Concerns from a "Serious" developer

Addon package is an interesting idea but it's not on the road-map for now. The export to mobile options we're building for C3 rely on external servers which have cost to keep running so any addon would have to be subscription based.

> What data is that Tom?

>

In our database and analytics

> Where is the thread with glowing reports and requests for a browser based subscription engine?

>

Are you suggesting that because you think people don't want a browser based engine, we should just bin it and start again? Or is your complaint only about the fact it's subscription based?

This is also data Tom and is 11 pages of long time C2 users most of whom are disappointed in C3 and now looking for another engine:

If you have data in the form of thousands of people requesting a browser based subscription engine then I would like to see that because maybe they have some reason we have not considered but just saying you have data in your database and analytics without actual people supporting that data looks to be flawed.

That's qualitative data on from a subset of the community. I get some people are unhappy, but we're going to try what we've planned. That's the last thing I'm going to say about the subscription pricing for now as I'd rather be getting on with working on the website.

Addon package is an interesting idea but it's not on the road-map for now. The export to mobile options we're building for C3 rely on external servers which have cost to keep running so any addon would have to be subscription based.

AND there in lays the REAL answer and it is because Scirra wants to tie people to a subscription instead of a one time payment for exporters that were advertised to already be in C2.

lamar LOL, it's not a big conspiracy theory you just uncovered. It's basic business 101 ...

They have service costs, staff costs, rent, support costs, server costs, etc.... to me subscription makes sense, given that they chose to do C3 online.

Even if they didn't go for an online approach they would still have to figure out a way to earn money on a regular basis in order not to go bankrupt. Apparently pay once for lifetime updates, bug fixes, features, is pretty hard to upkeep.

You're a developer? You should know that? If you sell a game for a one time fee you can't just rely on that one sale your entire life and keep supporting your product... There is a point where your customers cost has exceeded the income. Then you need to plan for your next release, and your next and your next, in order to get a steady income to support your business if you're going for a pay once approach.

There's a lot of developers here that are trying to monetize their product in one way or another. Some choose ads, Some chose IAP, some choose pay once.

From what i've researched for my own projects.

* If you release a short game where a player usually only spends a few hours then done with it - Pay once is a very good option. You're only gonna get a few cent from ads per play/customer.

* If you release a game that you are maintaining and constantly updating with new levels and content, or a game with a lot of replayability - ad based is very good option, it provides a steady flow of income.

* If you want to keep it "free", but don't want to rely on ads, you have to create some ingame desire to buy more content. - IAP is a good option.

C2's approach with one time fee, can work if they constantly get new developers buying licences all the time, and plan on regular payed version upgrades, like photoshop in the past. Photoshop CS4, CS5, CS6. But they dropped that, since it's pretty hard to maintain several products for old time users still sticking with old software, it probably costs a lot to support old software.

I have some old software I payed licences for in the past. They are not even supported anymore, or some companies don't even exist anymore. I bet they don't even run on a modern computer. It was for windows 95/98. I still own the software but it's pretty useless to me now.

C3's leaves out the one time fee option pretty much, unless they start selling new features similar to how IAP works, or already have C4 and C5 in the pipeline.

It's no conspiracy theory to lure people into a subscription model, it's just basic business 101. It's the approach they chose to be able to continue to develop their product.

They chose to make an online dev tool, with running costs, and subscription makes sense. To me at least... Even if I skipped Business Economics class in school.

lamar LOL, it's not a big conspiracy theory you just uncovered. It's basic business 101 ...

They chose to make an online dev tool, with running costs, and subscription makes sense. To me at least... Even if I skipped Business Economics class in school.

Basic business 101 is to give your customers what they want and to honor your license and advertising.

Scirra advertised those exporters in C2 and we paid for our licenses based on that advertising.

I have suggested a reasonable compromise that would still make Scirra money and would keep their base happy but a few people like you still seem to want to follow a Scirra road map that has very few people supporting it and that makes no sense to me and is probably cutting your own throat (figure of speech).

If you or Tom or Ashley can show me the thread with thousands of people like you asking for a Chrome browser based subscription engine then I will consider your reasons?

The quote oft attributed to Ford applies here:

[quote:2910rqbw]If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

People don't know they want cutting edge until they have it.

I didn't realise how helpful a browser based editor would be until I realised when I was at work that I could just login to C3 and work on my files; what's more, the editor actually updated automatically, and told me so with a pop-up. I'll confess I was impressed.

C3 is the evolution of a product, Scirra aren't going to compromise their vision of progress to cater to the vocal minority. Ultimately the effectiveness of their decisions will be determined in sales figures, of which a subscription model is infinitely better suited to their constant maintenance and upgrades business plan.

If Scirra are able to provide the same level of improvement and growth that C2 experienced before the work on C3 cut into the dev time, I'll be a customer for life. C3 isn't a product, it's a service.

The quote oft attributed to Ford applies here:

[quote:1biju84q]If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

People don't know they want cutting edge until they have it.

