Tom's Forum Posts

    > I don't understand why Tom keeps inviting all this dialog when Ashley is just going to shut him down. I grow tired of the mixed messages. It doesn't give me a lot of confidence.

    >

    Eh? What mixed messages? Please be specific and quote me and Ashley where we contradicted each other.

    Right so your assumption is subscription = no impulse buyers. Or re-reading your posts, are you saying monthly option = impulse buyers but yearly = no impulse buyers? I really don't follow.

    RE impulse buyers and C3, we just wont know until we try. Also not sure why this is a concern when this is a business concern and not something that would directly affect anyone else.

    >

    > We were surprised when we looked at our data at how many impulse purchases we see for Construct 2 (people who seem to buy and only use for a short period of time).

    >

    No, the real way to finish that sentence is: ...and we'd love to find an infailable method of stamping out this suprisingly large proportion of our customers; subscription was the answer.

    What do you mean? I don't understand.

    I'm even more concerned now, based on your response- because I now feel like Scirra is focusing on other things outside the scope of developing a game making tool. It makes me feel less confident in where you are heading.

    We have 3 full time engineers working on C3. Don't be concerned there is no work going into the tool itself.

    Are you saying the stand alone version will use and be reliant on the current Chrome version rather than be a self contained package?

    No sorry, I mispoke. It could be in a self contained package.

    [quote:2tkjawlq]That's one of the reasons I was advocating the option to suspend your subscription, so you could put your subscription on hold for several months if you know you're not going to use it, with this option limited to a few times per subscription so it's not abused.

    That is an interesting idea I will raise with everyone when we next discuss options.

    But you said these are to help with retention- how does all this help with retention? How do these make people feel more inclined to subscribe?

    Retention is for currently subscribed people. Not sure why you don't get why all those things wouldn't help with retention.

    The other languages might introduce it to more people, but that doesn't address retention.

    Yes it would, people native in other languages with be better supported and engaged.

    I don't think a lack of game jams is a reason why people stopped using C2. In fact, when there were any, there was a lot of criticism the community had over it.

    Why are you taking each thing I said as an absolute? It's all part of a bigger picture.

    People may have loved the 3 games you included, but how does that help retention?

    New games/assets being given for free would help with retention. If you don't see that, then it's probably simply because it's not what you're interested in.

    If you ask a person whether they want custom assets for their game that fit specifically for their use or a copy of assets everyone else is using, people will choose the custom ones because they suit their game more closely.

    Good observation I guess, not sure how it's at all relevant. We obviously can't create custom assets for everyone. Or am I misunderstanding your point?

    Let me ask you a a question now, how would you improve retention of users?

    [quote:1pr8ghu8]Better learning resources would be what? Their are already plenty of people providing tutorials as well as responding to questions users have. What would you consider a better resource than this?

    Better tutorial/manual systems, better language capabilities. More official tutorials. etc.

    [quote:1pr8ghu8]Better community engagement? There is already a very active community of users- how do you plan to force people to engage more than they already are- seems like you'd have to somehow give them more time to do it, or make it easier

    You misunderstand me, I mean we engage better. One example would might be a regular schedule of game jams and competitions. Ashley's already making progress in better engagement with a proper suggestions platform as another example.

    [quote:1pr8ghu8]Free asset packs and game templates.. Users already make these, so I don't see how this improves anything for C3.

    People love the 3 games we've included with Construct 3 so far (there's another on the way).

    [quote:1pr8ghu8]but users would rather pay someone to make exactly what they need personally instead of have to rely on assets that are general and for use by anyone

    Sounds like that's what you want, not what users generally want.

    Note I used the word "better". We can always improve in all these areas. I don't really understand what you don't get about that?

    Previously with Construct 2, these users didn't really have any impact on what we do. They are happy to pay us, use it for a brief while then move on for whatever reason (we think it was mainly impulse purchasing - I've bought AAA games on Steam before that I've barely played, guessing it's the same sort of behaviour).

    With Construct 3, we're wanting to keep and engage users more, we're obviously incentivised to do so.

    The shift from Construct 2 to Construct 3 will force us to invest more in retention rather than purely attracting new customers. This can come in lots of forms, better learning resources, better community engagement, free asset packs/game templates etc etc. I know I would say this, but even if you're cynical about the whole subscription thing that has to be a positive for customers.

    The fact is we feel the market is fairly saturated, and we're relying on a steady flow of new customers. Nothing wrong with this, but we have bigger plans. We feel adjusting our revenue model is our best shot at achieving those plans.

    Currently due to new hires, expenditures etc we're running marginally profitable/break even. This is fine as we're on the cusp of a new product launch (a lot of companies lose money in this period!) but we've pretty much hit the ceiling of how far we can grow the Scirra team with our current revenue levels.

    [quote:38mi2na3] I don't think these users will be entirely trusting to dish out $100 for the first year without first testing it adequately, and from my impression the free version is very limited

    We were surprised when we looked at our data at how many impulse purchases we see for Construct 2 (people who seem to buy and only use for a short period of time).

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    [quote:2otb9n5v]As with C2, if someone complains about a bug in an old version, they are told they need to update first, which in this case would mean re-subscribing - which to me is fair enough, as one of the benefits of subscription is updates and bug fixes.

    If a breaking change is implemented by Chrome, the old version could be rendered completely useless. So what's the point? I can imagine the uproar from that, bad publicity and a bad taste left in everyone's mouth.

    We can't do that with the online version of C3, since Scirra want to maintain a single version which is fair enough, hence my proposal to allow edit access with the standalone version.

