Although brent's first post was uninspiring, as they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." I think I may keep my account in limbo for a couple months and play the spectator.
It really is a shame as the gamesalad development enviroment was really shaping up to be something. There is so much almost there. Muliplayer, which is still buried inside the software and works perfect, except for adding it to the publishing system, Facebook integration, which was already in a nightly, steam, which we all rallied behind to get green lighted for them. Those three items, plus the addition of google play services would have make this a coveted tool for serious developers.
I would like to see them split the software into two versions, one for developers and one for education. It just seems developers aren't interested in using the gamesalad enviroment and I wonder why that is as it is the best environment for mobile 2d developing.
It just seems like this company is on a slow burn to oblivion. I wonder who the real man behind the curtan is who is calling the shots? Who are the money men?
"Although we won’t be working short term on Facebook integration or other larger features that mainly benefit just developers, the features that we will be working on will benefit you guys just as much as education users."
Hi @bdusing Firstly I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you and to wish you well in your new position.
I'd also like to express how I'm currently feeling about the statements recently.
Although it is very reassuring to hear that you will continue to support and update GameSalad for new OS releases and ensure its stability going forward, the quote at the top of my post concerns me greatly.
It shows a clear development prioritization for the educational user with the caveat that these things may also benefit developers.
As someone who has, and continues to make a significant contribution through time and subscriptions to GameSalad, it is only worthwhile if I can hope to make a return on this investment.
Here are just a couple of feature requests for which I was hopeful which I'm now assuming would be neglected?
Ability to take screenshots and post to social media (great marketing tool)
Google Play Services (great for boosting retention)
I suppose what I'm politely asking of you is to level with us and maybe put yourself in our shoes.
We need to know whether it's time to to say thanks very much to GameSalad and start investing our time to other tools like GameMaker, or can you offer us an honest commitment that we and our needs will be catered for? At the moment it feels a bit like we have been ejected from the table and we will be feeding off the crumbs of the educational community.
Sorry if that sounds negative but please make your strategy crystal clear for us. Are you saying that there is no chance whatsoever of features going forwards that would only benefit developers?
Thanks very much and I eagerly await your response.
Welcome @bdusing,
good to have you on board and all the best with your new vision for GS.
That said, this unfortunately sounds very "end of the road" to me, who is not sitting in a classroom. GS is a service, a service we commit to, because we put the confidence into it serving our current needs, as well as growing with our future expectations. As a developer, this is no longer a given.
To me it is most distressing that GS has repeatedly failed to recognize its own potential, identify and pander to the very real market niche it solely occupies, or even understand the needs of its current user base.
Actively pursuing the education market is a good move, but at the expense of the largest part of your current use base?
It is like Volvo, only selling to driving schools, because their cars are safe.
Hoping that I am overreacting to an unfortunately phrased opening statement, GS will have my continued support. Hopefully the education market will bring stability and with that renewed focus on wider horizons.
Hi @bdusing Welcome, I am happy that gs has a standalone ceo and no longer will rely on a one man band CTO/ CEO. But, the emphasis on education seems like it's more of a sales thing. I don't know much about the educational market but would think that from a product perspective the selling points of a great educational product would be identical to the selling points of a great development product. I have some questions about the segment of the educational market you will be going after. Will "game" Salad be sold as an educational tool to teach game development? Or will it be more of a program logic learning tool? Also, I am all for a shift in sales tactics to bring in more subs but if GameSalad is successful in the education market wouldn't there be value in beefing up the number of programmers and starting to add more features. I think the idea of selling to schools is a good fit for gs. But, I think the long term success of gs is to have as many development features as possible.
It seems like the education focus should go hand in hand with game development. When GS is introduced to students, many of the students are going to be interested in game development. So as you are selling to schools, you should be making the pitch to future developers that will be paying customers. So having rich development features that have been mentioned for a long time should be available or in the works.
Maybe I am missing something but it seems short sided to focus on education and not grow the developing side at the same time.
