@Armelline I see, I had no idea. Have you considered using the bootcamp program in Mac and running Windows?
At the very least it's not like with the Windows side where you have to buy a Mac or rent Macincloud due to not being able to legally buy the OS for Mac and run it on windows in a virtual machine.
@GeorgeGS said:
The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore.
Appreciated, white it is, like I say it's not a big deal in itself, just one of many numerous little UX details that make the user experience less than ideal.
@Socks said:
Appreciated, white it is, like I say it's not a big deal in itself, just one of many numerous little UX details that make the user experience less than ideal.
Hearing it has at least been discussed is encouraging. I'd love to see that kind of thing in the weekly update threads. "We've been looking into this issue and x y and z need to be considered but we're actively seeking the best solution."
With Bugzilla - and the previous bug reporting system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a requested feature ?
@GeorgeGS said:
Changing the default text color is simple. We've almost done it several times in just the last 2 weeks. The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore
If having a preference window is too much how about remembering what colour text we choose and defaulting to that each time we add Display Text, until we change it? That can't be that difficult surely?
@Socks said:
With Bugzilla - and the previous bug reporting system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a requested feature ?
One of the heavily requested ad networks has been/is being implemented. I'm sure other things too, but that springs to mind.
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
edited July 2015
@Socks said:
With Bugzilla - and the previous bug reporting system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a requested feature ?
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Ask a question on good faith and you shall receive.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@Socks said:
I don't think any process where people openly speak their minds should be seen as unhelpful (even if the views expressed are negative), but maybe that's a personal view - I also don't think it's unreasonable to think there is no intention to address issues that have been in the software for years after years of requests, the view might actually be wrong, but I don't think it's an unreasonable (illogical) assumption.
Ah, I see what you're saying. (Thought you were just making fun of my awkward grammar!). You're right, it's not good to insult the most common and possibly most obvious interpretation of events. Let me try again and address that directly:
It is incorrect to assume that we don't care about features that have been suggested many years ago and have no intention to implement them. Especially now that our priorities have shifted a bit (you might have noticed ), it's worth bringing these suggestions to our attention, even if you've done so before. Just please do so nicely. It's probably not even worth bringing up how old the request is. It only serves to stir up anger and accusations and really has no relevance in determining how good of an idea it is today.
@WebWarrior said:
It's worth bringing these suggestions to our attention, even if you've done so before. Just please do so nicely
I did a post this morning of the things I'd like to see fixed/sorted in GameSalad which has now dropped down to the second page of posts. I think I did it nicely too
Certain features and fixes should be a given to the GS staff, unless they don't use the tool themselves. Not every little things should be answered with file a bug/feature request and we will do it if there is enough votes, this i believe discourages users. Ive noticed a few other members express this same concern.
@Armelline said:
Opinions expressed nicely are unfortunately currently soliciting far fewer responses.
I read a lot more things than I have time or knowledge to respond to and I suspect that's the same for a fair amount of the rest of the team. It would be impossible for us to answer every post, but that doesn't mean we didn't see it.
@GeorgeGS said:
I read a lot more things than I have time or knowledge to respond to and I suspect that's the same for a fair amount of the rest of the team. It would be impossible for us to answer every post, but that doesn't mean we didn't see it.
Perhaps you should probably show more presence on some of the positive posts. It does seem like most of the team mainly react and respond to the negative posts slating GameSalad. You can often see like 3 or 4 team members out then. That's just how I see it.
@Armelline said:
Opinions expressed nicely are unfortunately currently soliciting far fewer responses.
We're kind of in firefighting mode right now .
But to that point, and a bit to @KevinCross and @Hopscotch (See, @Socks, we can tag people ), the forums are a really bad place to be requesting features officially. We read the forums, but we don't really have a way to keep track of forum suggestions and, more importantly, rank them against other suggestions. So they just kind of fall into the pit of Page 2.
The best workflow is probably to discuss features on the forums, but include a link to vote on the feature in Bugzilla from your topic. I know Bugzilla feels like a bit of black hole right now, too, but it's going to be very helpful to us as soon as we meet our own goals (which are mostly related to stability and reliability). And of course, we'll be looking pretty heavily at usability around that time as well.
