OFFICIAL GameMaker Studio 2 Version 2.3.6 Release & More

Mehdi

Member
I, personally, don't think Game Maker has, or will ever have at the current trajectory, the same situation.
You're right. But I don't think the chosen model is going to flourish too.(personal impression based on most users reactions)

In addition to leaving users, soon it is also quite probable that the guys in love of cracking softwares would start their job again. Why not? Imagine GM is completely cracked with all features active and free export, without the need for paying a single penny. That would definitely cut off the income of GM considerably.
 
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Posh Indie

That Guy
You're right. But I don't think the chosen model is going to flourish too.(personal impression based on most users reactions)

In addition to leaving users, soon it is also quite probable that the guys in love of cracking softwares would start their job again. Why not? Imagine GM is completely cracked with all features active and free export, without the need for paying a single penny.
Piracy happens no matter what, but my 2 cents here: "I would hate to hit it big only to have it found out that I used pirated software to achieve it". To that end, whether it is cracked or not, I will be paying for it because I like to keep the fruits of my labor.
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
My thoughts are this:

  • Cool features and updates,
  • I find the filters and effects kind of useless seeing as we have shaders
The major thing that I hate and looks like it will bite YoYo in the ass
permanent license holders = Free users
and that is horrible, I bought GMS 2 before you switched payment models and thus you treat me(& others in this boat) as a person who didn't pay for Game Maker
I understand you must cater to your new subscription based users, but that doesn't not mean you need to treat the old users as lesser users

Ever so slowly Yoyo is heading down a dark path
 

gnysek

Member
permanent license holders = Free users
Those who claim Indie Subscription for free are also free users for them, so I don't think that they see both groups differently. They just try to convince pernament users to try subscription and tame them to pay one day for it, that's why they choosen only two features as limited ;)
As it was mentioned in this thread earlier they've only limited those features that still can be easily done with pure GML, and from what I've seen, Particles Editor or GUI Editor aren't for subscribers only but for EVERYONE, while those are much better features than filters and triggers. It's far from treating those with pernament licenses as free users then.
 

JeffJ

Member
Ignoring the discussion about price / subscription / fragmentation of features based on user tier, there's something else I'm more concerned about.

Monthly releases is worded like a good thing - something to be excited about. I'm way more concerned than excited. We don't need more frequent updates, we need more stable updates. Even four quarterly were already too many for YYG to handle, evident how every single one of them breaks something. Now you want to up that even more? PLEASE, for the love of everything that is sacred, start prioritizing stability over frequency.

Looking at the thread for the newest release, I couldn't believe what I read - collisions are somehow broken again. I've seriously lost count of how many times they've gotten broken over the last handful of years. Just as one small, but very real and consistent example. Sometimes it's the collisions, sometimes it's a font or something third, but something always breaks with updates. When are you going to understand that even more hastily output will not help, but only make it worse?

I feel like a broken record, and almost didn't post this, because it feels like yelling out in space. But I'll try voicing these concerns one last time.

As for all the rest? Not even going to address it. Why bother at this point.
A long time ago I was chastised for addressing concerns, and I said that those concerns came from a place of care - because I want GMS to be the best it can be, and that when I, and people like me, stop complaining - that's when you should really worry, because at that point, it's not because they're no longer dissatisfied - it's just that they've come to realize that it's a waste of breath, so they can either shut up (which means zero feedback, but silence on the matter, which makes it impossible to remedy anything), or leave. I guess I'm right about at that point, where it feels like saying anything is just a waste of time. I've tried for years, and it's clearly not helping.
 
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Recently there’s been so much controversy surrounding YoYo Games, Opera and GameMaker, that I’ve gotten to where I’ll either feel angry about the changes and things “I” don’t like, or I’ll just keep them to myself and “hope” they will get better. Or worse, just ignore and say, Well, GMS2 is all I know, so I have to use it.