@Lost_Oasis_Games said "Those three items, plus the addition of google play services would have make this a coveted tool for serious developers." and "It just seems developers aren't interested in using the gamesalad enviroment and I wonder why that is as it is the best environment for mobile 2d developing."
I think I can answer that for you... Ive actually sat in meetings where it has been discussed. It basically comes down to two issues... neither of which are Facebook, Multiplayer, Ad options or even the lacking UI features.
Firstly, and this is the primary reason most studios who are developing games with serious budgets won't even look at GS, is the fact that the build process is all done externally.
For companies/developers that are spending large budgets on development its seen as too much of a risk to not have control of the build process. Imagine spending 2 years developing a game, then when your ready to publish, the tool provider has gone out of business, and the servers no longer accessible.. or even on a smaller scale, the servers aren't maintained very good, and are down a lot. Its just not a viable risk for most developers that are talking development budgets in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Smaller, or solo devs run that risk though... if GS goes under, and servers go offline, everyones projects suddenly become instantly useless. So its becoming even more of a possible REAL risk with the constantly deteriorating situation at GS towers.
Secondly, and somewhat linked to the first reason... is reliability/reputation.
Most serious studios see GS as unreliable and with a very shaky reputation, and as such, too much of a risk to use for long term development. The company changes direction and announces changes to its business model every 6 to 12 months, and theres been a history of consistently broken, or buggy builds that have taken up to a year to get fixed. Features are often promised that either never turn up, or are later just completely backtracked on. Most serious developers, building their companies just cannot work with a company or product that doesn't offer longterm reliable use.
GameSalad will never be seen as a tool for serious/big budget development while those two issues remain.
@viking I think the answer to your question is that the educational audience that GS is going to be aimed at, or more accurately succeed with, is going to be Junior and High School users. The reason why I say this, is that colleges and universities should be aiming at sending their students out into the workplace with readily usable skillsets.. so most will use and teach more widely used software from the professional field... so Unity, Unreal engine, GameMaker. Universities are going to look a bit stupid if they teach and send students out into the workplace who are trained in a software that only has limited market penetration and usage... so I don't see it being picked up by higher education providers.
@viking I think the answer to your question is that the educational audience that GS is going to be aimed at, or more accurately succeed with, is going to be Junior and High School users. The reason why I say this, is that colleges and universities should be aiming at sending their students out into the workplace with readily usable skillsets.. so most will use and teach more widely used software from the professional field... so Unity, Unreal engine, GameMaker. Universities are going to look a bit stupid if they teach and send students out into the workplace who are trained in a software that only has limited market penetration and usage... so I don't see it being picked up by higher education providers.
I can confirm this as my son is a game development major and those are the three programs they use. Gamesalad is not even mentioned, as I asked him. He is building his resume game in GameMaker. Most of hos classmates are using one of those three depending on the type of game they are building.
Well then GS has to improve development than market it to complete with other engines.. Still I dont see they are giving importance to development.. secondly now they are not giving priority to (long tuned) developers.. I dont know how well will GS go without experienced developers support..
Using GameSalad as a tool to introduce programming to a younger audience (assuming they will target Junior and High School users) seems like a great idea but when they are progressively getting better at making games they will eventually see the limitations of GS and switch to other platforms.
Educational focus isn't a bad thing at all but the main goal should be converting those users to PRO DEVELOPERS so keeping GameSalad stable and implementing new features is a necessity in order to keep GameSalad afloat.
Well. No one will like learning a tools they can't use as professional one. So this looks like they don't even understand where are they moving now. Unfortunately...
PS Anyway Game Salad was excellent tool and had very inspiring community on some stage. But everything once finishes.
I stick with GS for almost 5 years. I would say GS has great potential to be a great tool. But for now its far to be a professional tool for game developments. SO much features missing and its very difficult to make a big project.
PS: some good things i see in GS are: Fast speed for building a games & simple for non programmer to use (artist).
I think what upsets me more than anything is the lack of response from GS management. There are so many questions above. Where is the community involvement here when the entire GS community is pouring it's heart out?