@WebWarrior said:
We're kind of in firefighting mode right now
There's so little actual disgruntlement (at least on the forums) I think you've slipped into the wrong mode. 95% of the response has been positive, and the result has been lots of questions and suggestions. We see the opportunity to say "Hey since you're actually doing stuff that has a clear benefit to us right now, how about this?"
It's completely understandable that you can't read every thread, but you really, really need to know what's going on on the forums. Maybe even assign a person who does read every post to summarise key issues identified and themes that develop to ensure you stay fully in the loop, providing links to really important posts.
This is an amazing opportunity to reach out to an engaged and receptive community, and right now it's being wasted, at least to some extent.
The best workflow is probably to discuss features on the forums, but include a link to vote on the feature in Bugzilla from your topic. I know Bugzilla feels like a bit of black hole right now, too, but it's going to be very helpful to us as soon as we meet our own goals (which are mostly related to stability and reliability). And of course, we'll be looking pretty heavily at usability around that time as well.
Bugzilla as a bug portal is fantastic. We love it. We use it. I have a nice little list of bugs I've submitted and in almost all cases they've been responded to QUICKLY and fixed QUICKLY and that's been fantastic. Leaps and bounds beyond where we were years ago. Leaps and bounds.
For the features, I really don't get the resistance to actually surveying your user base. I get very few emails from GameSalad, and that's a wasted opportunity. I'd love to see more email communication from you guys. With the option to unsubscribe, of course, so those who want to see less can see less!
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
@Icebox1910 said:
I'm glad your considering Exe. would we be able to publish exe on mac ?
Oh, it's not under consideration, it's something that we will be absolutely doing And as binaries are generated on our servers, yes, you should absolutely be able to generate a Windows native EXE using the Mac tool. This is a core part of the vision of GS.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@GeorgeGS said:
Changing the default text color is simple. We've almost done it several times in just the last 2 weeks. The issue is, if all you use are default white boxes then black is a better choice than white. If you use real art then white is probably a better default choice than black. If you choose a 3rd option and add a preference for it that each user can set for themselves it isn't a 5 minute fix anymore.
All actors are default white boxes to begin with.
A lot of the time people use display text for troubleshooting logic. This means it improves the workflow over a long period of time if set to black since you don't have to change it EVERY time to even see the text.
If it's set to black and your going to be using display text with artwork/some sort of text system. Chances are you will look at the text color/font and change it quite a bit more to meet your needs for that text system. So in that case you already are going the extra step.
That's why I feel like white is a bad color to start with when white is also the default box color.
@dgackey im really glad , but would we only be able to publish on GS website ? or would we have the choice to upload it to other places ? and does this mean we can publish on steam when this feature becomes available ?
thanks for replying
dgackeyAustin, TXInactive, PRO, Chef EmeritusPosts: 699
edited July 2015
@Icebox1910 you would get a native Windows EXE that you could take to Steam*, put on a CD-ROM, or upload anywhere you like!
*I have to put a disclaimer here in that you USED to be able to take an EXE, wrap it with Valve's tools, and get your game on Steam, but I'm not sure if this is still an option. I have been trying to get Valve to partner with us for months to allow us to implement their SDK functions in GS, but they're notoriously hard to pin down.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
You just think you want tile set abilities and grids. But that's just because you haven't gotten to the part where you see your apps performance. That's when you'll really tear your hair out. I still like GameSalad. It's some kind of Stockholm syndrome.
@WebWarrior "Currently has 6 votes and is ranked #8. #1 is polygon collisions with 34 votes, and #2 is custom fonts with 29 votes."
RANT TIME....
ok so does that mean you guys are working on polygon collision? Is that at the top of the list of things to do? SO before anything else is released as a update. The next one will have polygon collision?.........No? Ok #2 on the list. Custom Fonts? Ok so since its 2nd on the list... that surely means you guys are working on that as we speak?................................................crickets.........................No?
Like people have said before. Some things have been asked for for over 4 yrs. And instead of any of the top 5 things being released. We get glitchy pieces of everything else.
