My Gripes with GameSalad
Team6Labs
Member Posts: 541
Please bear with me, these are the things I downright don't like about GameSalad. Don't get me wrong, I still like a lot of things about GameSalad, but I also dislike a lot of things.
1) GameSalad makes me feel like they are trying to own my game: By using game salad to make my games, it's locking me into their system. I can't work for others to a bigger extent because I have to give them a .gameproj file which they in turn have to pay $300 to fully utilize. It's also more difficult to sell GameSalad games because they not only have a $300 charge, but the brand name of GameSalad isn't top notch. GameSalad MUST give us an Xcode file to be competitive.
2) Updates take forever: It's ridiculous that we are just now getting Universal Binaries, and better monetization. Other developers have been able take advantage of these, and the game salad developers haven't. GameSalad doesn't have polygon collisions, joints, layers etc. These makes most of the GS games not as powerful as other games. It's also ridiculous how a critical bug can take a month to fix.
3) No APIs: GameSalad does a terrible job of integrating APIs that could really benefit developer. Most other game engines provide superior API support to GameSalad, and the quality of their games are reflected that way.
4) Terrible Performance: While the native engine is on it's way, it's almost a year over schedule and could potentially take even longer than that. I would say that GameSalad is one of the worst performing solutions there is in terms of speed.
5) Not a good price point: GameSalad shouldn't charge $300 a year for a beta product that is sometimes unreliable and is missing a lot of features. There are other solutions (which I won't name for GS's sake) that charge much less and do more.
6) Bugs: Not only with the creator, but with the website, marketplace, viewer, etc. Every few weeks I see a critical bug somewhere. For example, login issues to website, login to creator (to give credit, this was fixed quickly), and now the marketplace. Not to mention the variety of bugs such as the Interpolate glitch.
7) Doesn't appreciate feedback: If you compare the Roadmap and the feature request list, they are very different. Some of the things that made the top 10 on the pro survey are at the bottom of the roadmap. With a feature coming every month or so, I'm expecting that it will take at least a year or two to work down the roadmap. And that is to get basic features that should have been delivered a long time ago. I mean how long have joints been something that is really wanted by the users, yet it's at the bottom of the roadmap.
GameSalad needs to start churning out updates quicker. They have a near 40 person team (what I have heard), yet they have trouble with making a premium product. I think that GameSalad is targeted for the complete amateur who doesn't know how to code. Not for professional developers. Just my 2 cents.
1) GameSalad makes me feel like they are trying to own my game: By using game salad to make my games, it's locking me into their system. I can't work for others to a bigger extent because I have to give them a .gameproj file which they in turn have to pay $300 to fully utilize. It's also more difficult to sell GameSalad games because they not only have a $300 charge, but the brand name of GameSalad isn't top notch. GameSalad MUST give us an Xcode file to be competitive.
2) Updates take forever: It's ridiculous that we are just now getting Universal Binaries, and better monetization. Other developers have been able take advantage of these, and the game salad developers haven't. GameSalad doesn't have polygon collisions, joints, layers etc. These makes most of the GS games not as powerful as other games. It's also ridiculous how a critical bug can take a month to fix.
3) No APIs: GameSalad does a terrible job of integrating APIs that could really benefit developer. Most other game engines provide superior API support to GameSalad, and the quality of their games are reflected that way.
4) Terrible Performance: While the native engine is on it's way, it's almost a year over schedule and could potentially take even longer than that. I would say that GameSalad is one of the worst performing solutions there is in terms of speed.
5) Not a good price point: GameSalad shouldn't charge $300 a year for a beta product that is sometimes unreliable and is missing a lot of features. There are other solutions (which I won't name for GS's sake) that charge much less and do more.
6) Bugs: Not only with the creator, but with the website, marketplace, viewer, etc. Every few weeks I see a critical bug somewhere. For example, login issues to website, login to creator (to give credit, this was fixed quickly), and now the marketplace. Not to mention the variety of bugs such as the Interpolate glitch.
7) Doesn't appreciate feedback: If you compare the Roadmap and the feature request list, they are very different. Some of the things that made the top 10 on the pro survey are at the bottom of the roadmap. With a feature coming every month or so, I'm expecting that it will take at least a year or two to work down the roadmap. And that is to get basic features that should have been delivered a long time ago. I mean how long have joints been something that is really wanted by the users, yet it's at the bottom of the roadmap.
GameSalad needs to start churning out updates quicker. They have a near 40 person team (what I have heard), yet they have trouble with making a premium product. I think that GameSalad is targeted for the complete amateur who doesn't know how to code. Not for professional developers. Just my 2 cents.
Comments
2) I partially agree with this, but it is not that bad compared to other companies in this space.
3) No.. apps like DBA's can modify GS project files fairly easily.