Veterans making some bold statements on the future of the company and their own development.
Turns my optimism on a head and makes me fairly concerned. Is this a two-way conversation with the community or just the beginning of the end. I think it's the latter.
I left GS about 2-3 months ago...at least via my own announcement in the 1.25 release thread...I haven't used it since and used it less even before that.
When I started using GS...and came to the forums I slowly found out two things....this community of users is amazing...they are the support of GS...there was a few staff members that chimed in once is a while...but slowly I realized the second thing...support from GS is given only after the rants started and members started making rants and blasting GS for their lank of communication with its members. You have/had members making tools to do your job...I say "your"...you regardless of how recent you came on board...you took the chair and all it holds and so its responsibility falls on your lap.
There is a threshold people have...a line to be crossed to just give up. My had been crossed. In the nicest way possible I'd like to tell you that your post really didn't do any thing as far as address the communities concerns...at least in my opinion. Your introduction should have been "focused" on this community and the current software users...not announcing how you will be focusing on education. Your statements basically were an announcement that your going to tidy up for us and build a new GS for students...like your going to make sure that one works... Guaranteed ! For "us" existing users/subs...well we'll do what is needed to keep you around.
My personal opinion to you is to spend some time looking through the history of threads and find out who supports GS...builds tools...wether they are free or asking to make money off them and thank and apologize on behalf of GS...learn what they have done and put them in the creator....no member spends 2-3 years making a tool the creator doesn't have unless...it's important.
We don't spend a year or more voting for features...that never get a single....not one answer from GS as to wether it's even under consideration or not to be a feature...but the votes continue.
The creator I use now has excellent features...the BEST staff support and costs 9 times as much...has zero errors and has had updates and new versions in a third of my. The CEO is a user...and that's the best way I know of to know what's wrong and what to fix.
Do you use GS or will you just be a CEO ?
I'm feeling my post here is about to turn negative
There's a lot of discussion happening, now and in the past, about GameSalad not being a "professional" enough tool and it not being what "professional" game developers want to use. This is true, but it misses two important points.
GameSalad doesn't aim to compete with Unity or even GameMaker. It always sought a different segment of the market - the hobbyists, the people who don't want to do even basic scripting, the people who just want to make games fast and easily. It's pointless comparing it to tools like Unity. I assume they'll be seeking a different part of the educational market to those tools, too. GameSalad is never going to be the tool that a very serious game studio is going to use. It's never tried to be. It would be mad to try to. It's also disingenuous to say "schools in England use GameMaker". Some do, sure. But some use GameSalad, too.
It's really going to depend on what the purpose of the school is. If they are offering a game design course aiming to prepare students for a life in the industry, then GameSalad is clearly not the right tool for them. That's fair enough. If it's that they want to offer kids an introduction to logic, to problem solving and to give the average kid a change to make games, then GameSalad is perfect for them. There are a huge amount of kids who would love to make their own game but will never be able to tackle even GameMaker. This is a harder segment to break into, though, as it's going to be requiring money from the extra curricular budgets, rather than the IT department budgets. And a lot of schools, in England at least, just don't have any money to spare in their extra curricular budgets. It's all being spent on football nets and sports things. I feel sorry for the sales staff being hired if it is @bdusing's intention to try to get GameSalad taught as a "subject" students will take as one of their course options, rather than an extra curricular option. It's woefully inadequate for that. But it's the most suitable and accessible software available for putting in front of mixed ability kids who want to make games.
GameSalad hasn't failed in its target market because it's not professional enough. The target market doesn't need more professional tools than GameSalad. It's failed as it has been a buggy, slow, regularly crashing and stagnating piece of software for nearly a decade. When @CodeWizard took over, he made huge strides towards fixing this. It almost never crashes now. It has a ton of features it didn't have even a year ago. For a while, it was much faster. But it's still battling the same fundamental problem - it's a pain in the ass to use it, especially for big projects, due to the glacial speed it runs at. When your target market is people who want an easy solution, it needs to be easy. Not an exercise in beach ball watching. This is the root of GameSalad's bad rep, too. It's not the lack of features - people who need push notifications and camera access and things are unlikely to be in GameSalad's target market anyway. The bad rep came from it being a slow and buggy piece of software. A rep becoming worse by the second. Throw in the fact that the target market who IS paying for the software are currently being charged for unusable software, and we have another big problem.
