@ant_lad said:
The stupidity/lack of reading comprehension by staff is frightening
Are you done trolling the forum. These folks have a job to do too. Maybe if things don't turn around they will be lookinf for jobs. That's a lot of pressure. Easy to sit on the outside and keep being critical.
Why GS I was just fine making free games and now if I buy the pro I will have to make all my games money or with a lot of ads. This was my favorite app maker and it may still be but this is a bad decision and people who cant afford it or am not old enough to make money except for Mowing lawns or something like that.
I agree with @The_Gamesalad_Guru, It's easy to be critical of the move, but at the end of the day, it's their business, their product, and their decision. I can't afford these fees, but GameSalad don't just make these sort of decisions for a laugh. I'll just have to go somewhere else and learn some different software, like the Unreal Engine 4.
I really respect GameSlalad as a company. They're helpful, committed, and very transparent. They'll be taking all of our feedback into account, so lets avoid trolling shall we?
@AppCrazy said:
Why GS I was just fine making free games and now if I buy the pro I will have to make all my games money or with a lot of ads. This was my favorite app maker and it may still be but this is a bad decision and people who cant afford it or am not old enough to make money except for Mowing lawns or something like that.
Unfortunately the paid Pro users weren't sufficient in number to subsidise the users who were user the free version with no intention of ever paying.
The stupidity/lack of reading comprehension by @The_Gamesalad_Guru is less frightening than that of staff?
Surprised the 'heavy hitter' hasn't shown yet, maybe give it a few minutes for more jibberish to spew forth
@ant_lad said:
The stupidity/lack of reading comprehension by The_Gamesalad_Guru is less frightening than that of staff?
Surprised the 'heavy hitter' hasn't shown yet, maybe give it a few minutes for more jibberish to spew forth
I'm quite looking forward to your trial to run out, tbh. Please take your trolling elsewhere.
@AppCrazy said:
Why GS I was just fine making free games and now if I buy the pro I will have to make all my games money or with a lot of ads. This was my favorite app maker and it may still be but this is a bad decision and people who cant afford it or am not old enough to make money except for Mowing lawns or something like that.
Honestly, if you're really serious about making a game you should just learn to code, there is an unlimited amount of free recourses all over the internet for learning all coding languages. and In the end, you can make games much better than anything GameSalad could ever make. That's just my opinion (and what I'm currently doing).
@Armelline said:
I'm quite looking forward to your trial to run out, tbh. Please take your trolling elsewhere.
It won't stop us from using the forum. I'm still gonna float around here until I see a version that seems suitable for me sign up to GS again. Trying another program at the moment to see how it feels. It spawns a 9x9 grid of actors instantly so almost sold already!
@KevinCross said:
It won't stop us from using the forum. I'm still gonna float around here until I see a version that seems suitable for me sign up to GS again.
Anyone who actually cares about GameSalad and seeing it succeed is likely to stay, of course. But I'm hoping those interested in just repeating the same complaints over and over and harassing other users will lose interest and move along.
@dgackey Frankly I think you guys have been more than patient with some of these post. I understand why you keep them open giving people a chance to vent. I ll be happy when the dust settles.
I finally just caught up on all the posts of this discussion and all I can say is wow at how ignorant some of the GS users are. It's quite obvious that they have not been around GS for a while and have not seen the pricing structures change throughout the years to help users. The price of GS a while ago I believe was around $999 a year then it dropped to $499 a year then dropped to $299 a year. This was done to make it more affordable for people. GS is now at a point where their ROI is negative. I am sure they had a lot of meetings on the best route to take to start improving their ROI. The GS users who are ranting about this being a bad business decision show that it is obvious that you arent looking at it from a business stand point but rather a customer stand point.
Like it or not, this is actually a smart business decision as it will hopefully start making their ROI positive. If they don't make the change now to start increasing their ROI then GS will eventually be no longer and in the end would have been the worst business decision of all time. By the looks of all the posts, I say out of every 100 GS users, there is 1 that is unhappy with this decision. And users that were just using the software for fun and never planning to pay for anything and publish, GS has already lost that user so if you are one of those users and complaining and saying you are leaving and never using GS again, well sorry to sound so harsh but GS isn't hurting by your final decision because you were technically never here.
