About construct 3 free version limitations (and it's popularity)

All this discussion about the limitations of the free version and what it should or should not include, comes across to me as quite irrelevant if not even outright irritating.

A free version of a commercial product is by definition limited. When you list all the benefits of the free edition, I feel that the kind folks at Scirra are being amazingly generous.

If you want more, then for an attractive and reasonable yearly subscription you get a very advanced game engine providing hours of fun and late night entertainment.

The pleasure and satisfaction outweighs a million fold any downsides to paying a meager amount of money.

Nobody is trying to say Scirra is being selfish or not generous. We're saying there should be a better balance of what is allowed to be tested in the free tier so that more people can understand that power. I'm sure as a paid user yourself, you have not been using the free version for awhile so it's hard for you to feel what the engine looks like without the majority of its features and with only 25 events.

Anyway, Tom and scirra have addressed our concerns through discord and we now have a monthly paid plan for people who want to try the engine without sinking in $99 to test the engines full feature set. So it's all good.

There will always be a balance to be struck. There will always be people who will not understand fully what the engine is capable of because they won't sink any money at all into a monthly subscription to test.

construct.net/en/forum/construct-3/general-discussion-7/construct-right-me-150039

But it's a balance, and Scirra is balancing.

Lol! 500 to 1000 events...sorry for my attitude, but thats insane! With all the tools we get with C3, i can make a textured Wolfenstein 3D engine under 50 events, for christ sake.

Adding more options is complicated and makes the offer to new customers more convoluted and confusing.

Secondly it feels like introducing something like that would end up being a never ending moving of the goalposts, impossible to satisfy every use case through increased granularity and chopping up of the product.

The editor also tells you itself in several places you can get more events by logging in when using the free edition.

Yeah, I agree. The reason I haven't gotten into C3 yet is because the limitations. I'm thinking about getting it but I don't know. I do know that if they simply took away publishing, exporting and upped the event limits, it would make more people get into C3.

Nobody will commit to it if they only have 25/50 events. You can't really make crap with that, so why bother? The thing is, if the free version had 500 events, by the time a dev is THAT DEEP in the program, they're not turning back.

I can write 25 events in a game, and not even be started... there's no need for me to continue, I'm not invested. If i'm 500 events deep in a game, I'm fully invested and I'm not switching engines, I would buy.

I'm flirting with getting a C3 paid license, because I'm coming over from GDevelop. I think C3 has better interface and quality of life improvements, but I'm not sure.

Simply it's this, I know I can't build really build anything inside 25/50 events except the most rudimentary prototype so I don't even get started. If that limit was raised I know for a fact I would have already sunk a month into the engine, and I would have sprung for the paid account because I'm already a month deep, there's no going back, I'm not gonna duplicate a month of work somewhere else.

The trial version features feel very arbitrary tbh, like limitations for the sake of limitations. I fully agree with OP, it should be rebalanced so people can actually dive in and drown in it. I feel right now it's like selling a very nice swimming pool, by offering people to step in a tiny puddle.

Again, I signed up and poked around the demos, and even the simple ones when loaded exceed the limit. So, that right there turned me off and I didn't even bother getting started.

My recommendation would be to remove any publishing tools from the trial, any kind of exporting, and up those existing limits. If someone can't publish the game, and they can't export it, then it's totally worthless to steal.

The current trial model makes no sense and creates a bar for entry. I don't think it's a good model right now simply because of open-source engines like GDevelop that use almost a 1:1 event system to C3 but are FREE with no limits.

So, I would raise the limits so give away only a month or so free of dev time, I think that's about 500 events. Anyone that will sink that time will pay for it. And again, I would probably be a paying customer, but I don't know, I can only do like a few hours of development in it before I hit the pay wall. That's how I found GDevelop, I signed up for C3 bc i've been looking Scirra since C2, but found GDevelop which had no limits so I went there because I knew I could give it a fair shot. I have no idea what I can make in C3 because the trial is setup so you can never find out.

hah, just realized I necro'd this post real good. lol i guess it can vote now

Go check out the feature development.

Compare it to the development in other engines.

Then go pay for your subscription.

construct.net/en/make-games/new-features-1

Or better yet, join the global game jam for the full version!

construct.net/en/blogs/construct-official-blog-1/global-game-jam-in-1559

Stay classy.

Yeah, I agree. The reason I haven't gotten into C3 yet is because the limitations. I'm thinking about getting it but I don't know. I do know that if they simply took away publishing, exporting and upped the event limits, it would make more people get into C3.

Nobody will commit to it if they only have 25/50 events. You can't really make crap with that, so why bother? The thing is, if the free version had 500 events, by the time a dev is THAT DEEP in the program, they're not turning back.

I can write 25 events in a game, and not even be started... there's no need for me to continue, I'm not invested. If i'm 500 events deep in a game, I'm fully invested and I'm not switching engines, I would buy.

I'm flirting with getting a C3 paid license, because I'm coming over from GDevelop. I think C3 has better interface and quality of life improvements, but I'm not sure.

Simply it's this, I know I can't build really build anything inside 25/50 events except the most rudimentary prototype so I don't even get started. If that limit was raised I know for a fact I would have already sunk a month into the engine, and I would have sprung for the paid account because I'm already a month deep, there's no going back, I'm not gonna duplicate a month of work somewhere else.

The trial version features feel very arbitrary tbh, like limitations for the sake of limitations. I fully agree with OP, it should be rebalanced so people can actually dive in and drown in it. I feel right now it's like selling a very nice swimming pool, by offering people to step in a tiny puddle.

Again, I signed up and poked around the demos, and even the simple ones when loaded exceed the limit. So, that right there turned me off and I didn't even bother getting started.

My recommendation would be to remove any publishing tools from the trial, any kind of exporting, and up those existing limits. If someone can't publish the game, and they can't export it, then it's totally worthless to steal.

The current trial model makes no sense and creates a bar for entry. I don't think it's a good model right now simply because of open-source engines like GDevelop that use almost a 1:1 event system to C3 but are FREE with no limits.

So, I would raise the limits so give away only a month or so free of dev time, I think that's about 500 events. Anyone that will sink that time will pay for it. And again, I would probably be a paying customer, but I don't know, I can only do like a few hours of development in it before I hit the pay wall. That's how I found GDevelop, I signed up for C3 bc i've been looking Scirra since C2, but found GDevelop which had no limits so I went there because I knew I could give it a fair shot. I have no idea what I can make in C3 because the trial is setup so you can never find out.

I don't understand the meaning of such posts. Just simply buy a monthly license and give a shot to it.

And regarding more than 50 events,it would be disastrous and catastrophic from company's point of view. Many would break their project into pieces and complete them in free version. Then at the end everything would be combined into main project by purchasing a month's license. 50 events are more than enough to check engine's capability but not enough to complete whole projects. Just few minutes back I made a minesweeper game in less than 50 events (and many more things). If asked then I will link it

Instead of asking for more events,you should give other ways and ideas. Like revenue sharing, showing ads before someone uses free version so that company can earn money etc.

Users should realise that engine developers don't mint money from air

This thread is just under 12 months old, at which point threads are auto-locked to prevent necro-bumping, and the discussion is already going in circles - I already pointed out earlier in this thread that the proposed free edition limits would very likely ruin the company - so closing thread.