Too much of the discussion in this and other threads is focusing on the wrong things. If GameSalad isn't the tool for you, it isn't the tool for you. But it probably never intended to be the tool for you. Complain about how slow it is. Complain about how it stagnated for years. Complain about the abysmal communication from staff to community. Complain about the way the community has kept the product alive for years and has never been properly appreciated by the parent company. But complaining about GameSalad not be a "professional" tool is just absurd. It's the easiest way to make games that exists. Of course it's not the most professional.
I wish @bdusing could read every comment here and give us better hope and explanation as currently he left already upset community with no hope or support, at least try to read and answer as we have lots of questions to be answered and silence is not the answer!!
A lot of good feedback........But I would like to give just a humble suggestion.....Let's give Mr. Brent Dusing, some time to look at the suggestions / concerns / opinions, etc... and wait for his feedback. With that said, as a user, if you don't feel comfortable using Game Salad anymore, then there are alternatives out there, that you can use. Lots of game engines out there.......Myself, I'm already using another game engine, but I would still use Game-Salad, why? Cause Game-Salad is easy to use, and no programming. Heck, thanks to Game-Salad and many tutorials form this community, I was able to launch some games with it. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, you have to make choices, and be pro active about it. And in the near future, if Game Salad comes back with a solid plan for the future, I would support it. But for now, I have to be pro active and at the same time I'm learning Javascript........ God Bless....
Just leave already if you don't support the move.
The community is the worst part of GS. It just destroy everything.
From making ranting videos about the software and users, to making of constant drama. The assumptions. The shaming of CEO's. Get rid of the forums and solve a lot of problems. (Or get rid of some members )
New CEO, laid out the plans to keep the software lights on. It has to be done to survive. Its the only logical solution. The new move lets current developer continue to support their games or development while focusing on a stable source of revenue.
@Two.E said:
Just leave already if you don't support the move.
The community is the worst part of GS. It just destroy everything.
From making ranting videos about the software and users, to making of constant drama. The assumptions. The shaming of CEO's. Get rid of the forums and solve a lot of problems. (Or get rid of some members )
New CEO, laid out the plans to keep the software lights on. It has to be done to survive. Its the only logical solution. The new move lets current developer continue to support their games or development while focusing on a stable source of revenue.
This is a sad post for many reasons @Two.E but I am happy for you that the forum exists so you can express your opinion and equally happy that you are not a CEO.
@Two.E said:
Just leave already if you don't support the move.
The community is the worst part of GS. It just destroy everything.
From making ranting videos about the software and users, to making of constant drama. The assumptions. The shaming of CEO's. Get rid of the forums and solve a lot of problems. (Or get rid of some members )
New CEO, laid out the plans to keep the software lights on. It has to be done to survive. Its the only logical solution. The new move lets current developer continue to support their games or development while focusing on a stable source of revenue.
@Two.E lol, it not a kid solution to Ban member or delete forum of community members who have supported GS for many years and mostly during worst period (by not cancelling the pro member when GS is unusable), the GS team have to accept reality and understand what community needs, yes most feedback are negative but it will help GS team and esp. new CEO @bdusing to plan better future as hiding the truth from customers is worst part of business.
@Two.E said:
Just leave already if you don't support the move.
The community is the worst part of GS. It just destroy everything.
From making ranting videos about the software and users, to making of constant drama. The assumptions. The shaming of CEO's. Get rid of the forums and solve a lot of problems. (Or get rid of some members )
New CEO, laid out the plans to keep the software lights on. It has to be done to survive. Its the only logical solution. The new move lets current developer continue to support their games or development while focusing on a stable source of revenue.
