Rayek's Forum Posts

  • So the risk you are looking to mitigate here is us going out of business and totally stopping support of our products?

    If we did go completely out of business, shut the doors, and we all went and got other jobs and completely stopped selling Construct, Scirra is completely dissolved, at that point I don't see why we wouldn't give it away or open source it. I mean this event would currently appear to be highly unlikely.

    As others have pointed out, even though Construct 2 is buy once, if we go under in the future and a new bug is introduced by Windows, Chrome or any other supporting software what then? This is a risk with ALL software.

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

    Software rental business models have been a primary reason to me to switch to open source in my pipeline as much as I can. As long as the community is a supportive one, open source software can be as good or better as commercial alternatives, e.g. Blender, Krita, OpenToonz, ... One reason why I have been teaching myself Godot lately. At the very least you yourself and the community has access to the source code in the worst case scenarios.

  • Software comes, and software goes. There are no guarantees that software will be supported long term.

    However, a rental model does have the disadvantage that if the company goes under, or decides to discontinue a product, developers run the risk to be stone-walled in the middle of a project.

    Point in case: Adobe announced a couple of weeks ago that Director development and support will be ending sometime in March. Existing rentals ("subscriptions") will be cut off at that time as well.

    Developers on the Adobe Director forum are not happy about this (understatement) - for example, one developer is in the middle of a project, and it will take him longer than March to finish. Others have projects done for clients (museums, for example) that must be maintained and updated after the March date.

    Unfortunately, those developers who rented the software seem to be out of luck. They contacted Adobe, and asked for some lenience. But they will lose access to Director and with it lose access to their projects sometime this year.

    Director first entered the market in 1985(!). The oldest surviving 'multimedia' producer is now dead. There are no guarantees for software survival. But Director users with a perpetual license may continue to use the software to open their older projects - renters ("subscribers") are at a distinct disadvantage in these type of situations.

    > (And good luck convincing schools and colleges to rent your software - after all the Adobe rental issues experienced in educational environments, they will think twice about adding one more rent to their software lineup.)

    >

    Well, for what it's worth, Construct 2's education license is already a subscription, and that seems to have been working out fine.

    If that is true, I stand corrected. The schools and colleges where I teach abhor rental software.

    Also, you'd rather pay $500 up-front? That gets you five years of usage...

    Again, you are not getting it. I give up.

    [ > > Very well put. > My problem is not with Scirra, which I think is a wonderful company, but it is supporting the software subscription model itself. I will never comply. NEVER. > > I won't be part of the crowd that will make this model successful and make every software go for it. > Imagine every game and every software you own suddenly change to this model. You'll have dozens of "cheap" monthly fees that add up to a monster bill. I, as a user and consumer, will never let that happen. > > My 99 dolars, I mean... my two cents. > Hear, hear.

    > The problem is the payment model and the investment it asks for- doesn't justify a html5 only game engine. Even stencyl - which is very similar in pricing and target audience (perhaps inspiring scirra) can compile to native games and can still export in the free version to one of the targets

    >

    Construct 2 has so many more features than a lot of these other tools, that I'd actually struggle to make a comprehensive list of them all. This is made possible by the fact we use HTML5. It makes cross-platform support a breeze and lots of sophisticated features like networking, audio and video support are provided by the browser. Some tools don't even have form controls out of the box! When comparing to other tools with different technologies, I think it's important to take in to account the actual feature sets supported. Sure, you can pick a tool which has native export for example, but how many features will you lose or gain?

    Sorry Ashley, I love Construct 2 (and you !), but I'd rather switch to tools with less features than bow down to a rental model and become a serf in the digital serfdom. The feeling really runs that deep for me. It's about freedom for me.

    And I am not alone in this. Renting software runs against the blood for many (most?) of us. I just CANNOT bear software rental - it just feels utterly wrong to me. Why do you think Serif is so successful with their Affinity line of products? They advertised right from the start to Adobe users who were unhappy about the rental model. And even though Affinity offers less features, those ex-Adobe users just DON'T CARE. Watch Clickteam do the same with Fusion 3, make my words. They listened to their users - and their users favoured a non-rental option.

    For companies and professionals, sure. Not for me personally. I would have no qualms paying you $500 for a developer's perpetual license, though. This would be easily solved by offering both options: a full perpetual license option, and a rental option.

