Rayek's Forum Posts

    >

    > Isn't it clear by now the majority of people here don't care about paying more, they just want to own it for life? Principle, like.

    >

    Ok, yeah sure. Just like Windows Xp. You still own that? You can still use that. Somewhere.

    At least my old Windows XP license is a perpetual one: I can install it in a virtual machine for testing purposes any time I need to do so.

    Would not have been possible if XP had been a "subscription" service (MS stopped support). Let's suppose I need to re-install Construct 2 five years from now to update an older C2 project - no issue. Perpetual license.

    Construct 3 rental: you stop paying, you cannot open your older projects for updates/changes. You are locked in a software rental service. And the free version does not support your projects either.

    As an indie dev I would never consider locking myself into a rental-based game engine - just makes no sense to me. It is too risky. It may make sense to larger studios, I suppose. But not to hobbyists and small/single member teams in my opinion.

    Even if Scirra goes belly-up, I can still use my C2 license. Not so with C3 (although Tom did mention that they would consider open sourcing Construct if that would ever happen - still too risky).

    Just too many potential caveats and risks tied to renting my game dev engine. That is my view on things.

    Provide both options, and everybody is happy. The thing is, most people would probably opt for the perpetual license in that case. That is one of the reasons why Adobe went digital serfdom only. Software rental always benefits the company more than their customers (aside from mid-size and large companies). No matter how a company may sugar-coat it.

    You make the distinction that Windows, and Linux are somehow better.

    Steam is the only viable way to distribute a pc game and it's terrible, and $100 dollars to start, well was, Greenlight is going away, and so is your hundred bucks.

    Then there is no worth while market for Linux. lol

    Html5 works on virtually every modern browser.

    Numbers tell a different story.

    https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/gl ... rating-37/

    Casual webgames are down -7.5%. The PC market is still the most lucrative one, although the report mentions that will change by 2018, and personal screens (phones) will take up the first place instead.

    And the competition on mobile markets is by far more competitive than the desktop markets:

    http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2378 ... _facts.php

    It's only gotten worse in the past year. The mobile game markets are utterly oversaturated, and hundreds of games are released each day: in 2015 500(!) new iOS games per day were released and the norm on the Apple market.

    The odds are against making money in the mobile markets without decent exposure, unless you are very, EXTREMELY lucky.

    In fact, all these figures (and there are others, just check out Gamasutra) seem to point at that:

    1) web games are in the decline

    2) desktop games are still going strong - the most lucrative on a global scale

    3) it is easier to earn revenue in the desktop games markets for indie developers compared to the mobile markets

    4) personal phones are the mobile game platform of choice for many users.

    5) tablets (especially Android tablets) are showing signs of dying

    6) overall world-wide games revenue is growing (while web games are declining!)

    7) China and the Asia-Pacific regions cannot be ignored - by far the largest games markets

    I suppose most users who play on their mobile phone prefer to play games as apps, not as web games.

    In any case, the numbers seem to point out that it is smarter to focus on Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms if your intention is to get some money out of your game making endeavours. It does depend as well on how much Valve will charge an indie developer for its new Steam Direct - we do not know yet.

    I also think this means that having native exporters for the various mobile (phone) platforms is an advantage in a game engine.

  • Thanks for posting their response as well to confirm, so it looks absolutely fine and there aren't any obstructive legal issues with not encrypting your files as far as I can see.

    Are there any more examples, or is everyone currently satisfied that there are no identifiable legal issues to not encrypting your files at the moment?

    I don't think, based on this one case, that no other legal situations will arise where NOT encrypting will cause potential problems.

    While I have no knowledge of other instances, I think an option to encrypt assets would be a good thing to have in any case.

    At the very least I can say I have worked with artists before who would not like to see their work "out in the open", so to speak. To allay their and clients' fears (which are often emotion based) encryption would be good to have - aside from potential legalities.

  • Tom,

    Yes, their legal department got back to me as well.

    [quote:1gsrzoeq]Legal has replied with an answer. The 'You must not permit' restriction in clause 11 is meant to stop a buyer from positively allowing - ie authorising (whether expressly or impliedly) an end user to extract the Item from the End Product.

    [quote:1gsrzoeq] "In answer to your question, you would not be in breach of clause 11 of the Extended License for this item if you released the game to the public with the GraphicRiver item sitting in an unencrypted file, however it would be best practice to include a terms and conditions text file with this game, using the wording you suggested.

    If it is trivial to do so, we would encourage you to encrypt the game's data files for your peace of mind."

  • >

    > It isn't the only one, it wasn't the first, it's currently the best but it probably won't be when it's grandfather gets a rewrite later this year...

