Scirra false advertising?

I was just in another forum where someone stated Scirra was falsey advertising Construct 2.

Their point seemed kind of valid, so here it is...

On Scirra's home page IOS & Android logos are displayed as big as the HTML 5 one giving the impression that Construct 2 game engine directly publishes to these platforms (instead of advertising AppMobi or Cocoon)

I like Construct 2, but by no means do I currently consider it a mobile platform game development system.

Heck I asked I think a month or so ago what route show I go to make a mobile game (ie Cocoon or Appmobie) and even Ashely didn't give a response, he did reply to the thread indicating to me there is no "best" or even great route to make decent AA mobile games with Construct.

The poster stated they thought that Scirra was advertising IOS & Android is because Gamemaker can natively publish to these platforms, so Scirra is trying to me a ME TOO it seems.

.... flame suit on :p

Well, the main page says "publish to iOS, android" and other platforms.

And games made with C2 are indeed published on those platforms.

I don't think that's false advertising.

The end result advertised is delivered.

Anyway, I'm a PC player, always have always will so I must admit I haven't bothered to much about others platforms.

I agree with you, at least a little. I'd much rather the true situation be made a bit more clear, so we don't have so many mobile complaint posts and disappointed customers. However, I would not call it 'false advertising', perhaps I'd just say the way it is is just a bit optimistic.

Unfortunately Ashley was right, and there's no 'great' way to make a AA mobile app at the moment. Soon, soon.

You are mostly on the mercy of appMobi and ConcoonJS, both are not really mobile ready and their support is not good to be able to depend on them completely and develop anything seriously.

C2 uses a modular export system, so there is no doubt, in my mind, that there will be an exporter to those native systems.... someday.

Remember there is only one person working on this, and Ashley has stated he will not work on that part till he is satisfied with the Html5 portion.

In fact all current methods of publishing are html5 based

That's actually quite an achievement when you think about it.

So, false advertising? Not really.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps.

Also, remember most browsers play these games. Even on mobiles.

When people buy something they are paying and buying now, they are not buying someday or wishful thinking unless disclosed to them not available but upcoming features.

The export is not Construct, but some other software, I think it should be clarified that Construct does not natively export directly to the advertised platforms and requires a 3rd party to do it.

I know Scirra is a one man company for the most part, and Ashley's done a great job, but you still have to watch how you advertise your products. Others outside this forum are talking about this, so it must be an issue with someone.

C2 uses a modular export system, so there is no doubt, in my mind, that there will be an exporter to those native systems.... someday.

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Remember there is only one person working on this, and Ashley has stated he will not work on that part till he is satisfied with the Html5 portion.

In fact all current methods of publishing are html5 based

That's actually quite an achievement when you think about it.

So, false advertising? Not really.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps.

Also, remember most browsers play these games. Even on mobiles.

I think it should show that it publishes to HTML5 and then break into sub sections which say "Web", "iOS", "Facebook" etc.

When people buy something they are paying and buying now, they are not buying someday or wishful thinking unless disclosed to them not available but upcoming features.

The export is not Construct, but some other software, I think it should be clarified that Construct does not natively export directly to the advertised platforms and requires a 3rd party to do it.

But scirra never did say it exported natively to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows 8 or even Desktop. In fact, they didn't even say it was easy, regardless of whether it is native or not.

While it's a bit of wishful thinking to emphasize Desktop and Android equally, since it works orders of magnitude better on Desktop than Android/iOS/Winphone/win8, there are some games published on those platforms, to it's not "false advertising" by any stretch of the imagination.

It's harder to target mobile, and mobile versions of games are always less capable than desktop versions (unless you plan for mobile first), but isn't this universal? I know for a fact that GM or MMF games for mobile aren't as capable or performant as their desktop counterparts.

TL;DR; Yes, it's a stretch. But then again, all competitors make the same stretched claims. Also it's not false advertising because it is indeed viable to publish on those platforms.