Also, I don't know why everyone is comparing GS to other big engines and games. What people tend to forget is these other big companies have big investors and big game and app companies paying these engine companies so they can afford to do what they do. But also these other engines have large fees you pay once you publish, once you make a certain amount of money and/or downloads, a one time fee, etc. Also, for people comparing this to free to play games, JUST STOP. They are totally different. Those FTP games make tons of money with ads and PEOPLE PAYING FOR IN GAME STUFF. Also, some games make money when they are used for huge tournaments and other things.
Nothing is free now a days and everything no matter what is comes with a price whether it be large or small. After some stats come in based off the free 15 day trial, maybe the GS staff @dgackey, @CodeWizard will possibly extend it to maybe a 30 day trial but that is really the only change I could see GS making at this time. Hopefully people can start looking at this decision from a business stand point rather than a customer stand point and also stop comparing GS to other companies and business models. Especially ones that don't relate and you can't compare to.
GS software already exists, why should you keep it closed, why not give users the opportunity to learn the software and make games?
If someone wants to publish a game, then pay.
I understand that money were invested all this time in creating of this software, but as ThomasMul10 said, if users will learn to use GS and create a game that they will want to publish it, they will definitely pay for it !
Sorry for my bad english.
Thumbs up for GS!
This was my last post on this topic.
@oxido said:
GS software already exists, why should you keep it closed, why not give users the opportunity to learn the software and make games?
If someone wants to publish a game, then pay.
I understand that money were invested all this time in creating of this software, but as ThomasMul10 said, if users will learn to use GS and create a game that they will want to publish it, they will definitely pay for it !
Sorry for my bad english.
Thumbs up for GS!
This was my last post on this topic.
that's just the point, it's been free for 2-3 years now and they discovered that only a small percentage of users actually published anything, and those that did used the free model. If more free users published something they might have gotten more revenue from those ad-supported games, but it just didn't happen.
And what are the costs for GS if i download this software and i use it but i don't publish the game? If the costs for GS are > then 0 i understand, GS cannot pay for me, else why can't be used for free just how it was?
This software is not using the GS servers if i dont publish a game or someting like that, right?
@oxido said:
And what are the costs for GS if i download this software and i use it but i don't publish the game? If the costs for GS are > then 0 i understand, GS cannot pay for me, else why can't be used for free just how it was?
This software is not using the GS servers if i dont publish a game or someting like that, right?
You're forgetting that we hire and pay developers to keep making the tool better and fixing bugs! The publishing servers are actually pretty cheap by comparison.
Now, I suppose that business model could work if we never needed to update Creator ever again... but I don't think that would be a very popular strategy!
I believe if GS team didn't have to go this way , they wouldn't , so its a decision that they had to take to improve their business, which is good for us developers too, they will improve gamesalad.
You can see the improvements in the last couple of months. If your not able to pay for it then find a solution but don't blame GS as if it was made only for you ! and by you i mean people who keep trashing GS and blaming them for choosing their own price system. They own GS if they want to make it cost 5000 $ then its up to them.
The problem is not with GS , the real problem is that you cannot buy the pro version , now I wish that people could buy it i'm fortunate to be able to, i saved for quite a long time to be able to buy a pro version and im glad i did. I didnt come here and blame GS for their 299 $ price, kept fighting for what i want and i earned it by hard work , I dont even have a job I just went and tried every possible way to make it come true. I really want to develop games and I found this easiest , most entertaining engine. So it is worth all the things i went through to get the money.
I understand that some people will find it difficult but this is reality, you need to find a way to make it through , sitting here and trolling in the forums wont do you any good. Some people just want a free engine that does all the magic for them. What would you do later on when your stuck with problems in your life, are you going to blame everyone around or are you going to stand up and find a way to solve your issues. I don't want to cause trouble and i dont want to be rude but I just read everything and was surprised, some of you just kept saying how everything is coming to an end and how giving up is the only solution ( i repeat SOME not all ) .
I hope you all either find a way to buy GS or find the right engine that suits you, goodluck!
@oxido said:
And what are the costs for GS if i download this software and i use it but i don't publish the game? If the costs for GS are > then 0 i understand, GS cannot pay for me, else why can't be used for free just how it was?
This software is not using the GS servers if i dont publish a game or someting like that, right?
Hello. The company, like the majority out there, has two costs, fixed and variable. They have overhead and Research and Development. Overhead includes rents, utilities, salaries, other. Research and Development is done to jump from GS version 0.01 to whatever they are at now.