    >

    Eh..? Tell me more about this....

    I assume he meant Fusion 3.

    Interesting to note here that three 2d game editors are all to release a new version this year: Fusion 3, Godot 3, and Construct 3.

    All three provide visual scripting, offer a good 2d editor, and are being rewritten,...

    And all three will be releasing version 3 of their app!

    3 direct competitors releasing version 3 - You'd almost think the universe has a sense of Jungian synchronous humor.

  • I actually prefer the 2d version a lot - it feels nicer to play. The 2d perspective you use with the other three tables looks a bit forced/unnatural.

    Some comments:

    • again the ball sometimes runs straight through a flipper
    • the interaction between balls feels off - too rubbery, and they lack a solid feel. At one point I had two balls caught with the right flipper, and the third ball hit the other two coming down. Result: the balls sort-of exploded, with one ball jumping up.

    Have you considered taking this further to create a more digital "Devil's Crush" type like Pinball game?

  • After some emailing back and forth regarding the actual legal stance related to GraphicsRiver's license and unencrypted assets in released (Windows) desktop games, I asked for a definitive legal answer rather than "should be fine", and I have been moved up to level 3 support - to their legal department! Seems the situation is not as clear cut as it seems to be.

    The plot thickens... I'll keep you informed - might take a couple of days.

  • I am an avid pinball player, real and virtual I play Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX2 tables, and have been playing computer pinball games since the Commodore 64 (Pinball construction set). To me the 'feel' and control of the ball are the most important parts to get right. It does not need to be realistic to be good - for example, I love Devil's Crush, for example, which is not very realistic at all, but still has an excellent feel and level of playability.

    I think you are getting somewhat close to a good feel - around 75% there, in my opinion. Still missing is the level of control I would like to see.

    Other comments:

    • the tables are not that interesting to play yet.
    • the ball snaps unrealistically to drop targets.
    • I'd like to see lights indicating goals, achievements, etcetera - just like real machines.
    • on several occasions balls just went straight through the (left) flipper.
    • I think the collision for the tip of the flippers can be extended a bit.
    • I'd like to see an option to play in 2d - I rotate one of my 27" screens in order to be able to play in portrait mode. Ideal for pinball gaming.
    • perhaps consider a scrolling viewpoint similar to the old Pinball Dreams game on the Amiga?
    • I caught the ball with the left flipper, waited for it to settle, and when I dropped the flipper the ball was stuck.
    • the ball does not roll very convincingly yet.
    • real and virtual tables have many more interesting parts - tunnels, etc. I would also like to see more than one level with ramps and such.

    All in all, a good start - perhaps consider creating a pinball game similar to Devil's Crush - I would love to see something similar. Your pinball engine seems more suitable for that type of pinball game.

  • There's third party plugs you can use to do that already.

    Convert your assets to base64, encode them with one of the encoder plugs, add the encrypted text files to the project files.

    Load by url already converts the decrypted base64 images, and there's even an audio plug to play base64 audio(haven't tried it in a while however).

    Theres also an audio stream plug which has pros, and cons.

    If it really is a big issue for you then you can continue down the third party path for easier methods.

    In other words there are options beyond relying on Scirra.

    Edit:

    Supposedly C3 was to make it easier to work with the sdk, and roll our own plugs.

    Of course no way to know if that's part of the free version.

    I am not sure whether "load image by URL" works with NW.js exported applications. Aside from this, it would be way too much of a hassle to deal with hundreds of assets this way.

    Switching to an alternative is indeed the best solution in this case.

  • I was part of this conversation in the C3 thread as well. A major concern of mine in regards to not being able to encrypt one's assets is that sometimes assets from a third party are licensed under the condition that the developer takes the appropriate steps to protect those assets by encrypting them.

    This is done in order to protect the developer from legal litigation by said third party. Simply stated: plausible deniability. You as the developer took steps to protect the assets, and when someone hacks that encryption, you cannot be held legally responsible.

    I came upon this at the GraphicsRiver asset foundry in their extended license:

    [quote:2s9rz8if]11. You must not permit an end user of the End Product to extract the Item and use it separately from the End Product.

    https://graphicriver.net/licenses/terms/extended

    I read this, and in my opinion unencrypted assets potentially break this requirement. Tom's opinion is that as long as a Terms and Conditions statement (txt file) accompanies your game, you should be fine.

    Definition of "Permit": officially allow (someone) to do something.

    So in my understanding of this, as long as you do not give official permission for them to take the assets you're good. Put in your T&C something along the lines of "You are not permitted to extract and use any assets in this game for any purpose". I can see how this might be interpreted in the way you say though, but doubt that's the spirit of it because it's impossible to enforce imo.