I didn't realise how helpful a browser based editor would be until I realised when I was at work that I could just login to C3 and work on my files; what's more, the editor actually updated automatically, and told me so with a pop-up. I'll confess I was impressed.

C3 is the evolution of a product, Scirra aren't going to compromise their vision of progress to cater to the vocal minority. Ultimately the effectiveness of their decisions will be determined in sales figures, of which a subscription model is infinitely better suited to their constant maintenance and upgrades business plan.

If Scirra are able to provide the same level of improvement and growth that C2 experienced before the work on C3 cut into the dev time, I'll be a customer for life. C3 isn't a product, it's a service.

OK so that makes you and Tunepunk that want a chrome browser based subscription engine.

If there are more than two of you get them to post here or start a thread and when you get a thousand people that agree with you or even a hundred then you have a case to support your opinion.

There are that many that disagree with you though and they have made that clear!

> The quote oft attributed to Ford applies here:

>

> [quote:3izhhbzz]If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

>

People don't know they want cutting edge until they have it.

I didn't realise how helpful a browser based editor would be until I realised when I was at work that I could just login to C3 and work on my files; what's more, the editor actually updated automatically, and told me so with a pop-up. I'll confess I was impressed.

C3 is the evolution of a product, Scirra aren't going to compromise their vision of progress to cater to the vocal minority. Ultimately the effectiveness of their decisions will be determined in sales figures, of which a subscription model is infinitely better suited to their constant maintenance and upgrades business plan.

If Scirra are able to provide the same level of improvement and growth that C2 experienced before the work on C3 cut into the dev time, I'll be a customer for life. C3 isn't a product, it's a service.

OK so that makes you and Tunepunk that want a chrome browser based subscription engine.

If there are more than two of you get them to post here or start a thread and when you get a thousand people that agree with you or even a hundred then you have a case to support your opinion.

There are that many that disagree with you though and they have made that clear!

There are way more people that like the basic idea of browser based subscription engine.

However not everyone participates in the forums or wants to add to the discussion. People with hate will always be more visible than people who love something.

I guess the discussion is over.

>

> >

> > There are way more people that like the basic idea of browser based subscription engine.

> > However not everyone participates in the forums or wants to add to the discussion. People with hate will always be more visible than people who love something.

> >

> > I guess the discussion is over.

> >

>

Well that makes Three of you?

The same three on all these discussions unless you count your comments multiple times.

Still waiting for the thousand or even hundreds that support your position and want a chrome based subscription browser?

Here are 11 pages of real long time C2 users that disagree with you three:

lamar

I didn't ask for that specifically, because I didn't even know it was possible, or that they even had that plan in mind. But since I've tried the beta, i'm quite optimistic.... It looks great, feels great, and I can even make games on my phone while having a dump.

I can just speak for myself. The only thing i can remember I requested was 3D support, and not having to rely on 3rd party build options for mobile. Apparently they provided 50% of my needs so far, and they have no interest whatsoever adding 3D support.... but I'm not complaining. That it's browser based is just a bonus for me. I find it pretty cool.... Unusual, but I kind of like it.... so far.... I will still be using C2 for my main project, but will be playing with C3 as I go.

Subscription model or not... I could care less. Game development is still pretty cheap hobby of mine. I have several subscriptions running just to make my project a reality. Photoshop, Autodesk Sketchbook, Maya... hell ... even my gym card costs 250Euro for 6 month membership, and I don't even like going there, but I still pay for it, because it's good for me. >_< ... LOL

I'm not speaking for everyone, ONLY myself. As everyone has their own needs and request, but I put my trust in that they know what they are doing, and so far I'm still optimistic, especially if I will see my favorite plugins ported to C3.

I just feel there's way too much negativity before we even got our hands on the complete product.... even when first stable is released, it's still gonna have some problems, or lacking some features until the product matures. I think we would have to deal with that even if they went for a pure desktop version.

lamar

I didn't ask for that specifically, because I didn't even know it was possible, or that they even had that plan in mind. But since I've tried the beta, i'm quite optimistic.... It looks great, feels great, and I can even make games on my phone while having a dump.

I can just speak for myself. The only thing i can remember I requested was 3D support, and not having to rely on 3rd party build options for mobile. Apparently they provided 50% of my needs so far, and they have no interest whatsoever adding 3D support.... but I'm not complaining. That it's browser based is just a bonus for me. I find it pretty cool.... Unusual, but I kind of like it.... so far.... I will still be using C2 for my main project, but will be playing with C3 as I go.

Subscription model or not... I could care less. Game development is still pretty cheap hobby of mine. I have several subscriptions running just to make my project a reality. Photoshop, Autodesk Sketchbook, Maya... hell ... even my gym card costs 250Euro for 6 month membership, and I don't even like going there, but I still pay for it, because it's good for me. >_< ... LOL

I'm not speaking for everyone, ONLY myself. As everyone has their own needs and request, but I put my trust in that they know what they are doing, and so far I'm still optimistic, especially if I will see my favorite plugins ported to C3.

