Rayek's Forum Posts

    I just wanted to express my thanks to Ashley, Tom, and the rest of the Scirra team for producing and supporting Construct 1 and 2 over the years. I have used their products for all sorts of interactive projects and a bunch of games that I have created and released.

    It's been a lot of fun, and I thank them whole-heartedly for the one-time licensing cost all these years ago. I would have paid ten-fold the amount!

    The reason for my good-bye post is of course the subscription (rental) model that will be introduced when Construct 3 is released. I completely understand Scirra's reasons for this - unfortunately, their new business model and my personal view on software licensing clash head-on, and I cannot and will not rent my development tools. Just my personal view, and for those here who feel differently: more power to you. It just does not work for me.

    In the past few weeks I have been quite pessimistic and down-right rebellious in my postings on these forums to express my deep-felt disappointment. You have to understand that I was gutted. If those posts caused distress to some of you here: my apologies.

    After reading about Construct's subscription-only option, I actually went through the typical and well-know stages of grief: first shock and disbelief, then denial, bargaining, anger (a lot of that in some of my posts when I re-read them), depression, and now finally acceptance/hope.

    I suppose it can be difficult at times when things change - but, as it turns out, the change is for the better for me personally. I put a lot of thought and effort into investigating a bunch of (2d) game engines lately, and found an excellent replacement for my work (Godot) that is as much fun to learn for 2d game projects as was Construct when I first encountered it. It is also the right tool for me to grow - Construct's visual coding always felt a bit confining to me, and personally I prefer manual coding.

    Anyway, that is not important now. Life is too short as it is for much negativity. We all have freedom of choice in our dev tools. Use whatever works best for you, and have fun, which is the most important thing! No passion, no drive, no great games.

    Many thanks to everyone in this great community for all the help, tips, advice, and tutorials that have helped me tremendously to get my work done throughout the years. I hope I've been able to help out some people in return here and there.

    All the best to everyone, and a special thanks to Ashley for making my life a bit more wonderful when he introduced Construct to the world!

    I'll be checking in as a lurker from time to time, though - just to check what's happening. Some of you I may meet again on other parts of the web.

    And with that, I am signing off.

    Toodles, Cheerios, and hang loose!

  • Another approach is to award loyalty: For example, Unity subscribers have the option to own a perpetual license of Unity after two years. This also mitigates the problem of not being able to open your files later.

    I call this a "real" subscription - after all, a subscription gives the subscriber something in return to own (even though it might be in the long run).

    Adobe's and Scirra's rental models, however, leave you standing with nothing once you stop paying the rent. A marked difference between how Unity treats their customers, and how Scirra would treat theirs.

    Aside from the fact that Unity also offers a completely free, fully functional version (well, aside from the dark GUI, I believe ).

  • I really could not care less whether software is open source or not - I look for the features I need/wish for a game project, and base the decision for a game engine on those. If it happens to be free/open source, production proven, and checks all the boxes for me, I will investigate further and make a decision.

    Currently Godot tops my list. But I have been looking into Unity with one or two plugins as well. I think it is important to spend a couple of weeks testing setups in various engines before deciding which one to go with.

    *Edit* Wow, just watched the Unity GDC 2017 Keynote and the new timeline/Cinemachine. Doesn't get any easier to choose, heh? So many new toys out there. C3 looks a bit old hat compared.

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  • Quit a lot of people already wanting to jump ship without seeing the final product.

    I can understand it though but it may be a bit soon. Maybe let Scirra unveil it first?

    I'm not sure I'll be doing a subscription model either.

    For the rest of the people wanting to jump ship.

    Where are you wanting to jump to?

    Imho Fusion 3 and Unity+ Gameflow or Playmaker are the contenders.

    Stencyl...also sub model, Buildbox also a sub model, Gamemaker Studio 2 looks great but the Drag and Drop is limited forcing you to learn a proprietary language...might then as well learn C#.

    GameSalad is looking to be a sinking ship with a few scooping out the water but ultimately not as active or as frequently updated as it once were..

    If you don't like that why not stay with Construct 3 and see what they offer first. Pay the first month and then see if the tools speed up development, if its slow (I really doubt it will be slow) or if it caters for your needs?

    I can see the potential in it. I'm just not going to be paying monthly for it.

    For me it is predominantly about the features I need for my upcoming large game project(s). I always research options out there, and I do not really care whether the game engine provides a fully visual editor or not - as long as it is easy and convenient to use.

