A new door has opened....

CodeCell

.... And that door is the exit door of Gamesalad

Hi Hello,

I just recently helped my 505th person in making their games a reality (yes I keep count).
But I am afraid that number will not continue to rise. I spent 4 years learning and helping others with Gamesalad, through email and Facebook, and that time has come to an end.

I recently found myself asking myself a question, What is holding me back?
The answer is Gamesalad. And as much as I didn't want that to be the answer, it is, and I have gone to accept that. Therefore instead if waiting around for promises that will never see the light, I am moving on.

• communication is shocking
• Give your users full control
• Maybe some custom fonts, I don't know, it's only been requested and begged for many years.
• Fix you forums, not a fan on how it's run. So disappointed by this.
• Stop working on features that require other features to make it worth while, multiplayer needs push notifications, it needs to have custom font and font limits etc.
• have a real keyboard input rather than this full screen white box.
• Communication

I could go on, but everything gets half finished and next feature is worked on.
I can respect the work that has been done. Well done, for that.

I still talk to a lot of people that don't use the forums anymore through email, if you want to be one of them of them feel free to shoot me a email every now and then for help.
It is a shame it had to end this way, but the forums and the people running the fourms was the over the edge decider. It reflects on the attitudes and it's something I don't want to be apart of.

All the best and great to met some of you. (P.s the upcoming project that I have been talking privately to a lot of you about has been cancelled as a result, I do apologies but the website will be used for other purposes, but maybe it has inspired a few to do the same)

CodeCell

Braydon_SFX

Sad to hear that. Best of luck with your indie future!

gamestudent

See you later... GameSalad is a great tool, but don't let the hammer be the reason you don't get a nail gun

BazookaTime

I will be leaving as soon as my Pro is up for a lot of the same reasons.

ogag

Not yet PRO but I seen it. Thank you for your post brother.

jamie_c

Good luck to you.

gyroscope

Good luck to you from me as well, @CodeCell; sad to see you go, nice to have "met" you.

Armelline

Good luck in your future endeavours @CodeCell!

colander

I have read your post a few times and part of me wants to argue with you but it is pretty hard to argue against the points you made. I have only been here 11 months if I had been here four years I would probably be done too.

For me communication is the most important. I noticed you mentioned it first and last in your bullet points and I agree GS doesn't do a good job of this. I thought this is why @ForumNinja was hired to improve the communication between GS and the community. I must of misunderstood this because he only seem in the main to deal with the Game Of The Month. Having someone to read the forums who can be a go between to get answers for the community so it doesn't take a programmer away from his/her work makes a lot of sense to me.

The weekly update is critical piece of communication but it is more like a whenever update. The importance of this seems to be lost on GS. If you keep your customers in the dark for weeks on end and don't answer there questions and concerns in the threads of course they are going to be unhappy. And unhappy customers aren't good business.

I get that they can't respond to everything or argue with people. I read some of the post and can clearly see why they don't get a response but a lot of the legitimate questions never get answered either.

I think the public bug database will make a big difference particularly voting on new features. It will be hard to grumble when you see more of your peers want to prioritise another feature over the one you want. It will take a lot of the anger out of the new features process and if GS doesn't stick to the order they can explain why for all to see.

I know there are only about 18 people on the GS staff and they have a huge job. They have a constantly moving target with os updates, sdk changes to the various platforms, etc it must be very time consuming dealing with it. Look at the problems Apple have caused with IAP's and it's still going on. The monthly meet ups are a great idea and have helped answer most of my questions and concerns so they do get some things right. Having said that it still doesn't excuse poor communication it should be every businesses number one priority.

Businesses that don't communicate well usually die because someone else sees an opportunity and does a better job. By the time they realise it and try to change their culture it is over. Their customers are so annoyed/angry they don't care what they say or do they just jump ship.

A lot of people seem to be leaving lately or just don't join in anymore probably because they are experimenting with alternatives. I am not happy with everything I wrote and would like to have said it better but it would turn into a book. End rant. @CodeWizard

Wboko

I understand also, and you will be missed!!!

However, I will say I have the same issue as you do with the GS team, but then I remembered why I started using GS and it was not to get rich (which would be cool); but to allow me to have fun building games for the fun of building games... I already program code everyday for a job and when I found GS it allowed me to pull back from that and just enjoy the process of building again...

When my nephew just played "Wboko Odyssey" yesterday it made my day, and that is why I build games.

I wish you the best of luck @CodeCell!!!

-Timo-

Sad to see you go... I wish you the best of luck!