Interested to know how we voice a general priority. Here's the rub.
I don't bombard support with feature requests as they have been asked for before and I assume they are being looked at. I guess there are many users like me. IMHO PRO members should have a voice with GS for feature direction. I do believe that there are enough of them to give a good cross-section of the community and many are advocates that will ensure fairness. Also a pro membership can't be duplicated in a voting process, unless you pay twice.
Here's an idea.
You have a definite amount of resources to put towards a development. You allocate that (assumption here) across, support, medium term and long term initiatives and also try to balance the community requirements.
Each of the features has a estimated development time (i.e. a cost). Give each PRO user 100 credits and provide a list of features that amount to say a total of 400 credits. Something like this...
1. AdMob (25 credits) 2. Align Actors & Snap to Grid (15 credits) 3. Zoom in Editor (10 credits) 4......... 25. Some of other equally cool new features or fix.
I've excluded things like new engine as this is in progress and will bubble up soon or later :-).
Every (period) of your choice, invite the PRO's to indicate their preferences but they are [CONTRAIN ATTRIBUTE game.Budget = 100] credits. Therefore they can't pick all of them and have to make some hard choices themselves.
Out of this get a top ten and then pick 2 or 3 items and make a plan to implement them. Repeat, repeat.
Outcome should be an element of the development is community driven, fair and give the PRO membership some addition benefits which, might and I say might, increase the conversion rate as people become passionate about the product and what they can achieve with it.
I know its totally off topic, but, hopefully you could run with the idea or something similar which gives you some good (real-time) feeling of what people want. If you have had 1000's of responses and some items are trailing in 100th place then those people know and of course if its near the top then it should help with the roadmap and PR.
@uptimistik I use the term "features" loosely to represent all the improvements to GS as a whole. Again, I'll address your concerns in more detail in the roadmap post.
@KiwiLee thanks for the feedback on a proposed process for feature requests. In the past we've done Pro only surveys that factor heavily into our roadmap. Probably a good time for an updated one.
I don't want to stir up trouble, but i really find it hard to believe that the outcome of the pro surveys for feature request concluded that HTML5, KIIP, PlayHaven and WINDOWS came out on top.
Wow, who are you? It's like I don't even know you anymore. Ha!
Actually, Windows and HTML5 are great features. The problem with HTML5 is that development seems to have ceased and the games are tethered to gamesalad.com.
I can tell you that we’re targeting a mediation solution that will provide access to multiple networks (including AdMob), works on both iOS and Android, has excellent international coverage and fill rates, and has a great reputation for being one of the most effective monetization solutions in the industry.
That's a great sounding paragraph... aside from the word "mediation". I think that a big part of the problem with Pro. How can it be professional if GameSalad keeps getting in the way?
Why not keep Kiip and let Pro subscribers manage their own accounts?
Frequently I read posts where developers say you shouldn't buy a game development tool for what it promises to do, but what it does now.
Many of us did not want Kiip when it was suddenly introduced. Many were excited to try it. Now it is suddenly being removed. No alternative is in place. Only promises of something better?
First and foremost, thank you @SF for your clarification on these issues. It really speaks volumes about GameSalad when their CEO cares enough to answer questions that a community manager chooses to ignore.
After reading your post @SF, I somewhat understand why you have chosen to drop Kiip, but I think all of your concerns about maintaining Kiip support can be answered to justify continuing or dropping support for the Kiip Rewards System.
1) it (Kiip) did not have strong coverage internationally, making it ideal for US games only
While Kiip didn't sport strong international coverage, the US App Store is still a very strong market, and definitely a good test market, if you will, to determine if Kiip will be popular in App Stores around the world. I can't speak for other developers, but I would make the assumption that most developers (myself included) sell the most units in any given day in the US App Store more times than not.
2) we noticed that unless your game had a certain threshold of traffic, it was hard to generate significant revenue compared to traditional ad networks
The problem with that argument is that first of all, Kiip had the potential to earn the developer more revenue than traditional ad networks could, as indicated by the Kiip announcement 6 months ago. Second of all, Kiip stood out from traditional ad networks in a positive way by taking a new approach to advertising. Instead of flashing a banner on the player's screen, Kiip would actually reward users for their achievements in the game with an actual, real world item. Something that other ad networks do not do. And as far as the certain threshold of traffic goes, it would be even more challenging to earn the same revenue from traditional ad networks like AdMob due to their low eCPMs then it would be to earn the same amount of revenue from Kiip, which promised higher amounts of revenue for the developer, with the same amount of traffic to the app.