@Two.E No that's not the right way to go about this. As @lycettebros and @Nabbo (ReflectiveByte) mentioned this a forum for feedback. And with that comes negativity when the community believes they need answers. I wish we could dance around like it's all fantastic but it's not until clarifications are met - dropping the banhammer would only serve to confirm my suspicions and I would drop my PRO subscriptions in an instant.
People mostly go on the Internet to complain! If something is going well people just generally go about their day! GS is a great tool and I'm using it daily with no problems at all, I would love to see how good the games are of the people who complain!!! I bet their crap! Lol jk but seriously let's give it another month and see how this spans out guys
Not quite sure I understand all the ranting... If Education is where the dollars are, the GS team need to go after them. If there are dollars, then hiring coders to provide more features, or a more robust response to Apple's random update hassles should follow naturally.
Most high school kids want what we want anyhow don't they? Fast responding, un-buggy software with a clear path to publish through the most popular routes. If they start demanding extra features why would anyone think they'd be different from what the community are asking for at any given time anyway?
Bring on the extra users, extra votes for features, extra dollars for hires and the refreshing excitement that comes from making a game for the first time. :-)
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Cheer up Dave it could always be worse
Although brent's first post was uninspiring, as they say, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." I think I may keep my account in limbo for a couple months and play the spectator.
It really is a shame as the gamesalad development enviroment was really shaping up to be something. There is so much almost there. Muliplayer, which is still buried inside the software and works perfect, except for adding it to the publishing system, Facebook integration, which was already in a nightly, steam, which we all rallied behind to get green lighted for them. Those three items, plus the addition of google play services would have make this a coveted tool for serious developers.
I would like to see them split the software into two versions, one for developers and one for education. It just seems developers aren't interested in using the gamesalad enviroment and I wonder why that is as it is the best environment for mobile 2d developing.
It just seems like this company is on a slow burn to oblivion. I wonder who the real man behind the curtan is who is calling the shots? Who are the money men?
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A roadmap would be great, and please take the opportunity to make this one of the best , it is a good ground you have here
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"Although we won’t be working short term on Facebook integration or other larger features that mainly benefit just developers, the features that we will be working on will benefit you guys just as much as education users."
Hi @bdusing Firstly I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you and to wish you well in your new position.
I'd also like to express how I'm currently feeling about the statements recently.
Although it is very reassuring to hear that you will continue to support and update GameSalad for new OS releases and ensure its stability going forward, the quote at the top of my post concerns me greatly.
It shows a clear development prioritization for the educational user with the caveat that these things may also benefit developers.
As someone who has, and continues to make a significant contribution through time and subscriptions to GameSalad, it is only worthwhile if I can hope to make a return on this investment.
Here are just a couple of feature requests for which I was hopeful which I'm now assuming would be neglected?
I suppose what I'm politely asking of you is to level with us and maybe put yourself in our shoes.
We need to know whether it's time to to say thanks very much to GameSalad and start investing our time to other tools like GameMaker, or can you offer us an honest commitment that we and our needs will be catered for? At the moment it feels a bit like we have been ejected from the table and we will be feeding off the crumbs of the educational community.
Sorry if that sounds negative but please make your strategy crystal clear for us. Are you saying that there is no chance whatsoever of features going forwards that would only benefit developers?
Thanks very much and I eagerly await your response.
Hi @bdusing ,
Why do you not invest in an extra coder or two and keep GS a stable and reliable tool with frequent updates for developers AND educators.
Maybe it's just me but wouldn't this be the most logical step to keep GS alive?
Is it that hard to find a suitable person for the job?
Welcome @bdusing,
good to have you on board and all the best with your new vision for GS.
That said, this unfortunately sounds very "end of the road" to me, who is not sitting in a classroom. GS is a service, a service we commit to, because we put the confidence into it serving our current needs, as well as growing with our future expectations. As a developer, this is no longer a given.
To me it is most distressing that GS has repeatedly failed to recognize its own potential, identify and pander to the very real market niche it solely occupies, or even understand the needs of its current user base.
Actively pursuing the education market is a good move, but at the expense of the largest part of your current use base?