If the company is posting a loss, expenses outpaced revenues. Some companies can weather this for a fiscal year or two, but others cannot. The company has to react accordingly by increasing revenues, reducing costs, or both. Or they could go to the market and issue debt or equity. Debt is a loan, a note, a bond, or the like, which you pay back in installments and with interest. Equity is shares, common or preferred. If you sell common shares, you may lose control of the company. If you issue preferred shares, you will have to declare and pay dividends.
What this all translates to is that if the previous business model was no longer generating the required revenues, they must adapt to continue to exist. It's probably a good case study for some business major. The reality is that the GS staff has to deal with a lot more than actors, behaviors and bug reports, and I hope they continue to succeed.
I would have agreed with the new pricing model "if" gamesalad has showed us what's coming ahead. Until now, I only know they want to give better support, and make the tool more stable. It has been a week now since the major change, and still no news about the 0.14 release, the staff also keeps ignoring this question, which I consider "bad support"... It would have been better if they came up with a new roadmap, and then change the pricing model, rather then: "Guys we're sorry it's not free anymore, you can guess what we're going to do next, please pay us within 15 days, and we will let you know our new roadmap in the very near future (god knows when)! Ow and we fired some people, but who cares about that anyway...
I was just thinking the more people use it, the more bugs they'll find.
So since it's not going to be free anymore you'll see less bugs, and when there is a bug, it's frustrating for paying members.
By not making it free, i think you're missing out on a huge opportunity of a large number of free testers for you, like hobbyists that would otherwise be your potential QA.
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
edited July 2015
@Approw said:
I would have agreed with the new pricing model "if" gamesalad has showed us what's coming ahead. Until now, I only know they want to give better support, and make the tool more stable. It has been a week now since the major change, and still no news about the 0.14 release, the staff also keeps ignoring this question, which I consider "bad support"...
Actually, nobody has ignored this comment, and in fact I have had this conversation with you many times; you just don't like the answer.
You consistently ask about future potential features as a requirement for subscribing now, but ignore the fact that the annual commitment has been removed. The idea here is quite simple: if the tool provides value to you today, pay to use it. If it does not, don't! You are quite literally paying only for what you use, nothing more. Expected future value really doesn't enter into it.
Will we be improving the tool and adding new features? Absolutely! Can we predict the future? No. Will we commit to one of several possible futures? Not likely. Here's what we've said consistently since we shifted the plans:
We're going to focus in the short term on tool stability, fixing crashes, improving stability, addressing memory leaks, and improving overall reliability. We're going to finish bringing the Windows tool to feature parity with the Mac tool. We're going to add native Windows EXE publishing. And we'll address new features and other things as bandwidth opens up.
If this doesn't work for you, right now, today -- my deepest apologies!
It would have been better if they came up with a new roadmap, and then change the pricing model, rather then: "Guys we're sorry it's not free anymore, you can guess what we're going to do next, please pay us within 15 days, and we will let you know our new roadmap in the very near future (god knows when)! Ow and we fired some people, but who cares about that anyway...
Again, agree to disagree. There's no need to comment on HR here but to say "who cares about them anyway" would be deeply, deeply wrong and is borderline offensive. The decision was not made lightly nor did it come without a significant cost to the team, but it had to be done.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
Comments
The stupidity/lack of reading comprehension by staff is frightening
@ant_lad let's not start insulting the GS staff.
Are you done trolling the forum. These folks have a job to do too. Maybe if things don't turn around they will be lookinf for jobs. That's a lot of pressure. Easy to sit on the outside and keep being critical.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
Why GS I was just fine making free games and now if I buy the pro I will have to make all my games money or with a lot of ads. This was my favorite app maker and it may still be but this is a bad decision and people who cant afford it or am not old enough to make money except for Mowing lawns or something like that.
I agree with @The_Gamesalad_Guru, It's easy to be critical of the move, but at the end of the day, it's their business, their product, and their decision. I can't afford these fees, but GameSalad don't just make these sort of decisions for a laugh. I'll just have to go somewhere else and learn some different software, like the Unreal Engine 4.
I really respect GameSlalad as a company. They're helpful, committed, and very transparent. They'll be taking all of our feedback into account, so lets avoid trolling shall we?
Unfortunately the paid Pro users weren't sufficient in number to subsidise the users who were user the free version with no intention of ever paying.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
The stupidity/lack of reading comprehension by @The_Gamesalad_Guru is less frightening than that of staff?
