blurymind's Forum Posts

    Guys it's not about the price, it's the license model!

    I stated it before and people keep going back to the price - Scirra can charge more if they want to. I think the price is fair - no problem there!

    The subscription fee payment method is quite OK too. I know many will still be against it.

    The lock out kill switch is the problem. Other subscription models don't have that lockout when your subscription runs out. The user simply loses access to software updates and support. They do not lose access to the editing capabilities of the software itself!

    I know that Scirra is hell bent on keeping it that way, so at this point I am simply trying to make my opinion as clear as possible. Many people seem to be confused why people are angry about the new license. No no and no - it's not the price!

    It's simply the idea that we are now forced to renting it and nothing more. You don't ever get to own your copy of the software and that greatly devalues it.

    Here are some other successful payment option examples:

    GameMaker Studio, GameMaker Studio 2 -> Buy -> users are happy

    GameMaker Studio transition to GameMaker Studio 2 -> Pay the difference for an upgraded version -> users are happy

    Fusion 2, Fusion 2.5 -> Buy -> users are happy

    Fusion 2 transition to Fusion 2.5 -> Pay the difference for an upgraded version -> users are happy

    Unreal Engine 4 -> Free to use and Pay only if you make profit with your games -> users are happy

    Unity -> Free to use and Pay only if you make profit with your games -> users are happy

    Construct 2 -> Buy -> users are happy

    Construct 3 -> Rent -> community gone crazy

    Construct 2 transition to Construct 3 -> change from Buy (own the product) to Rent -> commuity gone crazy

    why break away from this traditional upgrade fee model? Is it making any less money?

    It's a matter of time until they hack construct3 too.. restrictions like these are like a honeypot for people with way too much free time on their hands.

    You are right, the forum is already a hacking target for various creeps and crazy chinese spambots.

    Buildbox was almost instantly leaked, when they announced that INSANE pricing and model. Everyone thinks they are scammers on different game engine forums.

    What Im trying to say is that - people are people. They are either on your side or some other side. Better to have them on your side in bigger numbers

    > it would be nice if a person is allotted time instead of limited amount of edits.

    >

    That's impossible to police. With options like changing device, renewing IPs, signing up new accounts, clearing browser storage, and changing the system time, people will easily figure out ways to use it indefinitely.

    Who in the world would go through all that effort simply to run it for another 10 minutes

    but yeah you are right, the clock thing is easy to cheat, unless you have a user login system - which you do.

    Thus construct3 can check the user account to get the number of minutes that user has spent for the day - that stuff can be tracked on your server

    Hell even this forum tracks how many minutes every user is logged in.

    So regardless of their ip, hardware clock or device, the time has been clocked on your server.

    That should give you some interesting activity stats - if you dont already have those.

    You are just coming up with ways to avoid implementing something you dont want again. I have to admit that the 10 minute per day thing sounds annoying to put effort into making and not really worth the effort. Fixing a bug takes more than 10 minutes.

    Edit: sorry, 30 minutes* a day - still not worth it.

    I guess then people will start cheating by creating multiple accounts, which is still a pain in the behind to police

    Subscription for updates is very open to abuse. Let's say one user on yearly subscription gets his 12 updates (1 a month), and user 2 who hasn't subbed in the last 12 months, pays 1 month sub and grabs the latest version then unsubs again. Getting the same end result as guy 1 but not really paying enough to support further development

    you could still discourage it by enforcing an extra fee if the user was not subscribed in a previous year <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

    For example after it runs out, the user has one month in order to subscribe again or lose 20% discount! That time window creates urgency for the user to subscribe again or lose the discount.

    I would subscribe, if subscription meant software updates and support for a year.

    Similar to bitwig

    https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=477140

    You subscribe to software updates - similar to how you would subscribe to a magazine.

    At the end of the year - you get to keep the mag issues! But they obviously get outdated if you dont pay next year.

    That creates a real incentive for the developer to actually work hard and add new features to keep people motivated to be subscribed.

    Right now the definition that construct3 is using for "subscription" is really "rent" - or limited time access to use the software!

    The current model forces the user to pay for "subscription" for access, regardless - as you would lose access completely to your own work (that has hundreds/thousands of events).

    But hey, if that makes more money - which scirra seems to really need at the moment - hope it works out too.

    The software limitations and uncertainty that is imposed as a result is simply not viable to an indie guy like me and thus probably why so many people here are angry and frustrated by the change <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_confused.gif" alt=":?" title="Confused">

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    My Problem with scirra is that they are calling it a subscription, but it really is renting.