But, because of all the controversy and the roller coaster emotions, it’s not mentally worth it for me to continue to worry about what sort of features I will still be able to get, or if I will suddenly be locked out of my $300 “permanent” purchase, which is made clear, that it will not be permanent forever.

I think I’m actually done with GameMaker Studio 2, for this very reason. There might be some actually cool and useful features in the future. But currently, all of this is too much to handle at the moment. As instead of waiting and hoping for new better tools and trying to hang on as long as I can without subscribing, I would rather be learning a new engine with all of the time I have spent waiting for things to change.

This is something I would rather not do. As I have numerous projects started in GameMaker and would like to finish them. I have a game that I had announced back in 2019 that is still in the beginning stages and not complete because I’ve been on the roller coaster of emotions of if I really should continue using GameMaker Studio 2.

Then there was the big discussion about the Ultimate License and why it should be permanent.

Then shortly after YoYo Games lowered their costs and changed to subscription only, which started the roller coaster again. But after cooling off and thinking about it, I convinced myself that even though I don’t like the way GameMaker Studio 2 is going, I will continue using because it’s the game engine I’m experienced at. It was also taking so long to “wait and see” how GameMaker was going to be, that I didn’t even work on the above game project.

Even if I decided to keep using GameMaker Studio 2 just for PC games, as said above, how long would I get to keep my permanent license before being locked out do to it being unsupported and having to subscribe to get access to new versions and features?

There is also too many un answered questions for permanent license holders and way to much speculation.

I’m not wanting to bring up another dispute about subscription pricing, but on top of all of the controversy and un answered questions, this is also why I won’t continue to use GameMaker Studio 2.

If this sort of thing was going on with a free engine based on royalty (Unreal, Unity, etc.), I wouldn’t mind it much, because I don’t have to pay anything to use or export in those game engines. And if I chose not to use that engine anymore, it wouldn’t be a financial burden, since I didn’t meet any thresholds or paid any royalties.

I could export a PC game to sell on Steam without having to subscribe either monthly or yearly or be locked into using a browser I don’t want to use to export a web game to.

Eventually, people who use Unreal or Unity, would need to pay. But that requirement is a long ways off and hobbyists probably won’t be making over $100k or 1 million in their first year or first game. I’m not a hobbyist, but for people who work on games off and on, having a subscription is an unnecessary cost.

At least when people reach Unreal or Unity’s threshold, they have money already earned to pay the cost with. I think that is the main problem with how the GameMaker Studio 2 subscription works. If it was threshold based, it would be more friendly towards hobbyist or part time game developers. But the fact that new users have to pay either $10 a month or $100 a year just for PC exports is not cost effective.

To the people who say:

“You don’t have to continually subscribe. You just subscribe for a month if you want to export or update your game.”

There are lots of things wrong with saying that.
  • How would YoYo Games continue to earn revenue if people just subscribed or canceled whenever they wanted to?
  • This makes updates to games cost $10 an update for Indie or $80 an update if you have the Enterprise License.
  • It is just an upfront business model I don’t want to use.
  • If the monthly costs are not making YoYo Games enough revenue, what’s to keep them going back to yearly only? Costing $100 or $800 a year.
These are the things that keep me from fully wanting to continue with GameMaker Studio 2.

My closing thoughts are that I believe that YoYo Games would benefit by being a free to start game engine like Unreal and Unity by having a threshold of revenue that developers could make before having to pay for a subscription.

And to the people who say that “YoYo Games is smaller than Unreal and Unity”. There are other game engines that are free or single person developed that have financial success and are popular with their community and they’re not charging them subscriptions.

I also don’t think the current subscription model is being received well by the GameMaker Studio 2 community. There are a couple who are outspoken who don’t like it, but there could very well be more silent users who don’t like it and will soon stop using GameMaker Studio 2 as well.
 