4) You can make great games using GS now, if you know what you're doing. I think we'd all rather the Native Code Engine be top notch and release it later than realeasing a buggy version now.
5) 300$, in my opinion, is very competitive. Compare that to Stencyl, Unity, and Corona. Plus, more features are coming out constantly.
6) I agree that there are bugs, and they are not fixed very quickly. However, at this stage there are hardly no lethal bugs that I know of, without workarounds anyway.
7) They do appreciate feedback. Very much so. I'm not sure if you were here when they came out with GameSalad Direct, but they listened to our "feedback" and got rid of it. They have and will continue to be accessible and responding.
Sorry, but I have to disagree on most of your points.
Also, I must ask. What is the real purpose of this post?
- Thomas
1) I would be ok with the $300 if they let us export to Xcode. It would open up the software and provide us with opportunities to make tweaks ourselves, developer for clients, etc.
2) It's not that bad, but still bad. What other engine has worse features than GameSalad.
3) DBA has a few tools, but not really that useful in terms of adding things ourselves. While their tools might make it easier to convert your file to different sizes, these don't compare at all to the scope of other APIs. AdMob, TestFlight, Flurry, etc. cannot be integrated.
4) Of course everyone wants it to be top notch but that's no excuse for missing deadlines. It's kind of like saying that they could release it in 5 years, and it would definitely be better, but that doesn't help us at all.
5) Stencyl is lower, and offers more features. Corona is slightly more expensive, but is much more powerful. And Unity supports 3D and can be used to create very powerful games, so it's price point is justified. Plus it has a free version.
6) Yeah, with workarounds. Those take even more time. GS should have nightly builds to fix issues.
7) The feature request list by the pro users and the roadmap doesn't really match up. And many of the bugs that have been reported go unanswered and unfixed. So it's difficult to tell if they actually take the feedback.
Purpose: read the title.
GameSalad is definitely not the most powerful game creation software out there, but they've never claimed to be, nor have they ever tried to be. They seem to mix ease of use with newbie publishing.
I may lose the bet about you and Applebees but I have another bet. I bet NO ONE in here has pushed the best game possible out of GameSalad yet. I bet NO ONE in here has pushed GameSalad to it's absolute limit in terms of amazingly innovative games.
It's always so depressing around here with the negativity. Instead of discussion what we can't do, let's discuss what we CAN DO.
There wouldn't be so much negativity if people didn't have as much to complain about.
I have been using GS for three years, and I've seen it get better and better as it goes. I personally think that it is the best way to go for most games that at least I'd like to create.
1) Do you really think that they would let us export to XCode? I mean come on, think that through. People that are Pro could just convert any projects they get, even ones sent to them by free users. Plus, GS would have much less control over everything as a whole. While that may be good for you, it would not be good for the company whatsoever. Also, some users do not know how to work with the XCode project files. In my opinion, this will never happen, and if it did, it'd be horrible for GS as a company, and the community.
2) Looks around at other software companies release cycles..
3) Right, other API's cannot be integrated by the user. I didn't realise that this was what you mean by API, those would be more like SDK's.
4) It does help us, because then we have a realistic date. That'd be better for some of us, so that we can bet of features at certain times. Either way, they work as well as they can with what they have, and while I agree that it is rather slow, it is not much worse than other similar companies.
5) Have you used Stencyl? It is still extremely buggy, much more so than GS, and the features are about even. Plus their support and release times are two times worse. Corona requires coding, so it is less work for them to create the actual tool. I admit that Unity is very powerful, but the fact that you have to pay 400$ just to publish, with no other features, is slightly ridiculous. And yes, I have used all three.
6) GS does have nightly builds, just not to the public. I agree that these would be nice to have.
7) The roadmap matches up with the survey that they sent out to everyone awhile back. Obviously they do not have the personel or resources to answer all of the bug reports, but that does not mean that they are not kept and remembered. I do not think that you know much about the inside working of a large company like GS. They do their best to keep everyone happy, but it is just not possible to do all of the time. On a side note, I have always had great experiences with contacting staff and with priority technical support.
And the purpose? You're saying that it's just for fun or just to be negative?
@DepressedPanda - I'll have to make a thread like that
Once again, neither of us is wrong.
- Thomas
- Thomas
1) exporting to Xcode could be for pro users only. Why does it matter if they convert it or not? When I make a game, it is my game, not GameSalad's, and I should be able to put it into Xcode if I want to. It wouldn't be mandatory to use Xcode files, just an option. How would it be bad for the company? Oh yeah, because they would lose control and ownership over stuff we made...
2) I have, and most engines are ahead of GS, even thought GS has had a head start. Take stencyl for example. I think that was made by 1 person! Why should 1 person (or even a slightly larger team bc they might of expanded to a few more people) out develop a team with 40 people? Stencyl is running at a faster pace than GS is, with less people! It's like of like how Microsoft out-spends Apple on R&D, but Apple's R&D is much more effective.