    Here is a subscription:

    https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopi ... 7&t=477140

    you pay and you get 12 months of software upgrades and support, thats it

    Construct 3 is very different - you pay for access <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

    Ashley might decide to put out less software updates/features, while the user has no choice but to continue to pay in order to get access to the software.

    It feels like they are misleading the users a little bit on some points too. The export in construct is still pretty bad compared to many other engines, so the price tag of 100$ per year is definitely not justified.

    pay subscription to get updates and bug fixes - yes

    pay subscription in order to gain limited time access to the software itself - nope

    its pretty darn simple

    Rent != Buy

    Huge difference

    I would subscribe to get monthly software updates/fixes

    I will NOT subscribe to gain time limited access to the software itself- specifically the ability to use the software on my own projects that have more than x number of events

    Ashley there are different types of subscription models, some of which I would support. Not this one

    Well if the subscription model that construct3 has at the moment fails,

    now Ashley and Tom have loads of data and suggestions by their users they can apply to the next license approach.

    Right now they are ignoring their own community's voice in order to do what is based on marketing research by an unknown entity

    But that is ok, the community here is used to that and can take it. I am sure that C3 will sell loads of subs in no time and there will be no need to amend the license that so many people here can't stand

    Vote with your wallets guys

    That is the only thing that can change it, not these petition threads. Threads are just voicing opinion, but sales figures are the only thing that can drive change. While a lot of us don't buy it, many others might. Who knows

    > Don't worry guys!

    >

    > Even though Ashley and Tom have turned out to be liars and assholes we are going to help them out by releasing a C2 clone that will be completely open source so you can use all your C2 plugins and run your existing games and help develop features and exporters that actually work.

    >

    > It will be completely free and community based development so just watch for the announcement here on Scirra.

    >

    > Have a great day Ashley and Tom!

    >

    Do you referr to GDevelop?

    I doubt it

    Gdevelop is similar, yes. But it is already released , not to be released. it is also not compatible with construct2's plugins or shaders.

    Gdevelop uses a number of different open source engines/frameworks under the hood in order to export games- depending on what you export to - it uses pixi.js(html5), sfml (native/android) and even cocos2d(native/android)

    Unlike construct, it exports to native, however the editor is somewhat clunky still and has some bugs

    Gdevelop is not a clone, it's development dates way back, so you can argue that it is parallel or even predates scirra

    However it has much less features and the developers are not as active as Ashley and co. The project is very stale atm

    If you really want to fund a clone - gdevelop is a good start to make a clone imo.

    It's probably possible to make construct's plugins work on gdevelop, with some refactoring to gdevelop, however I am not sure how legal that would be.

    If a good clone is announced here on scirra, the thread will be locked and deleted 5 seconds after it has been posted hahaha

    Fortunately for scirra, gdevelop is still not up to that standard (yet!)

    I think it's a very good option for everyone. But I think the thread is about people refusing any type of "renting model". Because of "reasons"....

    I stated earlier Stencyl. Others noted Unreal and Unity - all of which have much more acceptable subscription models.

    Construct3's subscription model is way worse and restricted than all of the above. My problem is specifically with it alone.

    I am ok with the ones in the other game engines

    Reasons were stated as well, yes. You can go back and read them. No need to repeat ..

    Also those who are comparing a game engine to a Netflix streaming service or gym membership are just being silly here. It's like comparing oranges to tomatoes and old socks, because they may have a similar price. All of the three have completely different end goals.

    You don't use netflix or the gym as a TOOL (editor) and foundation (runtime) of your business/product

    Please look at how subscription works in the other game engines. Stop grabbing onto non related examples.

    Please also consider that after a game is released, it will most likely require maintenance - especially if it's a html5 game.

    So even after your game is out - you will need to have access to keep it working with current web technology that it relies on.

    A clever subscription model would let people develop at will and even motivate them to do so. Then charge them when they make money - a percent of the profits- be it from freemium ads/microtransactions or unit sales. Charge them for added services - you know actual real web services by the engine developer, not third party services such as dropbox/etc - like the ones c3 is using.

    Charge to remove splash screen. You can charge for so many other things than completely restricting developers from developing.

    Why not make it a

    1. one time charge for the editor,

    2. with a subscription model for the exporters+ad services/other specific plugins

    3. percent of profits of games that make over x amount per year?

    Just throwing ideas out there.

