blurymind's Forum Posts

    With all the talk of the other software I took a look at Clickteam's Fusion 2.5.. Wow, it looks like it would be so easy to jump right in, it looks SO similar to C2 (who came first?).. Nice gallery of games (several I recognize on Xbox One), good pricing scheme..

    Clickteam fusion came first. Clickteam goes way back to the 90ies, when they released KLIK&PLAY- the grand daddy of the event sheet visual programming style.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickteam

    I am not exactly sure how the story went, but it is said that scirra devs used to be clickteam fusion users. Then they broke away from it and created construct. Clickteam saw that as a betrayal - as construct built and improved upon a lot of the design ideas in fusion. The two have been competing ever since and both have pros and cons

    I found fusion devs and community to be very very welcoming in general. When I bought it years ago, the original founder personally contacted me via email and answered some of my questions. One thing to note is that Fusion has many mainstream games for a number of different platforms - much much more than construct has. 5 nights at freddy's for example was made in it. The reason for that is most probably the better performance. Currently fusion 2.5's event sheet is clunkier than construct's, but previews of fusion 3 show that clickteam is working hard to make the event sheet and code reusal way better than construct's current design. They are competition to be reckoned with, as they have many years of experience over scirra and their developer community has released many successful games - again many more than construct's

    I wouldn't go through the trouble of warning scirra about this if I wasn't concerned about the future of construct3 with the new licensing model and their release timing being around the time clickteam releases fusion 3. It is most unfortunate

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    > Even if it fails, by the time you have decided on another licensing model, a lot of the people here would have moved to the obvious contender - fusion3.

    >

    >

    Is Fusion 3 multi-platform? Can I run it on a Mac? Just curious...

    Fusion 3 editor will be multiplatform yes - confirmed to be developed and tested on windows, mac and linux. More than that - running natively - not inside a web browser.

    Fusion 3 will have a similar license model to the current version of fusion 2 - with an upgrade discount for existing users.

    You buy the editor, it comes with an exporter that compiles the game natively on the platform you are on.

    You can buy separately native exporters for android, ios and even html5 - they go on special offers with huge discounts a few times in the year. Things like the event sheet have been reworked to be more modern. Disadvantages such as code reusal are also being addressed in fusion 3. So scirra is in a tough spot and things will only get worse when clickteam releases it - especially if the license price for lifetime is around the same price point as the yearly subscription of construct3 <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_neutral.gif" alt=":|" title="Neutral">

    btw here are some of the NATIVE indie games made on fusion 2 and 2.5:

    Subscribe to Construct videos now

    nice frame rate there

    fusion 2.5 runs almost perfect on mac and linux via wine. There will be no need for wine when 3 comes out - it will have native editor for each of the three platforms.

    Construct2 does not run well with wine - you cant run a server to playtest your game and there are crashes.

    Even if it fails, by the time you have decided on another licensing model, a lot of the people here would have moved to the obvious contender - fusion3.

    Clickteam is releasing it this year, so it will be interesting to see what happens.

    Putting asside clickteam's better game in pr and all that...

    Not only do they have the native exporters that everyone here is crying about, have an improved event sheet that is going to surpass or at least be on par with construct's, but they are sticking to the classic licensing that everyone is comfortable with. None of that renting nonsense

    You guys are literally imposing a challenge to your loyal customers - at a time when the competitor is presenting the solution to it.

    Nobody likes this type of subscription type DRM, because it feels like purchasing a trial of a product and not the actual product.

    Can't you meet your community somewhere in the middle? Locking them out of updates is one thing when the cash flow stops, but locking them out of being able to edit their own projects is just painful

    Yes you dont hold their files hostage, but really you are - they wont be able to edit their game until the next payment is made.

    You could at least offer them something for paying for the first time - something that will keep them around - otherwise you have no lure to put on the hook that is supposed to take them to a place where they are loyal customers of the cloud service.

    With game engines a lot of the quality of an engine is the community and the contributions they make to it.

    If construct3 locks out current and potential contributors with this license, the popularity of the engine will be harmed. Who will then make you shaders and plugins, tutorial videos and demos?

    The more features you add to it, the more it will become incompatible with construct 2 - which will not take long.

    Ashley and Tom -- when you release and start selling construct 3, will you continue to sell construct 2 licenses alongside?

    If you are so adamant https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/d4/63/b9/d463b92e3a943ea82ecea4a3e6c3ec6c.png on trying this license model, It's in your right to do so, regardless of how much it will disappoint the users.