Have you seen the home page lately, and no the other Engines I work with that display IOS & Android actually do directly export to ISO and Android.... Shiva 3d, Unity 3D, Corona, Gideros, GameMaker, Stencyl to name a few.

Tell me how this isn't misleading...

<img src="http://70d.com/images/publishto.png" border="0" />

To top it all off IOS & Android are listed first!

I think it's a valid complaint - you can export to mobile, but it's not made clear that to do anything other than use html5 in a web page on mobile browsers it requires third party options.

Perhaps a * with a note that says "requires use of cocoonjs or appmobi?" Otherwise, people like yourself can be left feeling misled.

Right now C2 is perfect for exporting to HTML5 (& all other html based platforms like FB, etc), Windows8 Modern UI, and with Node-webkit soon we will have a great Windows + Mac OSX + Linux desktop exporter.

When it comes to mobile exporting, the nearest usable thing for supporting HTML5 is Blackberry, and maybe soon we will have a direct export too.

As others have said you can export to android & ios and it works great if your game is a non fps-hungry puzzle style game, but forget action games for now.

Lol I can't even capture all the platform options.

And he's not near finished with those. Soon there should be Boot to Geko, and I imagine Node for desktop as well.

Complain all you want, but consider the fact that you not only need a license from Apple to publish to Ios, but approval as well.

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/666516/platforms.png" border="0" />

Can you put a C2 game on IOS and Andoid. Yes.

I know where your coming from. I know there more 3rd party steps to go through. However newt points it out. C2 exports html5 export ready for native distribution models.

There is also a difference in misleading advertising and false advertising. False advertising would be the case that C2 has no way to be put on these platforms nor any support. However there is a bit of information that could be expanded on to make sure interested parties are well informed.

Also to point out another person on the forums here experimented with Ejecta(from ImpactJS) and managed to get a C2 demo running. However the individual had to modify the webcode by hand to get it working. I don't see Scirra suddenly advertising Ejecta compatibility.

So I will disagree with the OP opinion.

I have to agree with the general opinion: It's not false advertising if it's possible to publish your game on those platforms.

If it said "Export to" then I'd say false advertising but, (as shown here: http://www.scirra.com/forum/topic60466.html) there are Construct 2 games on the Android market already.

Edit: Also, they're paying for the latest "Beta", the license for all paid features, to sell their games, and all upcoming updates. No wishful thinking there

I don't think it's fair to call it false advertising: you can actually publish to Android and iOS. However, I admit we should probably clarify it like Arima suggested with an asterisk and noting it's "via CocoonJS/AppMobi", since we've heard a few times now about people who didn't know it worked this way. This will help better inform users and avoid accusations like this.

It's true Construct 2 doesn't directly export an APK or IPA. You have to use appMobi or CocoonJS to build that. However according to appMobi's pricing page it's either free (for hobby use) or free for your first 10,000 monthly active users. CocoonJS haven't announced official pricing yet (their pricing page states it's currently free until 2013) but likewise I'd expect there to be a good free option to help get you going. On top of that, coce you've got the hang of appMobi or CocoonJS the export-and-test cycle is pretty fast (via Test over Wifi/Test Anywhere in appMobi, or the CocoonJS Launcher). Publishing takes a little longer, but you only do that once when you're done, so it's not so important. So I think it's fair to say you can get as far as publishing a few apps and there are no hidden fees or anything extra to pay compared to if Construct 2 did directly export an APK or IPA.

I know it's not so popular, but publishing iOS web apps does actually work surprisingly well with iOS 6 and newer. You have to be more creative with monetisation, but you also don't have to give away 30%, and you can add them to the home screen so they look and work like native apps. Web games also make it possible to make publishing deals, which some users are actively doing. I think that's a unique point to saying we have iOS support, because I don't think every tool that says it supports iOS also supports that.

Anyway, I'll bring it up with Tom and see what we can change to make our site clearer on this.