3) it required our developers to integrate the service into the game design process, which resulted in unexpectedly low adoption by developers.
As others have mentioned, the reason some developers chose not to integrate Kiip into their games was not due to the fact that Kiip had to be incorporated at the game design level. Instead, the reason for the low amount of developers publishing with Kiip is because GameSalad failed to provide a good reporting process to insure users that developers were in fact making good money with the Kiip Rewards System integrated into their apps. I guarantee you @SF, that if there was a real-time reporting system set up for Kiip that gave developers a good idea of how much money could be generated from a Kiip app, more developers would me more likely to introduce the system into their apps. The bottom line is this. If people knew that if they made a good app and put Kiip Rewards in that app, then their revenue potential would be X, you would have more developers integrating Kiip, regardless of the fact it had to be done at the game design level.
Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to state these concerns to the community, especially on a weekend when your community managers would not. However, I still believe that all of your concerns, as laid out in your above post, would be put to rest if two things happened.
1) If GameSalad did not drop support for the Kiip Rewards System in the next release of GameSalad Creator, and put another 6 months into the feature.
2) If GameSalad introduced a proper reporting system quickly for Kiip and Playhaven, or at least let the developer manage their own account so they would know how their Kiip app(s) were preforming so that information could be shared with other developers on the forums asking if they should incorporate Kiip into their apps too.
While it doesn't seem likely, I hope you reconsider your decision to drop support for Kiip in the next release, otherwise I fear you will set a poor precedent - if GameSalad drops support for one advertising solution after only a few months regardless of the excitement they generated at the beginning, why would they not do the same for other ad solutions that were not preforming. This makes myself, and other developers I am sure, less likely to introduce a third party ad network into their games. I, for instance, just spent 6 months integrating Kiip into my current games only to have to waste more time releasing another update for 6 apps to remove Kiip support in only two months.
One thing is for sure though. If the decision to remove Kiip stands, this will leave a very bad taste in my mouth that will make my decision to start learning Corona easier to make then before.
Friends, Romans, Gamesaladeers, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Kiip, not to praise him.
But seriously…
Firstly, I'd like to thank Steve for taking time out to talk to the community. This kind of communication is much appreciated by many.
I have to echo what @tshirtbooth mentioned. There used to be a time, before the investors took over I might add, when I was truly energised and excited with each new release of GS.
But then, it seems, the money men came in and the priorities changed.
I waited nearly a year for a pause feature to be RE-implemented. I rejoiced when we got GameCenter leader boards, yet achievements were added months and months later.
I was asking for Twitter integration in December of 2010. There is still no Facebook integration.
Time and again I asked for features that would help improve the games I make. To make them more appealing to the people that pay for them and play them.
Because really, that's what's important. If I can keep my players happy, then you keep *me* happy.
Instead, with every release, we'd have a conference call where the GS staff sound excited about this new stuff they're introducing which we never asked for, and few really care about.
In these situations the enthusiasm in their voices sounds strained. As if they half expect us to be enthusiastic and excited for stuff like Kiip or PlayHeaven, when really all I want is something that will even the playing field in a crowded market.
And then they sound disappointed
When I make a game, I make the first scene as perfect as it can be before I add anything else. Think of it as trying to iron out all the bugs and features in the first level before I build the other 99 for example.
The Mac creator is level 1. It should have been goddamn near perfect before branching out to level 2 (android), 3 (html5) and 4 (windows).
In the end I gave up trying to help. Because I can only bear to hear "Yeah, we know that's important. We're working on it" so many times before the next build that fails to have anything of the sort in it. And the next. And the next.
It is *beyond* frustrating for me, but I soldier on because I truly love this software. It has completely changed my life, and that is no exaggeration.
I have been patiently waiting for the new engine stuff but my patience is wearing thin. We needed that last month if I'm honest. And we need it to be as 'backward compatible' friendly as possible. I think it may just kick-start my love affair with GS again when it arrives.