I just feel there's way too much negativity before we even got our hands on the complete product.... even when first stable is released, it's still gonna have some problems, or lacking some features until the product matures. I think we would have to deal with that even if they went for a pure desktop version.

OK, but nowhere have I (or anyone I have read) suggested Scirra not go ahead with their C3 project.

I have suggested a compromise so C2 users that do not have your kind of money to waste on a subscription will stay with C2 and that would help you and all of us and Scirra still makes money to support their projects.

lamar

1) You feel you were advertised the exporters instead of support of being able to publish to the platforms for Construct 2.

Just because it was advertised that it would work with the platform

*(with third party exporters)

doesn't mean they have to fully 100% support and make sure each platform's exporter works flawlessly with all features provided by Construct.

In fact Scirra has worked together with many of the wrapper projects to improve the project so Construct games can work even better in the environment but for each console the wrapper devs have to recreate the wheel and that needs a lot of time/skill/money. (Which is why it's good MS is doing their Xbox browser support stuff)

People didn't dev for Linux and Mac due to lack of support and we'd have a more stagnant dev environment if not for Valve and other companies throwing their weight into OpenGL/Vulkan to destroy the reliance on DirectX, but with consoles instead of just 1 environment (Linux/Unix-likes) you get multiple proprietary environments with not as wide of range of operating system/coding environment support.

I bet Scirra probably has some interesting stories trying to work with Nintendo if they were not under a NDA.

---

Now I do agree that there was a lack of support in regards to the exporters in terms of documentation that lead to additional confusions, as well as hopes that the parties making the wrappers would improve them more than they were.

As we see with Construct 3's cloud based service they're obviously getting an automated flow working to compile them for mobile, but I doubt the majority of the technology involved is Scirra proprietary. This means that it's possible for them to document majority of the process and then share with everyone so people can follow the steps and go through the process with their exported project.

Elliott

Somehow I get what you say. I also use Google Docs and is very useful, but I also can open my documents with MS Office, Open Office, LibreOffice ... etc in case I need to.

Yes, there are a lot of advantages like the ones you mentioned, but with Construct games, you are tied/dependent to Construct/Scirra.

Actually, tunepunk has a point: Business 101 is to make money so ... yeah subscriptions

But also I feel the same as you, lamar: NW.js exporter in Construct 2 works offline. The same could be done with C3. And to support the developers, you bought the wrapper for the platform you wanted.

I already jumped the ship to Fusion and already gained more then I payed for Construct 2, so I'm ok, just curious how this will turn out.

If the browser IDE will prove itself, the other engines will do the same when the support will be better, so no loss for them, they will have native IDE + browser IDE, like things are now with Construct having only-HTML5 and the other engines have native and HTML5.

Anyway, I give my regards to Ashley , Tom (and Scirra team) for Construct 3. It really is an accomplishment, but in process you've lost a great part of the community (if not for the browser IDE, then for the subscription model).

lamar

> 1) You feel you were advertised the exporters instead of support of being able to publish to the platforms for Construct 2.

>

Just because it was advertised that it would work with the platform

*(with third party exporters)

doesn't mean they have to fully 100% support and make sure each platform's exporter works flawlessly with all features provided by Construct.

In fact Scirra has worked together with many of the wrapper projects to improve the project so Construct games can work even better in the environment but for each console the wrapper devs have to recreate the wheel and that needs a lot of time/skill/money. (Which is why it's good MS is doing their Xbox browser support stuff)

People didn't dev for Linux and Mac due to lack of support and we'd have a more stagnant dev environment if not for Valve and other companies throwing their weight into OpenGL/Vulkan to destroy the reliance on DirectX, but with consoles instead of just 1 environment (Linux/Unix-likes) you get multiple proprietary environments with not as wide of range of operating system/coding environment support.

I bet Scirra probably has some interesting stories trying to work with Nintendo if they were not under a NDA.

---

Now I do agree that there was a lack of support in regards to the exporters in terms of documentation that lead to additional confusions, as well as hopes that the parties making the wrappers would improve them more than they were.

As we see with Construct 3's cloud based service they're obviously getting an automated flow working to compile them for mobile, but I doubt the majority of the technology involved is Scirra proprietary. This means that it's possible for them to document majority of the process and then share with everyone so people can follow the steps and go through the process with their exported project.

You quote yourself and then point me at your quote lol!

Come on man and let's cut through the bullshit. Scirra could make those exporters and features available as a C2 update or addon and you guys know that.

They are doing it for one reason only because they don't want to give up exporters for a single payment if they can force us or tie us into a long term subscription.

Tom admitted that right here:

Addon package is an interesting idea but it's not on the road-map for now. The export to mobile options we're building for C3 rely on external servers which have cost to keep running so any addon would have to be subscription based.

So please stop claiming you can't do it for blah and blah reason or that they did not lead us all on with advertising that included those exporters would be in C2 because that makes me think you think I and everyone else is stupid.