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Creator or Developer?

  • Thread starter Arnold C. Cota Jr.
  • Start date
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Arnold C. Cota Jr.

Guest
Hey all,

I want to try out GameMaker again. I guess I tried the free trial at some point in the past because it wont let me register for that. Both Creator and Developer are on sale. I am having a hard time deciding which to get. Does Developer include lifetime updates, like say they come out with GM3? Or is it limited? I just want to play around and see how it feels as I am just getting back into game development as a hobby. I have been using Unity as well. I appreciate that they have a free version to get your feet wet. The game I want to make is a 2D tile and sprite based game with a light crafting aspect.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
I'll move this to Tech Support as it is a licensing question.

All licenses are valid for GameMaker Studio 2.x, including minor version updates (read: anything that changes the x, not the 2). Any license you buy now would not be valid for a major version update, whenever - or if - that happens (there have been no announcements of a GMS 3), but there may be upgrade discounts available as it has been the case for pretty much any major version update in the past decade.

The Creator licenses are valid for 12 months and come with an upgrade coupon to the Desktop license, although directly purchasing a Desktop license lets you save a bit more compared to this upgrade path. Both are entirely sufficient for hobbyists to get started with game development. Creator lets you export to either Windows or Mac, Desktop comes bundled with both plus Ubuntu on top, as well as native compilers for each of them, to outline the key differences.

Check out our license comparison page for a more exhaustive list of differences.
 
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Arnold C. Cota Jr.

Guest
Thank you! I think I will try Creator and then within in a year decide whether to upgrade or not.
 
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Arnold C. Cota Jr.

Guest
Additional question. If I buy Creator and want to use it on my Mac and my PC, I need to buy it twice correct? Is the same thing true for Developer? Or can I buy that once and use it on both platforms for development? I go back and forth between both operating systems.
 

chamaeleon

Member
Additional question. If I buy Creator and want to use it on my Mac and my PC, I need to buy it twice correct? Is the same thing true for Developer? Or can I buy that once and use it on both platforms for development? I go back and forth between both operating systems.
The same is not true for Developer. You can export to Windows, Mac and Linux (Ubuntu officially supported only) from Mac or Windows installations (using helper computers or virtual machines with the proper operating system as needed by remote compilation), using your one license.
 
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Arnold C. Cota Jr.

Guest
Ok, so with Developer I can run it on Mac and Windows as well, for game building, not just export of the final product?
 

chamaeleon

Member
Ok, so with Developer I can run it on Mac and Windows as well, for game building, not just export of the final product?
Yes, you can run GMS for game development on both Windows and Mac. You can have three activated installations at the same time on whatever combination of Mac and Windows you wish, as long as you don't use more than one installation at the same time.
 
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Arnold C. Cota Jr.

Guest
O thank you! And this is true for Creator as well? But I can only export to one type with that?
 

chamaeleon

Member
O thank you! And this is true for Creator as well? But I can only export to one type with that?
You can only export to one target, Windows or Mac, depending on which one you buy. I would assume it also controls which operating system you can run the GMS IDE in and successfully activate it, but that is more an educated guess on my side, not having any direct experience with that particular license.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
Creator licenses are valid only for the chosen operating system, both in regards to exporting and IDE usage. A Creator Mac license will not be recognized by the IDE running on Windows.

The Desktop license is valid for both. The same applies for all other Developer licenses.
 
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