Concerns from a "Serious" developer

NotionGames said "Not Listening to Customers

"I usually keep quiet for the most part on the forums and just read through other's posts. But what I have noticed over the years is that whenever your customers are requesting particular features and overall explaining what they'd like to see happen with Construct, they're a lot of times being told they're wrong in some form. Exporting and monetization are HUGE factors for developers and for some reason, it's never being addressed (at least for the entirety of Construct 2's life cycle)."

I think that applies whether you are a serious game designer or not and if you pay for a license you still have a right to be respected and I will bet 90% of C2 users are hobby or small time game developers that has supported Scirra all these years.

I have repeatedly asked Tom & Ashley to respond to these concerns:

After reading through the impressions of many C2 game developers I know and trust it looks like most of us have the same complaints and concerns about C3.

I would like to suggest Scirra reads through this feedback and consider doing something that will help those of us that do not have a desire to move to a browser based subscription engine and may now be considering leaving Scirra altogether.

Put the new features and exporters you are including in C3 (many that we have asked for for years) into C2 or create a package of those features and exporters as an addon for C2.

I would happily pay another $99 (no subscription) for a package of working features and exporters for the existing C2 engine and I think most C2 game designers would be willing to support Scirra in that way.

As it looks, Scirra is going a direction with C3 that most of your C2 users are not thrilled with to say the least and this package idea would be a way to keep the people that has supported Scirra with our money and through designing plugins and promoting you in our games happy and shows you have a long term interest in supporting C2 and we will not be abandoned.

I know Scirra has invested a lot of time into C3 and you are hoping it will be popular and be the next big thing and that is an admirable project but if you lose your C2 users in the process was it worth it?

I would appreciate Tom & Ashley to read and consider what the users have said on this thread.

But to be honest, personally I don't see the issue, I mean, if Scirra can't offer export to consoles, then you change projects. In the world of indie dev you can't just stay with one product just because you are an artist and can't code. I'm an artist and yet I learned to code. Necessity pushes you to it, that's all. is not the first time a dev quits Scirra to change engine.

You're missing my point entirely

And have you really moved on? Because you're in the forums more than the average user.

As a game developer I can agree 100% with the Wii being a bad choice for putting on the first page.

As a businessman I can agree with what they did a 110%.

Yes, some of the wording on their site maybe over selling some of the features and functionality, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out. I've figured that out even before I decided to buy the product. Technically their wording is a bit deceptive, but I take it you've published enough games by now to have figured it out as well. But yes, you can pretty much output a html5 export that you can use for multiple platforms. It doesn't mention it can be pretty hard to get it working though.

I didn't call anyone names personally, it's just as statement that applies almost anything in life. Anyone ranting and blaming someone else for not not providing a few features THEY need in your development is in fact a bit childish. They can't cater for everyone's wishes. They also have their own idea of what construct is and what it's not, and where thier priorities are.

I want 3D viewport support, but I know that's not the direction they are going, so I'm doing what I can with Q3D trying to learning that instead of Unity. I can try to build a case on why the should focus on it, but I'm not posting rants badmouthing the devs because they don't provide what I need, saying it's backwards to focus on 2D games..... that's so 80's, 3D and especially VR is the new big thing... if scirra don't provide that they are not listening to customers..... see how you sound now?

As a game developer I can agree 100% with the Wii being a bad choice for putting on the first page.

As a businessman I can agree with what they did a 110%.

Only if as a businessman you think false advertising is good business practice.

People that bought a C2 license have been willing to overlook it because Scirra keeps promising to fix it and instead they create a new subscription engine with the features and exporters we asked for and were promised in C2 and expects we will just go along.

Reading the many comments- I think many C2 users have had enough.

I want 3D viewport support, but I know that's not the direction they are going, so I'm doing what I can with Q3D trying to learning that instead of Unity. I can try to build a case on why the should focus on it, but I'm not posting rants badmouthing the devs because they don't provide what I need, saying it's backwards to focus on 2D games..... that's so 80's, 3D and especially VR is the new big thing... if scirra don't provide that they are not listening to customers..... see how you sound now?

