Checking out Construct 3, from Construct 2

While I understand the reasons the team went with the subscription model, I like most users aren't a fan of this... especially as all my apps are going this route...(Adobe was bad enough, now Office, Quicken, Construct)... Feel like I'm getting nickle and dimed, but oh well. I DO understand the developers POV too.

(a better compromise would be sign up for a year... and then at the end of the year, you keep the version you have in perpetuity... If you want to upgrade/bug fix, you pay for another subscription period. This allows folks to not feel on the hook for ever -- especially for sporadic users, while also getting funding from those that use it regularly. Some of my other software tools function exactly like this and it's very convenient for budgeting. Telerik, Resharper, etc...) But I digress. (EDIT: Guess this won't work since the software is online, not on your computer... nevermind)

Trying to decide between C3 and just learning Unity (already a C# developer). Got a mostly complete game done in C2 that I was going to convert as I started hitting hurdles. But evaluated C3 back in 2017 (wow, 2017!), but it was still early days and not so impressive as the feature set looks now.

So I'm assessing now and have a few questions...

1. Any upgrade path/discount for the first year for C2 owners?

2. What constitutes a "business". I make money as a business/web developer, but not developing games -- that is a hobby. Do I still qualify for the personal license until I 'make it big'?

3. Tried to import a .capx I have, but got tagged on two plugins. One was Cocoon.js and the other was called "date" (or rex_date). I searched in the plugins folder to no avail. Do I need to remove those from the capx in order to import or are they available elsewhere?

Thanks!

In C2 remove all references to cocoon from the code, then remove the plugin itself. Be careful, if you have an event like "On cocoon something -> Restart layout" and you simply delete the cocoon plugin, your layout will be restarting on every tick.

In C3 import addons into Addon Manager and restart before trying to open C2 project.

I mean, it can feel steep to have to pay the whole year at once I agree, but it amounts to a subscription inferior to $10/month, so I doubt the classic "man with a fulltime job" can't afford it.

This is different for students and unemployed users, but that's another question.

And this system actually makes C3 more sustainable than before, not less. A constant revenue flux allows them to plan better and have a small team (that can probably be resized even in a catastrophic scenario) working on the soft instead of just Ashley doing it all by himself.

I mean, it can feel steep to have to pay the whole year at once I agree, but it amounts to a subscription inferior to $10/month, so I doubt the classic "man with a fulltime job" can't afford it.

This is different for students and unemployed users, but that's another question.

And this system actually makes C3 more sustainable than before, not less. A constant revenue flux allows them to plan better and have a small team (that can probably be resized even in a catastrophic scenario) working on the soft instead of just Ashley doing it all by himself.

I did not say that i could not afford it , i said i wont because of given reasons. (im not talking about the money fact im talking about the philosophy or say the felling behind this)

Also they failed to get CC "done". They also did not finish C2 . And now they started C3 which is a bugfest too. (from what i see at the changelog , discord etc).

Well i get your last point, really. But then it would be a rent to own thing but you never own it.

It feels not really good to give money and dont have smth at your hands, it can be all gone by tomorow.

CC is open source. You could even improve it.

burningcake - please don't discuss removing license protections in C2, it's against the forum rules (for obvious reasons).

I'd point out that 99.4% of all bug reports ever filed for C3 have been closed. For comparison, I found another tool which people occasionally mention on the forums that had a close rate of only 74.8%.

The payment model discussion has been done to death already. I don't want to get in to a full repeat of the entire debate again, but I will point out: leaving users with the version at the end of their subscription isn't really feasible, since software usually needs regular updates to keep working. Stopping updates essentially means your copy of the software is retired until you pay again. Then some bug or compatibility change will break something, and predictably users will accuse us of holding them to ransom over a simple bug fix. So either we end up with lots of angry users complaining about negligent support (and they'd have a point), or we end up maintaining dozens of separate copies of Construct, which we simply don't have the resources to manage. I don't think either way is any better. With a subscription everyone stays on the latest version and we have a way to sustain the on-going maintenance (which is a very substantial part of our jobs, there's a ton of maintenance stuff always going on in the background). Besides, as has been pointed out, it's pretty cheap and well within the range of hobbyists - it's around the price of a basic Netflix subscription. Meanwhile there are other tools out there which charge far more for similar features - occasionally people mention on the forums one tool that is a 5x more expensive subscription!

There's a difference with infrequent, long-term software releases that reach their pre-announced retirement. Nobody expects support past their end date, and people can plan for it. I know that even if you understand the way the support works and wouldn't complain, lots of people definitely would. This would also include cases like schools with a lab full of students ready to take a class, and then suddenly they find their software isn't working, even though we released a fix for it. Also as someone who really cares about producing good quality software, I just can't face the idea that we'd shrug this kind of thing off; we have an obligation to support our software and ensure it works for people who have paid for it, and we cannot simply shirk that responsibility without going through a formal retirement process. This is why people would rightly get angry about it.

Meanwhile, as of right now, if you use Construct r182.2 or older with Chrome 80+, it crashes when you drag a bar. Old releases like r83 crash on startup. This type of thing happens. We have around 16 stable releases and the numbers always going up - supporting all of those with on-going bug fixes would be a nightmare. And doubtless we'd be dragged in to endless debates about precisely where we draw the line for what qualifies as an essential fix that gets backported to past releases - everyone will have their own personal bar for that.

I'd add even with Construct Classic we had to make occasional updates to track things like new Windows versions, and even Windows Updates that broke things. I do remember checking once and I found it didn't work out of the box on one system without further configuration, so it probably is in need of maintenance, but it won't get it since we formally retired it.

There's a difference with infrequent, long-term software releases that reach their pre-announced retirement. Nobody expects support past their end date, and people can plan for it. I know that even if you understand the way the support works and wouldn't complain, lots of people definitely would. This would also include cases like schools with a lab full of students ready to take a class, and then suddenly they find their software isn't working, even though we released a fix for it. Also as someone who really cares about producing good quality software, I just can't face the idea that we'd shrug this kind of thing off; we have an obligation to support our software and ensure it works for people who have paid for it, and we cannot simply shirk that responsibility without going through a formal retirement process. This is why people would rightly get angry about it.

Meanwhile, as of right now, if you use Construct r182.2 or older with Chrome 80+, it crashes when you drag a bar. Old releases like r83 crash on startup. This type of thing happens. We have around 16 stable releases and the numbers always going up - supporting all of those with on-going bug fixes would be a nightmare. And doubtless we'd be dragged in to endless debates about precisely where we draw the line for what qualifies as an essential fix that gets backported to past releases - everyone will have their own personal bar for that.

I'd add even with Construct Classic we had to make occasional updates to track things like new Windows versions, and even Windows Updates that broke things. I do remember checking once and I found it didn't work out of the box on one system without further configuration, so it probably is in need of maintenance, but it won't get it since we formally retired it.

Well, thanks to your time writing things down a different way here i can get what you mean.

I think it may be a thing of different perspectives and personal taste here! I mean from the developer side it indeed IS a very good and well planned strategy.

Also i never thought about the company that is selling a product and has to act different. Im sorry for that !

However i am thankful for your anwers and i guess everyone has to go with time sometimes ^^

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