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Heathenlamb

Member
Yes that's correct. The feature is only available to subscriptions at the moment.
So because I have a permanent GMS2 license. You know, the one you pay for up front because you are a serious user. So I can't get access to this new feature ? I use GMS 2 is a professional capacity producing product for clients, and I can't get access to the newest features as soon as they become available ? This a bit ridiculous. I have bought numerous licenses over the years as the new versions became available and I am very disappointed that I can't access this feature ASAP. A feature that would great add value to my product offering and production pipeline. Are you suggesting the only way for my to get access it to immediately is to buy a subscription on top of the permanent license I already own ?
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Recently there’s been so much controversy surrounding YoYo Games, Opera and GameMaker, that I’ve gotten to where I’ll either feel angry about the changes and things “I” don’t like, or I’ll just keep them to myself and “hope” they will get better. Or worse, just ignore and say, Well, GMS2 is all I know, so I have to use it.

But, because of all the controversy and the roller coaster emotions, it’s not mentally worth it for me to continue to worry about what sort of features I will still be able to get, or if I will suddenly be locked out of my $300 “permanent” purchase, which is made clear, that it will not be permanent forever.

I think I’m actually done with GameMaker Studio 2, for this very reason. There might be some actually cool and useful features in the future. But currently, all of this is too much to handle at the moment. As instead of waiting and hoping for new better tools and trying to hang on as long as I can without subscribing, I would rather be learning a new engine with all of the time I have spent waiting for things to change.

This is something I would rather not do. As I have numerous projects started in GameMaker and would like to finish them. I have a game that I had announced back in 2019 that is still in the beginning stages and not complete because I’ve been on the roller coaster of emotions of if I really should continue using GameMaker Studio 2.

Then there was the big discussion about the Ultimate License and why it should be permanent.

Then shortly after YoYo Games lowered their costs and changed to subscription only, which started the roller coaster again. But after cooling off and thinking about it, I convinced myself that even though I don’t like the way GameMaker Studio 2 is going, I will continue using because it’s the game engine I’m experienced at. It was also taking so long to “wait and see” how GameMaker was going to be, that I didn’t even work on the above game project.

Even if I decided to keep using GameMaker Studio 2 just for PC games, as said above, how long would I get to keep my permanent license before being locked out do to it being unsupported and having to subscribe to get access to new versions and features?

There is also too many un answered questions for permanent license holders and way to much speculation.

I’m not wanting to bring up another dispute about subscription pricing, but on top of all of the controversy and un answered questions, this is also why I won’t continue to use GameMaker Studio 2.

If this sort of thing was going on with a free engine based on royalty (Unreal, Unity, etc.), I wouldn’t mind it much, because I don’t have to pay anything to use or export in those game engines. And if I chose not to use that engine anymore, it wouldn’t be a financial burden, since I didn’t meet any thresholds or paid any royalties.

I could export a PC game to sell on Steam without having to subscribe either monthly or yearly or be locked into using a browser I don’t want to use to export a web game to.

Eventually, people who use Unreal or Unity, would need to pay. But that requirement is a long ways off and hobbyists probably won’t be making over $100k or 1 million in their first year or first game. I’m not a hobbyist, but for people who work on games off and on, having a subscription is an unnecessary cost.

At least when people reach Unreal or Unity’s threshold, they have money already earned to pay the cost with. I think that is the main problem with how the GameMaker Studio 2 subscription works. If it was threshold based, it would be more friendly towards hobbyist or part time game developers. But the fact that new users have to pay either $10 a month or $100 a year just for PC exports is not cost effective.

To the people who say:

“You don’t have to continually subscribe. You just subscribe for a month if you want to export or update your game.”

There are lots of things wrong with saying that.
  • How would YoYo Games continue to earn revenue if people just subscribed or canceled whenever they wanted to?
  • This makes updates to games cost $10 an update for Indie or $80 an update if you have the Enterprise License.
  • It is just an upfront business model I don’t want to use.
  • If the monthly costs are not making YoYo Games enough revenue, what’s to keep them going back to yearly only? Costing $100 or $800 a year.
These are the things that keep me from fully wanting to continue with GameMaker Studio 2.