Dont sit there and tell us the reason why something isnt being worked on is because its not at the top of the list. Then tell us #1 isnt being worked on as well.
Show us the rankings of votes from #1 to whatever.... And now tell us which one of the top 5 are we gonna see released first.
oh btw......unreleased features that currently have a "WORKAROUND" doesnt mean they fall to the bottom of the pile.
I really appreciate the recent openness of you guys at GameSalad. That and the tackling of performance issues after all these years are good signs I think.
I myself have voted on features like collision polygons and custom fonts but I don't understand how anyone could compare these or similar features to actual updates to the Creator. This thing is the core of the whole GameSalad system - its look and feel are experienced by every single one of your customers no matter if he or she is completely new to making games, trying to make a quick buck with an app or actually trying to develop a good game. No matter if you're trying to get the collision for an actor to feel right or a score font to look fitting - you'll always have to position actors, open and close them, move them around, etc.
There's a lot wrong with >basic< features in the Creator by which I mean their implementation is cumbersome or they're just absent. Every single user will trip over them and that's especially relevant in the light of the 15 days trial and the proclaimed focus on people who are new to making games. These people don't have our experience - experience which has been built over years. And over the course of 15 days they won't be able to walk around these triping hazards like a lot of veteran users do. Having custom fonts or collision polygons won't help newcomers to work around and forget the massive shortcomings of the Creator.
The talk about GameSalad veterans brings me to Bugzilla.
First of all i have to say that since you started using Bugzilla there were near to no new features added to the Creator which makes it kinda hard to evaluate it (I'm not talking about bug fixing here).
I think it's a good thing to scout out new features or the general interest but it's a terrible terrible thing to distill the definite roadmap from. Like many have said, most people who use Bugzilla to vote on features are veterans or at least have some experience with the Creator and know how to dance around the basic problems after months or years of experience. They have adapted to GameSalad to varying degrees and they'll vote on stuff that inspires them or could benefit the games they're developing or planning at that moment. That doesn't mean that there isn't other stuff that would be much more beneficial to the whole game making process, to the whole GameSalad system and especially to people who are new to GameSalad.
Finally something that springs to my mind right now and never seems to be discussed. The fleshing out of the Creator's basic features isn't open ended. Contrary to "new features" of which there'll always be new, interesting or flashy ones the Creator could actually reach a state in which it is perfectly usable. From there on out everything could be focused on new features like mulitplayer, collisions, fonts, masks, whatever - while newcomers wouldn't have an off-putting first impression and veterans could develop like there was no tomorrow.
I don't know if performance is that much of an issue now with new devices, I think it used to be with old devices , but many people now use new devices and performance is good, the only issue might be with the loading time, which takes less than 4 seconds when i tried many gamesalad games on different devices . My game is a platformer with 100 actors and lot of moveable actors, constrains and big images,it runs pretty smooth 58 - 60 fps sometimes drops to 55 but thats it.
@dgackey said:
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Ask a question on good faith and you shall receive.
It's a genuine question in an entirely legitimate conversation from what I can see, I can't see where the need to poison-the-well comes from ? There have been a number of polls and bug/feature request systems and 'vote for your favourite features' threads and numerous other conversations and promises made around requested features and as far I understand none of these things has ever produced a single requested feature, so I think that may well play some part in a lack of user involvement in yet another feature request system, but like I've said elsewhere I can't really speak for anyone else, so I could be off the mark, but it wouldn't surprise me if the repeated promises and failure to deliver those promises has led to a kind ingrained malaise, not in any kind of dramatic way, just a lack of faith that these things will deliver much if anything. I'm sure I'm like lots of users (actually I'm not sure, lol, so I'll just stick to this being my personal opinion), you see the promise of joints or whatever, yeah!, doesn't happen, no big deal, you jump in the which-feature-do-you-most-want-thread, you vote, you think 'yeah! custom fonts have won!' a year passes, another year, nothing happens, Lua-Free is announced, looks amazing, you think 'yeah !' (I went Pro pretty much immediately, very impressive video), a year passes, nothing happens, Lua-Free is cancelled, a new push is made for some other great stuff, pretty much the same deal, a year passes, all that stuff fades into history and a new push for something else happens and so on . . . at least that's how it comes across.
