Tom's Recent Forum Activity

    Locking this thread, we're done here and it's just going round in circles - and like the other threads is starting to go downhill. Any similar posts, I'm going to lock them for the interim until we're a few weeks into the launch when everyone has cooled down a little bit.

    tldr:

    • We're launching subscriptions
    • We've listened to your comments and suggestions (which has give us some thought/ideas for the future)

    I understand some of our decisions aren't what people were hoping for, but we're risk takers - always have been always will be. We're excited to see what the future brings for Construct.

    There have been a few very thoughtful and well thought out posts, thank you everyone for taking the time to write them.

    I'm sure most people would agree at this point our time is better spent improving Construct!

    Moot, this is why it's so difficult and frustrating to engage both from our end and yours as well I imagine because what you write is logically inconsistant, for example:

    Basically, the jury is still out until the silent majority has spoken with their wallets

    OK, so it's still to be seen if the model we picked will be viable/accepted by our wider customer base.

    I'm afraid no amount of reason or logic will change their minds on this.

    OK, so now we're ignoring logic common sense and the model won't work?

    Can you clarify what your position exactly is?

    [quote:2sg0agad]I'm afraid no amount of reason or logic will change their minds on this. You can always hope for the best, but it hasn't worked so far. The bottom line is that they don't care about your opinion. Of course they'll tell you otherwise, but they have proven as much to us already.

    Don't know what we can say at this point. We are reading and responding to everyone at great expense in terms of time. What your actually asking is for us to change the model to your demands - what you're saying you're asking for is to us to listen. We are listening. We're reading everything. We're not changing our model unless there's a dramatic need to do so.

    The suggestions in this thread have given us additional ideas (such as pausing subscriptions) which we may look at implementing and getting a better understanding of our customer base.

    +1 on that, although a pricing model based purely on simply being cheaper than your competitors is widely regarded as a mistake in tech. I think it's worth stepping back a little as well, as we have orders of magnitude more users and customers than post in these sorts of threads - the financial viability of the way we've chosen is largely going to depend on the silent majority and it would be a mistake to extrapolate from these threads any commentary on our wider audience.

    In short term I can make the most with Construct2/3 but the Constructs limits will eventually limit my possibilities.

    Can you expand a little on what the limits your referring to are?

    The reassurance that would make me happy is that you keep updating it and adding new features to it for as long as it makes sales. Number of sales should = number of updates.

    Right, so there's nothing we can do right now to reassure you?

    Also, I edited in a question to the other post which I think you might of missed:

    • I believe you've mentioned that you don't think we're listening or engaging with the community well enough - what else do you think we could be doing better with regards to communications?

    Since the store has come into the conversation, what are the plans with it?

    Transfer over to Construct.net, or just leave it here on Scirra.com?

    Everything will be transferred over to Construct.net, current plans are to make the store one of the first things to move. It's extremely difficult and will be time consuming though of course.

    How dedicated is Scirra in supporting construct2?

    As we've said, we're going to continue updates into the future as we have been for the last year or so.

    How can you entice construct2 users to upgrade to construct 3, when the majority of them don't agree with the rent license model?

    1) We've got the upgrade deal - 50% off your first year

    2) Signals from these forum threads might indicate to you that the majority don't agree with it. We have ~50,000 monthly active users of Construct 2 (mix of free and paid). Forums are a small representation.

    Discouraging people from buying construct2 would be bad for business, however having it's better licensing model offering is obviously going to make it dificult to make construct 3 license sales.

    Yes, it's a difficult transition we're being careful about.

    Scirra has painted itself in a very tricky corner with this

    I don't think so at all. All our decisions have been thought out carefully over a period of many months. New product launches for small businesses are always risky and difficult. Yes it's risky, but no we don't think we're painted in a corner at all.

    It's very easy to criticise from a distance, but when you're in the trenches on a daily basis there's an abundance of information and decision making going on that you're not aware of.

    As to the credit card - you could have lowered the initial fee to use the scirra store 5$, instead of 50$

    I mean yeah, we could also charge $1. Also it's not $50, it's $25.

    When I want to start selling items on a brand new store - I am not sure if my product will even make 50$

    It's $25. And if you don't have the confidence you will make $25 in sales then don't pay it. It's entirely your choice.

    so if it was more in the impulse buy range price - that would have given me more incentive in trying to make and sell products for c2

    We're not interested in impulse buys for store fees. We're interested in people who want to stick around and sell for the long term.

    You seem completely set on not using Construct 3 which is fine, it's your prerogative. My questions to you are:

    • Why don't you move on and stop worrying about something so much you have no interest in? If it's not for you, that's fine - that's your prerogative
    • If you're worried about Construct 2 support, what reassurances are you after specifically that would satisfy you?
    • I believe you've mentioned that you don't think we're listening or engaging with the community well enough - what else do you think we could be doing better with regards to communications?

    Can I just mention that Scirra has never offered an indie humble bundle deal?

    We were offered inclusion into a Humble Bundle but turned it down for a variety of reasons which we thought quite long and hard about.

    • Often in our opinion is a market signal for product end of life
    • We'd get a tiny amount of money from each sale (even big sales numbers transpire to fairly mediocre final amounts for a business employing several people)
    • It opens up secondary markets which threatens your revenue streams indefinitely (eg resellers)
    • Construct 2 sales were and continue to be strong - strong market value

    For us, not a good business decision because we're still confident in the value of Construct 2 going forwards. This is evidence based as sales from Construct 2 have shown no signs of slowing down even since the Construct 3 announcement.

    Also scirra has an upfront fee if you want to sell items on the scirra store

    Again, a business decision for a couple of reasons:

    • Having a credit card fee to open a seller account gives traceable accountability when someone breaks the law and tries to sell illegal goods
    • It serves as a good barrier of entry preventing lower quality goods

    The revenue from the sellers fee is not simply just to get more money.

  • Sorry Kiwi's Adventure was made specifically for Construct 3 and is not licensed for use in Construct 2.

    We have a steady flow of new customers every day. As you've identified, the difficult part will be one day switching over that traffic into buying Construct 3 instead of Construct 2. As long as it happens reasonably smoothly and at similar levels then we won't have any problems.

    RE subscription companies losing money that's mainly if you're aggressively look to acquire customers, EG spending $150 to acquire a customer you know on average will subscribe for 3x years at $100 p/y. You'll not see a return on that customer until their 2nd years payment. Without investment or reserves, you'll have big cashflow problems. This is an option to explore perhaps in the future, and if we do we're well funded enough to do it if we wanted.

    Launching a new product is always a high risk pursuit for a company (don't underestimate this). Switching to a new payment model also adds more volatility but we're not worried as we're confident in our direction, well funded enough to not have to worry financially and highly confident in the product itself which is the main thing!

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    It was worth trying to convince you how you may hit more customers by letting us continue to work on our projects (at least!) on the standalone version, even when the license has ran out.

    Emphasis on "may". It may work out, it may not. We'll find out soon enough.

    tunepunk

    Old versions are served from a unique URL so they can be run independently of each other.

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Tom

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