Crazy Pricing Model. C'mon Guys it's 2024 not 2005

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    Just to throw another opinion into the pot, I understand the desire that Construct 3 were "revenue" based, simply because their goal would align with the devs more closely (though as an educational user, I suspect that would de-prioritize my end of things, but it might also make it cheaper for my institution, so I'd be willing to try it).

    That said, I'd be more comfortable with the current setup if the yearly cost were just a BIT lower ($80-$100 a year feels about like the high-end of reasonable, personally), or the raise the capabilities of the "free" tier a bit as others have said, or even better - both.

    It's just so frustrating to try to teach kids with this GREAT platform, only to have them run into a pretty big (for a kid) pricing barrier to do much of anything.

    I end up pushing them off towards GDevelop, which I'm currently evaluating as well (I do like that it's open source, but I assume a catch somewhere). It would be nice to be able give them a path they will be able to afford to keep using Construct 3 (we're a high-poverty highly-rural community in southern Vermont, so cost is an issue for our kids). I'm sticking with Construct 3 at this point because I'm familiar with it.

    But hey - Construct 3 is still the best way to do game dev on a Chromebook that I've found, so credit where it's due. :)

    Some agree, and that’s a one of reason creator left lot so from c2 to c3

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    There is a reason why people hate the subscription model. It's the worst monetization from a consumers point of view, especially in the way Scirra has implemented it. Usually you at least only have to pay a small fee monthly so it gets spread out more, but with C3 you have to pay for a whole year upfront. I know there is a monthly option, but it is not actually an option since it's over double the price. If Scirra at least gave the option to sub for a year but pay monthly, but they don't even do that.

    Then they also lock people into their subscriptions by making them lose their legacy subscription price if they want to pause their sub.

    Those things are on top of the problems that every subscription based model has, like the fact that you don't own anything.

    I will always be able to open, edit and export my old C2 projects, but not with C3, with C3 I lose all my work as soon as my subscription ends.

    Yea maybe not literally, because I can still open it. But effectively, since I can't do anything with it, can't edit, can't export, nothing. Also if Scirra would ever stop existing for any kind of reason, you can't even pay for the privilege to get your work back.

    And it's not like there aren't other options, you have to pay for Affinity products yearly too, but you own that software plus 1 year worth of updates. It's the same as the sub model, but at the end you own the version you paid for forever, you will always be able to open and edit the work you did with this version of the software.

    This monetization model aligns much better with customers as well, if the new version doesn't have features customers are interested in then they might stick to the old version for a while or even skip a year.

    It's not just the price, it's a bunch of issues that work great for Scirra but really suck for customers, and there are plenty of options of which each would make it less lopsided.

    - Make it possible to have access to the versions you paid for even after a sub ran out. ( Give ownership over the things people paid for )

    - Make yearly subscriptions payable monthly. ( Only having to pay a small fee every month is literally the only good thing about a sub and Scirra doesn't even allow that )

    - Make the monthly option more expensive but not by over 2x ( Give people the option to pay when they need the tool and not waste money on something they don't use )

    - Stop hiking the price only to lock people into their subs and to stop complains ( A dark pattern to make price hiking easy because it only affects future users, the people already paying stay on the same price and wont complain [ also makes it impossible for people to take a break from the sub in fear of losing their legacy pricing ] )

    By switching from a sub based monetization to one-off payments that renew every year (like Affinity), Scirra could turn its monetization from the #1 reason why people don't recommend Construct, into the #1 reason why people buy it.

    All while still basically charging the same money.

    The difference is that it's a fairer model, with ownership and agency for customers.

    I agree, but there is no incentive for them to do that.

    - Make it possible to have access to the versions you paid for even >after a sub ran out. ( Give ownership over the things people paid >for )

    I like that idea, but they would probably stop releasing updates so frequently.

    The frequent updates benefit Scirra at least as much as they benefit the users.

    They get free QA through community beta testing and don't have to test as thoroughly.

    If you take out those beta releases the update frequency is already at roughly every 3 month, I don't think they would go lower than 4 updates per year.