@Icebox1910 said:
I don't know if performance is that much of an issue now with new devices, I think it used to be with old devices
Performance might be acceptable in most cases but loading times on new devices are not that much different than on older devices it seems. I've made a few games and I'm now in the process of making a children's game for a company that hired me to do so. I've spent close to a year on this one and the loading times and scene changes bring me to tears. The game has a few smaller games that could not be made in to one scene. Some scene changes take up to 14 seconds on both Ipad third generation and the newest Air one with a few actors (with all the optimisation tricks) but a lot of logic. So no, performance is an issue. Maybe not for a single-scene flappy bird-type game but for anything a bit larger it is.
Comments
@Armelline I see, I had no idea. Have you considered using the bootcamp program in Mac and running Windows?
At the very least it's not like with the Windows side where you have to buy a Mac or rent Macincloud due to not being able to legally buy the OS for Mac and run it on windows in a virtual machine.
Appreciated, white it is, like I say it's not a big deal in itself, just one of many numerous little UX details that make the user experience less than ideal.
Hearing it has at least been discussed is encouraging. I'd love to see that kind of thing in the weekly update threads. "We've been looking into this issue and x y and z need to be considered but we're actively seeking the best solution."
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
With Bugzilla - and the previous bug reporting system - and the various 'vote for your favourite feature' threads, and the user started threads, and the various feature request conversations (and all that kind of thing) . . . has anything, ever, over the past half decade or so, ever delivered a requested feature ?
If having a preference window is too much how about remembering what colour text we choose and defaulting to that each time we add Display Text, until we change it? That can't be that difficult surely?
One of the heavily requested ad networks has been/is being implemented. I'm sure other things too, but that springs to mind.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Ask a question on good faith and you shall receive.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
Ah, I see what you're saying. (Thought you were just making fun of my awkward grammar!). You're right, it's not good to insult the most common and possibly most obvious interpretation of events. Let me try again and address that directly:
It is incorrect to assume that we don't care about features that have been suggested many years ago and have no intention to implement them. Especially now that our priorities have shifted a bit (you might have noticed
), it's worth bringing these suggestions to our attention, even if you've done so before. Just please do so nicely. It's probably not even worth bringing up how old the request is. It only serves to stir up anger and accusations and really has no relevance in determining how good of an idea it is today.
Here is my wish:
Snap on dropping of actor
MESSAGING, X-PLATFORM LEADERBOARDS, OFFLINE-TIMER, ANALYTICS and BACK-END CONTROL for your GameSalad projects
www.APPFORMATIVE.com
I did a post this morning of the things I'd like to see fixed/sorted in GameSalad which has now dropped down to the second page of posts. I think I did it nicely too
Opinions expressed nicely are unfortunately currently soliciting far fewer responses.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Certain features and fixes should be a given to the GS staff, unless they don't use the tool themselves. Not every little things should be answered with file a bug/feature request and we will do it if there is enough votes, this i believe discourages users. Ive noticed a few other members express this same concern.
Fortuna Infortuna Forti Una
I read a lot more things than I have time or knowledge to respond to and I suspect that's the same for a fair amount of the rest of the team. It would be impossible for us to answer every post, but that doesn't mean we didn't see it.
Perhaps you should probably show more presence on some of the positive posts. It does seem like most of the team mainly react and respond to the negative posts slating GameSalad. You can often see like 3 or 4 team members out then. That's just how I see it.
Not even sure why I care now lol >.<
I'd love to see more of the constructive posts responded to, rather than the non-construcitve ones.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
We're kind of in firefighting mode right now
.
But to that point, and a bit to @KevinCross and @Hopscotch (See, @Socks, we can tag people
), the forums are a really bad place to be requesting features officially. We read the forums, but we don't really have a way to keep track of forum suggestions and, more importantly, rank them against other suggestions. So they just kind of fall into the pit of Page 2.
The best workflow is probably to discuss features on the forums, but include a link to vote on the feature in Bugzilla from your topic. I know Bugzilla feels like a bit of black hole right now, too, but it's going to be very helpful to us as soon as we meet our own goals (which are mostly related to stability and reliability). And of course, we'll be looking pretty heavily at usability around that time as well.