    Scirra could also try to make revenue by becoming a publisher and help developers publish their games - similarly to what clickteam is doing. That way scirra could help get more games to the market and those games can get scirra more profits

    Nobody is "locked out" of their projects. When your subscription expires, it will be the same as opening a project in the free edition of C2. You can still open it and run it, you can see your events, open sprites and extract your artwork and animations, and even preview it to play it. The main thing you can't do is edit it or export it. You can see exactly how it works by opening Kiwi Story in the free edition of C3. It exceeds the free edition limits but you can still look around the project, access all the artwork and assets, and preview it. Your own projects would work similarly if your subscription was not renewed.

    I think people talking about being "locked out" or "holding projects hostage" are deliberately trying to make it sound worse than it is. It's the same as going back to the free edition of C2.

    Not being able to work on it = Locked out

    You can look at it, but not do much of anything else

    It's like being in a cell, you can still look what's beyond the bars, but you are still behind them.

    Stop trying to make it look like it isn't so, because it quite obviously is exactly that

    I guess the only plus of the free edition is the showing part - being able to show off construct3 and how awesome it is

    Look I know you wont listen to any petitions and probably lock all of these petition threads eventually. But at least I want to state why subscriptions suck for game development - especially for freelancers and indie devs. I think your claim of not locking developers out is just misleading- developers develop, they wont have much use in just opening a project they worked on if they cant edit it.

    It benefits only scirra to use the projects to show off the engine and help you improve it.

    Specifically construct3's subscription is designed in that way.

    Some other game engine subscriptions dont have these restrictions. Instead the exporter stops working for some platforms and also lose access to the latest and greatest (stencyl's) , but still having at least one for testing. So the dev can still work on it even when it runs out - but they still have the motivation to buy it when the have to export the game to a target platform.

    Added to that I think construct3's sub deal is actually pretty bad compared to other sub deals out there, but hey it's just my opinion.

    I might look like I am pulling this claim out of my robot behind, but it really looks that way once you look at the other game engines.

    I stopped posting links, because I found that gets a thread locked and me warned, so use google damnit

    I dont like the deal, it's a bad deal. If it was less restrictive like stencyl's - i would probably give c3 a good chance

    And I'm not able to earn 10 dollars per month from construct 2 how can pay 8

    Scirra doesnt care if you earn from it, they just want to make more money off you

    The problem is that it discourages investment in a project - knowing that you can work on it only while you pay scirra the rent for the tools.

    Scirra DOES lock you out of your projects with this model They have way more control over the future of your project than you do

    It's not only the money, the editor has a number of potential business non-friendly problems as a side result of the model:

    • If it cant connect to the internet to check your license - it will lock you out - even if you did pay the renting fee
    • If scirra some day decides to stop developing/supporting it - surprise surprise - you are locked out of all of your projects
    • Editor updates are enforced on the user and may break some things
    • Scirra may increase the fee whenever they want to next year it may become 299$ - you are in such an uncertainty here
    • Your project is not only locked to their editor - it's locked to their licensing model
    • Let me know if you can add more points to this..

    Also tell me of a single commercial game made by a game engine with this licensing model

    I would argue that construct3 is less professional with that model, less business friendly, less viable for a big project

    A lot of people in this thread actually argue that too and list many points why that is

    There are many many many reasons that the subscription model is a terrible idea imo, but what is sums down to - at least for me is the fact that Construct3 is not really a web service - not really offering project hosting/backup - it relies on third party for that.

    So the increased pricing doesnt seem justified to me - like at all.

    Then adding to that is the fact that it now even relies on chrome in order to work - which again is not developed by scirra.

    You also have electron and nw.js. The number of dependencies on other software has increased!

    It is relying on a lot of third party technologies that are fundamentally free and can break something every time they get updated

    Apart of sharing the game to be play tested, it doesn't really have any advantages that a web service could have - like collaborative editing.

    So even as a web service it is not at a point where you could say it is competitive enough to justify the fee.

    To add to it - it is competing with many other similar game engines that have more features, are cheaper, stabler and one time payment.

    It's even competing with its more established version - construct2.

    Construct2 still offers a better editor at a much better price - one time payment price.

    It is also much more reliable than construct3 - it wont stop working or break when the license runs out, it fails to connect to a server to check the license or something breaks when your web browser has updated automatically

    All that said, even at a lower price tag - I will never subscribe or develop my project in something that locks me to a subscription - because I feel that it is a really bad investment of my time