It is like Volvo, only selling to driving schools, because their cars are safe.
Hoping that I am overreacting to an unfortunately phrased opening statement, GS will have my continued support. Hopefully the education market will bring stability and with that renewed focus on wider horizons.
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Hi @bdusing Welcome, I am happy that gs has a standalone ceo and no longer will rely on a one man band CTO/ CEO. But, the emphasis on education seems like it's more of a sales thing. I don't know much about the educational market but would think that from a product perspective the selling points of a great educational product would be identical to the selling points of a great development product. I have some questions about the segment of the educational market you will be going after. Will "game" Salad be sold as an educational tool to teach game development? Or will it be more of a program logic learning tool? Also, I am all for a shift in sales tactics to bring in more subs but if GameSalad is successful in the education market wouldn't there be value in beefing up the number of programmers and starting to add more features. I think the idea of selling to schools is a good fit for gs. But, I think the long term success of gs is to have as many development features as possible.
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@bdusing "Education" is a very large segment definition, so who is exactly your target audience?
The answer to this question will say a lot about what we can expect from GS in the next few years.
It seems like the education focus should go hand in hand with game development. When GS is introduced to students, many of the students are going to be interested in game development. So as you are selling to schools, you should be making the pitch to future developers that will be paying customers. So having rich development features that have been mentioned for a long time should be available or in the works.
Maybe I am missing something but it seems short sided to focus on education and not grow the developing side at the same time.
@Lost_Oasis_Games said "Those three items, plus the addition of google play services would have make this a coveted tool for serious developers." and "It just seems developers aren't interested in using the gamesalad enviroment and I wonder why that is as it is the best environment for mobile 2d developing."
I think I can answer that for you... Ive actually sat in meetings where it has been discussed. It basically comes down to two issues... neither of which are Facebook, Multiplayer, Ad options or even the lacking UI features.
Firstly, and this is the primary reason most studios who are developing games with serious budgets won't even look at GS, is the fact that the build process is all done externally.
For companies/developers that are spending large budgets on development its seen as too much of a risk to not have control of the build process. Imagine spending 2 years developing a game, then when your ready to publish, the tool provider has gone out of business, and the servers no longer accessible.. or even on a smaller scale, the servers aren't maintained very good, and are down a lot. Its just not a viable risk for most developers that are talking development budgets in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Smaller, or solo devs run that risk though... if GS goes under, and servers go offline, everyones projects suddenly become instantly useless. So its becoming even more of a possible REAL risk with the constantly deteriorating situation at GS towers.
Secondly, and somewhat linked to the first reason... is reliability/reputation.
Most serious studios see GS as unreliable and with a very shaky reputation, and as such, too much of a risk to use for long term development. The company changes direction and announces changes to its business model every 6 to 12 months, and theres been a history of consistently broken, or buggy builds that have taken up to a year to get fixed. Features are often promised that either never turn up, or are later just completely backtracked on. Most serious developers, building their companies just cannot work with a company or product that doesn't offer longterm reliable use.
GameSalad will never be seen as a tool for serious/big budget development while those two issues remain.
@viking I think the answer to your question is that the educational audience that GS is going to be aimed at, or more accurately succeed with, is going to be Junior and High School users. The reason why I say this, is that colleges and universities should be aiming at sending their students out into the workplace with readily usable skillsets.. so most will use and teach more widely used software from the professional field... so Unity, Unreal engine, GameMaker. Universities are going to look a bit stupid if they teach and send students out into the workplace who are trained in a software that only has limited market penetration and usage... so I don't see it being picked up by higher education providers.
I can confirm this as my son is a game development major and those are the three programs they use. Gamesalad is not even mentioned, as I asked him. He is building his resume game in GameMaker. Most of hos classmates are using one of those three depending on the type of game they are building.
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Well then GS has to improve development than market it to complete with other engines.. Still I dont see they are giving importance to development.. secondly now they are not giving priority to (long tuned) developers.. I dont know how well will GS go without experienced developers support..