Surprised the 'heavy hitter' hasn't shown yet, maybe give it a few minutes for more jibberish to spew forth
I'm quite looking forward to your trial to run out, tbh. Please take your trolling elsewhere.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Honestly, if you're really serious about making a game you should just learn to code, there is an unlimited amount of free recourses all over the internet for learning all coding languages. and In the end, you can make games much better than anything GameSalad could ever make. That's just my opinion (and what I'm currently doing).
Agreed.
It won't stop us from using the forum. I'm still gonna float around here until I see a version that seems suitable for me sign up to GS again. Trying another program at the moment to see how it feels. It spawns a 9x9 grid of actors instantly so almost sold already!
Anyone who actually cares about GameSalad and seeing it succeed is likely to stay, of course. But I'm hoping those interested in just repeating the same complaints over and over and harassing other users will lose interest and move along.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
@ant_lad consider this an official warning: personal attacks will not be tolerated. Please dial it back.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
Please get/buy/find/create some reading comprehension for staff and pro users
banned for not being able to comprehend warnings
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
@dgackey Frankly I think you guys have been more than patient with some of these post. I understand why you keep them open giving people a chance to vent. I ll be happy when the dust settles.
I finally just caught up on all the posts of this discussion and all I can say is wow at how ignorant some of the GS users are. It's quite obvious that they have not been around GS for a while and have not seen the pricing structures change throughout the years to help users. The price of GS a while ago I believe was around $999 a year then it dropped to $499 a year then dropped to $299 a year. This was done to make it more affordable for people. GS is now at a point where their ROI is negative. I am sure they had a lot of meetings on the best route to take to start improving their ROI. The GS users who are ranting about this being a bad business decision show that it is obvious that you arent looking at it from a business stand point but rather a customer stand point.
Like it or not, this is actually a smart business decision as it will hopefully start making their ROI positive. If they don't make the change now to start increasing their ROI then GS will eventually be no longer and in the end would have been the worst business decision of all time. By the looks of all the posts, I say out of every 100 GS users, there is 1 that is unhappy with this decision. And users that were just using the software for fun and never planning to pay for anything and publish, GS has already lost that user so if you are one of those users and complaining and saying you are leaving and never using GS again, well sorry to sound so harsh but GS isn't hurting by your final decision because you were technically never here.
Also, I don't know why everyone is comparing GS to other big engines and games. What people tend to forget is these other big companies have big investors and big game and app companies paying these engine companies so they can afford to do what they do. But also these other engines have large fees you pay once you publish, once you make a certain amount of money and/or downloads, a one time fee, etc. Also, for people comparing this to free to play games, JUST STOP. They are totally different. Those FTP games make tons of money with ads and PEOPLE PAYING FOR IN GAME STUFF. Also, some games make money when they are used for huge tournaments and other things.
Nothing is free now a days and everything no matter what is comes with a price whether it be large or small. After some stats come in based off the free 15 day trial, maybe the GS staff @dgackey, @CodeWizard will possibly extend it to maybe a 30 day trial but that is really the only change I could see GS making at this time. Hopefully people can start looking at this decision from a business stand point rather than a customer stand point and also stop comparing GS to other companies and business models. Especially ones that don't relate and you can't compare to.
GS software already exists, why should you keep it closed, why not give users the opportunity to learn the software and make games?
If someone wants to publish a game, then pay.
I understand that money were invested all this time in creating of this software, but as ThomasMul10 said, if users will learn to use GS and create a game that they will want to publish it, they will definitely pay for it !
Sorry for my bad english.
Thumbs up for GS!
This was my last post on this topic.
that's just the point, it's been free for 2-3 years now and they discovered that only a small percentage of users actually published anything, and those that did used the free model. If more free users published something they might have gotten more revenue from those ad-supported games, but it just didn't happen.
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
And what are the costs for GS if i download this software and i use it but i don't publish the game? If the costs for GS are > then 0 i understand, GS cannot pay for me, else why can't be used for free just how it was?
This software is not using the GS servers if i dont publish a game or someting like that, right?
You're forgetting that we hire and pay developers to keep making the tool better and fixing bugs! The publishing servers are actually pretty cheap by comparison.
Now, I suppose that business model could work if we never needed to update Creator ever again... but I don't think that would be a very popular strategy!
I believe if GS team didn't have to go this way , they wouldn't , so its a decision that they had to take to improve their business, which is good for us developers too, they will improve gamesalad.