    Ashley has already said C3 is going to be based on the same C2 engine, and actual new features are going to be added later. I can't wait that long. For my project I need some kind of animation timeline, and good project management tools. And other engines offer a slew of additional features that Construct is still missing.

    Also, native export support is another reason for my decision to leave C2 (I learned an important lesson from my own experience with wrappers so far and together with Next Penelope's developer's issues I will not touch wrappers at this point anymore).

    But most importantly, I will never allow myself to be locked into a rental model for my development. It just does not make sense as a indie game developer to rent the game engine - too risky.

    Currently I am teaching myself Godot, but other engines remain a possibility (Fusion 3, Visionaire 4). It depends a bit. I do not mind coding, as long as the scripting is straight-forward. I actually prefer scripting in a lot of cases. Godot's scene approach is great, and I am awaiting version 3 in April. I will also investigate the new version of Fusion 3, which looks like a good spiritual successor to Construct 2.

    As it stands, Construct 2/3 do not cut it for any indie developer interested in working on anything beyond simpler mobile games. I was hoping to see this improved in Construct 3, but I have not seen anything that is going to change my opinion.

  • > Construct 2 is severely limited in this regard, but Construct 3 will be even more limiting for desktop users BECAUSE it is browser based.

    >

    Actually, Construct 3's multi-monitor support is better than Construct 2's. You can do things like open a layout view on a different monitor. Construct 2 could not do that. We hinted at the windowing support in this screenshot from one of the first blogs. We're going to cover this in a bit more detail in one of our future blog posts.

    Lots of people are making statements like this which totally underestimate what you can do with a browser. We're aiming to prove that it can equal, and even exceed, native apps. It's not really possible to keep repeating this with the hundreds of posts we get every day, and people get sick of hearing me say the same things repeatedly anyway, so really the big thing is to wait for the public beta and see for yourself how it does.

    FWIW, we are still focused on indie devs and making it a better tool for them - it's still probably the largest segment of our userbase. We are interested in education as well though, so we're trying to expand there at the same time.

    If that is the case, I stand corrected. Having a separate layout window and events windows on two screens is a clear step forward in regards to usability.

  • > From what I have seen... c3 is basically c2 that you have to rent. Whats the point? I feel as though I am part of a c2 community that begged for just a few simple features. Features that you sort of need to actually make a decent game (something beyond flappy phone games)... Heck, even working box2d physics sure would have been nice. We weren't asking for 3d, we were asking for the basic tools any game engine needs. (collision filtering, ray-tracing, collision callbacks, swept shapes, ... I could go on) Not to mention extreme scalability issues when making complex games. And JavaScript is stupid for games (but that's obviously a given, a compromise that wont be changed)

    >

    > Is c3 going to address these problems? I haven't heard, frankly, I don't care because I got sick of not having the tools needed for really making a game in c2 and so dropped it.

    >

    > And I'm not someone who thinks a behavior should make my game. I program. I have rolled 3 different platform engines on my own, and a custom retro based physics behavior for c2. I just wanted basic features literally almost every other engine has.

    >

    > I've been happily using Unity for free. With c#. Why would I rent c3 when I only use c2 for simple prototypes ?

    >

    > I don't care that it is on mac (see above). I don't care that its in the cloud (see above). I don't care that it has a 3 in its name if it doesn't actually fundamentally address the major issues with making a game with c2.

    >

    > Anyone have any insight?

    >

    The point is that tools which can run on tablets are aiming for the educational market, not professional game developers. I had some long, interesting conversations about the direction C3 is taking while at GDC and that's the conclusion which was independently arrived at by most everyone I spoke with. It is making itself the polar opposite of the "best 2D game development tool." Which is fine, if that's the tact Scirra wants to take, as it's their business, but it would clear up a lot if they'd just say that instead of announcing the porting of the sub-par image editor from C2 or...wait for it...rounded corners. Oh, and BBCode in comments, when the text & spritefont objects still can't handle multiple weights or colors.

    While it's an impressive coding exercise to run a tool like C2 in the browser - and let's be honest, C3 is really just C2 with a few visual tweaks in terms of features, based on what's been announced - who in their right mind is going to work on larger games through a browser interface? Is anyone really supposed to be excited we now have to scroll to see all Function parameters? Now, if we could name the parameters, that would be a big step, but scrolling forces further mouse interactions (and no, tabbing to the next field is no better), which slow down development, especially if you're typically using hotkeys rather than slowly navigating through C2/C3's multiple popups that would have been better off being combined into the rest of the interface if there's some use case requirement that they remain separate panels at all.