My closing thoughts are that I believe that YoYo Games would benefit by being a free to start game engine like Unreal and Unity by having a threshold of revenue that developers could make before having to pay for a subscription.

And to the people who say that “YoYo Games is smaller than Unreal and Unity”. There are other game engines that are free or single person developed that have financial success and are popular with their community and they’re not charging them subscriptions.

I also don’t think the current subscription model is being received well by the GameMaker Studio 2 community. There are a couple who are outspoken who don’t like it, but there could very well be more silent users who don’t like it and will soon stop using GameMaker Studio 2 as well.
Subscription model that limits permanent license features already backfired on yoyo, gamemaker 2.3.6 was cracked.
 

drandula

Member
Are you suggesting the only way for my to get access it to immediately is to buy a subscription on top of the permanent I already own.
Well you should also remember that you can claim 12 free sub-months for each permanent license you own.
So, if you have three licenses, you are covered for 3 years for Indie-sub.
And you don't lose those licenses either after free months are used, but you either continue the sub or go back to your perma-licenses.

It's not that perma-licenses are now same as free version, as they still let's you export to the target platforms you bought them for. So I don't like "permanent license == free" mentality.
 

Mehdi

Member
I think:
The new updates are quite exciting.
The idea of frequent and regular updates is more exciting.
The new path that GM is driving along (technically of course) is excellent.

However:
The idea of "First make the application free and sub-for-export-only, then gradually push everyone to sub model " was a perfect disaster!
The communication model with users is terrible!
The idea of locking features for permanents was horrible! (They could simply grant that to permanents too and wait until GMS 3 )

The most dangerous thing that is happening I guess is :
People feeling badly about yoyo. They feel the staff is quite confused and not sure where they are going.
Many have come to the idea that Yoyo is just obeying what Opera orders.
some others think Yoyo has started to lie to them and is demonly searching their pockets to pull some money out!

Is Yoyo like that? I don't know. But the movements they make (and the ones they don't) has led many to feel bad.
 
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drandula

Member
Just to mention that I have four perma-licenses and used my free months for Enterprise-sub just for funsies, so I will only have 8 months of free sub.

And after that period I will most likely take Indie-sub. that as I want to support YYG. (And no, I am not a rich person who can just toss money at everything, or I don't make actual money with GMS2, it is just my hobby)

My feeling is that they are currently heavily trying to develop GMS2 further as a whole, and well, that is costly thing to do. Easier and cheaper path would be just do maintenance updates. Would people be more happy with their permanent licenses if there were no new features ever done?

I don't think they are not trying to rip off people, but shortly put: trying to make sure they have enough money for doing these investments in R&D. This kind of development can be risky, so you try minimize them so it is financially sensible.

My take is that, I would prefer GMS2 advance and evolve than stagnate on place.
 

Miradur

Member
I once said here in the forum that GM has to decide whether to push the casual users or the developers. Opera has chosen the developers and that is the best decision from an economic point of view.

But as @FrostyCat said, developers have different demands and priorities than casual users and so Opera should also consider this difference when deploying.
The new layer shader effects at the push of a button, clearly help casual users and should therefore also be available in the free version (so for all).
If a collision layer should ever come, then that is also a function that serves the casual users and facilitates the start.

For the developers, @FrostyCat has already mentioned some important points and I think he knows what he is talking about.
If you follow this line, you will get more satisfied customers, no matter what category they belong to.


Miradur
 

rwkay

GameMaker Staff
GameMaker Dev.
We have been following the discussion here with interest and I just wanted to explicitly say for the record here on the forum.

The Roadmap (https://www.yoyogames.com/en/roadmap#/features) page has been updated and the features that will be subscription first have been marked (and some text added as clarification). Those features are Filters and Effects, and Triggers - they will be released initially to subscribers when they are useful to users and once they are finalised we will unlock them to perpetual users. ALL of our current roadmap will be made available to ALL of our users, it is only the timing that will be staged.

