Close-sourcing the HTML5 exporter

As long as people can still write plugins and exporters for it, it sounds fine. I personally don't care about if the editor's open source or not, but I can understand how users of other platforms would be disappointed since there's been talk of making a cross platform port using qt. Since I'm assuming moving C2 over to use qt isn't an option, I guess what matters to me is that you devs are able to make a living making construct.

What I don't understand though is why you can't have it be open source and put license restrictions/require royalties on making exporters. Even if it's closed source, as long as people other than yourselves can write exporters for it, people could still write a free version of one of your paid exporters. You could send a cease and desist, but how would it be any different from it being open source with a license that prevents it and the same thing happens?

Closing the source does provide some easy answers to the licensing issue. I say go for it.

But since you're going that route, I'd really like to see C2 adopt the Unity3D model of licensing. The main editor should remain free for non-commercial use. Any games made with the free version are branded with a splash screen or logo. Desktop exporters should also come with the free version, but be branded as well. If you want to go commercial, you can buy a "C2 Pro" license which will remove the branding and possibly unlock advanced features and plugins. Exporters for various platforms could be purchased a la carte (but a non-branded commercial license for the HTML5 and desktop exporters should probably just come packaged with a purchase of C2 Pro).

And that's my two cents.

I have the same opinion as what i said before though other than the questions about open-source, if it results in a better app and faster development then it would be good. As long as i can customize and make my own plugins to use like i currently can i would be happy.

I am just wondering though, to avoid problems why you didn't just make C2 closed-source and commercial from the start?

Edit:

Also if it is closed source i hope it will still avoid using extra library's, with C1 i still can't use the SDK because for some reason the needed Server 2003 SP1 SDK won't install and i think the main editor requires some commercial thing. Basically what i am saying is it would be good to keep things like C2 currently does in that you can just work with the code in a easy way and if you need to build then make it easy to do without needing a load of extra required downloads.

Even though it is in a way i don't really think of C1 as open-source due to that because i don't own or can't get the required library's. So i really hope if there is a exe exporter and a SDK it will try to make this much simpler than how C1 did it.

Realistically, how long will it take to finish C2? Close sourcing C2 isn't going to help with the cash flow if there is going be another 3 year beta resulting in an unfinished product. I doubt many companies will be interested in making exporters that have to be updated weekly while having to pay royalties. Otherwise, I'm indifferent, do what is best.

Well there's only one reason why there's not 50 different flavors of C0.x floating around, that being PROF-UIS.

Now the thing is, even if they could export a non official version they still couldn't sell it, since its GPL.

But the worse part is if some idiot were to try that, it would fall upon the guys that wrote the code for free, to hire a layer, etc to try to stop it, with very little chance of reimbursement I might add.

On the other side of that, if you were to make a closed source the chances of piracy go up exponentially.....

Same thing goes for trying to recoup profits for that as well.

The only bright side of that is that those thieves probably couldn't make a go of selling games anyway. Indie pirates.... argh?

I'd suggest you guys take a look at working business models out there, and see what they did.

GM, and Stencyl are going the Apple route, and with the potential of HTML5.... that could work pretty good.

It would, however require a bit of an investment.

I feel there need to be a clarification about Unitys license (it's been mentioned more than once here). The license states that you can use the free version as long as you don't earn more than 100,000 USD.

(b) Unity (free version) may not be licensed and used by companies, educational institution or incorporated entities that had a turnover in excess of US$100,000 in their last fiscal year.

In short, you can use the free version and sell your game. But when you hit 100k you need to buy a Unity Pro license (which you should be able to with that kinda money).

The only bright side of that is that those thieves probably couldn't make a go of selling games anyway. Indie pirates.... argh?

Yeah, I would imagine that the number of people out there trying to make money off of games made with pirated game engines is quite likely pretty slim.

Pirated copies of GM and MMF2 currently in use: Seventeen Quadrillion.