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Using GameSalad as a tool to introduce programming to a younger audience (assuming they will target Junior and High School users) seems like a great idea but when they are progressively getting better at making games they will eventually see the limitations of GS and switch to other platforms.
Educational focus isn't a bad thing at all but the main goal should be converting those users to PRO DEVELOPERS so keeping GameSalad stable and implementing new features is a necessity in order to keep GameSalad afloat.
Gamemaker is used here in the UK in schools and colleges but GS might have some success with kids under 10 as an introduction to coding.
Well. No one will like learning a tools they can't use as professional one. So this looks like they don't even understand where are they moving now. Unfortunately...
PS Anyway Game Salad was excellent tool and had very inspiring community on some stage. But everything once finishes.
I stick with GS for almost 5 years. I would say GS has great potential to be a great tool. But for now its far to be a professional tool for game developments. SO much features missing and its very difficult to make a big project.
PS: some good things i see in GS are: Fast speed for building a games & simple for non programmer to use (artist).
I think what upsets me more than anything is the lack of response from GS management. There are so many questions above. Where is the community involvement here when the entire GS community is pouring it's heart out?
Veterans making some bold statements on the future of the company and their own development.
Turns my optimism on a head and makes me fairly concerned. Is this a two-way conversation with the community or just the beginning of the end. I think it's the latter.
Communication is a very important thing.
@bdusing ...
I left GS about 2-3 months ago...at least via my own announcement in the 1.25 release thread...I haven't used it since and used it less even before that.
When I started using GS...and came to the forums I slowly found out two things....this community of users is amazing...they are the support of GS...there was a few staff members that chimed in once is a while...but slowly I realized the second thing...support from GS is given only after the rants started and members started making rants and blasting GS for their lank of communication with its members. You have/had members making tools to do your job...I say "your"...you regardless of how recent you came on board...you took the chair and all it holds and so its responsibility falls on your lap.
There is a threshold people have...a line to be crossed to just give up. My had been crossed. In the nicest way possible I'd like to tell you that your post really didn't do any thing as far as address the communities concerns...at least in my opinion. Your introduction should have been "focused" on this community and the current software users...not announcing how you will be focusing on education. Your statements basically were an announcement that your going to tidy up for us and build a new GS for students...like your going to make sure that one works... Guaranteed ! For "us" existing users/subs...well we'll do what is needed to keep you around.
My personal opinion to you is to spend some time looking through the history of threads and find out who supports GS...builds tools...wether they are free or asking to make money off them and thank and apologize on behalf of GS...learn what they have done and put them in the creator....no member spends 2-3 years making a tool the creator doesn't have unless...it's important.
We don't spend a year or more voting for features...that never get a single....not one answer from GS as to wether it's even under consideration or not to be a feature...but the votes continue.
The creator I use now has excellent features...the BEST staff support and costs 9 times as much...has zero errors and has had updates and new versions in a third of my. The CEO is a user...and that's the best way I know of to know what's wrong and what to fix.
Do you use GS or will you just be a CEO ?
I'm feeling my post here is about to turn negative
TC
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There's a lot of discussion happening, now and in the past, about GameSalad not being a "professional" enough tool and it not being what "professional" game developers want to use. This is true, but it misses two important points.
It's really going to depend on what the purpose of the school is. If they are offering a game design course aiming to prepare students for a life in the industry, then GameSalad is clearly not the right tool for them. That's fair enough. If it's that they want to offer kids an introduction to logic, to problem solving and to give the average kid a change to make games, then GameSalad is perfect for them. There are a huge amount of kids who would love to make their own game but will never be able to tackle even GameMaker. This is a harder segment to break into, though, as it's going to be requiring money from the extra curricular budgets, rather than the IT department budgets. And a lot of schools, in England at least, just don't have any money to spare in their extra curricular budgets. It's all being spent on football nets and sports things. I feel sorry for the sales staff being hired if it is @bdusing's intention to try to get GameSalad taught as a "subject" students will take as one of their course options, rather than an extra curricular option. It's woefully inadequate for that. But it's the most suitable and accessible software available for putting in front of mixed ability kids who want to make games.