    - When your subscription ends, you have full access until the date your next billing was meant to be taken

    - Free edition will be able to open any project in read-only mode.

    - Exported games will not be affected in any way at all

    - Your assets are yours, you can save them locally or in the cloud - up to you. We would never hold your exported game or game assets hostage.

    - Details about checks are not something we talk about too openly for obvious reasons, but we've always focused on making it invisible and painless for legitimate customers. We're confident there's not going to be any issues for anyone.

    Thank you for clarifying.

    The more I learn about the deal, the more I feel like Lando

    Subscribe to Construct videos now

    Meanwhile clickteam fusion 3 devs are like

    https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/73 ... 8931e5.jpg

    I think I will stick with construct 2 and buy a lifetime Fusion 3 license instead of renting construct 3 for a year.

    I will also stop using construct after a while, because it is becoming obvious that all the new features will be developed for the rentware version

    I am ok with the web interface. The license terms are a deal breaker for me. I wish you guys success regardless

    You guys are not completely right about the features announced so far. The only feature that I personally have use of is multiplatform - being able to use it on linux.

    Potentially huge would be the built in ability to backup game projects on the cloud and ability to access them via a web browser.

    apart of that -can Ashley and Tom please clarify on the subscription point?

    • when your sub period ends , what happens? Does the user stop having access to their projects and the editor - even when the editor is running offline? Or does subscription only affect game engine updates?
    • What sort of DRM is in there to check if the user is in their sub (trial) period? Does the editor require to check with a server prior to even opening?
    • Running offline - if that copies the entire editor to hard drive - is that copied to an obscure temp folder that chrome has - just for the current user? Or does that get copied to a user specified dir? Is it installed on chrome web browser as an extension?

    Where do you store the editor settings?

  • X3M does your solution allow to grab the current url of whats inside the frame?

    Basically if the user clicks on a url inside of the embedded frame, can we use dom in the web browser console to access the updated content url of the frame?

    That might solve it for me partially at least, because some of the result's information is in the query string of the url the user clicks on

  • Yeah.. I still need it to work in a browser though.

    I can already easily grab any info from the target websites via web scraping and no need to use iframes at all.

    I have reverse engineered how they work and already have code that scrapes them

    But the current job assignment requires me to make a web form that grabs data from a website. Of course none of my bosses understand how these things work, they just want a web form with the required validations. But the data to validate some fields is stored on another website with another database. So my hacky web scrapping solutions only work when the submission form is a native app that runs a web scrapping macro.

    My theory was to make a web scrapper with a web interface.But I put that on hold, because they might eventually give me access to host my form on the same domain - which will of course get rid of the security block

  • One-off payments are not really a viable model for web-based services. In fact it's only a viable business model for C2 because we get a steady enough stream of new users buying it that we stay in business. With that model, if we stopped getting new users, we'd go out of business, even if we had tens of thousands of active users.

    For the years I've been working on Construct 2, users have routinely asked for simultaneously more features and lower prices. We have to draw a line somewhere.

    You can still continue to get revenue with the standard licensing model by:

    • Charging for major software updates
    • Charging for premium features/addons - such as displaying ads in a game and being able to do microtransactions
    • Charging for exporters - yes, ones that you actually make and maintain - and they compile to native code
    • Taking a cut from sales on the asset store
    • Charging subscription fees on optional integrated could services that actually do add value to the product (as noted in my previous post)

  • I anticipated scirra's move to make it a web app - when they revealed they are working on the next one and that the editor will be multiplatform. I thought that Ashley and co would go for node.js , but electron makes more sense as it's said to be more lightweight. Using web technology for the editor is clever. They can port it over to android if they wanted to.

    I support that fully.

    The beta sounds interesting and will give it a try if it's offered.

    The licensing is something I won't do with. If you ask for 200$ one time, that is still better than yearly subscription fees.

    Scirra is no Autodesk. Their tool has not produced any AAA games. Even autodesk has kept the pay once license model as an option.

    What will end up happening is alienating the hobbyist userbase without actually getting any pro users- because unity and the other engines are more accessible and there is no timer limit as to how long you can use them or upfront payment requirement for rent.

    You can download and use it - all features included - for free.

    as stated earlier - Unity offers services to pro users , but those are OPTIONAL and you will have no use of them unless you are working on a project with a huge team anyways. You pay when and if you start earning, not before.

    Doing this announcement without any amazing features to back it is pretty cocky

  • Can't wait to see their announcement tomorrow

    Scirra is really not good at announcing so far.