    Probably best to check with Envato though of course. If you don't want to clarify that with them, let me know and I can send them an email if it's a big concern for you.

    * This is my opinion, IANAL etc.

    So I contacted Envato (owners of GraphicsRiver) and today Envato Market Help got back to me:

    [quote:2s9rz8if]

    Thanks for taking the time to thoroughly research the terms of our license usage. Many people buy the assets without caring. That being said, you should be fine with an extended license but adding the statement on what is not allowed is wise. I can see how GraphicRiver assets would commonly be distributed in other items but that should cover you legally, if needed. The buyer would then be essentially doing what we ask of our buyers in our disclosures.

    Go forth and prosper!

    Kind Regards,

    Now, the part that worries me once again is the "you should be fine" and "should cover you legally" parts. "should" will not hold up in the worst legal scenario.

    Of course, it is a very slim chance that someone will care about all this, I agree. But let's just assume someone develops a game in Construct 2/3 that becomes incredibly successful, and sells tens of millions of copies. The game uses a number of assets from GraphicsRiver. The designer of those assets notices this, and downloads/installs the game on a Windows machine, and discovers that his/her assets are unencrypted, and anyone can have access to them by merely unzipping them. The designer (US based) is aware of point (11) of the extended license, and decides to take legal action against the game developer in the US.

    Even though the developer included a T&C, I could imagine that US copyright lawyers shred it to pieces because of the fact the plaintiff's assets were not encrypted at all and left out in the open, because in my view (11) implies that the developer must take appropriate steps to help protect the plaintiff's assets, and a case could possibly made by high-flying lawyers that the defendant failed to do so.

    I am aware that it is highly unlikely and doubtful that such a situation may occur, but the point I am making is simple: if Construct allows for a simple asset encryption option during export, the game developer won't have to run any such risk at all in the first place.

    All the other game engines allow the user to encrypt their files. Yes, assets can be hacked/ripped anyway, yet I think it is a fundamental option to have anyway. At least provide the option to do so.

  • Try Construct 3

    Develop games in your browser. Powerful, performant & highly capable.

    Try Now Construct 3 users don't see these ads

  • >

    > > Buildbox is also a subscription model, you pay 99 USD or 84 USD each month.

    > >

    >

    > Very simple: offer BOTH options. Everybody happy.

    >

    Why don't you give it a rest and wait to see it when it is released. They will have a free version to test so you certainly can not complain about that and if you are correct and people do not want a subscription based engine and there is not enough new features to make it a good deal then they won't sell any and will have to change their marketing strategy right?

    Beating up Scirra over releasing a new engine is not helping and is driving down moral on the forum in my opinion.

    I was merely responding to Bad Wolf's post.

    A limited free version will not change the fact it is rental-only, will it? And many competing alternatives offer a free version that is fully functional.

    You are right, though - no sense in continuously beating a dead horse, as the expression goes. I'll stop yapping now, and concentrate on learning new things instead - more constructive indeed.

    Apologies for the wailing and crying

  • Buildbox is also a subscription model, you pay 99 USD or 84 USD each month.

    Yes, and even if Buildbox was made of gold I would not touch it either because of the rental-only option. It is not about pricing.

    Scirra subscription model cost 99 USD a year which is something more than 8 USD a month.

    Your point being? It is still an rental plan. I would gladly pay $99 for a perpetual license with paid updates, and the choice to update or not.

    Renting software (almost) always puts the user at a disadvantage compared to a perpetual license with regular (paid) updates.

    Please stop moaning about the new Scirra subscription model, it is very fairly priced and give Scirra more resources to maintain and update the software.

    Whether the rental-only business model will hurt or help Scirra remains to be seen. Their position is very different compared to Adobe, who are the industry standard, with little or no competition on a professional level. Scirra, on the other hand, will have to deal with excellent alternatives that A) are less expensive (free), and/or B) seen as the professional standard, and/or C) offer perpetual licenses.

    Renting makes sense to (semi)professional game developers and companies, not to hobbyists and small freelancers (which Scirra are primarily aiming at).

    And we (long-time Scirra users who have been with Scirra since version 1 and who hate renting software) have all the right to moan and complain in the hopes that Scirra will change their minds - just as much as you have every right to hail software rental as the best thing ever.

    Very simple: offer BOTH options. Everybody happy.

  • blurymind

    I am currently teaching myself Godot, and Godot's basic architecture using nodes is - dare I say it? - beautiful. The concept is very well thought out, and ideal for game development. Not only that, the one thing missing for me in Construct 2 is the lack of a decent "animate all" timeline. Godot has it. And so many other things.