No matter which way we look at the games business now, no matter which platform we look at there is continual change and improvement - this means that our business is a service and even to stand still GameMaker has to be continually evolving. This is a reality that we have to configure our business around and it has been self-evident for several years, our business model needs to adapt.

We know that our users want game making to be as cheap as possible and we feel that we are providing a competitive and compelling offering and we have been generous in our subscription provision for all perpetual users (if you have any issues signing up to a subscription then please let our customer support team know (https://accounts.yoyogames.com/contact-us) and we will seek to resolve that issue).

We understand that those who have paid for a perpetual license for GMS2 want to have every feature that is being developed, but we have to make our subscription compelling and this is far from the first feature that has been only given to users who have paid more (YYC, console targets to name a few). To ensure the most compatibility between different licence types we intend to limit subscription first features to those that provide users with an easier way of doing something that is already possible within the GameMaker Studio 2 runtime and will ensure that the use of these features will not cause insurmountable issues if you change your licence or are co-developing your project.

GameMaker has a bright future and is in good hands within Opera, we are the same core YoYo Games team and have been given many more resources and opportunities. Look at the last 10 years of evolving features and services to see as a track record. We are listening and open to your feedback; working hard to improve the product and provide better communication to everyone, but we are only human, so forgive us - we will strive to do better.

Russell
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
ALL of our current roadmap will be made available to ALL of our users, it is only the timing that will be staged.
This is good to know. There will still be people upset however since non-subscribers are receiving features slower. They will generally feel like they are getting treated differently despite having invested real money. The original post had wording in it that made it seems like some features were going to end up being sub exclusive, which would have been much worse of course.

That said, I understand that you need business to make things work. Also, all those free months of subs generally means that we can all go ahead and sub anyway(except for people with issues like with credit cards, etc... I saw posted above). And I'm of the opinion that likely GMS3 would end up being out before that whole year of free subs is over, meaning we are likely better off using our subs and staying with the newest features.
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
We have been following the discussion here with interest and I just wanted to explicitly say for the record here on the forum.

The Roadmap (https://www.yoyogames.com/en/roadmap#/features) page has been updated and the features that will be subscription first have been marked (and some text added as clarification). Those features are Filters and Effects, and Triggers - they will be released initially to subscribers when they are useful to users and once they are finalised we will unlock them to perpetual users. ALL of our current roadmap will be made available to ALL of our users, it is only the timing that will be staged.

No matter which way we look at the games business now, no matter which platform we look at there is continual change and improvement - this means that our business is a service and even to stand still GameMaker has to be continually evolving. This is a reality that we have to configure our business around and it has been self-evident for several years, our business model needs to adapt.

We know that our users want game making to be as cheap as possible and we feel that we are providing a competitive and compelling offering and we have been generous in our subscription provision for all perpetual users (if you have any issues signing up to a subscription then please let our customer support team know (https://accounts.yoyogames.com/contact-us) and we will seek to resolve that issue).

We understand that those who have paid for a perpetual license for GMS2 want to have every feature that is being developed, but we have to make our subscription compelling and this is far from the first feature that has been only given to users who have paid more (YYC, console targets to name a few). To ensure the most compatibility between different licence types we intend to limit subscription first features to those that provide users with an easier way of doing something that is already possible within the GameMaker Studio 2 runtime and will ensure that the use of these features will not cause insurmountable issues if you change your licence or are co-developing your project.

GameMaker has a bright future and is in good hands within Opera, we are the same core YoYo Games team and have been given many more resources and opportunities. Look at the last 10 years of evolving features and services to see as a track record. We are listening and open to your feedback; working hard to improve the product and provide better communication to everyone, but we are only human, so forgive us - we will strive to do better.