Games sold commercially that were made with pirated copies of GM and MMF2: Zero. Or if not, then pretty close to it.

Closed course doesn't necessarily mean "not free". It is just that the source is not accessible. It is not like there are hordes of people working on Construct. From our perspective, that is the perspective of Construct user (as well as plugin developer), there is no difference between open and closed source.

[quote:aemjffvz]But since you're going that route, I'd really like to see C2 adopt the Unity3D model of licensing. The main editor should remain free for non-commercial use. Any games made with the free version are branded with a splash screen or logo. Desktop exporters should also come with the free version, but be branded as well.

BEST THING YOU EVER SAID

I think most people will not have objection in making the whole project closed source. And since it's 3AM here I'll put it in the shortest way possible. COPY WHAT UNITY IS DOING . Charge for platforms like android, iphone and the developers would have to pay some some amount of money to make commercial games from it. If you want, then keep a splash screen in the free version.

And a last piece of advice- Add 1-2 more people to the dev team, if you are planning to full time on this.

I'm going to give a thumbs up to the Unity way of things. You could still make the free version "Pay what you want" and then apply that payment to the "Pro" version should us humble customers ever decide to go that route.

I think you'd put yourself at a disadvantage, though, if there wasn't an in-house windows .exe exporter that wasn't either 1) free, or 2) really cheap.

2 cents!

I think a lot of people know that a closed-source program doesn't always have to be commercial already. Ashley seems to want the project/exporters to have a price now though or at least that is the impression i am getting from reading his posts.

I am just wondering what the costs of a "indie dev" or "personal use license" would be and also if one was free and the other commercial then would the paid version have extra features in a similar way to what unity does with it's pro version.

Well if it all becomes closed source paid for count me out :\</p>

[quote:2rrcnech]splash screen

[quote:2rrcnech]limited features

That makes no sense for free version, so let's better make it "30-days trial" .

GameMaker has this kind of "free version" and no one is using it.

Interesting, personally I would not have a huge objection in paying for construct 2. But the big question is how much? would it be a one off payment or would you have to pay for updates? I think most of us (I hope all) would not begrudge Ashley and the other developers making money from this, but (and it is a big one) the price would have to be right. Just a thought is there any other ways money can be made from this? i.e writing a book on how to use it etc. But going back to the price issue, I could be persuaded to pay �20 for this kind of product, but the product would obviously need to be in a very usable state for this to happen. I would also back the unity model as well (since any game I have made would unlikely be good enough to be sold). But A final warning, when people pay for stuff they expect perfection (or near on anyway)!

[quote:3g24zb5p]splash screen

[quote:3g24zb5p]limited features

That makes no sense for free version, so let's better make it "30-days trial" .

GameMaker has this kind of "free version" and no one is using it.

Unity has that kind of free version too, and a whole lot of people are using it, including me . The feature list for the free version is pretty extensive. There are only a handful of runtime features that you can't use in the free version, most notably shadows, occlusion culling, post-process effects, and the splash screen. You can still make a good game without any of those.

GameMaker's limitations on their free version are way too harsh. You can't rotate sprites or define your own trigger events. There's no networking.

When I suggested that certain features of C2 be left only for the paid version I was mainly speaking of the commercial license. But you could also do something like OpenGL shaders for desktop games. That's an example of a feature that would be nice to have, but not necessary for game development. You'd still be able to use core functionality of C2 without them. GameMaker on the other hand is gimping major features.

So yeah, the main purpose of buying C2 would be to get the commercial license, but if it came with a few little extras on top (customizable splash, shaders, etc.) then that's just extra incentive.

Oh, and I'm not saying that C2 should copy Unity's model 100%. They allow you to use their free version to make commercial games as long as your game makes less than $100,000. The free version of C2 could be strictly for non-commercial use. Which I think is totally fair, if you plan to make money off of it then the guys who made C2 should get a little something.

would it be a one off payment or would you have to pay for updates?

I don't think I know of any software companies that make you pay for updates.