Tom's Forum Posts

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    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.

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    [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.

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    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.

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    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.

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

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    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.

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    [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
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    > Haven't banned anyone for voicing their opinion if they keep it civil.

    >

    lamar?...

    I didn't read anything from him that warranted being banned, yes maybe he was hashing up the same points, but that just goes back to my first point in this reply.

    He deserved to be banned, and is never welcome back. You didn't see a lot of personally targeted emails, threats and general revolting behaviour we will not ever tolerate.

    We are not banning people who voice their opinions, and I have no idea where you got that impression from.

    [quote:37ya3ah9]Errmmmm, that what threads like this are about - getting Scirra to change their plans - which you will not do, hence you are not listening.

    We're listening as I've said, and taking it onboard. It's not going to impact our immediate plans as it's in motion and we're confident in our decision and planning.

    People are asking us to listen - and we are. But I think a lot of people asking us to listen are actually asking us to change what we're doing, and won't be happy until we do. That's different.

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    Guys - you just need to move on - Scirra will not listen - Ashley said as much in the last thread he locked.

    We are listening - I think what a lot of people want is not for us to actually listen (which we are doing) but do something different than we've planned.

    This thread and others like it will be locked, users who continue to voice their opinion against it will eventually be banned - and neither will be listened to anyway - so just get out there in google land - There are options.

    A very unfair characterisation. Which threads have been unfairly locked? And looking at our banned list, 99% of people have been banned for spam. Haven't banned anyone for voicing their opinion if they keep it civil.

  • Laura has been working hard with more content for showcase, just need to find time to put it up

  • If you serve an encrypted game or parts of games that are encrypted, the client needs to decrypt it to play it at some point. At that point, it's copyable.

    I believe last time I spoke to Ash about it in the future there is plan for basic XOR encryption on C3 game assets as an option, this just puts a small roadblock up for more amateur copiers. Anyone determined will be able to get around anything else pretty trivially. Beware of other engines that oversell the benefits of encryption.

    Don't forget there is always going to be an overhead when decrypting something which could detract from user experience of your game. It's important to remember this as attempts to completely protect your games are futile - so is it even worth it?

  • Hi there!

    Thanks for the suggestion. We were planning on allowing the teacher to manage accounts, either one of two ways:

    • Create username/password for students
    • Create timelimited codes teacher can create so entire class can login quickly with same code for short durations (eg 2 hours)

    RE the Google accounts, it's an interesting suggestion I'll have a think about!

    We're hoping to release standalone version by end of May.

  • Because it's what we've decided to do as they are a different enough customer to warrant a separate category.

    Unity also categorise similarly.

    [quote:1h52i5h0]What is the real difference between "Monthly paymant" and "Pay to play" if both businesses earn the same?

    Or even "Pay to play" in arcade game machine back to back with "Pay to play" on slot machine?

    If one is more regulated than the other, why does it mean that it should be taxed differently?

    Because the law is explicit in this regard. There is an obvious, explicit and well defined difference legally between casino real money games - and other regular pay to play mobile games.

  • [quote:ooioc3ir]Currently I'm considering a development of gambling games with Construct3, but as it seams, you are making it much harder.

    Again, if you're developing casino style games with no real money involved you don't need a gambling license.

    If you're planning on developing actual gambling games with real money, our license will be the least of your worries because you had tens of thousands up to hundreds of thousands in yearly fees for gambling licenses and compliance.

    Have you taken the initial steps of acquiring a real money gambling license?