If Construct advertised that 3d is an option, then you'd have every right to be upset when you find out that it doesn't. No where does it say that 3d is a thing, it's promoted as a 2d engine. And you said it yourself, the wording is deceptive. So why can't I voice my concerns on that? How is my bringing up what's been promised a childish thing? I promised to pay for the engine, which I did. So why can't I get what has been advertised to me? I don't understand how you can't see that as an issue.

And no where did I bad mouth the devs.

NotionGames your response baffles me. Because I give my opinion doesn't mean I continue with the engine.

I apologize for that response

And no where did I bad mouth the devs.

I never said you did....., I said ....I wouldn't do that.

No where on their selling points does it say, "monetize with every major ad network, for every platform".

I understand you concerns, but I think you're going about it the wrong way. Build a case.. Present numbers to the devs..... we are X amount of mobile devs requesting this feature.

It's good because.....

We are willing to pay extra for this feature because....

If Scirra still doesn't wanna invest their time in this, take your request to the ad network provider. You got build service for mobile coming soon, that's a huge plus if it works well.

Assuming you can doing anything you want on Wii is like expecting to export to Tizen and make a fortune.

They made no false claims, but claiming false advertising is a "serious" allegation, falling under the category of slander.

You might want to check out what the actual laws are about such things.

I want 3D viewport support, but I know that's not the direction they are going, so I'm doing what I can with Q3D trying to learning that instead of Unity. I can try to build a case on why the should focus on it, but I'm not posting rants badmouthing the devs because they don't provide what I need, saying it's backwards to focus on 2D games..... that's so 80's, 3D and especially VR is the new big thing... if scirra don't provide that they are not listening to customers..... see how you sound now?

"See how you sound now" insinuates that I did that (including bad mouthing the devs). But regardless, the thread is going off topic with this particular concern.

Construct is indeed misleading. It's a lovely engine with a brilliant workflow. The exports have been an issue since the beginning. This will constantly be a topic of discussion if it remains to be a tool best used for prototyping yet promoted as a full featured dev software. I really hope Scirra listens to us regarding this issue. If not, that's their choice and more power to them. But at least I gave it a shot and voiced my concerns.

Assuming you can doing anything you want on Wii

We're here for making 2D games, its been done before as we see with games like Freedom Planet and Shovel Knight and many more that seem to run fine on WiiU (some even some made in Clickteam products), that's not "assuming you can do anything you want", it's assuming 2D games will actually run on the console.

When Construct 2/3 can't compete with arcade + NES level games, I think it's safe to say they shouldn't advertise it as a 2D game maker with the same emphasis on it being professional as tools like GameMaker and Clickteam do. Even the open source engine Godot is used for real desktop and console games, and it doesn't market itself as "professional" as Construct does.

Construct is indeed misleading. It's a lovely engine with a brilliant workflow. The exports have been an issue since the beginning. This will constantly be a topic of discussion if it remains to be a tool best used for prototyping yet promoted as a full featured dev software. I really hope Scirra listens to us regarding this issue. If not, that's their choice and more power to them. But at least I gave it a shot and voiced my concerns.

Agreed, whether you are a serious developer or just a small time game designer, hobby designer or educator using C2 I think we all need to be respected and this C3 subscription browser direction that is putting in the exporters and features we have been asking for for years in C2 feels like a big slap in the face to me and I think a lot of users.

If they can put those in C3 they can put them in C2 as a complete engine or as an addon that we can purchase.

I think C3 will turn out to be only useful to the Mac and Linux users that couldn't use C2 and will become a small segment of users but if Scirra focuses all their attention on C3 and abandons the many C2 users that has supported them all these years they are making a big mistake that will come back to bite them.

I think more game designers regardless of how you use C2 need to speak up and make it clear to Scirra and Tom & Ashley that we want those features and exporters for our standalone C2 but that has to be up to each person.