Too much of the discussion in this and other threads is focusing on the wrong things. If GameSalad isn't the tool for you, it isn't the tool for you. But it probably never intended to be the tool for you. Complain about how slow it is. Complain about how it stagnated for years. Complain about the abysmal communication from staff to community. Complain about the way the community has kept the product alive for years and has never been properly appreciated by the parent company. But complaining about GameSalad not be a "professional" tool is just absurd. It's the easiest way to make games that exists. Of course it's not the most professional.
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I wish @bdusing could read every comment here and give us better hope and explanation as currently he left already upset community with no hope or support, at least try to read and answer as we have lots of questions to be answered and silence is not the answer!!
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Hi,
A lot of good feedback........But I would like to give just a humble suggestion.....Let's give Mr. Brent Dusing, some time to look at the suggestions / concerns / opinions, etc... and wait for his feedback. With that said, as a user, if you don't feel comfortable using Game Salad anymore, then there are alternatives out there, that you can use. Lots of game engines out there.......Myself, I'm already using another game engine, but I would still use Game-Salad, why? Cause Game-Salad is easy to use, and no programming. Heck, thanks to Game-Salad and many tutorials form this community, I was able to launch some games with it. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, you have to make choices, and be pro active about it. And in the near future, if Game Salad comes back with a solid plan for the future, I would support it. But for now, I have to be pro active and at the same time I'm learning Javascript........
God Bless....
Sincerely,
Sunday
Hey everyone, it's the weekend! Enjoy the weather, relax!
And don't expect the GameSalad team to answer any questions during the weekend.
Just leave already if you don't support the move.
)
The community is the worst part of GS. It just destroy everything.
From making ranting videos about the software and users, to making of constant drama. The assumptions. The shaming of CEO's. Get rid of the forums and solve a lot of problems. (Or get rid of some members
New CEO, laid out the plans to keep the software lights on. It has to be done to survive. Its the only logical solution. The new move lets current developer continue to support their games or development while focusing on a stable source of revenue.
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This is a sad post for many reasons @Two.E but I am happy for you that the forum exists so you can express your opinion and equally happy that you are not a CEO.
@Two.E lol, it not a kid solution to Ban member or delete forum of community members who have supported GS for many years and mostly during worst period (by not cancelling the pro member when GS is unusable), the GS team have to accept reality and understand what community needs, yes most feedback are negative but it will help GS team and esp. new CEO @bdusing to plan better future as hiding the truth from customers is worst part of business.
Current Projects I am working on: Stupid Duck, Zango's Shark Adventure, AoD: Age of Dragons, Rocket Jump: The Pixel Invaders
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Web: reflectivebyte.com
@Two.E No that's not the right way to go about this. As @lycettebros and @Nabbo (ReflectiveByte) mentioned this a forum for feedback. And with that comes negativity when the community believes they need answers. I wish we could dance around like it's all fantastic but it's not until clarifications are met - dropping the banhammer would only serve to confirm my suspicions and I would drop my PRO subscriptions in an instant.
Thanks.
People mostly go on the Internet to complain! If something is going well people just generally go about their day! GS is a great tool and I'm using it daily with no problems at all, I would love to see how good the games are of the people who complain!!! I bet their crap! Lol jk but seriously let's give it another month and see how this spans out guys
Not quite sure I understand all the ranting... If Education is where the dollars are, the GS team need to go after them. If there are dollars, then hiring coders to provide more features, or a more robust response to Apple's random update hassles should follow naturally.
Most high school kids want what we want anyhow don't they? Fast responding, un-buggy software with a clear path to publish through the most popular routes. If they start demanding extra features why would anyone think they'd be different from what the community are asking for at any given time anyway?
Bring on the extra users, extra votes for features, extra dollars for hires and the refreshing excitement that comes from making a game for the first time. :-)
Extra votes that will be ignored and extra dollars which won't ever make it to the software.
Yes bring them on.