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Question - IDE Greetings and a couple of questions

O

odde

Guest
Hi, everyone!
I always wanted to try and develop a simple videogame. I Considered Godot and Construct and briefly tried Unity, and after watching a few tutorials I think GameMaker might be the right choice for me.
I just have a couple of questions!
Are the permanent licenses ("GameMaker Studio 2 Desktop" for instance) for a single machine? I might plan to install it on a desktop at home and a laptop for when I'm away. Even if installing on 2 machines isn't permitted, what if I have to change hardware?
Does changing or adding a licence require a different installation? Suppose I want to publish on windows and then I realize I want to publish on android too...
Just out of curiosity, is there anyone in the community who shared his experience in actually publishing on Nintendo, or Sony? Do you actually need to have a publisher?
That's it for now! I look forward to working with GameMaker :)
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
See this FAQ. It says you can have the software installed and logged in on 3 different devices. That generally means that if you log out and uninstall from one machine, it no longer counts for those 3 so you shouldn't have any problems replacing hardware.

If your game is a 2d game, then it is indeed quite likely that it is the right choice for you. They have a trial version with limitations, so feel free to just dive on in and try it out. Then, if you know you only want to build for a single platform(Windows or MAC), you can pay just the $39 for the Creator's license which lasts a year. If you are still sure of things, you can then upgrade to the full Desktop license, which costs $99, but if you are still using the Creator's license there is a discount so you end up paying just a little over the $99 in total if you already paid the $39.

The software is all one program, whether you are exporting the Windows, Android, HTML5, whatever. It is a switch done with a drop-down box(and code changes to account for the differences, like touch input vs keyboard and mouse). Theoretically, you could have the mobile license without the desktop license, and run the program on Windows, but not be able to actually export for Windows. I don't recommend it, but the option is there if you really wanted it. Most people start with the Desktop version and then if they later find they want to work with other platforms they add it on. But I don't think you need to make that investment until you are sure it will be worth it for you.

About consoles, I don't know who all in the community has worked with them. I WILL say that that you don't necessarily have to have a publisher these days. But you DO have to be approved by the vendor to make games for their console(unless one has some kind of a free for all store I'm not aware of).
 
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