Just please, don't make me wait much longer!
Despite some massive FUBAR situations, I still have a lot of love and respect for the staff at GS, and they all still get sheepyhugs. They have always been friendly, and helpful when possible. They have, on occasion, bent over backwards to do stuff. I know it's never easy, I know this first hand, and I truly, truly appreciated it.
On a related note, I've read a couple of people moaning about the community manager.
Give SSS a break.
I've worked with many community managers in the past myself, and it's a thankless task. Typically these are people that are passionate about what they do, and want to help and grow the community tied in with the product they represent.
Unfortunately, community managers have to typically run an answer past management before they can respond to queries. This, again, is largely due to incomplete or work in progress features and managing expectations.
Community managers are go-betweens. They are the link between us and the 'higher ups'. They can only tell us/respond to us if management gives the all clear.
Yeah, I agree. @SSS does a solid job of keeping us malcontents at bay. I don't blame him personally for anything that's going on with the tool or direction of the company.
I echo most everything else that's been said by my fellow GS veterans. I wish the decisions being made for the direction of this tool were more akin to the needs of the community.
I personally can't spend any more time waiting or harping on why we need faster turn around times on issues that arise, or features like searchable tables, or better HTML5 exporting options, or Sandboxing for Mac (Apple gave 8 months warning..), Android builds that run no where as well as their iOS counterpart, et al.
If you can't use the tool to deliver a full featured application that runs the way people buying it would expect, that's where it ends for the developer. Nobody is going to recommend that app to a friend and more times than not they're going to leave a poor review when they notice things like music skipping, buttons sticking, etc.
You build the software so the people using it can get the most out of the platforms they're working on. We then become the evangelists and tell people how f*(#$ing awesome it is to develop with the tool, and that's how the company expands. I nearly lost when I had a request several months ago to talk about my GameSalad success stories.. really?! I could have written a book, but it wouldn't have been about success.
I love this tool, and its potential, but it's killing me.
I'm very eager to see this "road map". As QS and TSB have said before, I'm very tired of hearing "We want that too" and "We're working on it". Its really refreshing to see the community come out to air their grievances in such an open and civil manner, in part because I see a collective voice that is mostly united in its grievances. GS, SF, I really hope you're listening. And while I should note that I am not referring to myself, many of the other posters in this thread are the absolute core of your forum system, by which nearly all users seem to learn GS. If that core of users were to leave (and you know which ones, the ones who have been here since the beginning), I think you may permanently damage the growth of GS as your new user base would face a much steeper learning curve.
The competitors are either closing the gap or soon to be eclipsing GS, and that should be considered unacceptable!
So please, stop with the Windows, TenCent, Kiip, IceCap Games, and whatever other random projects you're working on, and fix the myriad of details that should have been addressed many ages ago. I, and so many others, want to use GS as a tool, not a toy. I want to make quality games, make them efficiently, and monetize them as to aid my success. We keep seeing so many stumbling blocks, and it appears the reason is because GS is a dog chasing squirrels.
Frankly, I don't care for Kiip and never did ... The problem comes with spending the time to implement these features and then simply remove them because they're not making you guys as much revenue as expected ... This would be fine, if so many other parts of the software wasn't lacking!
You seem to always want to be at the forefront of something new, this is great but it seems like things do not get done properly and how they should due to this. Why spend months of negotiation and implementation on something new and untested like Kiip, where as you could just give us the industry standard Admob and everyone would be happy with that? iAds, Admob and Playhaven .. Its all thats needed, certainly for now!
HTML5 could be so much more if you would lose the shacks of tying it to you, I'm pro, i use my own splash screens, why should it be hosted on GS and branded .. I pay for pro to remove things like this!
Windows, I understand, its a great move in increasing your user base etc
I know theres separate teams doing separate things and this doesn't slow the Mac guys down ... reality is, if you didn't have these teams there would be more heads and more resource working on the Mac, working on the LUA drop, fixing all the bugs, implementing things like Joints ... Stuff that we can actually use to make our games better and the experience richer for our paying customers!
My thoughts on it overall, I love the software GS but fixes are terribly slow and so are the new features being implemented!