    Could not agree more with both of you. As someone starting his first larger game as an indie dev, I fail to see how any developer would choose Construct at this point as a 2d game engine. I would have liked to see Construct 2 being further developed with actual new features such as a timeline, function parameters, native export, and other improvements and additions that have been requested by users for a longer time now. Scalability is a big issue for me in C2: even with the relatively simple medium-sized games I created so far in C2 I found managing the event sheets and functions bothersome.

    Even if Construct 3 had not been rental-only, it is a tough sale in my opinion.

    I have one other worry in regards to a browser-based environment: in Construct 2 panels can be teared off the main Construct window, and placed/organized on multiple screens. I always hoped Construct 2 would be improved for multi-screen usage in order to allow the developer to place the event sheet separately on a different screen (I have a third screen pivoted in portrait mode for coding). I do this when I do my front-end development work. In comparison, Netbean's window setup is infinitely more configurable, and I can have split windows, multiple code views, and so on. Construct 2 is severely limited in this regard, but Construct 3 will be even more limiting for desktop users BECAUSE it is browser based.

    As far as I have experienced in other browser-only apps, and based on my front-end coding knowledge, placing panels independently from the main window will no longer be possible in C3: panels will only be able to exist within the scope of the Chrome window, thus negating the option to place any panels independently.

    From a desktop developer's point of perspective, being browser based, Construct 3's configurability is going to be even worse than version 2 - one more indication against Construct 3 as a valid platform for serious game developers. I keep wondering who Scirra has in mind as their target users - because they sure are not wooing (semi)professionals at this point.

  • >

    >

    > Stop paying the rent, and the Construct 3 dev cannot edit the project - basically losing access to it.

    >

    I know there is a read only mode when your subscription ends.

    My question is: what happens if Scirra stops support for C3 for whatever reason (for example: going out of business)?

    My guess is that Scirra can create a stand alone version for C3 so that you can keep working on your projects.

    But I am interested in an answer from Scirra.

    Tom mentioned in a thread that if Scirra ever is run out of business, they would consider making Construct a free download (or perhaps even open source). Of course, no promises there.

    But yes, it is a viable question. Yet another uncertain factor related to rental based software. What happens when Construct 3 is no longer supported?

    That is why I think it is just too risky for an indie dev. Game development is risky enough as it is - why exacerbate that by renting your main dev tools? I just don't get it.

    Don't know about offline but from the official thread,

    > - You can continue to collect revenues from published games if your subscription ends, that's fine

    > - You will not be able to edit or publish games if your subscription has expired, but you can open in read only

    >

    The question then becomes as a small developer: why would you ever lock yourself into a rental model that may hold your files hostage after you stop paying the rent? That part will never make sense to me. Why run that risk?

  • However, a subscription model can also have many positive effects :

    The software company behind the subscription model gets more resources to add new features. They also have to listen more to their customer base, because when they neglect feature requests or bug fixes too often, they loose customers.

    In a subscription model, companies have to deliver a quality product. Also at least one major upgrade a year is necessary for the subscription to stay succesfull.

    Unfortunately, both assertions have been proven to be untrue by Adobe's rental model: the quality of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Dreamweaver has gone downhill ever since they went rental-only. Dreamweaver is a wreck - people have been leaving in droves. The quality of the updates have been lack-luster.

    If anything, Adobe hasn't listened very well at all to their customer base, and the development teams seem to be more about keeping management happy.

    Of course, good things have happened as well, but on a whole (based on the Adobe forums and the opinions of students in the past few years) the rental model has predominantly turned out to be a great thing for the shareholders and Adobe. Not as much for their users. My opinion - I am aware some Adobe users may disagree.

    Anyway, the assertion that a rental model somehow magically forces a software company to produce quality updates and makes them listen more to their users is simply untrue. The same can be said about perpetual licenses with regular updates: if you do not keep your user base satisfied, they will leave at some point. Simple as that.

    Why not give C3 a chance? If you have a present licence, it is half price for the first year. Lets see during that first year how C3 performs and if Scirra can keep up with new features and user requests. If after one year, you are not satisfied, you can still choose another game development tool.

    There is also a monthly subscription model, which fit the needs of a hobbyist with limited finances. You can let say pay for April, not using it in May (in this case no subscription is paid) and then take a new monthly subscription for June.

    In my personal opinion, I find the yearly subscription model very affordable but again, I respect when you think different.