    This severely complicates support. If someone on a 6 month old version complains about a bug - what do we do? Or, Chrome introduce a breaking change. We have to go back and update every single version. This quickly becomes a maintenance nightmare. We prefer to just have everyone on the latest and greatest version.

    We hear you loud and clear RE monthly option. Right now as someone else guessed we're too close to change anything. We've had discussions in the office which we're all quite positive about where once you've paid for your first year you can then pay monthly.

    Again, this is only internal discussions at the moment, and there's no rush to implement this as we've got a lot of other things to be getting on with and if we did implement it it would take a year before anyone could take advantage of it anyway.

    OK thanks for that, glad it's of interest to other people as well!

    I am sorry, I was not initially aware of X3M's account being hacked and lamar 's behavior

    OK phew, I'm glad we're making progress Am happy to talk to you about your concerns.

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]Regardless of how long these threads lasted, they were eventually getting locked, as obviously they started to become toxic. But that stuff is all bad publicity too.

    We've always just locked toxic stuff since we started. Benefit is we have a nicer community - downside I guess is someone might come and look at is as bad publicity (which quite frankly I'm not sure I beleive - lots of forums have locked threads but I guess if you want to argue that point you can believe it if you want). A trade-off we're happy with.

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]The spambots have been poluting this forum for ages now and having X3M 's account hacked and product removed makes it look like security here is not handled well - directly affecting a vendor and a product on the store (I bought his product btw).

    Two issues here, spam and hacked accounts. It's important they are not conflated as a single issue because they are quite different.

    Spam

    Yes, is a bit problem. Am taking a much more aggressive approach to it on the new website. At the moment, there is no user generated content available (but plans to allow it don't worry as per this site!). I've researched it a lot, learnt what works/doesn't work on Scirra and am extremely confident going forwards it will be less of an issue. I get it's an issue here now. Popular sites will always attract spammers.

    Hacked Accounts

    X3M's is the only hacked account in recent memory (I'm struggling to think of any other examples in our 6 years) that looks like it's been hacked. Your assertion that:

    X3M's account hacked = our security is not handled well

    Is fallacious, it could equally be the password was weak, leaked on another website and he uses the same one here, or he left his computer open, or his email was hacked etc etc. List goes on. The fact we've never seen a wide spread account breach leads me to think it's a one off and not an underlying problem with our security.

    Secondly, with the new site I have upgraded the security in a host of ways. I'm not going to go into them now for a couple of reasons:

    * A lot are numerous and small improvements

    * It's not in our interest to talk about what parts of our security we're improving

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]How integrated is the forum account with the account for using the engine?

    On the new site, virtually not at all. There is some negotiation between the sites to ensure if you sign up on Construct.net though you get a Scirra.com account. We are moving away from the forum as our authentication model.

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]Does construct3 prompt for dropbox password prior to getting access to the hosted project?

    Can you explain what you mean please? Dropbox doesn't just allow anyone to modify anyone elses account. NO payment information is stored on our systems such as CC numbers. All payment data of that nature is handled off site with Stripe.

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]Can a hacker who gained access to an account retrieve other sensitive data from the victim?

    Like every online service out there, if a hacker gains access to your account they will be able to login and look at your account.

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]Retrieving a stolen account - account protection - what measures are there?

    Industry standard SSL encryption

    HSTS implemented on Construct.net

    Improved hashing algorithm for passwords

    Improved rate limiting for brute forces

    Improved infastructure security designed by Rackspace

    Improved support interface with IP lockdown

    [quote:1xa0cxyi]Will the EULA of construct3 free you from any responsibility if the victim loses work?

    Yes, of course. This is completely standard for pretty much all software in existence.

    My question to you now is, how many other companies have you asked these questions to? These are basically pretty bog standard questions regarding operation of a website - and I can't help but feel for some reason you might be treating us differently due to your unhappiness with the direction we're going. Am I wrong or are these concerns you have with all our competitors as well?

    Secondly, I hope you appreciate me responding to you as it's apparent you have no intention of buying Construct 3 from what I can see in other forums and you seem to be one of only a very small number of users engaging in this vein of questioning.

    [quote:1ftke7us]There they dont have to moderate what they say, because they are not afraid of getting banned.

    Stop mischaracterising us as a company who go around banning people who we disagree with. This is patently false. Guess what, if you send abusive and threatening emails to staff members on an individual basis you will be banned.

    Looking at our ban list for the past month, every ban has been either:

    • An abusive user who keeps attempting to circumvent the ban
    • Spammers
    • A single account that was hacked for their own protection (when the user makes contact we can re-open the account)

    It's very frustrating to keep addressing this as your insinuation is flat out wrong.

    [quote:1ftke7us]Can please Tom clarify what happened there?

    Yes, look at his profile he was hacked. The hacker who hijacked his account also attempted to hack our store which caused problems for our sellers (now resolved). The store hack damage was limited to items being taken off sale for a period of 1 or 2 days. No other damage was done as other safeguards worked fine.

    [quote:1ftke7us]Putting aside alienating most users with the new rent license, the senseless way it was announced, the locking of threads and banning of users - you also have spam bots hacking the forum constantly. How are we to see you as a reliable company to pay subscription to?

    Imagine the same crap happening to construct3 as a service - people who paid a yearly license will flip out. Something must be done for these hacks and spam bots!

    I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about here. What hacks and spam are you specifically worried about in affecting your license of Construct 3? Please be specific and I will address each point. To pre-empt some of your responses:

    • We're on a completely new environment, separate from the Scirra domain (this site was built years ago when we were a fresh startup and needed to get it out the door ASAP - it's a victim of it's own success and now needs a re-write)
    • We have Rackspace on contract monitoring and maintaining our new deployment
    • We are deployed on Azure cloud which will scale with our users