Steve, first let me say I'm glad to see that you personally posted here, it shows a willingness to take responsibility for decisions and that is great leadership. What we all sense and see is a lack of organization and planning and it shows in the updates and the forums, as well as with most interactions with GS staff. As a business owner as well as having a degree in leadership and management, many of the mistakes and disorganization can and should have been avoided. I understand that no company is perfect but a few mistakes are one thing, unfortunately it is a continuing trend with GS. GS is a tech company yet I notice the constant problems on the back end of the network and the lack of intergration across things. This is poor planing as well as not building out with a broad idea of what might be added to the system. I seriously think GS needs to evaluate it's vision and culture to demand more quality and performance from it's staff. Anyone with experience can see these problems bleeding through to even this level of interaction and that's not a good sign. communication and information comming from this company to it's paying customers who rely on their software to earn money, to put it bluntly, sucks. Does anyone on staff have a PR or Communications degree? Change, as you know Steve, starts with the leadership at the top. Start demanding better results from your staff and trust your loyal customers by giving them honest solid information.
Well it seems that the topic is hot, many people angry ... :-/ I have to say that like quantumsheep GS has changed my life, I have a business and live, it is amazing and thanks to GS, so I can not deny, much less forget, Thanks GS, but like many I'm tired of promises that never arrive or take a long time coming, we need to stay ahead of other software, for example if the retina iPad 3 has the next week to support GS should retina, not a few months later, always arrived late (I understand you have lots of work) but as you might not have even integration with Facebook?, or power shift to multiplayer games? Or Android because we can not share on Twitter? Or have advertising on Android? Or because we have In-App in Android? every time I finish a game for the IOS if I want to get to Android I have to remove many features. It is clear that some things are NOT doing well. And above all, may take months for each update, I find that unacceptable. Still I am convinced that GS will come out ahead and will do great things for the community. Good luck!
One more thing, I usually read books on leadership, success, etc. And all the books say that, "To be the best, you have to surround yourself with the best" (not sure if the translation is correct) I only say this to you to put your gaze in Deep Blue are the best and throwing every tool is a blessing, why not work with them? Or implement their plugins in the software? They are great together and I'm sure you could greatly improve the tool GS
Has anyone used Admob? Not impressed with $ per clicks. About a year ago I put some android apps out. Doing a little testing using Admob, inmobi and Mobclix. --- Just a quick rundown. Admob was paying almost nothing (replaced it asap). Immobi is still running on some apps not the best results here either. User base is about 80k per app and making only 70-100 per month now I had a learning curve as to when and how to display ads ect. Overall I went with mobclix because I could get admob and a lot others. Also I could do my own banners to help promote new app/game. (Only issue with mobclix sometime they pay late). I think we should have the options, if you want to make money on google play.. Free with ads. People just don't like to pay for games. Look at some of the top paying games on Android, check the download count.. Some of the top ones google promoted for .10 cents.. So take that into consideration too.
Its great to see a really constructive discussion taking place, especially with guys like tshirt and qsheep involved, and wonderful to see @SF amongst it. Thanks Steve.
Like a few others here I've been with GS from the days of the 'early bird' pro subscriptions, when Gamesalad was just talking about the possibility of publishing to iOS. I purely came to Gamesalad to make iPhone games, that was it, full stop. The one thing that I've been trying to rally for and bring to everyones attention as much as possible has been the performance improvements. Gamesalad is a great tool and almost anything can be built with it if you use the tool creatively however the performance is still unacceptable for iOS development.
That was in December of last year and I think the point that everyone's trying to make is that important updates like the performance seem to have been bumped back for features that the members who've been with you from the start arent interested in. Features like Android, Windows and HTML5 have all come at the expense of solidifying iOS - the core of Gamesalad.
I'm a huge fan of Gamesalad and I really hope that our feedback is taken on board and can help to shape it into an even greater piece of software! I look forward to reading your new roadmap.
- Everything on creator working 100% before introduce new features. Ex: Display text behavior is horrible.
- A roadmap listing how and when this "bugs" or "malfunctions" will be solved.
Thats simple. We use this tool everyday. We can help to improve it. We dont care if gamesalad don't do everything now. We just wanna the current features 100% working.