    - Make it possible to have access to the versions you paid for even >after a sub ran out. ( Give ownership over the things people paid >for )

    Yeah, this is completely unrealistic. Many people will happily stay on the current version forever. Or they can just buy a subscription for 1 month every year and get access to all new features!

    Like I said, Affinity charges for an entire year (which Scirra basically does too) and you pay for the updates of that year but afterwards you keep the product you paid for. So if someone paid for a year, and the updates don't add anything of significant value to them, why SHOULD they have to keep paying after that?

    Why is Scirra (or any software sub) forever entitled to a recurring payment from someone just to keep access to their own work?

    If, as you say, people HAPPILY stay on the current version forever... what the heck are we paying for? If the updates are really this worthless to you why do you defend paying for them? Sorry, but I really do not understand the point you are trying to make.

    If, as you say, people HAPPILY stay on the current version forever... what the heck are we paying for? If the updates are really this worthless to you why do you defend paying for them? Sorry, but I really do not understand the point you are trying to make.

    What you are suggesting is basically returning to the way C2 was - one-off payment and lifetime access to the software. My point is that Scirra would never do this.

    No, that's not what I'm suggesting?! Did you read my entire post or just the responses?

    IMO there are multiple ways in which Scirra could improve their monetization model to make it more fair for their customers. Yes, one of the things I mentioned is the model Affinity is using, a YEARLY one-off payment. Which isn't like C2, C2 was a one-off payment ...Period. Scirra is basically already doing the Affinity model, charging 1 entire year upfront, but with Affinity products you still own the thing afterwards, while with Scirra products you don't own anything.

    I also made other suggestions to at least improve the subscription model if they don't want to let us own the software. I can't know what Scirra does or doesn't do, and neither can you. I just make suggestions and hope Scirra considers some of it.

    I only care about game development and game developers, and that is what I'm advocating for. I have a hard time figuring out who you are advocating for, is this an Ashley or Tom incognito account?

    I say please let us freaking own the things we pay for ...and you go "Naaahh dude, that's crazy talk", why would you suggest that? xD

    I agree with your other suggestions. But this particular one is unrealistic and Scirra would never do it, because it will significantly reduce their profits. I'm not advocating for them, just stating the obvious.

    Thanks for sharing that TackerTacker those are some wonderful suggestions, does sound a lot more fair!

    Thank you. I also disagree that it would necessarily reduce Scirra's profits, obviously this is all just theory, but a monetization model that is fair would bring more customers IMO, and more than they would lose from people who might skip an entire year worth of updates.

    Affinity got popular because of their monetization model.

    Scirra would just need to do it right, they would have to do some market research prior to it to see if that theory is correct, if they would reach more customers with this ( I think they would, but I'm just a single person ), and if the market research is positive, switch to that model and make a bunch of noise about it, not just silently switch over.

    But even if they simply switched silently from one day to the next, I do not think they would lose much money, but gain a lot more acceptance. I agree that if they would make it monthly that a bunch of people would buy 1 month and then stay on that version for a while, but if it stays yearly ...why wouldn't you pay for it the next year if you plan on using it?

    Your only option to save some money is to stay on the old version for an entire year, if you buy it any later you still pay the same price but didn't get any updates for a while, so why not pay straight away?

    But for the user it's much better this way because they know they will never lose access to their work and what they paid for.

    I dream of a tool that charges me for the time of use, not for a period.

    I know this is unrealistic for Construct, but it would be ideal for me.

    The pricing model has been discussed to death over the years. This thread has done it again, and we've allowed it to stay open for a month, but I think it's run its course and there is nothing much to be gained by allowing it to continue. Naturally people will always argue that it ought to be cheaper and easier for customers - some people still argued that forcefully with Construct 2. It's also difficult for people to make good suggestions without seeing our internal data, and in many cases people are advocating for solutions that would likely significantly harm the company, or have other sources of backlash, and it's difficult for us to make our case without revealing sensitive internal details. At this time we don't have any plans to make major changes to the pricing model, and I'm afraid the time has come to close this thread.

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