I'm glad your considering Exe. would we be able to publish exe on mac ?
There's so little actual disgruntlement (at least on the forums) I think you've slipped into the wrong mode. 95% of the response has been positive, and the result has been lots of questions and suggestions. We see the opportunity to say "Hey since you're actually doing stuff that has a clear benefit to us right now, how about this?"
It's completely understandable that you can't read every thread, but you really, really need to know what's going on on the forums. Maybe even assign a person who does read every post to summarise key issues identified and themes that develop to ensure you stay fully in the loop, providing links to really important posts.
This is an amazing opportunity to reach out to an engaged and receptive community, and right now it's being wasted, at least to some extent.
Bugzilla as a bug portal is fantastic. We love it. We use it. I have a nice little list of bugs I've submitted and in almost all cases they've been responded to QUICKLY and fixed QUICKLY and that's been fantastic. Leaps and bounds beyond where we were years ago. Leaps and bounds.
For the features, I really don't get the resistance to actually surveying your user base. I get very few emails from GameSalad, and that's a wasted opportunity. I'd love to see more email communication from you guys. With the option to unsubscribe, of course, so those who want to see less can see less!
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
Oh, it's not under consideration, it's something that we will be absolutely doing
And as binaries are generated on our servers, yes, you should absolutely be able to generate a Windows native EXE using the Mac tool. This is a core part of the vision of GS.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
All actors are default white boxes to begin with.
A lot of the time people use display text for troubleshooting logic. This means it improves the workflow over a long period of time if set to black since you don't have to change it EVERY time to even see the text.
If it's set to black and your going to be using display text with artwork/some sort of text system. Chances are you will look at the text color/font and change it quite a bit more to meet your needs for that text system. So in that case you already are going the extra step.
That's why I feel like white is a bad color to start with when white is also the default box color.
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@dgackey im really glad , but would we only be able to publish on GS website ? or would we have the choice to upload it to other places ? and does this mean we can publish on steam when this feature becomes available ?
thanks for replying
@Icebox1910 you would get a native Windows EXE that you could take to Steam*, put on a CD-ROM, or upload anywhere you like!
*I have to put a disclaimer here in that you USED to be able to take an EXE, wrap it with Valve's tools, and get your game on Steam, but I'm not sure if this is still an option. I have been trying to get Valve to partner with us for months to allow us to implement their SDK functions in GS, but they're notoriously hard to pin down.
Dan Magaha · COO · GameSalad, Inc · danm@gamesalad.com
@dgackey This is really awesome ! thanks cant wait !
You just think you want tile set abilities and grids. But that's just because you haven't gotten to the part where you see your apps performance. That's when you'll really tear your hair out. I still like GameSalad. It's some kind of Stockholm syndrome.
@WebWarrior
"Currently has 6 votes and is ranked #8. #1 is polygon collisions with 34 votes, and #2 is custom fonts with 29 votes."
RANT TIME....
ok so does that mean you guys are working on polygon collision? Is that at the top of the list of things to do? SO before anything else is released as a update. The next one will have polygon collision?.........No? Ok #2 on the list. Custom Fonts? Ok so since its 2nd on the list... that surely means you guys are working on that as we speak?................................................crickets.........................No?
Like people have said before. Some things have been asked for for over 4 yrs. And instead of any of the top 5 things being released. We get glitchy pieces of everything else.
Dont sit there and tell us the reason why something isnt being worked on is because its not at the top of the list. Then tell us #1 isnt being worked on as well.
Show us the rankings of votes from #1 to whatever.... And now tell us which one of the top 5 are we gonna see released first.
oh btw......unreleased features that currently have a "WORKAROUND" doesnt mean they fall to the bottom of the pile.
RANT over
I really appreciate the recent openness of you guys at GameSalad. That and the tackling of performance issues after all these years are good signs I think.
I myself have voted on features like collision polygons and custom fonts but I don't understand how anyone could compare these or similar features to actual updates to the Creator. This thing is the core of the whole GameSalad system - its look and feel are experienced by every single one of your customers no matter if he or she is completely new to making games, trying to make a quick buck with an app or actually trying to develop a good game. No matter if you're trying to get the collision for an actor to feel right or a score font to look fitting - you'll always have to position actors, open and close them, move them around, etc.