Such a shame to see all this chaos on the forums nowadays. I've lurked the forums every single day for years now (Not often logging in or posting), and it went from being generally quiet with a few odd users now and then, to frequent heated discussions/arguments amongst long-time users. I see people convert from being very supportive, then a blog post or the beta is released, and they switch, etc.

In my opinion, to see that Construct 3 was quite literally an editor change is a shame, although it was told to us for a long time, but this thread shows why remaking the editor may have not been the best thing to spend years on. (tho it is impressive technologically!) It's not a terrible thing to have done, it's great for Mac and Linux users, and heck I'd love to be able to switch to Linux before Windows 7 is no longer supported and I bet a fair amount of people share that thought, but this is what we were waiting all this time for? Other things could have been focused on that seem to be highlighted frequently on the forums... Iuno...

It could all change though, right? I mean, once the majority of editor bugs are gone, what would be the next thing for Scirra to develop in Construct 3, especially after the uproar on the forums? There are genuine concerns being raised and they can't seriously be ignored or shutdown with a statement about technology, HTML5, 3rd party issues, etc. I think a solid road map would be brilliant, to know exactly what direction Construct 3 will go, and for us to make the decision if we want to be part of that journey.

Bleh, I wish Construct 3 was discussed publicly much much earlier, even if it was just a tiny bit.

In my opinion, to see that Construct 3 was quite literally an editor change is a shame, although it was told to us for a long time, but this thread shows why remaking the editor may have not been the best thing to spend years on. (tho it is impressive technologically!) It's not a terrible thing to have done, it's great for Mac and Linux users, and heck I'd love to be able to switch to Linux before Windows 7 is no longer supported and I bet a fair amount of people share that thought, but this is what we were waiting all this time for? Other things could have been focused on that seem to be highlighted frequently on the forums... Iuno...

You see how it was reworked to run on multiple devices, computers, etc? Well, that's exactly what we want as well in regards to our games. We just want the games to work as intended on various platforms as advertised.

I would love to see a roadmap as well because I'm not sure what subscribing to Construct 3 even means at this point. What are we getting? What will come in the future? Why should we subscribe? Why not continue using c2 or any other engine? These are legitimate questions

I have to strongly agree with NotionGames here:

I find very strange and insulting that some people trying to blame and argue with none sense against NotionGames, he has a good point and true reasons why he is speaking loudly this is some weird thing or something? he is not the one that put that advertising and has a lot of rights to complain, I'm guilty too because I felt for it swell,

I knew nothing about coding or game development and the only reason why I started with construc2 is because of the advertising make games no coding and publish every were, since then I spent nearly two years learning the program I put hundreds of hours trying to learn everything hopefully to one day release games to many platforms, I knew nothing about HTML5 Vs native and all that stuff so I keep going learning till today, just to find out recently that maybe all the effort I put these years will be a waste because of all the problems with the exporting that colleagues mentioned here, I haven't release any game yet but to hear this true is discouraging and I'm seriously started to think if I did the right choice. I think everyone deserves to know in advance these things, it should have been put in front before we make the choice to go the route of making games with construct 2 and the learning curve, before we invested that huge amount of time learning the engine because its not that easy,

so what I'm trying to say it shouldn't be advertised as this engine can do this things when is not, so anyone can make the choice beforehand to go with this engine or trying something else if that is not suited for him. before you put any effort into it. And I'm sure like me they are many on this forum that got caught on this. If it wasn't for threads like this we wouldn't know. The worse part I don't see any plans to fix the problem, wich is the most important and crucial part.

At list Scirra should give a statement to wich direction they going so everyone else can make the right choice stay or try something else.

And thank you NotionGames and everyone else to have the courage to speak about this loudly.

I don't know what their roadmap would look like but i bet getting C3 working on "internet of things" devices may be a priority so we can code on our toasters in morning while making breakfast.

Seriously though, I think a roadmap is important with a subscription model, it's hard to subscribe at the moment hoping that they might add feature x at some stage in the future, as C2 in a browser isnt really cutting it.