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An easy solution to the "GM subscriptions will ruin Game Jams/The Community!" problem?

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Everyone's talking about GameMaker's new payment model right now....I can see the pros and cons of it, and overall I'm mostly happy/okay with the change. The one thing that worries me about it, and seems to worry a lot of people is "what about hobbyists and people who just want to do Game Jams a few times a year?" It feels like they might be left behind to me, which would be too bad, but I just saw an interesting conversation on Twitter:



So...YYG probably doesn't want to do a free version that exports exes, because then there'd be no incentive at all for a lot of users to use anything else; most hobbyists are only going to export to Windows desktop. But what about introducing a filetype that can only be opened using GM, like a YYZ, but read-only? People could post those and stuff on the GMC for gamejams and among developer friends for play testing, but anyone serious at all about development would still want to upgrade so they could post exe's to Twitter and itch.io and stuff like that. I dunno, I thought it was kind of an interesting an idea, so I figured I'd share it and see what you guys thought.
 
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kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
The main problem I see with this approach is the simple fact that you would have to have the IDE to play the games. For something like the GMC jam that's fine because you HAVE to use GM to make the thing anyway so it is atleast partially reasonable to expect people to have the IDE handy. But for something like Ludum Dare or other non-specific jams, too many people will simply skip the game.
 
The main problem I see with this approach is the simple fact that you would have to have the IDE to play the games. For something like the GMC jam that's fine because you HAVE to use GM to make the thing anyway so it is atleast partially reasonable to expect people to have the IDE handy. But for something like Ludum Dare or other non-specific jams, too many people will simply skip the game.
Well, yeah. That's the point. There needs to be some incentive for people to spend the measly $8/month, hahah. There's still a huge community here to share games with if you're completely broke. It feels like a good compromise to me, I dunno
 

Cpaz

Member
My thought was that if this model is successful, they expand the free tier even further to include a limited and stripped back windows export. Or maybe just HTML5 if they want it to stay cross-platform?.
Like, you could export, but only projects that are within a specific file size? That would at least be fair to jam games.

Dunno. But literally, no one will want to install a game engine just to play a few game jam games (I can safely say I wouldn't). So I don't think that's really viable.
 
Dunno. Literally, no one will want to install a game engine just to play a few game jam games. So I don't think that's really viable.
I'm talking about GMC jams, where everyone already has GameMaker, hahah. If you want to start posting your games everywhere else, the tiny subscription fee is probably worth it to you.
My thinking with this idea is that it gives at least SOME place (The GMC) for free users to learn and share their stuff. Obviously, I'd love if they just made the desktop export completely free for non-commercial games, but I don't see them doing that, since a huge percentage of their userbase is hobbyists who aren't interested in selling games.

A limit on file size is a good idea too, though, yeah. That's another way to give people some freedom without giving away the program for free forever. 👍
 

Chaser

Member
It’s true, no one will want to install an ide to play a game jam game. As someone who use to host the OpenGameArt jam, it was clear that no one did, which to some degree effected rating results, also some participants would need other third party installations for others to play there games. Again this was not liked and in the end, any sort of third party or software installations were not disqualified, but were discouraged instead for the sake participants result expectations. :)

The effect here is participation in game jams using gamemaker now is not impossible, but highly unlikely. Will anyone pay the subscription just to upload a game for a jam? From all the posts I have been reading then the answer is no. But I bet there will be a few. Especially if the game idea is worth pursuing.

I am a hobbyist, and still learning and love game jams. But just because I’m a hobbyist and take part in game jams doesn’t make me any less of a dedicated developer than anyone else. Only my skill level to some degree perhaps may rank me to ‘indie’ or whatever else. :) Gamejams seem to be seen as a ‘fun’ thing to do and nothing more, but for some it’s more than that. It’s an opportunity to prototype, learn, test, gain feedback, progress and grow ourselves, community’s and even generate social networks. Gamejams play a bigger part in development for the hobbyists, it’s the one thing that can help them grow, get the confidence to go full indie in my opinion.
Sharings caring! And if you can’t share then who’s going to care? :)

Few things we can do:
1) wait until your full time project is ready for an export. Time it in time with the jam you want to participate in and do it then.
2) team up with some pals and everyone in the team donate the subscription cost and export from one account.
3) enter a jam with a cash prize and hope you win.
4) just pay and hope the feedback you receive is good enough to motivate you to continue to develop.
5) well, I’m not going to mention 5 because it’s naughty and the wrong thing to do.
6)only participate in GM/Opera official jams when they grant a limited license release.

:)
 
It’s true, no one will want to install an ide to play a game jam game. As someone who use to host the OpenGameArt jam, it was clear that no one did, which to some degree effected rating results, also some participants would need other third party installations for others to play there games. Again this was not liked and in the end, any sort of third party or software installations were not disqualified, but were discouraged instead for the sake participants result expectations. :)
I said this a few times already, but I'm talking about GMC game jams, not Ludum Dare or anything. Nobody will have to install GameMaker to play GMC game jam games, because everyone here already has it installed, hahah! X'D
If someone uses GameMaker so much that posting to the GMC and doing the game jams we have here pretty often still isn't enough for them, then I think the subscription price is probably worth it to them. They sound like a pretty active GameMaker developer at that point!

Again though, I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer a free or non-subscription version of GameMaker. This is just an alternate idea that lets non-paying hobbyists have some fun, posting at least here on the GMC.
 

Chaser

Member
I said this a few times already, but I'm talking about GMC game jams, not Ludum Dare or anything. Nobody will have to install GameMaker to play GMC game jam games, because everyone here already has it installed, hahah! X'D
If someone uses GameMaker so much that posting to the GMC and doing the game jams we have here pretty often still isn't enough for them, then I think the subscription price is probably worth it to them. They sound like a pretty active GameMaker developer at that point!

Again though, I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer a free or non-subscription version of GameMaker. This is just an alternate idea that lets non-paying hobbyists have some fun, posting at least here on the GMC.
Oh I see, sorry, I thought you meant ‘hobbyists’ and game jams as a whole. GMC/Opera jams I don’t think will be any issue. :)
 
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