There's a lot wrong with >basic< features in the Creator by which I mean their implementation is cumbersome or they're just absent. Every single user will trip over them and that's especially relevant in the light of the 15 days trial and the proclaimed focus on people who are new to making games. These people don't have our experience - experience which has been built over years. And over the course of 15 days they won't be able to walk around these triping hazards like a lot of veteran users do. Having custom fonts or collision polygons won't help newcomers to work around and forget the massive shortcomings of the Creator.
The talk about GameSalad veterans brings me to Bugzilla.
First of all i have to say that since you started using Bugzilla there were near to no new features added to the Creator which makes it kinda hard to evaluate it (I'm not talking about bug fixing here).
I think it's a good thing to scout out new features or the general interest but it's a terrible terrible thing to distill the definite roadmap from. Like many have said, most people who use Bugzilla to vote on features are veterans or at least have some experience with the Creator and know how to dance around the basic problems after months or years of experience. They have adapted to GameSalad to varying degrees and they'll vote on stuff that inspires them or could benefit the games they're developing or planning at that moment. That doesn't mean that there isn't other stuff that would be much more beneficial to the whole game making process, to the whole GameSalad system and especially to people who are new to GameSalad.
Finally something that springs to my mind right now and never seems to be discussed. The fleshing out of the Creator's basic features isn't open ended. Contrary to "new features" of which there'll always be new, interesting or flashy ones the Creator could actually reach a state in which it is perfectly usable. From there on out everything could be focused on new features like mulitplayer, collisions, fonts, masks, whatever - while newcomers wouldn't have an off-putting first impression and veterans could develop like there was no tomorrow.
@Hoodloc Superbly put.
Contact me for custom work - Expert GS developer with 15 years of GS experience - Skype: armelline.support
I don't know if performance is that much of an issue now with new devices, I think it used to be with old devices , but many people now use new devices and performance is good, the only issue might be with the loading time, which takes less than 4 seconds when i tried many gamesalad games on different devices . My game is a platformer with 100 actors and lot of moveable actors, constrains and big images,it runs pretty smooth 58 - 60 fps sometimes drops to 55 but thats it.
It's a genuine question in an entirely legitimate conversation from what I can see, I can't see where the need to poison-the-well comes from ? There have been a number of polls and bug/feature request systems and 'vote for your favourite features' threads and numerous other conversations and promises made around requested features and as far I understand none of these things has ever produced a single requested feature, so I think that may well play some part in a lack of user involvement in yet another feature request system, but like I've said elsewhere I can't really speak for anyone else, so I could be off the mark, but it wouldn't surprise me if the repeated promises and failure to deliver those promises has led to a kind ingrained malaise, not in any kind of dramatic way, just a lack of faith that these things will deliver much if anything. I'm sure I'm like lots of users (actually I'm not sure, lol, so I'll just stick to this being my personal opinion), you see the promise of joints or whatever, yeah!, doesn't happen, no big deal, you jump in the which-feature-do-you-most-want-thread, you vote, you think 'yeah! custom fonts have won!' a year passes, another year, nothing happens, Lua-Free is announced, looks amazing, you think 'yeah !' (I went Pro pretty much immediately, very impressive video), a year passes, nothing happens, Lua-Free is cancelled, a new push is made for some other great stuff, pretty much the same deal, a year passes, all that stuff fades into history and a new push for something else happens and so on . . . at least that's how it comes across.
Performance might be acceptable in most cases but loading times on new devices are not that much different than on older devices it seems. I've made a few games and I'm now in the process of making a children's game for a company that hired me to do so. I've spent close to a year on this one and the loading times and scene changes bring me to tears. The game has a few smaller games that could not be made in to one scene. Some scene changes take up to 14 seconds on both Ipad third generation and the newest Air one with a few actors (with all the optimisation tricks) but a lot of logic. So no, performance is an issue. Maybe not for a single-scene flappy bird-type game but for anything a bit larger it is.