    Also, I just love how I can use Blender to animate 2d puppets, and the IK and animations are directly supported in Godot. And render 3d models to 2d sprites. Wonderful.

    It might be one of the best 2d engines out there currently - but visual scripting is not part of it (yet). They are working on it, though. It's stunning that Godot is open source and free. But you are correct: Godot's language is easy to pick up.

    I am unsure whether Scirra's decision to switch to a browser-based editor and completely rewrite it was such a good idea, but we'll see what we'll see. I keep saying I won't be part of it, because I am still terribly disappointed about their decision to go rental-only, and it really is a crying shame. I'd rather have preferred real improvements to the editor of Construct, such as a built-in animate-all timeline with graph editor control.

    Luckily, with all the (free) alternatives currently available to 2d game developers, I certainly am not worrying about the future. Frustrated by the Scirra's rental model, though.

  • > You're kinda making a case for choosing open source software here.

    >

    And what do you think happens if key people who maintain open source projects move on? Even open source projects have that sort of risk.

    Of course, I never said this isn't the case. All human endeavours die at some point. At least with open source you cannot suddenly be cut off from your applications for work, unlike rental software (for various reasons both on the developer's part or the publisher's part).

    I'll have to try that sometime.

    Magically make a living by making my code open source.

    Where did I state anyone should open source their software? Now that you mention it though, many people are making a nice living out of open sourcing their work, by the way. You are much too one-dimensional in your thinking, my dear Newt.

    Open sourcing Construct 3 makes for an interesting discussion, actually. It may actually work in favour of Construct's development, and allow Construct 3 to flourish in ways beyond what we can imagine. It all depends on how you monetize and approach it. The Blender foundation seems to be doing just fine financially, and they keep expanding their services (yes, even with subscriptions to content ).

    Just imagine how Scirra could focus on building professional-grade games and improve the software in a real-world scenario, bringing developers and creatives together in a similar way as the Blender foundation - it has worked well for them, so why not for Scirra? I see possibilities, not limitations in a business model like that.

    All depends on how one approaches their business. Not saying Ashley and Tom should go open source, though! (I certainly wouldn't mind, and I'd sponsor them with a $10 a month, like I do Blender).

    I like the way Scirra thinks about this. It should reassure anyone who is worried about Scirra's death in the future. Let's hope it never comes to that.

    Tom may say this may happen, but of course there is no guarantee that it actually will, of course. I have seen too many software companies go under that stated even unequivocally that they would open source their code, but it never happened. EditShare (company behind LightWorks video editor) promised to open source their code six years ago, and nothing happened as of yet.

    Not saying Tom intentions aren't honourable and honest - I am certain they are. And many dead software companies have indeed released their products either for free or open sourced them after their demise, so there's that.

    No-one knows what the future holds for sure, though. For me a rental business model is just too icky and uncertain to touch even with hardened gloves on.

  • I own a Windows tablet with a Wacom digitizer with both pen and touch support, and various smaller Android tablets, and an older iPad 2. From experience I can tell you that doing any real work on the road (outside drawing and ideation) is a very painful and cumbersome process on tablets without an actual keyboard.

    Doing any game development without a keyboard is like trying to run through a river of mud - SO slow and frustrating. I tried. It is no fun at all. Tablets are meant for media consumption foremost.

    The OP mentions large fingers - you will probably need a stylus in that case. Android and iOS pen support is rather primitive, and imprecise compared to Wacom, though.

    Another issue is screen size. For productivity you need something bigger than a regular iPad. An iPad Pro would be okay from this viewpoint, but you would still have to deal with the lack of a keyboard - and you mentioned you do not want to go down the Apple road. But a stylus is offered by Apple to make like easier working on the screen. Fingers, in my experience, are way to in-precise, and prone to errors.

    Android tablets seem to be on the way out - even Nvidia cancelled their upcoming game tablet. The only Android tablet that I might suggest to get at this point is the Google Pixel tablet, but that one's only available in the US, I believe - and anyway, that screen size is too small for actual (game) development.

    Windows tablets like the Surface Pro are very expensive, and you'd be better off getting a notebook for less money.

    Perhaps consider looking into Chromebooks? Those seem to be the next step in the evolution of Android. I've looked at several at the Google booth at BestBuy, and the screen sizes are pretty good, they have keyboards and are convertibles: use them either as tablets or note(net)books. Android apps run in a window, and multitasking is possible.

    Since Construct 3 is going to be Chrome based, a Chromebook seems like the perfect companion for on the road C3 development: you get both a (large) tablet, and a proper notebook for development. Games can be tested in an Android environment. And most of these fall within your budget as well.