Russell
thank you russel and yoyo for all your hard work, keep it up 😊
I will definitely use gamemaker as our teams main 2d engine now and for the days to come👍
 

sylvain_l

Member
We know that our users want game making to be as cheap as possible and we feel that we are providing a competitive and compelling offering and we have been generous in our subscription provision for all perpetual users (if you have any issues signing up to a subscription then please let our customer support team know (https://accounts.yoyogames.com/contact-us) and we will seek to resolve that issue).
Any idea when paypal is going to be available ? (as it is only in "pending" on the roadmap, can't expect it to be soon :( )

p.s.
even if I was motivated to use my credit card actually I can't :
Unable to subscribe. Note: If you previously had a GameMaker Studio 2 subscription, any new subscriptions must be in the same currency. Please make sure your country selection is correct. If you need further assistance please contact our helpdesk.
 
D

Deleted User

Guest
Any idea when paypal is going to be available ? (as it is only in "pending" on the roadmap, can't expect it to be soon :( )

p.s.
even if I was motivated to use my credit card actually I can't :
i had same problem with my own card, so i used a card from another bank and it worked. i dont know what was wrong on it.

(offtopic: i removed the card from the account since it was not mine, and i still have the free months)
 

sylvain_l

Member
i had same problem with my own card, so i used a card from another bank and it worked. i dont know what was wrong on it.

(offtopic: i removed the card from the account since it was not mine, and i still have the free months)
well I don't even reach the part where I would have to enter my card info. Just click on the subscribe and confirm Switzerland is my country, and then direct got there error (my wild guess it's the price for the monthly subscription is in EURO instead of CHF so something isn't configured right)
 

rIKmAN

Member
well I don't even reach the part where I would have to enter my card info. Just click on the subscribe and confirm Switzerland is my country, and then direct got there error (my wild guess it's the price for the monthly subscription is in EURO instead of CHF so something isn't configured right)
Did you contact support as per the error message?
I'm sure they will be able to help you out.

@rwkay
Thanks for clarifying with that message.
I think it would be best to put that same info out through official channels too - Tweet it, make a post on reddit using the official account, even maybe a locked announcement on here as the information gets buried and missed / not read by people when it's just made as a regular reply to other comments.
 

Cameron

Member
that provide users with an easier way of doing something that is already possible within the GameMaker Studio 2 runtime
I'm good with this.

Thanks for the response @rwkay. I can't speak for anyone else but personally I'm putting my soap box back in the closet where it belongs and going back to work making games with GameMaker Studio 2 so I can represent team GameMaker on my end.
 
We understand that those who have paid for a perpetual license for GMS2 want to have every feature that is being developed, but we have to make our subscription compelling and this is far from the first feature that has been only given to users who have paid more (YYC, console targets to name a few). [Snipped some valid technical justification for decision]
And we know why you understand why GMS2 users want to have the updates and features; because it was a strongly promised feature of the perpetual license. To quote our friend @Nocturne :
have to agree with everyone that is worried about non-sub users missing out on future features, as GMS2 has ALWAYS been provided under the condition that the pay-once-own-forever licence covered ALL FUTURE UPDATES TO THE IDE AND RUNTIME IN THE 2.x LIFETIME. For YoYo Games to go back on that now would be a massive misstep for them and destroy all shred of goodwill that they have gained over the years.
Everyone on the forum has massive respect for yourself, and the Yoyogames staff who are working on taking GM into the future; (it's transformed and improved so much since GM8!) but when such a strong promise has been given to users who had already paid a premium price for GM, to find a work around to eventually fulfill that promise, just to make subscriptions 'compelling', and to instead 'give the features to people who pay more', is definitely a backwards step, and not a good look.

Everyone is on this forum is rooting for you, and for YYG's to do well, and continue to take GMS forward; But I can't agree with what the team has done here.
 

Heathenlamb

Member
We know that our users want game making to be as cheap as possible and we feel that we are providing a competitive and compelling offering and we have been generous in our subscription provision for all perpetual users (if you have any issues signing up to a subscription then please let our customer support team know (https://accounts.yoyogames.com/contact-us) and we will seek to resolve that issue).