When you say: "Those currently utilizing Kiip will continue to collect revenue until October 31st, 2012. Final payments on Kiip revenue will be processed by the end of the 2012 calendar year."
Do you mean GS will keep payout out revenue until the October 31st, 2012. Then revenue after the October 31st, 2012 will be payed out at the end of the year?
or
GS will track the revenue until the October 31st, 2012 and will then it will be payed out at the end of the year.?
If the answer it the second one what happens to the revenue that Kiip would of been paying out after October 31st, 2012? Does Kiip get to keep it?
I'm fairly certain the kiip behavior will no longer function in games after October 31st, thus there is no revenue for anyone to keep after that date. As for whether kiip enabled games will break? I have no idea, and that's an interesting question.
Some day in the future I keep hoping GS will come up with a way to allow third parties to develop native plugins. This would free up GS in-house developers to work on core issues while allowing the functionality of the overall environment to grow exponentially. It never hurts to hope :bz
I just wanted to add a little more to my last comment regarding "Will the apps that are in the stores still work?"
My reason for asking this is if the games still work and assuming each app has some kind of tracking number, why can the tracking and payouts not be transferred over to the owners of the apps directly from Kiip. No more support from GS would be needed and as long as the publishers don't version the apps the apps would be fine. Speaking as a developer this seems like the best solution for all of us. We get to keep our apps up in the store that we have slaved over, and maybe we will see a small return on them, Kiip get to keep more apps up on the store and GS can feel happy that they made the customers happy.
We currently do not have plans for AdMob integration. But, we are in discussion with other future monetization partners to meet the need of our developer community. This includes looking into Android monetization options and better options for our international developer community.
Wow... what is it about AdMob that GameSalad doesn't like?
It's ridiculously easy to add AdMob to an app. Oh sure, it's harder to do as a GameSalad behavior, but I imagine that's no more difficult than the iAds behavior.
meet the need of our developer community
What if the developer community feels that they need AdMob? I admit that I don't even like AdMob... but it is something of a standard. It's also a great solution for Android and iOS apps — as it works on both. The house advertisements feature is really nice for promoting your other apps.
Why continue to tarnish your brand by looking for other options but AdMob? After what just happened with Kiip, I thought you'd be more agreeable. Shouldn't your top goal be to keep paying subscribers happy? $299 a year is a lot of money. Why should these customers be restricted? If you want to look for other options, that's cool... maybe include those too... but why should paying customers have to be further restricted?
I may not like AdMob since Google took it over, but I know I could probably get my $299 back with it. I was making some pretty good money with AdMob before I started with GameSalad.
Couldn't agree more. I wouldn't mind if you came to us and said "We are replacing kiip with admob." Remove it when you have something to replace it. But just removing it because "we haven't had enough developers utilize this feature in order to justify ongoing maintenance." Didn't us pro users pay $299 to be able to use that feature? I would think that would justify it.
Comments
Interested to know how we voice a general priority. Here's the rub.
I don't bombard support with feature requests as they have been asked for before and I assume they are being looked at. I guess there are many users like me. IMHO PRO members should have a voice with GS for feature direction. I do believe that there are enough of them to give a good cross-section of the community and many are advocates that will ensure fairness. Also a pro membership can't be duplicated in a voting process, unless you pay twice.
Here's an idea.
You have a definite amount of resources to put towards a development. You allocate that (assumption here) across, support, medium term and long term initiatives and also try to balance the community requirements.
Each of the features has a estimated development time (i.e. a cost). Give each PRO user 100 credits and provide a list of features that amount to say a total of 400 credits. Something like this...
1. AdMob (25 credits)
2. Align Actors & Snap to Grid (15 credits)
3. Zoom in Editor (10 credits)
4.........
25. Some of other equally cool new features or fix.
I've excluded things like new engine as this is in progress and will bubble up soon or later :-).
Every (period) of your choice, invite the PRO's to indicate their preferences but they are [CONTRAIN ATTRIBUTE game.Budget = 100] credits. Therefore they can't pick all of them and have to make some hard choices themselves.
Out of this get a top ten and then pick 2 or 3 items and make a plan to implement them. Repeat, repeat.
