Why is Gamemaker free?

Just curious why Gamemaker is free now for non-commerical games. What's the catch? I read the reason on their blog, they joined the Opera family, but why would a company that charged a lot in the past make it free now?

And anyone with experience with Gamemaker, what are the differences between it and C3? Which one is easier to use?

I release "free" games that generate good revenue. That's why I hate free stuff.

I prefer to know how I'm being taken advantage of.

Fuck Gamemaker, Construct3 is in my heart forever.

I just looked it up, you also have to pay $99 for commercial use there. You learn how to use it for free, it takes a month, and then you have to pay to put the game on app store or play market.

no idea, but the latest game maker giveaways give major 'we're closing down soon' vibes.

won't be a surprise now that godot can do everything game maker can while also offering super sane editor ux for free. you still can't render text in game maker without using the special draw event in their crazy frankestein drag and drop system 🤮. it's like it's still being made on pirated delphi by one guy in his garage while smooching college undergrads in the very same garage.

funny how construct is the only visual scripting engine that's still relevant. there's also clickteam but nowadays they are down to selling paid updates to fnaf kids and fusion 3 is not a thing anymore sadly.

I think one of the big lessons of the Unity runtime install fee debacle is that game developers need to think about the sustainability of their tools. If the development of the tool is not sustainable then it can suddenly run in to serious difficulty and have to radically change things, possibly to everyone else's detriment. It seems to me Unity went with a very generous offer for many years, ended up losing huge amounts of money, and then suddenly tried to impose install fees on everyone to try to get back to profitability. Obviously that didn't work out, a huge backlash forced them to reverse course, they've now made thousands of staff redundant, and a question mark still hangs over their long-term future. The tool cannot continue to exist in its current form if they can't find a way to make its development sustainable.

I know not everyone likes the subscription model, but it does guarantee that we can keep going indefinitely. It's clearly a sustainable model.

I found GDevelop and it looks easy to use and is much more affordable, so I canceled my C3 subscription. I was locked in at a lower price, but it's hard to convince friends and family to pay $26 for casual use. And I imagine the price will just continue to go up because of, I don't know, I guess inflation.

Anyway, C3 is a great product and everyone here has been great answering my silly questions. Thanks for everything and best of luck with your games!

I found GDevelop and it looks easy to use and is much more affordable, so I canceled my C3 subscription

you're dead to me

I found GDevelop and it looks easy to use and is much more affordable, so I canceled my C3 subscription. I was locked in at a lower price, but it's hard to convince friends and family to pay $26 for casual use. And I imagine the price will just continue to go up because of, I don't know, I guess inflation.

Anyway, C3 is a great product and everyone here has been great answering my silly questions. Thanks for everything and best of luck with your games!

Ive been considering this too.

I like how it has a real 3d engine with built in collision and 3d recasting, and basic lighting, but i found the interface a big step down, and i wonder how long it takes for bugs to get fixed given the open source nature of the program. Its defiantly gaining more traction now than C3, I'm starting to see it get mentioned everywhere.