    My depressed feeling two cents.

    (And good luck convincing schools and colleges to rent your software - after all the Adobe rental issues experienced in educational environments, they will think twice about adding one more rent to their software lineup.)

    I tend to agree with Blurymind.

    In my opinion, a software rental scheme (so-called 'subscription', which it is not!) only works well if

    1) your sofware is the industry standard (people depend on the software for their living), and/or

    2) it is the best in class, and/or

    3) it is unique/fills a niche that no-one else offers, and/or

    4) it offers functionality no competitor delivers.

    Compare to Adobe:

    1) industry standard? Check.

    2) best in class? Mostly, yes. Certainly on a professional level. Check.

    3) Unique? At a professional level, yes, mostly.

    4) offers functionality no competitor can deliver? Yes, for a large part, in particular for professionals again.

    Construct 3:

    1) Nope, C3 still has to proof itself. C2 is not the industry standard either - not by a long shot.

    2) up to a point, as a visual editor, perhaps. But this is marred by its Achilles' heel: lack of native export, and other game dev environments just offer more features (animation timeline, for example!).

    3) No, Construct is not the only visual game editor in town. With competitors improving this aspect (Fusion 3, Godot, Unity&external plugins, ...) it is not unique here. The web export is outstanding, though. Trouble is, the competitors also provide web export, aside from native export.

    4) No, competitors deliver equal or more functionality at this point.

    Here's the rub: as Blurymind mentioned, software rental works well for professionals. If Construct 3 would be aiming at that segment of the market, I believe it might do well. The trouble, though, is that Construct 2 isn't really part of that market. It is mainly small developers, freelancers, and hobbyists for whom Construct 2 is an attractive proposition, and that is how Scirra are marketing their tools.

    Switch to a software rental business model, and I am pretty sure a large (if not the majority) of Construct users will leave for alternatives - or at the very least consider a switch. The market for game engines is just too open, and I can see commercial competitors such as Clickteam rubbing their hands together right now, and I assure you they will offer Construct 2 license holders a cross-update when Fusion 3 comes out later this year.

    On the other side competitors like Unity, Godot, Unreal all offer excellent FREE options for the market Scirra is operating in currently. Why pay the rent for software that is out-classed in most departments (excepting perhaps the 'easy' visual scripting) when so many free escape routes exist? Speaking for myself, I am now teaching myself Godot, and will look into Fusion 3 when it comes out. (Godot is actually quite an amazing tool.)

    Anyway, I just can't see this work out for Scirra. Perhaps I am a cynic.

  • Gravit is a good example of a (new) browser-based app. It works fine for smaller and medium-sized projects, but with more complex designs it starts lagging and slowing down - in particular the viewport performance.

    When I opened the same files in desktop applications such as Illustrator, PhotoLine, Inkscape, Affinity Designer: no problems.

    No matter how you put it, the browser shell is going to slow things down compared to a native desktop application.

    Of course, whether C3 will ever hit that ceiling is a different matter.

    > - 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 agree with Blurymind. The rental scheme is completely unacceptable to me as well. Godot and Fusion3, here I come! <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" title="Very Happy">

  • blurymind Thanks. I will be switching from C2 to something else (due to the C3 rental model). You're on the Blenderartist forums as well. aren't you?

  • Just noticed this only now - purchased! I started work on Blender rendered sprites, and wasn't looking forward to setting up all the cameras. This will save me a LOT of time. Thanks!

    >

    > > MY GOSH LOOOOOL buildobox is so crazy expensive XD even my 3dsmax or photoshop are less expensive than that i definitely stay with cnstruct 2 & 3

    > >

    >

    > Their pricing is similar to Unity's pricing for a license that doesn't require Unity branding or a revenue cap.

    >

    Which is a crazy high price for a 2d game creator that doesn't do half of what Unity provides.

    Gotta love that timeline with curve control, though. I am beginning to understand why the Unity developers are shouting out loud that Unity is getting a timeline - they HAVE to, seeing the competition is heating up.

    A timeline like that makes a lot of things so much simpler to achieve. That is the one major thing Construct 2 is missing at this point for me. It is the main reason I've been doing some exploring in competing game dev software.

    Again, (I sound like a stuck record player I pray on my knees for a proper timeline with a graph editor in Construct 3. I can't quite see the point of a new game editor without one anymore.