We understand that those who have paid for a perpetual license for GMS2 want to have every feature that is being developed, but we have to make our subscription compelling and this is far from the first feature that has been only given to users who have paid more (YYC, console targets to name a few). To ensure the most compatibility between different licence types we intend to limit subscription first features to those that provide users with an easier way of doing something that is already possible within the GameMaker Studio 2 runtime and will ensure that the use of these features will not cause insurmountable issues if you change your licence or are co-developing your project.
I am a massive GM2 and Yoyo supporter. I spruik the advantages of GM2 to others where ever I can ... but yeah ... I can't get onboard with that logic. As I stated further up the thread. I use GM2 daily to produce content for clients, there fore I want access to the latest ... easiest updates to produce that content in the most seamless way possible. THAT'S why I have a perpetual license. I paid Yoyo games money at the start of the GM2 lifecycle because I believe in the product.

I personally think people who purchase perpetual licenses are saying to the company ... "I'm in for the long haul". And this is kinda feels like Yoyo saying "Yeah , well we'll reward the temporary users first " .... Either way, my opinion is that Subscriptions and the Perpetual License holders should NOT be treated any differently and should BOTH get access to everything as soon as it is available."

The above is JUST an opinion and not a universal truth ;)
 

gnysek

Member
it is only the timing that will be staged.
So it will be staged and just delayed by few months, or it will not be available until sunset of 2.x?

I only hope that this changes aren't a teaser of introducing third middle subscription tier when 3.x or something like this will came out (none of this was announced, those are only my thoughts).
 
I am still disappointed that the whole thing happened in 2.3.6 and what they did for the sub model.
( Many people had ever discussed about what's the difference between permanent licence and sub licence in gms2.x, but "they" never said anything about the limitation to permanent licence at that time, so that everyone thought there is no difference, and felt good about it.)

But I don't think I need to express more my ideas here, because i think i have got some answer that they can give me now, and i wouldn't get more ansewr about the information that they can't tell me now in this thread.
 

Nobody

Member
Who said you can't? It has been stated at least 1000 times already that you can do it for $0.
Yeah, by subscribing...

”But, you can cancel your subscription any time”, I hear you cry.

Yes, by submitting a ticket. I have unfulfilled tickets dating back nearly a decade. So that option doesn’t full me with great excitement.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
Ive unfulfilled tickets dating back nearly a decade. So that option doesn’t full me with great excitement.
Our customer support team work very hard to ensure that all account support tickets are answered the next working day.

Any request to cancel a subscription will always be treated as a priority and in the rare occasion where a user's subscription may renew before we get to it (weekend, holidays, etc.) then we would refund the charge without question.

It's worth noting that bug tickets are separate from this and due to the investigative nature of them then they will take longer to resolve.

We definitely don't have any support requests that have gone multiple years without a response so I would love to find out what's happened to your requests, can you post or dm me the details and I'll get the team to look into it
 
it's reasonable that you can't just automatically cancel the membership because there will be people who try and take advantage of that by accepting the membership, exporting their project and then cancelling the membership.
This is literally a way that YYG has tried to sell the subscription model as a positive - that developers are able to make and test their project for free and only buy one month of membership when they need to export it, saving money over buying a perpetual license. Unless you're saying they would cancel before paying for even that first month, in which case the obvious answer is to process the payment at the start of each month instead of the end, and it would shock me if that's not how they already did it.
 

Nobody

Member
If you stop and think about it, it's reasonable that you can't just automatically cancel the membership because there will be people who try and take advantage of that by accepting the membership, exporting their project and then cancelling the membership.
And what’s wrong with that? Every other subscription service I can think of works that way.

What you are proposing is that people should be ‘locked in’. Why? It’s a subscription. That’s what a subscription is! Pay when you need it. No different from Netflix.

If YYG wants to play the subscription game, end users will too. Develop the game for three years, subscribe for one month, export, sell the game, and win.

Us perma-license plebs won’t look as second class in the long run.
 

Zhanghua

Member
And what’s wrong with that? Every other subscription service I can think of works that way.

What you are proposing is that people should be ‘locked in’. Why? It’s a subscription. That’s what a subscription is! Pay when you need it. No different from Netflix.