Outcome should be an element of the development is community driven, fair and give the PRO membership some addition benefits which, might and I say might, increase the conversion rate as people become passionate about the product and what they can achieve with it.
I know its totally off topic, but, hopefully you could run with the idea or something similar which gives you some good (real-time) feeling of what people want. If you have had 1000's of responses and some items are trailing in 100th place then those people know and of course if its near the top then it should help with the roadmap and PR.
Best
Lee.
Actually, Windows and HTML5 are great features. The problem with HTML5 is that development seems to have ceased and the games are tethered to gamesalad.com. That's a great sounding paragraph... aside from the word "mediation". I think that a big part of the problem with Pro. How can it be professional if GameSalad keeps getting in the way?
Why not keep Kiip and let Pro subscribers manage their own accounts?
Riip Kiip
Many of us did not want Kiip when it was suddenly introduced. Many were excited to try it. Now it is suddenly being removed. No alternative is in place. Only promises of something better?
After reading your post @SF, I somewhat understand why you have chosen to drop Kiip, but I think all of your concerns about maintaining Kiip support can be answered to justify continuing or dropping support for the Kiip Rewards System. While Kiip didn't sport strong international coverage, the US App Store is still a very strong market, and definitely a good test market, if you will, to determine if Kiip will be popular in App Stores around the world. I can't speak for other developers, but I would make the assumption that most developers (myself included) sell the most units in any given day in the US App Store more times than not. The problem with that argument is that first of all, Kiip had the potential to earn the developer more revenue than traditional ad networks could, as indicated by the Kiip announcement 6 months ago. Second of all, Kiip stood out from traditional ad networks in a positive way by taking a new approach to advertising. Instead of flashing a banner on the player's screen, Kiip would actually reward users for their achievements in the game with an actual, real world item. Something that other ad networks do not do. And as far as the certain threshold of traffic goes, it would be even more challenging to earn the same revenue from traditional ad networks like AdMob due to their low eCPMs then it would be to earn the same amount of revenue from Kiip, which promised higher amounts of revenue for the developer, with the same amount of traffic to the app. As others have mentioned, the reason some developers chose not to integrate Kiip into their games was not due to the fact that Kiip had to be incorporated at the game design level. Instead, the reason for the low amount of developers publishing with Kiip is because GameSalad failed to provide a good reporting process to insure users that developers were in fact making good money with the Kiip Rewards System integrated into their apps. I guarantee you @SF, that if there was a real-time reporting system set up for Kiip that gave developers a good idea of how much money could be generated from a Kiip app, more developers would me more likely to introduce the system into their apps. The bottom line is this. If people knew that if they made a good app and put Kiip Rewards in that app, then their revenue potential would be X, you would have more developers integrating Kiip, regardless of the fact it had to be done at the game design level.
Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to state these concerns to the community, especially on a weekend when your community managers would not. However, I still believe that all of your concerns, as laid out in your above post, would be put to rest if two things happened.
1) If GameSalad did not drop support for the Kiip Rewards System in the next release of GameSalad Creator, and put another 6 months into the feature.
2) If GameSalad introduced a proper reporting system quickly for Kiip and Playhaven, or at least let the developer manage their own account so they would know how their Kiip app(s) were preforming so that information could be shared with other developers on the forums asking if they should incorporate Kiip into their apps too.
While it doesn't seem likely, I hope you reconsider your decision to drop support for Kiip in the next release, otherwise I fear you will set a poor precedent - if GameSalad drops support for one advertising solution after only a few months regardless of the excitement they generated at the beginning, why would they not do the same for other ad solutions that were not preforming. This makes myself, and other developers I am sure, less likely to introduce a third party ad network into their games. I, for instance, just spent 6 months integrating Kiip into my current games only to have to waste more time releasing another update for 6 apps to remove Kiip support in only two months.
One thing is for sure though. If the decision to remove Kiip stands, this will leave a very bad taste in my mouth that will make my decision to start learning Corona easier to make then before.
- Alex
I come to bury Kiip, not to praise him.
But seriously…
Firstly, I'd like to thank Steve for taking time out to talk to the community. This kind of communication is much appreciated by many.
