Tom's Forum Posts

  • All great points and posts. We do read all of them, and are considering everything.

    The special forum for license holders, and possibly other online benefits (if we can think of them) are all things we want to do. The website is going to have a massive overhaul, to become a more exciting and interactive place for everyone.

  • I've already cast my vote for animations and have no intention of taking it back. But a method of online and offline saving for games would eventually be nice.

    With online, I'd imagine you could even make a basic CMS.

    Online save games can be achieved either with:

    • Cookies (unsecure)
    • HTML5 local storage (haven't read too much about this)
    • Server side technology

    Plugin pairs, IE, a plugin for construct which works in tandem with a server side plugin (a PHP script for example) could be especially powerful and offer lots of functionality.

  • It's a careful balance between making the product accessible, getting a large user base, offering value to customers and sustainability of Scirra.

  • I'd use pounds instead of dollars as well.. Dollars are worth *** and are pretty damn unstable..

    edit: And stop whining about the commercial license. It's a pretty good deal! You only need it when you earn over 20.000 pounds with your games. That's a whooping 32.490 US Dollars at the moment. 1.000 dollars in costs is only about 3% of your earned 32.490 dollars.

    And it's pretty fair since you use their software to create your game in the first place..

    Don't forget that it's roughly $1,000 for a ten year license which means if your company is turning over $20k annually, in the ten year period you would have turned over $200,000, so $1,000 seems like a reasonable charge during that period. I expect 99% of people to fall into the standard ?39 license.

  • BUDDY, thanks for clarifying. We understand there are people out there who prefer royalties, but from our point of view that would be a very time consuming and logistically very difficult operation to organise. Also, it relies on the fact that someone is going to have to put in a lot of time managing all the royalties, it get's really tricky. We actually think the simple payment option is better for both parties in terms of flexibility.

    Yes we are based in the UK. Prices for proposals are being initially quoted in � sterling, this may change at a later date.

    Currency conversions are pretty bad $-� at the moment, and have been for a while now, we are aware of this and aware of frustrations that can arise because of bad market conditions. We will do everything we can to make sure the price we offer gives customers good value, and sustainability for the future of Scirra.

  • >

    > The other thing is that I though the amounts of money were a touch low.

    >

    >

    Maybe to you, but thanks to conversion rates the ?599 option (for example) would be nearly $1,000 for me. Which at that price point, there are far better options available, as much as I like Construct.

    Hi Buddy,

    Discount license

    • For indie/personal use where associated revenue < ?20k/yr, or non-profit/educational use
    • Buy for ?149 future-proofed with 10 years of free updates

    Commercial license

    • As with discount, but for business/commercial use or where associated revenue is > ?20k/yr
    • Buy for ?599 future-proofed with 10 years of free updates

    $1000 for 10 years future proofing comes out to $100 a year. You only need this license if you have a revenue >$20,000. If you went for the $1k 10 year license, in that period of time you would have turned over $200,000. The construct license represents 0.5 of that total minimum revenue.

    If you are earning <$20k a year from associated revenue, you only need the ?149 for 10 years future proofed license, or ?39 per 2 years.

  • Notepad++ is excellent, if you want to go more advanced then download Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express (100% free).

  • To expand on the idea of 30 day trial:

    • All updates are lagged behind
    • After 30 days you can still use the software for personal use!
    • After 30 days though you will have to endure a program start up message.

  • I hate the idea of C2 going the same way as every other commercial game creator tools.

    when I was thinking about C2 going commercial I was thinking how big it could get if you guys added so social components like facebook, youtube, xbox live, steam, etc

    that is way I wrote this post

    The fact that you said that c2 is going to take up to 2 years to catch construct 0.x.

    You might not add the features I want to use for some time and, there will be bugs.

    I could just wait for 2 years.

    There is no way I will pay.

    If I am putting up money I want to be able to make the game I want right away.

    I am kind of disappointed at the fact that it seems that you guys are thinking so much out side of the box when it come to commercializing your product to the same level that you did when you started program Construct 0.x, to C2.

    I understand your frustration, but we are thinking long term. This is healthier for construct in regards to it's future.

    Unfortunately the reason most game tools went down this path is because pretty much the only sustainable model to allow developers to work full time on it.

    I love your ideas about social components, and we have every intention of allowing interaction with these tools where possible in C2.

    The Alpha license is meant to offer a long term cheaper deal for people who adopt Construct early. I totally understand that you will only pay for a completed product, but that just means the Alpha license isn't for you.

  • I'm also not a fan of commercial non-official plugins/exporters.

    Money's not a problem, in any amount, I just think that (a) you need to keep your revenue streams future-proof, and (b) people need to get value for money from their official purchase.

    Absolutely correct about people getting value for money from official purchase. This is why I mentioned the plugin exchange would not have the paid option added until we felt there was a big enough volume and variety of free plugins out there.

    We really want to give as much value as we can in the product.

    How come you haven't come up with license upgrade prices?

    It doesn't have to be complicated.

    Just allow people to pay the difference.

    We're not talking physical goods here, so there's no depreciation value to be factored in.

    It's a little bit more complicated than that, because:

    User 1 buys normal license

    User 2 buys normal license

    1 month later user 1 upgrades for total cost of new license - amount paid

    1 day BEFORE user 2's license expires, he upgrades.

    Both paid the same amount, but license expiries would be different.

    Although, as you point out it wouldn't be hard to work out, we're just considering options at the moment.

    Again, it's all pretty irrelevant to me while there's no .exe export.

    The projects that I'm working on involve Unity, Construct 0.x, and Java, so maybe when I'm done with those, Construct 2 will be worth looking at (for the reason I've stated several times already).

    The problem is, I may well be more than happy with the toolset that I've used to make those, and may not choose to add another.

    I fear you may push away other Construct users without the inclusion of an .exe exporter early on too.

    That's a fair opinion, and as we always have said, an EXE exporter will eventually be included.

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  • Hey ash and gull, I don't want to sound like a nag screen, but what do you think of the nonofficial plugin revenue sharing thing in addition. I don't think you've voiced an opinion either way yet. It will give you a more constant stream of income. The larger the community, the more plugins made, AND the more plugins bought, so it'll be another revenue stream. Plugin devs could still have the option to not use the official plugin shop, so it wouldn't be a restrictive thing. They would just have that option of extra exposure and free hosting, and placement on the ranking/download list.

    This would help you make more money off of users who are unable or unwilling to pay for either license model. And once again to make more money off the people who bought license in between their 2 year things. And it isn't evil, because you're not restricting users from any official features

    Not at all naggy! We welcome all suggestions.

    A plugin exchange of some sort is definitely on the books for the new website. I've discussed it with Ashley, and we are open to the idea of commercialising it in the future (don't get scared, this means if you make a plugin you can either choose to have it on the exchange as free, or paid).

    However, before we offer this service to developers, we would want to reach a critical mass of users/visitors so it's actually a viable and realistic service and not going to be a big wet flannel on the website. We would also want a critical mass of free plugins, so that no user would feel that buying add on plugins is a requirement to using the software.

    Again, nothing set in concrete in this regards, but we are definitely open to it.

  • Hi Kearel,

    You make a good point about competition stimulating the industry and basically being a positive for people who use this software!

  • Details haven't been fully worked out for that but we are aware of the possibility of having an upgrade license. If we offer an upgrade option, it will be at a fair discount taking currently active licenses into consideration.

  • There are no plans for upgraded versions, it is one continuous modular program which is why a purchase will future proof the next 2 years of updates as supposed to the current version of updates.

  • Hi!