    Scirra - Construct3:

    They make a website announcement, release little to no info for 2 years.

    https://www.construct3.com/

    Claim that there will be no 3d game support, no native exporters, nothing will change but the editor itself.

    Users complain on forum - asking for native exporters again, scirra snubs them.

    Little to no interaction with their users during that time. No feedback taken from the community as to what they want, but users post threads with feature wish lists anyways. Note that these feature requests are not prompted by the developers. The developers show up once in a while to post there - but nothing major.

    Little to no interaction on the forum. all hush hush

    Then they tease with a big announcement a few days prior to today.

    Then instead of announcing any new features to make me wanna buy it or upgrade, they announce a polarizing licensing model - in a blog post. Not on the fancy website. We also have a price for the rent - 99$ per year - for the indie dev. At this point we have a price and a licensing model we know half the users are gonna hate - but no exciting features or screenshots demonstrated or announced. Only announcements of what it's not gonna have - exactly what your community keeps requesting over and over again. Create new forum - half/most the posts are unhappy users complaining about the price and the licensing model.

    Compare to clickteam - fusion 3:

    • all key clickteam devs are actively taking in feedback on the forum for years - on a thread where they announced they are working on fusion 3 , they dont release a website but very early on start revealing information about the progress and some of the new features going in.

    They ask their users as to what licensing model they would prefer. Then they announce that they will stay with their pay once model, where you can buy extra exporters. They are aware of the renting model as well, but choose to stay away from it, because most people on their forum don't like it.

    Then at the forum they start announcing new features and confirming them - features based on requests and feedback from the community. At special events - show off work in progress videos.

    Then they start showing videos on screenshots on a dev blog explaining the new features and how they address current problems.

    http://www.clickteam.com/fusion-3-development-blog

    At this point clickteam has given us incredible exciting feature demonstrations, we know their next engine is going to be awesome and we love the licensing model because we are very comfortable with it - buy once. Clickteam has met most of the community requests and demonstrated excellent involvement with the community. We still have no price, but at this point I am pretty sure most people would be willing to break the piggy bank and upgrade

    Ashley - here is a rule of marketing - dont reveal the price. Delay revealing the price for as long as possible. In the meantime reveal the value of the product instead. Keep revealing the value and delay revealing the price - even when the user keeps asking for the later. Then once you have them convinced they must buy it, then reveal the damn price.

    And don't give them a shit payment model that replaces the one good one they are on at the moment. The rent model is gonna lose you a lot of users

    BUY ONCE!

    (advertise your cloud based services in the editor if you want - convince me its worth it at least)

    optionally subscribe for cloud based services - but not a requirement if you wanna make a freaking html5 game that still needs bundling with a glorified web browser in order to work out of the box

    or

    buy Fusion 3 instead

    Clickteam has been working on patching all of the cons their engine had when compared to construct and will also release this year -one time payment for license, native exporters, multiplatform editor. You guys are comitting harakiri here. Good luck

  • Ashley , why enforce it as a web service in the first place? It is technically possible to offer it as a desktop application, even if it was built on top of html5 technology.

    Do you think that more people will prefer to use it professionally that way?

    There are many other web service based game engines out there and none of them is really popular or has produced a successful title.

    Most used successful game engines are desktop applications

    You can offer it as a desktop application with a one off payment and on top of that offer your web services with subscription. Examples:

    • Premade code and assets
    • Collaborative private project hosting space ala github
    • Out of the box exporters
    • Support and advertisement for your game/app on scirra
    • Access to bleeding edge new builds before anyone else

    I can come up with a multitude of ways you can give a web service actual competitive value without alienating half of your developers on this forum. Look at how well Unity3d and Unreal are doing. Those guys are free,until you actually start to sell and make money.

    You are competing with a tough crowd here, that freaking screenshot better blow everyone's mind tomorrow. The announcements today - kind of a let down to be honest

    I see no new or exciting features - just a pricing model that I know I will not sign up for

  • Rayek I am with you on the no-thanks-not-renting boat

    Yes I am on BA, thank you <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif" alt=":)" title="Smile">

    I love blender and have been actually moving to Godot:

    https://godotengine.org/

    Godot has a very nice and simple scripting language (similar to python) and is actually open source, so no need to rent it and supports native exporters. Also supports actual 3d games.

    If you like construct's visual programming, you can check out gdevelop (free+open source, but very slowly developed) or clickteam fusion (has pros and cons)