I have to echo what @tshirtbooth mentioned. There used to be a time, before the investors took over I might add, when I was truly energised and excited with each new release of GS.
But then, it seems, the money men came in and the priorities changed.
I waited nearly a year for a pause feature to be RE-implemented. I rejoiced when we got GameCenter leader boards, yet achievements were added months and months later.
I was asking for Twitter integration in December of 2010. There is still no Facebook integration.
Time and again I asked for features that would help improve the games I make. To make them more appealing to the people that pay for them and play them.
Because really, that's what's important. If I can keep my players happy, then you keep *me* happy.
Instead, with every release, we'd have a conference call where the GS staff sound excited about this new stuff they're introducing which we never asked for, and few really care about.
In these situations the enthusiasm in their voices sounds strained. As if they half expect us to be enthusiastic and excited for stuff like Kiip or PlayHeaven, when really all I want is something that will even the playing field in a crowded market.
And then they sound disappointed
When I make a game, I make the first scene as perfect as it can be before I add anything else. Think of it as trying to iron out all the bugs and features in the first level before I build the other 99 for example.
The Mac creator is level 1. It should have been goddamn near perfect before branching out to level 2 (android), 3 (html5) and 4 (windows).
In the end I gave up trying to help. Because I can only bear to hear "Yeah, we know that's important. We're working on it" so many times before the next build that fails to have anything of the sort in it. And the next. And the next.
It is *beyond* frustrating for me, but I soldier on because I truly love this software. It has completely changed my life, and that is no exaggeration.
I have been patiently waiting for the new engine stuff but my patience is wearing thin. We needed that last month if I'm honest. And we need it to be as 'backward compatible' friendly as possible. I think it may just kick-start my love affair with GS again when it arrives.
Just please, don't make me wait much longer!
Despite some massive FUBAR situations, I still have a lot of love and respect for the staff at GS, and they all still get sheepyhugs. They have always been friendly, and helpful when possible. They have, on occasion, bent over backwards to do stuff. I know it's never easy, I know this first hand, and I truly, truly appreciated it.
On a related note, I've read a couple of people moaning about the community manager.
Give SSS a break.
I've worked with many community managers in the past myself, and it's a thankless task. Typically these are people that are passionate about what they do, and want to help and grow the community tied in with the product they represent.
Unfortunately, community managers have to typically run an answer past management before they can respond to queries. This, again, is largely due to incomplete or work in progress features and managing expectations.
Community managers are go-betweens. They are the link between us and the 'higher ups'. They can only tell us/respond to us if management gives the all clear.
They are also people. Please bear that in mind.
Cheers,
QS
Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home...
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Quantum_Sheep
Web: https://quantumsheep.itch.io
I echo most everything else that's been said by my fellow GS veterans. I wish the decisions being made for the direction of this tool were more akin to the needs of the community.
I personally can't spend any more time waiting or harping on why we need faster turn around times on issues that arise, or features like searchable tables, or better HTML5 exporting options, or Sandboxing for Mac (Apple gave 8 months warning..), Android builds that run no where as well as their iOS counterpart, et al.
If you can't use the tool to deliver a full featured application that runs the way people buying it would expect, that's where it ends for the developer. Nobody is going to recommend that app to a friend and more times than not they're going to leave a poor review when they notice things like music skipping, buttons sticking, etc.
You build the software so the people using it can get the most out of the platforms they're working on. We then become the evangelists and tell people how f*(#$ing awesome it is to develop with the tool, and that's how the company expands. I nearly lost when I had a request several months ago to talk about my GameSalad success stories.. really?! I could have written a book, but it wouldn't have been about success.
I love this tool, and its potential, but it's killing me.
The competitors are either closing the gap or soon to be eclipsing GS, and that should be considered unacceptable!
So please, stop with the Windows, TenCent, Kiip, IceCap Games, and whatever other random projects you're working on, and fix the myriad of details that should have been addressed many ages ago. I, and so many others, want to use GS as a tool, not a toy. I want to make quality games, make them efficiently, and monetize them as to aid my success. We keep seeing so many stumbling blocks, and it appears the reason is because GS is a dog chasing squirrels.