If YYG wants to play the subscription game, end users will too. Develop the game for three years, subscribe for one month, export, sell the game, and win.

Us perma-license plebs won’t look as second class in the long run.
Yes.
Why the subsciption can't be cancelled by user?
That's weired.
 

JeffJ

Member
I have to give YYG the benefit of doubt here, and believe that it is strictly a temporary byproduct of lack of a technical solution right now on their webservices, and that such a solution will be implemented in the near future, rather than a deliberate design choice. Granted, they should not start accepting people's money for a subscription before being able to offer the proper technical solutions on all sides in the first place, but that's another story.
I hope someone on the YYG staff can confirm this belief.

On another note, I appreciate the presence of staff in this thread, especially Russell, who as always is very sympathetic and forthcoming. I hate how so much of our frustrations completely unfairly always lands on him / them, as I have nothing but respect and sympathy for the work they do and the situation they're in. It's not easy.
That being said, the content of those posts do not really change anything - the situation is still very suboptimal. While I personally have no skin in the game in regards to the segregation of new features, I find the situation and the way it's being handled wrong on a principle level.
But more importantly, I can't help but notice how, once again, the concerns of stability (or lack thereof) with increased update frequency were left completely unaddressed.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
I have to give YYG the benefit of doubt here, and believe that it is strictly a temporary byproduct of lack of a technical solution right now on their webservices, and that such a solution will be implemented in the near future, rather than a deliberate design choice. Granted, they should not start accepting people's money for a subscription before being able to offer the proper technical solutions on all sides in the first place, but that's another story.
I hope someone on the YYG staff can confirm this belief.
There have been a number of technical challenges with moving to subscriptions our main initial one was that we couldn't offer the free time without users having to sign up with a card. We are working on solutions for this and should hopefully have something soon. for the unsubscribing we have a solution for that but it needs a lot more testing to ensure that it cannot be abused and that any money is handled correctly, hopefully everyone can understand that if we got this part wrong then it would be far worse than briefly conversing with our customer support team :p
 

gnysek

Member
It's worth noting that bug tickets are separate from this and due to the investigative nature of them then they will take longer to resolve.
That's why there's dropdown on contact form, which allows to report bug, report license issues etc. - as there's list of customer support persons in GMS2 credits, and by names which I see at end of replies when I'm reporting a bugs, I'm nearly sure that there are separate persons to answer license/subscription/education things.
 

iampremo

GameMaker Staff
Admin
Moderator
GameMaker Dev.
That's why there's dropdown on contact form, which allows to report bug, report license issues etc. - as there's list of customer support persons in GMS2 credits, and by names which I see at end of replies when I'm reporting a bugs, I'm nearly sure that there are separate persons to answer license/subscription/education things.
They are indeed, CS deal with everything account related as a priority and our QA team deal with all the bugs (although CS have been helping them out recently, once all the other tasks are dealt with)
 

Nobody

Member
Download free version of GMS2. Build game for free with the game engine. "Buy" a subscription. Export project. Cancel subscription and do a charge back. Free game export.
Where did chargebacks come from? I’m saying subscribe for a month, and release the game. Completely legit.

Again, using the Netflix analogy, it’s not possible to watch all of your favourite shows, cancel after two weeks, and expect a full refund. That’s not how subscriptions work.
 

JeffJ

Member
There have been a number of technical challenges with moving to subscriptions our main initial one was that we couldn't offer the free time without users having to sign up with a card. We are working on solutions for this and should hopefully have something soon. for the unsubscribing we have a solution for that but it needs a lot more testing to ensure that it cannot be abused and that any money is handled correctly, hopefully everyone can understand that if we got this part wrong then it would be far worse than briefly conversing with our customer support team :p
Just as I suspected. I appreciate you confirming this, and in doing so, both providing transparency and reassurances for anyone else here.

Like I said - YYG definitely deserved the benefit of the doubt here. Glad to be right about this.
 
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