also allows compiling.

Can't say I'm surprised by the publishing arm closing either, quite a few people (inc myself) voiced concerns over this when it was announced, but I am glad that it means focus is being put where it is most important - GMS2 itself - and that seems to bode well for the future.

I am looking forward to 2.2.3 however, and hoping that the dreaded Windows deadlock issue has actually finally been crushed!
@rmanthorp Are local asset packages also making in to 2.2.3 as per the roadmap, I need them in my life!
I totally agree with you!
I think that most people migrate from the free version to one of the paid ones after a couple of years (Yoyo data may say otherwise, so I hope they used it).
Nonetheless for me gamemaker is more than just an engine. It has a great community that is well organized (I don't see that with Godot, for example) which is maintained by experienced users but which relies on inexperienced users to keep it moving and to generate new experienced users. I think the community will wither off in the long run....
After many years as a hobbyist (I started back in version GM 6) I've finally managed to start to give back to the community by opening a channel on YouTube and being more active on the forums. As I fully own the 1.49 version, I've being creating content on this version but was slowly adapting my tutorials to GMS 2.+. I haven't published a single full game but I have helped a lot of people get their first steps towards designing games with GMS. As of now, this will no longer be possible....
Don't get me wrong, I'll keep with the 1.4 tutorials but I feel that they won't be as useful (both because 1.4 licenses will be rarer with time as well as I believe usage of GMS2 will drop significantly). In this regard, I feel that the only way to reach out and help the greatest amount of people would be to change engines, which I've been reluctant so far....
It looks to me that Yoyo is focusing on the PROs but GMS has been known for its ease of use and by being one of the best engines to learn, due to that it will definately lose this parcel of users. Once these potential users learn another engine, I think it will be harder to make them change to GMS than it would be to have them learn GMS and then charge them for a full license when they feel ready for it.
Where I live, the 99usd price is abusive (about 40% of the monthly minimum wage). I'm positive that most people will not pay for it after 30 days, even if they expect to became full time developers.
Well, that's just my view and I truly hope im wrong....
 
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