You seem to always want to be at the forefront of something new, this is great but it seems like things do not get done properly and how they should due to this. Why spend months of negotiation and implementation on something new and untested like Kiip, where as you could just give us the industry standard Admob and everyone would be happy with that? iAds, Admob and Playhaven .. Its all thats needed, certainly for now!
HTML5 could be so much more if you would lose the shacks of tying it to you, I'm pro, i use my own splash screens, why should it be hosted on GS and branded .. I pay for pro to remove things like this!
Windows, I understand, its a great move in increasing your user base etc
I know theres separate teams doing separate things and this doesn't slow the Mac guys down ... reality is, if you didn't have these teams there would be more heads and more resource working on the Mac, working on the LUA drop, fixing all the bugs, implementing things like Joints ... Stuff that we can actually use to make our games better and the experience richer for our paying customers!
My thoughts on it overall, I love the software GS but fixes are terribly slow and so are the new features being implemented!
Looking forward to new developments.
Lump Apps and My Assets
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Steve Jobs
Like a few others here I've been with GS from the days of the 'early bird' pro subscriptions, when Gamesalad was just talking about the possibility of publishing to iOS. I purely came to Gamesalad to make iPhone games, that was it, full stop. The one thing that I've been trying to rally for and bring to everyones attention as much as possible has been the performance improvements. Gamesalad is a great tool and almost anything can be built with it if you use the tool creatively however the performance is still unacceptable for iOS development.
Steve, I've been waiting quite patiently for it since you posted about it in your end of 2011 thread:
http://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/37301/gamesalads-year-in-review-2011-and-a-look-ahead-to-2012
Where you stated "We’re also pleased to announce that we’re close to wrapping up a major architectural improvement that removes the Lua from our engine and compiles into native code."
That was in December of last year and I think the point that everyone's trying to make is that important updates like the performance seem to have been bumped back for features that the members who've been with you from the start arent interested in. Features like Android, Windows and HTML5 have all come at the expense of solidifying iOS - the core of Gamesalad.
I'm a huge fan of Gamesalad and I really hope that our feedback is taken on board and can help to shape it into an even greater piece of software! I look forward to reading your new roadmap.
-Mark
My GameSalad Academy Courses! ◦ Check out my quality templates! ◦ Add me on Skype: braydon_sfx
- Everything on creator working 100% before introduce new features. Ex: Display text behavior is horrible.
- A roadmap listing how and when this "bugs" or "malfunctions" will be solved.
Thats simple. We use this tool everyday. We can help to improve it.
We dont care if gamesalad don't do everything now. We just wanna the current features 100% working.
After it we can discuss new features.
one final question before i shut up
When you say:
"Those currently utilizing Kiip will continue to collect revenue until October 31st, 2012. Final payments on Kiip revenue will be processed by the end of the 2012 calendar year."
Do you mean GS will keep payout out revenue until the October 31st, 2012.
Then revenue after the October 31st, 2012 will be payed out at the end of the year?
or
GS will track the revenue until the October 31st, 2012 and will then it will be payed out at the end of the year.?
If the answer it the second one what happens to the revenue that Kiip would of been paying out after October 31st, 2012? Does Kiip get to keep it?
Will the apps that are in the stores still work?
Thanks
Steven
I'm fairly certain the kiip behavior will no longer function in games after October 31st, thus there is no revenue for anyone to keep after that date. As for whether kiip enabled games will break? I have no idea, and that's an interesting question.
I just wanted to add a little more to my last comment regarding "Will the apps that are in the stores still work?"
My reason for asking this is if the games still work and assuming each app has some kind of tracking number, why can the tracking and payouts not be transferred over to the owners of the apps directly from Kiip.
No more support from GS would be needed and as long as the publishers don't version the apps the apps would be fine.
Speaking as a developer this seems like the best solution for all of us.
We get to keep our apps up in the store that we have slaved over, and maybe we will see a small return on them, Kiip get to keep more apps up on the store and GS can feel happy that they made the customers happy.
Thanks
Steven
Couldn't agree more. I wouldn't mind if you came to us and said "We are replacing kiip with admob." Remove it when you have something to replace it. But just removing it because "we haven't had enough developers utilize this feature in order to justify ongoing maintenance." Didn't us pro users pay $299 to be able to use that feature? I would think that would justify it.