    Well, for me a rental-only business model means I will never choose Construct 3 as part of my pipeline. Just too risky. I think anyone who develops should have full control over their development tools, and not run the risk of losing access to their work just because the rent isn't payed.

    Stop paying the rent, and the Construct 3 dev cannot edit the project - basically losing access to it. A rental model keeps your files (potentially) hostage. A perpetual license allows a developer to open, edit, and build their project whenever the need arises.

    That worries me, and personally I think anyone even half-heartedly semi-professionally invested in their game projects would be stark mad to rent their development tools. For larger game dev teams and companies it may be worthwhile depending on the circumstances, but those teams generally opt for more "serious" and open game engines anyway.

    It is as you say: this model might work for hobbyists. But I really am strongly doubting any serious developer would ever want to lock themselves and their work in a rental model. If Construct would be the only visual programming tool in town, it might work - but that is the thing: there are other tools that are either free or provide a perpetual license that are also more powerful than Construct 3 AND provide native platform export.

    So I can't see the attraction of Construct 3 at this point, even if it has nice features. Because other tools already have better and more advanced options.

    Always keep an open mind for new developments.

    That is very much true, indeed. I quit part of my freelancing jobs last month and went "full indie" now! I have started work on my first independent game. I am still figuring out and researching the tools and pipeline, which is a lot of fun.

    One thing is for certain, though: Construct 2 and 3 are not even a consideration for me anymore - the rental model approach clinched it (aside from the problems with native export and missing features). I will probably use Construct 2 for quick prototyping, though, to test ideas out quickly.

  • I read the blog this afternoon about the "sprite and animations" editor in C3 and got very excited about it. We cannot deny the fact that there are many improvements over C2.

    Using Construct 3 in a browser alone will be a true bargain for me. Nothing to install and you can work at every computer with internet.

    I am sure over the next months, there will come a lot of new exciting announcements from Scirra. Can't wait!!!

    The "new" animation editor is nice and all, but I would never use a built-in graphics editor that is as limited as the one on show. As a matter of fact, I have never used the built-in graphics editor of Construct before, except for things like collision shapes, origins and animation frames. Why re-invent the wheel when there exists multitudes of far better image editors for free or a small fee?

    I think putting effort in an actual animation timeline that supports animating all properties as well as firing functions/actions would be of far greater use to all C3 users.

    I fail to see the point of this. The devs stated they will rely on products like Spriter for cut-out animation support, but feel it is a good idea to build their own built-in image editor? I do not understand the logic.

    Oh wait, I suppose when editing in Android or iOS it would make sense. But much better pixel art editors are available for those platform as well.

  • As it stands now, with the information available to us, I think the main point of C3 is a complete rewrite (yet again) to accommodate a browser-based application, rather than one that is coded to work directly on an OS level.

    I understand why the devs are doing this: re-routing multi-platform support to a browser (Chrome) that already exists for all major operating systems, including mobile, is one reason (less work for devs). Secondly, the devs can develop with web tech, rather than C++, or whatever was used to develop Construct 1 and 2. Thirdly, having the editor run in Chrome allows them to implement live editing - for example, particle systems are editable live. Fourthly, it allows them to run Construct 3 as a service. Fifth, new functionality can probably be implemented faster for the devs this way.

    Point 2 is a personal decision, and has nothing to do with the users.

    Points 1 and 3 are useful to have, but many other game editors already support these things (well, no mobile editing on Android or iOS, of course). Personally I do not see the point of mobile touch screen only editing on small screens except for simple examples/prototypes, and the "coolness" factor.

    Point 3 is already catered for in most other game engines worth their salt. Take Godot or Unity, for example: particle systems can be edited live, as is the case with many other things. Of course, when the output is web-only (Construct) it makes sense to switch to a browser-based editing environment for live editing: they both share the same foundation, which makes it simpler and more efficient for the devs to support and implement.

    From my point of view, the majority of the benefits of C3 are initially aimed towards the developers themselves, with a secondary concern for the users. I am sure the devs feel quite differently about this. Certainly the benefits will trickle down more and more towards the users, and it is more convenient for the devs to roll out new features.

    One issue, however, is performance in a browser. I have worked with browser-based applications, and compared to their desktop equivalents they always lose out in performance. A browser is yet another shell between the OS and the application, and it does have an impact. (for example, compare Gravit with desktop based illustration tools - way slower!)

    I am sure the devs will add more features as time goes by - they should be able to roll out new functionality faster now that both the editor and the output share the same foundation.