3) Yeah my bad, I probably should of used SDKs.
4) Which companies?
5) I have looked into Stencyl, and my experience is that it's not that buggy. But, GS has had a head start on them. Stencyl is only a few person team vs GS's 40 + a head start. I wonder what will happen as Stencyl begins to expand it's team? Unity is made for professional developers so $400 isn't that ridiculous, provided that it is so much more powerful.
@SalidStraightShooter thanks for jumping in on this thread. Here are my rebuttals.
1) It seems like that because we only get a .gameproj file. Nearly every other engine gives you a Xcode file to work with if you like. There is no option to add code, so we cannot add anything special. If GS came out with an option to add custom code, that would be great.
2) That's good to hear
3) Also good to hear, but I expected external API/SDK support awhile ago.
4) Sure, but if you compare a Unity, Stencyl, or Corona game against a GS game, it's probable that the non-gs engines will win in terms of performance.
5) I wouldn't call it a steal with the amount of features and restrictions that integrated. I think $199 is a more suitable price for a beta product, and then go $299 when you have core features like native engine, joints, polygon, etc.
6) But it's still part of the GameSalad experience.
7) Appreciate probably wasn't the best word. Perhaps takes into consideration would be a better phrase. I haven't seen my feature request implemented, and some of them are pretty trivial.
6 engineers is still a lot. I believe stencyl has 1 or 2. I never said you had 40 engineers, just 40 people on your team.
PS and to be clear I love Gamesalad it's awesome software, its the first software I've had the patience to learn and even though it may take time it only gets better.
Ok, the talk about XCode Project exporting is pointless. It will never happen, because it defeats GS's business model. Plus, GS things do not translate directly in to code. and XCode's file structure.
Stencyl has more than one dev, lol. Plus, they have been promising 3.0 for over a year, and it is still not there, and wont be for awhile. That's how these things work, you test and test and test (with a closed testing team), until it is perfect. Then you release to the masses.
Also keep in mind that Stencyl is not nearly as professional, and they do not have as many platforms or partners to appeal to. So with all of that incorporated, they are moving much slower.
And.. I have had extremely lethal bugs in Stencyl. It is most certainly buggier than GS.
As for the price, I suppose that we disagree. $299 is an amazing price in my book, when you can make many times that per year if you know what you're doing.
- Thomas
- Thomas
1) They do translate... How else would they be able to publish apps?? So it's definitely possible.
2) Yes, but 3.0 is already released to the masses, and it has been for 6 months. It's just a beta product. And they only have 1 or 2 engineers plus maybe a few general business and communications people.
3) What 'partners' does GameSalad have? PlayHaven? In Stencyl, you can add play haven with the code editing feature. For platforms - Gamesalad = bad html, android, iOS, mac, windows. Stencyl = iOS, Flash, Mac, Windows, in public beta - html, android. So stencyl has more platforms. Plus the Stencyl HTML is much more dynamic vs GS simple embed option.
4) When did you last use stencyl? Have you used 3.0 which is more stable?
5) I make enough money, it's just that I don't think the $299 price point is justified because of the issues and control GS places on our game.s
and yes, that would be amazing
I have but one last question, why are you still using GameSalad?
- Thomas
From a guy who has learned Obj-C, it's not as easy as you think. And once it is, it is 100 times more tedious and slow than something like GS.
But hey, best of luck, wherever it takes you.
- Thomas
i will agree that being a pro user lately i have been day dreaming badly of having access to my game further in Xcode after making it in game salad..
without GS =
var angleBetween = 0.0;
var target : Transform;
function Update () {
var targetDir = target.position - transform.position;
angleBetween = Vector3.Angle (transform.forward, targetDir);
}
var smooth = 2.0;
var tiltAngle = 30.0;
function Update () {
var tiltAroundZ = Input.GetAxis("Horizontal") * tiltAngle;
var tiltAroundX = Input.GetAxis("Vertical") * tiltAngle;
var target = Quaternion.Euler (tiltAroundX, 0, tiltAroundZ);
// Dampen towards the target rotation
transform.rotation = Quaternion.Slerp(transform.rotation, target,
Time.deltaTime * smooth);;
}
But its a coffee shop you ask, you should be able to do that...
But the manager says they cant at present, because its not something they can easily do, or possibly can do for their customers, or they would need more resources to do this., or that if done, customers might end up smashing the elephant glass because they handled it incorrectly and blamed the store, because it didnt do things perfectly..
So do you continue ordering whats on the menu because..obviously its whats on the menu and what is supplied?
Or do you skip on down to st kilda or carlton for a proper coffee?