You can see the improvements in the last couple of months. If your not able to pay for it then find a solution but don't blame GS as if it was made only for you ! and by you i mean people who keep trashing GS and blaming them for choosing their own price system. They own GS if they want to make it cost 5000 $ then its up to them.
The problem is not with GS , the real problem is that you cannot buy the pro version , now I wish that people could buy it i'm fortunate to be able to, i saved for quite a long time to be able to buy a pro version and im glad i did. I didnt come here and blame GS for their 299 $ price, kept fighting for what i want and i earned it by hard work , I dont even have a job I just went and tried every possible way to make it come true. I really want to develop games and I found this easiest , most entertaining engine. So it is worth all the things i went through to get the money.
I understand that some people will find it difficult but this is reality, you need to find a way to make it through , sitting here and trolling in the forums wont do you any good. Some people just want a free engine that does all the magic for them. What would you do later on when your stuck with problems in your life, are you going to blame everyone around or are you going to stand up and find a way to solve your issues. I don't want to cause trouble and i dont want to be rude but I just read everything and was surprised, some of you just kept saying how everything is coming to an end and how giving up is the only solution ( i repeat SOME not all ) .
I hope you all either find a way to buy GS or find the right engine that suits you, goodluck!
If people have to pay to use GS and hence the forum the level of conversation may just improve.
a bonus if you ask me
Send and Receive Data using your own Server Tutorial! | Vote for A Long Way Home on Steam Greenlight! | Ten Years Left
@lycettebros Second that!!!
I agree.
Guru Video Channel | Lost Oasis Games | FRYING BACON STUDIOS
@oxido and others,
Hello. The company, like the majority out there, has two costs, fixed and variable. They have overhead and Research and Development. Overhead includes rents, utilities, salaries, other. Research and Development is done to jump from GS version 0.01 to whatever they are at now.
If the company is posting a loss, expenses outpaced revenues. Some companies can weather this for a fiscal year or two, but others cannot. The company has to react accordingly by increasing revenues, reducing costs, or both. Or they could go to the market and issue debt or equity. Debt is a loan, a note, a bond, or the like, which you pay back in installments and with interest. Equity is shares, common or preferred. If you sell common shares, you may lose control of the company. If you issue preferred shares, you will have to declare and pay dividends.
What this all translates to is that if the previous business model was no longer generating the required revenues, they must adapt to continue to exist. It's probably a good case study for some business major. The reality is that the GS staff has to deal with a lot more than actors, behaviors and bug reports, and I hope they continue to succeed.
My Blog / App Store / Google Play
I would have agreed with the new pricing model "if" gamesalad has showed us what's coming ahead. Until now, I only know they want to give better support, and make the tool more stable. It has been a week now since the major change, and still no news about the 0.14 release, the staff also keeps ignoring this question, which I consider "bad support"... It would have been better if they came up with a new roadmap, and then change the pricing model, rather then: "Guys we're sorry it's not free anymore, you can guess what we're going to do next, please pay us within 15 days, and we will let you know our new roadmap in the very near future (god knows when)! Ow and we fired some people, but who cares about that anyway...
I was just thinking the more people use it, the more bugs they'll find.
So since it's not going to be free anymore you'll see less bugs, and when there is a bug, it's frustrating for paying members.
By not making it free, i think you're missing out on a huge opportunity of a large number of free testers for you, like hobbyists that would otherwise be your potential QA.
Actually, nobody has ignored this comment, and in fact I have had this conversation with you many times; you just don't like the answer.
You consistently ask about future potential features as a requirement for subscribing now, but ignore the fact that the annual commitment has been removed. The idea here is quite simple: if the tool provides value to you today, pay to use it. If it does not, don't! You are quite literally paying only for what you use, nothing more. Expected future value really doesn't enter into it.
Will we be improving the tool and adding new features? Absolutely! Can we predict the future? No. Will we commit to one of several possible futures? Not likely. Here's what we've said consistently since we shifted the plans:
We're going to focus in the short term on tool stability, fixing crashes, improving stability, addressing memory leaks, and improving overall reliability. We're going to finish bringing the Windows tool to feature parity with the Mac tool. We're going to add native Windows EXE publishing. And we'll address new features and other things as bandwidth opens up.
If this doesn't work for you, right now, today -- my deepest apologies!
Again, agree to disagree. There's no need to comment on HR here but to say "who cares about them anyway" would be deeply, deeply wrong and is borderline offensive. The decision was not made lightly nor did it come without a significant cost to the team, but it had to be done.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com