Who else will continue to use Construct 2 after July 2021?

ooo so Construct 4 will be out soon!? ;-)

it should make a boom! (C4 - hardy har :P)

supporting software forever is just too expensive and difficult

As much as some will bite on those who rant, saying "Nobody forces you to upgrade" (as is the case for any software with paid-for upgrades), I'd say C2 users never asked you to upgrade to a point that you would release a new version totally different from the previous one, incompatible with the previous one, with a stupid subscription scheme. And nobody told you to abandon every old users with a "pay or leave" situation.

It's just plain disrespect toward your loyal users.

You just constantly seem to hide behind your 10-year argument, but it's not valid. Other (though not necessarily bigger) companies still support 10+ year old products, some even do it for free.

It's just unilateral, stupid decisions, that simply show how you don't care about your loyal users. Many companies, big or small, tend to do that more and more, sadly.

Last I checked Construct 2 still works perfectly fine?

Ongoing support for C2 is not the point for me. 10 years are a very long time and I'm more than willing to pay another 100€ for C3, but not for one year.

There is a growing community of people making games out there, thousands and thousands of people who have this hobby making games in their free time. Construct would be the perfect tool to start with. It is so easy, I can teach it to students. But can I tell them: "Go and make great games with it"? Never. I can only tell them: "try it at school and then go and learn something one can afford, like godot or Unity". It is such a pitty how wrong the pricing is compared to the audience it is suitable to.

When I look at the forums here I can see there are many people who really like C3 and like to support Scirra. But when I compare the growth of something like GMTK-GameJam or game Jams overall and the posts here in the forums, I'm pretty shure the growth of game making people is not coming here and that is mostly because of the insanly high paywall... Construct could be so much more, unfortunately it is all about the money.

Last I checked Construct 2 still works perfectly fine?

Windows 98 still works on my old laptop...

Missed this important part earlier, but :

We're a small software company, and supporting software forever is just too expensive and difficult.

Maybe. Now are you aware that it's the exact same situation for C2 users ? We're hobbyists, and supporting your product buying upgrades forever is just too expensive and difficult. So ?

Again, I won't talk for pros since I'm not a pro user and maybe they're happy with the subscription plan. But the switch is just impossible for hobbyists. I'd be curious to know a few stats actually : hobbyists who upgraded, hobbyists happy with subcscription, pros happy with subcscription...

Well yes... woodworking does happen to be a rather expensive hobby of mine as well. I mentioned a gym because that is a bit more common, as a hobby. Besides the material cost, tools do eventually need to be replaced as well (blades especially). They generally don't get repaired or updated as part of the cost. The consumables like nails and screws and glue ect definitely add up as well, I'd hardly call them a one time cost.

Why do you assume improvements and upgrades should be free? Photoshop, Office, Quickbooks, and other such mainstream software used to have annual release cycles, sometimes with no noticeable functionality differences between them besides a reskin. C2 has been updated immensely since it first came out, and it still has all that functionality. Nothing got taken away. You're the one who said "Pay or leave", when its more like "Pay for new stuff, or continue as you have been for free". If you can't afford $8 a month, there are still alternatives as well, even if you insist on not using the tool you already paid for which is still completely functional.

Comparing Construct with a hammer seems wrong for me too. It is a much more complex tool and of course c3 is a newer and better tool. So imo it is absolutely fine to give it a price tag. But subscription feels so wrong for a tool like C3 for me, I mean PS is a tool made for professionals - it is hard to learn and even harder to master and once you master it it is a powerful beast that gets major updates on a regular bases.

C3 on the other hand is so easy you can tell a child how it works. It is powerful and hard to master no doubt. But it could get so much more attention in the growing game designer community if it was more affordable.

And there are business models aside from subscription that rule the whole industry. It is not like we don't understand anything about business - I think construct could grow far beyond what it is now - a prototype creator for some small studios - into something really big if it wasn't so expensive.

And of course, a gym subscription or a sports club membership costs more, but how can I tell this to someone who starts in Game Design? "Well there are those free tools you might learn or this easy to learn tool, which is really great but it only costs as much as your gym subscription, but it brings regularly updates and new features..."

Speaking of new features, imo for the price the progress is much to slow. Since the start of C3 there are like 4 or 5 new features I recognized when I used C3 for a month. And some of them were possible with mods before. Of course these features are a lot of work and there are more improvements I didn't recognize but for the price I can buy a new piece of software every year.

I'm pretty shure the growth of game making people is not coming here and that is mostly because of the insanly high paywall... Construct could be so much more, unfortunately it is all about the money.

We're doing better than we ever have, and have more users using Construct 3 at any one time than Construct 2. We're growing healthily which we didn't do much of before (sales plateaued with Construct 2 due to the revenue model). The exodus of users some people predicted never materialised - the opposite has happened.

I'm afraid I'm going to lock this thread now, it's gone off topic.