    Hopefully we'll find out in a few hours

  • The overhead is around ~60mb with default compression settings - less if you use specialist compression tools like RAR. So if you're worried about the download size, that's a more realistic overhead. If you're worried about the size on disk, why? Modern desktop systems have hundreds of gigabytes of storage.

    In my view this doesn't matter. If you're making a small, casual game, why not just put it in the browser? If you're making a larger game, 60mb isn't much, especially when modern PC games are tens of gigabytes big.

    I started doing this stuff in 8-bit times, and Construct's rather large overhead for small scale desktop games never sat right with me. After playing around in Godot I do see the point of native exporters in this regard.

    Mind, I see the advantages of Construct's approach. But I really think file size, the browser wrapper, and the need to rely on third-party tools to convert the project to work on desktop and mobile platforms are the main downsides when working on smaller games in Construct. I agree it doesn't matter that much when developing medium and larger sized games with a relative large amount of media assets.

    I do not agree with your point about small games. I do not want to rely on a browser platform to release a game, and the additional file size overhead for mobile devices is a bit painful to swallow compared to other engines and dev environments that I have been checking out lately. I think it is just one natural caveat of Construct's export workflow - offset by other advantages, of course.

    Having said that, it's kinda nice to see a similar small project in Godot be compiled to ~17mb<->24mb, and after compressing the resulting file is ~3.8mb up to ~6mb (platform dependent) versus the compressed ~36mb of the Construct version that blows up to a whopping ~120 up to 180mb depending on the platform.

    Anyway...

    I admit I might be making a mountain out of a molehill. More importantly, I sincerely hope for Construct 3 to have a proper timeline. That's really the main reason why I have been checking out the competition these past few months. Crossing fingers

  • I have been trying to work at creating pixel art. I usually start by drawing out a rough outline of whatever it is I am 'trying' to make on regular paper, then I will transfer it over to grid paper where I can see the squares easily and fill them in as needed and desired. Then I will usually scan the page using my scanner and load it into GIMP.

    I am not an artist, and this seems to work okay for me. I have yet to create anything I like enough to put into any of the games I am making, but I hope to get better and good enough for the retro styled games I like making.

    I used to use the same workflow when I first created sprites and graphic blocks on the Commodore 64 - back in 1983!!!

    Nowadays you are really shooting yourself in the foot working that way. Yes, sketching on paper is still very valuable, but actually using grid paper to pencil in squares? Crazy!

    Why not use a dedicated pixel art package? Saves you LOTS of time.

    Popular options are:

    Cosmigo Pro Motion

    GraphicsGale https://graphicsgale.com/us/

    AseSprite https://www.aseprite.org/

    Moai

    Or Krita (although not specialized for pixelart): https://krita.org/en/

    Subscribe to Construct videos now

    http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/08/22/h ... pixel-art/

  • Rayek Thank you, I wasn't aware of Krista, but it seems like it would work great with my Canon 220 scanner.

    I usually work in pixel art but have recently been working in a style similar to that of the French artist Hergé, famous for the Tintin comic book series. Krista seems to be more than capable for the simple line and block colour artwork I produce, however I was slightly confused about saving as a .kra and whether that would be compatible with most game engines.

    Many thanks

    KnivetonStudios

    Krita (not Krista!) saves its native source files as *.kra.

    A *.kra file retains all of Krita's functionality, and is of course not compatible with game engines. To open your files in a game engine, save your file as *png, *psd, *tga, *jpg, etcetera. It depends on the type of asset and the game engine, of course. Png is a safe bet.

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  • I've been experimenting with other game engines lately, and I do feel that this is one aspect of a native exporter that is advantageous. Having your game come out at Construct's 130mb (Windows) up to 180mb(!) (Mac) versus Godot's ~20mb (both Mac and Windows) is somewhat painful.

    Don't take me wrong: I love working in Construct. Still, after trying out other engines in the past few months I am starting to see definite advantages of a native platform export option without having to rely anymore on a third-party browser wrapper to run my games.

    Also frustrating at times is that the NW.js export will not allow us to export for one particular platform only. It generates 5 versions, which I think is unnecessary.

    For my next few projects I am planning to use Construct when web-only output is required. For the desktop platforms I am strongly considering to make the switch to Godot. It depends a bit on the upcoming news on Construct 3. I still have a couple of months before I start work on the next desktop project.