    But I am out. The rental model is unacceptable to me, and after a bit more pondering, I have come to the conclusion that it is a bad idea to rely on a specific browser (Chrome) as a foundation to build a game editor environment. If it would work cross-browser, I'd be more lenient perhaps.

    Other issues for me are the lack of native export, no animation timeline, and other things such as the awkward handling of functions, no built-in translation support, and inconvenient control/input handling. Versioning and large project management are problematic as well.

    Now that I am starting a fairly large game project I had to rethink my approach, and Construct 2 would not have been my choice anyway. With how the new Construct 3 is planned, I am convinced I would never even have considered C3. I think it is more aimed at small projects and not really meant to be used for semi-large scope projects. My opinion and expecation - but I can only know for sure when it becomes available.

    Having said all this, I still find Construct 2 to be quite helpful for prototyping ideas quickly, or try out a quick movement setup. Perhaps that ought to be the aim of C3: the best prototyper in town

  • I wonder about the "Editor plugins", is it that I can create plugins from the event sheets, and not having to know how to program javascript?

    It is quite nice idea, so can make plugins to streamline some processes. Like functjons but useable for other projects too.

    Hi Helena, I think you might be talking about Fusion 3, not Construct 3 *nudge nudge, wink wink*

    But yes, that would be a pretty cool option to have. Great for re-usability of functions between projects.

    I don't see this happening in C3, though - unless the C3 devs decide to borrow this idea.

    tunepunk

    Money is not the issue at all (at least, not for me). I would happily pay five times more than the $99 yearly rent to own a perpetual license, and update the license every year. Renting a game engine for development just makes no sense whatsoever. It is too risky in the mid/long term in my opinion.

    Stop paying the rent, and I cannot edit my existing (older) projects or update them. I think not - that is unacceptable to me. Next people will tell me to rent my computer - stop paying, sorry!

    I refuse to rent my tools for development. Again, it makes sense for larger teams and game companies (depending) - but not for a single freelance developer. My opinion, of course.

    As for supporting Scirra? I have been a Construct user since version one, and and early adopter of version 2. I am a teacher at various colleges and a university teaching web dev and related topics. Year after year I have promoted Construct 2 in my classes, and taught any student who was interested how to use Construct 2 - outside the official curricula - many unpaid hours.

    And now you are accusing me and others of being unsupportive of Scirra? Wow. Just wow.

    I love the software, and I have always supported it by introducing it to anyone I thought who would be interested. But I ABSOLUTELY HATE TO RENT SOFTWARE. This has NOTHING to do with being so-called "unsupportive of Scirra".

    This is not about money. Nor about being unsupportive. Have you thought about why it is that many long-time users here react the way they do? It is precisely because they CARE.

    Just provide both options: rent and perpetual licensing. But that is not going to happen, unfortunately.

    > Construct 3 rental: you stop paying, you cannot open your older projects for updates/changes.

    >

    How do you know that?

    What if you just can't export without a subscription?

    How many times a year do you export?

    Would you prefer to pay each time for that?

    Well, I just read in another thread that Tom confirmed that

    - If your subscription expires, you will not be able to edit the game (but you can open them in read only mode)

    So projects can be opened, but cannot be edited (or exported). Stop paying and you are locked out of your own projects.

    Now, I just do not understand why anyone (outside larger studios) as a game dev would willingly ever shut themselves in like that. Scirra sort-of holds your projects hostage, in my opinion. Unless the rent is payed.

    I have a real hard time understanding how this is a 'good' thing for small developers.

    > Construct 3 rental: you stop paying, you cannot open your older projects for updates/changes.

    >

    How do you know that?

    What if you just can't export without a subscription?

    How many times a year do you export?

    Would you prefer to pay each time for that?

    True, I can't be sure whether that is actually the case. I am basing this on other rental software: if Scirra would allow their users to open, edit and save any project in Construct 3 without renting, they would possibly be shooting themselves in the foot: what's to keep users from using the free version to create their games, and only paying a rental fee at the very end of their development cycle? Suppose someone takes 2-3 years to finish their game, and paying the rent only when they need to export? That is, if it is possible to test the game in the free version.

    Anyway, it would make the rental service too complicated for Scirra. Better to have a simple limited version that cannot open larger projects nor export to mobile (perhaps just web), and only allow these to be opened when the rent is being payed. Similar to the current Construct 2 situation: the free version is limited in export functionality, and cannot be used to open project beyond the basic limits set by that free version.

    Works like that for Adobe, Autodesk, and other rental software. I don't see it working differently for Construct 3.