Ashley and Tom have said they are listening to the long time C2 users and Ashley asked us what we wanted in the post shown below and I responded- three times asking for a direct response.
I know Ashley read it and he was online and responded to other posts just ignoring the question. I have been respectful and Ashley asked what we wanted and instead Ashley brushed aside the questions and just went on to tell us all the wonderful things he had planned for C3.
I feel very disrespected and I think many people following that discussion are probably feeling the same way.
So here is the question again Ashley and I would like a direct response please:
Okay, wow, now a 17 page thread.
I'm not sure what anyone here thinks we should actually do. We've already announced things like our own mobile app build service and new IAP/ad plugins for C3, so that is on the way. We've got Xbox One support just around the corner. Mobile support from what I've seen is pretty solid with WKWebView and Android 5.0+, all supporting JIT-compiled JS and hardware-accelerated WebGL. Maybe we could tweak the way we advertise certain things. Maybe some people have bugs, or unoptimised cases, in which case please file reports, or send me .capxs to profile for performance improvements (as ever, I always ask, and either get sent nothing, or just projects with silly performance-destroying mistakes, hence my skepticism).
Do you want us to rebuild the C3 editor? I would go so far as to say that would probably ruin us, and waste a brilliant opportunity. Do you want us to build native engines? I've covered that in this blog with our rationale around that, which nobody ever really directly argues against, there's just vague accusations of how HTML5 is "poorly optimised" or something, which really is not the case given the potency of modern JIT compilers and the native-equivalent performance of WebGL.
So what have I missed? What do you think we should actually do differently that isn't something we've already covered? If I can't make sense of any specific complaints or clear suggestions on what to do, then I don't see why we shouldn't just carry on as we are - I think we already have a strong plan for the future.
Ashley after reading the many many comments on this and my thread I believe what people are asking for is this:
1- Go ahead with C3 as it may at least be useful to people using Mac and Unix even though most C2 users have said they do not want a Chrome browser based subscription engine.
2- Make an update or addon package of exporters and features for C2 that users have been asking for and fix the bugs you have been promising to fix for years. Put that new team of programmers to work on that along with C3.
We all understand Scirra has to make money and I believe you understand that if you lose your long time C2 users by not listening to us your chances of staying in business are pretty damn small.
So this is a reasonable request and you can charge your $99 for a great package of features and exporters for C2 and I will bet you will sell many more of those packages than you will C3 browser versions.
It also would prove you actually intend to honor your license and advertising that said those exporters would be included in C2 and would probably keep your base happy and maybe they would be interested in C3 later after you get all the bugs worked out.
It seems to me you would want those long time C2 users to hang around and support Scirra but reading through the comments on many threads they are dropping out and pretty disappointed in Scirra right now.
So what do you say?
Can we get a package of features and working exporters for the existing C2 engine at a reasonable price with no subscription Ashley?
If I get banned for asking a straight forward question then so be it and I will let the forum decide what to think about that!