Game Maker 3rd-party iOS compiler

I was under the impression their tool translated a .gmk file in to a .ios file which a freely available iOS runner could then consume. I thought that meant essentially translating a document in to a new format, which an iOS runner can then execute.

I guess I'm not clear on the process, though. Is it up to the end user to get the iOS runner? Where does it come from? The decompiler guys said they didn't redistribute it. Is it the end user who downloads some other iOS game then swaps the .ios game data for another? Or is there just a raw iOS runner freely available?

Whether or not you're allowed to publish the resulting game is beside the point. You're allowed to download uTorrent, but you're not allowed to use it to download copyrighted movies. So I suppose you could translate your game in to Apple-format, but not be allowed to publish it - that does not imply the translator is illegal, because the disallowed action is the publishing step, not the translation step.

Further, if it's the end-user of the translator who downloads the iOS runtime and swaps out the game, that's the responsibility of the end-user. It's just like uTorrent - providing a tool that can be used for illegal purposes does not make the tool itself illegal, only that particular way of using it.

I guess there's also a very big grey area around whether the idea of exchanging a data segment in an executable file counts as decompiling, but again, the translator tool does not have to be the thing that does that.

Maybe I spoke too soon and should have learnt more about it before posting my thoughts, but given there's been a decompiler for the ordinary Game Maker for years, it does seem YoYo could have done something long ago to mitigate this, and they seem to have turned to legal threats rather quickly.

I guess I'm not clear on the process, though... Maybe I spoke too soon and should have learnt more about it before posting my thoughts...

Ah, who cares about such trivial things as "facts" anyway? I learned all I needed about this by briefly skimming through two whole blog comments and filtering it through my residual prejudice of GameMaker. It's more fun that way

It could very well be myself who is not clear on the facts - I just presented them as I understand them myself, as I see it.

YYG has chosen the wrong approach here. Keeping in mind that it's a product for indie gamers, the last thing you want to do is appear to be anti-indie success, regardless of the circumstances. It's bad for your image.

The other problem is, at least I would think, is that if this was made with a YYG product, is their attack on it basically telling end users that they can't make their own creations do whatever they want them to do? If so, how can that stand up in court if the original granted license never prohibited it? The answer is, it can't. You can't retroactively attach new agreement guidelines that way just because you don't like what the agreeing party is doing. If you didn't put it in the agreement, you have no recourse other than kicking and screaming like a baby that wet its diaper.

So they've basically allowed for it to happen by not preventing it in their own development, and now they think legal threats will stop it. They haven't thought this through. All this will do is make people go after it more. They don't know what they're getting themselves into, smh.

Yeah, it seems to me that if you make a game with GM, then you own it. If you own it you should be able to do what you want with it. That includes selling it where and how you want. If that means buying YYG's official iOS exporter to get it onto iPhone, fine. If that means using a free program that does the same thing, that's fine too.

As long as that free program doesn't contain or rely upon any code stolen from YYG then there shouldn't be any problem at all.

And since I'm too lazy to check for myself, and since there seems to be some confusion over the matter, can anyone confirm if this 3rd party program does or does not contain or rely upon code stolen from YYG? TIA. TTFN.

(I guess it's kind of a moot point if the team has stopped working on it but whatever.)

It wouldn't be a moot point if another team - who kept anonymous this time - started doing it tomorrow

Yeah, it seems to me that if you make a game with GM, then you own it. If you own it you should be able to do what you want with it. That includes selling it where and how you want. If that means buying YYG's official iOS exporter to get it onto iPhone, fine. If that means using a free program that does the same thing, that's fine too.

As long as that free program doesn't contain or rely upon any code stolen from YYG then there shouldn't be any problem at all.

And since I'm too lazy to check for myself, and since there seems to be some confusion over the matter, can anyone confirm if this 3rd party program does or does not contain or rely upon code stolen from YYG? TIA. TTFN.

It had to be stolen - nobody has ever created an alternate runner for GML, so far as I know - at least, not so recently that it would be ported to iOS already.