Free!

Tom / Ashley . Can you just give us what is covered in the free version? Most people yapping might not even need the subscription features, and can be fully contented with the free version. Unity free is decent, would C3 be the same? We all love to see the Free vs Paid feature list. I don't want to poke you against unity https://blogs.unity3d.com/2016/06/05/subscription-why/, on why they went through a subscription model, then went through a pay to own.

I think Tom mentioned that the free version will let you open projects, but not edit them or export the game... which imo makes it pretty much worthless

I am not surprised at all.

let's see if they reveal in more detail

This is not a unique feature in any way and the games are still bundled with a web browser - thus bigger apk files.

Most other game engines support spitting out a native APK that is not bundled with a web browser like construct's html5 games - thus smaller file size.

Fusion, game maker, unity, unreal - they all compile to android's native apk.

Even free and open source game engines such as Godot export to native apk - without having to do much setup.

None of those engines requires internet connection to export an apk either.

I really don't understand why this is a killer feature

It's still has a number of big disadvantages:

• Your apk is about 80+ mb bigger than a native apk. If your game is 2 mb, when you export it - its 82 mb This is a big deal when you develop for an app store, because there are limitations of file size there

-The games use more memory, because they are played through a web browser

• You require internet connection to export and even have to pay sub fee (the main point - it being BUILT IN is NOT met)

Scirra does not want to make native exporters to save money and you are just thanking them for still having the same problems as before, but instead now you will be using their web server to compile the packages. They are likely using the same technology xdk has and node.js on their server side- so the same apk comes out. Only scirra will be fixing the exporters now.

In the grand scheme of things I would argue that this move makes scirra less competitive, but only time will show. It might work out better for them.

Those of us that are not happy will obviously move on to other engines or stick with construct2.

I don't think that people will stay with c2, even if scirra continues to push out fixes. The moment c3 comes out, it is obvious that all new features will go in it and not in c2

We understand your idea on houses and all, but software is different. I would give you more credit if you compared it to a rent able Car or Power tools. First I think they are determined on their pricing model and will stick to it, irregardless of our voice. Usually small companies need a predictable / forecast-able annual revenue. Scirra will take this risk, from there they would assess whether to change from one-time payment or subscription model.

Look I totally get that and Scirra is in their right to put whatever licensing model or price they want on their product. I am just trying to explain why subscriptions don't feel nice spending money on.. especially now with all the competing products on the market.

Be it a house or a car - renting it out makes it unreliable and changes how and when you use it.

There are a lot of very good game engines that are completely free and make money from the services they offer to professionals. They charge you only when you turn out a huge profit. Those are the engines that real professionals actually use - Unreal and Unity3d!

You know what, that makes them accessible to people to learn - as there are no limitations imposed on the user to create a full game. No limitations on the development period, no limits on the size of the game

That is partly the reason for their success

The more you impose limitations- even to your loyal paying customer, the more you will see them leave for the other engines. This is a domino effect - the number of content created is less, fewer games to advertise the engine, fewer tutorials, less assets on the market. Believe it or not - the quality of a game engine hugely depends on it's community. It is not just the developer. Game engine devs such as Defold understand that very well and even invest huge amounts of money in advertising their free engine

Look guys,

Its like buying a house vs renting a house.

If many houses are on the market and suddenly the one you looked forward to buying is revealed as rent only, you start to look at what else is available.

That reveals a number of houses that have roughly the same price to buy and a bigger set of features. They might need some maintenance in a few years - so you will still pay upgrade fees to be up to date with the latest features. But because you bought them, you feel more secure living in them.

Yes, you have to get used to them, but at least the keys are your keys, not some landlord's. That way you don't feel rushed to constantly look for a proper job in order to not become homeless. You can chill and continue to see the whole thing as a fun hobby

Renting puts huge pressure on the user to spend more time using the service before time runs out. It makes it feel like another job, not a fun hobby. That is essentially what drastically changes scirra's target demographic. It will phase out a lot of the hobbyist users. That is why some people will feel left out

Sebastian going with fusion, basically you get:

• Native exporters
• No subscription fees, fusion 3 license will be one time payment, with a discount for fusion users. What you buy is not a trial, you own it
• Native editor for windows, linux and mac
• No need to rely on third party technology to run the editor or the games, thus the games are not bundled with a glorified web browser that uses more hd space than the actual game's content
• Fusion 3's editor addresses the problems that made c2 the better editor. It seems even better than what construct2 has - from the previews

The only advantage that I can currently see with construct3 is that you can run it on your phone, through a web browser.

That and no need to install anything to get to your development environment.

The other one is scirra's cloud service - that might be a valuable way to backup your project - but we can already do that for free with dropbox.

It is possible that clickteam offers an optional cloud service to do that - key word here being optional

X3M I am pretty sure that Tom made it clear that if you miss paying the rent, you no longer can edit your projects until you do so. You will be running the free demo version instead. And if your project exceeds the limitations (which it most certainly will), the editor will lock you out of it - putting your whole enterprise on hiatus until further payment.

I asked Clickteam to confirm if Fusion 3 will be subscription based as well.

One of the main developers (Marv) has confirmed that it will not be subscription based like construct3

https://community.clickteam.com/threads ... post714137

They are already talking about what's going on here and bracing their server for the flood of construct2 users <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_lol.gif" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing">

So far the only hope for scirra is that construct 3 will come out a month or two before fusion 3, in that period of time if by some miracle they manage to change people's views on the whole license thing (which seems to be the main issue for most users here) - it might not be as bad

It will be interesting to see how things develop. I see that this community has a number of very loyal users and that the company has experience with going against the tide . hats off for that. I will be very impressed if this turns out to be a success! The technology itself is exciting- the editor being pure html5 makes a lot of sense and imo is a brilliant step towards making it run everywhere. I got excited about it running on mobile. But the price and the type of license still does not justify what we get from it, when you pit it against the competition - both game maker and clickteam fusion have a better deal. What else is in that editor that makes scirra so confident? It makes me want to wait and see what will be revealed.

I think that this voting thread would be more fair if you still had to pay for major version upgrades. Paying once for a lifetime does not make sense , but paying rent makes even less sense. I would rather vote for something in the middle - pay for major version upgrades that bring new features that are worth it. So pay once for 3, then pay upgrade fee to bump up to 3.5 and so on

what about addons you buy for it?

do you have to rent them as well?

You pretty much lose access to all of your investment once you miss a payment

i would opt in if the editor continued to be usable as well

Most of these petition and anti-subscription threads will be closed anyways