C3 Full Feature List

Ashley Although I understand it takes time for you to provide the detailed blog posts about C3's new features, it would

be nice for people involved in the field for professional reasons to have a full list of the platform's features, instead of

receiving them slowly week by week.

You can always continue publishing fully-detailed weekly blog entries, but the current "discovery process" is tiresome

and I would even say a bit childish. If Scirra think they're still "teasing", it's not the case, it's now just annoying. Furthermore,

your way of communicating has resulted in many people posting frustrated & frustrating comments about

your pricing model and other issues.

As someone with a very large time investment in C2 (wrote a serious game engine using it), but needing a more powerful

platform for the next stage in my projects, I need to be able to evaluate my options now, not in 3 month's time. I could

then make an informed judgment about the full list of features, the cost and alternative platforms (as far as pricing is

concerned, your model is similar to that of Adobe and others - not an issue if C3 delivers true improvements).

An alternative would be a forum channel to post very specific & short (1 phrase) questions about topics not yet covered

in your blog posts. For example: My current work on C2 has become so large that it's more or less a "must have"

for me in C3 to be able to use scripting on top of the event sheets (e.g. have the ability to script code and C3 to

convert it to event sheets, as I noticed you have already planned the reverse process of converting the sheets to pseudo-code).

Thank you for any insights/feedback you may provide regarding the above topics.

Calling our marketing childish is a new one, not heard that yet!

Anyway, regarding features and what's new, the new website will have a comprehensive list. This should be available in time for the public beta by the months end.

Tom Pleased to read that we will soon have a full list of C3 features.

Being from a marketing & communication background, I just don't find the way communication has been managed around the product launch very professional. I suppose you can't be good at everything and you guys do a great job developing software. Perhaps next time it would be a good idea to work with a marcom specialist (please don't tell me you have an in-house communications specialist or I would really question the person's professionalism)

What specifically do you find unprofessional and childish about how we've approached the marketing?

Tom Well, forget about the childish term, I was just venting some frustration.

Regarding the way the launch was marketed/communicated, here are some issues I would raise:

• Announcing C3, a long way before its launch, but without communicating at all on any progress for over a year (teasing is good, but requires milestone reminders)
• Creating a C3-specific website, but not adding any updates about the direction you wanted to take with the new platform onto it over time
• Not using the C3 website to announce the upcoming beta and publish the information you've been writing on this website's blog
• Not conducting any user-surveys to help guide the new platform's development. I know you have a mine of feedback on this

website, but I think it may have been interesting to let people prioritise some of the new features (Game Guru do this very

well for their users on their client login-based website). This would furthermore have created a send of ownership (Google "co-creation")

• Announcing pricing first. Although I have no issue with the pricing (I pay for Adobe's Creative Suite and Xojo's subscription, both

similar to your new plan), announcing this first was bound to be problematic, as price is nothing without the value people expect in

return. How were people to evaluate if the price was right or excessive before knowing the main features of C3? The only result was

lots of negative posts (not exactly what you want for a successful launch)

• Not releasing a full-fledged list of C3 features. I enjoy reading the blog posts about the details of the new features, but in order to

make a choice (this is valid both for people new to the market selecting a first game platform and for existing C2 clients deciding if they

want to move to C3 or not), a comprehensive list of features is really needed

That's about it. For some of the elements, it's too late, but you can still work on improving some aspects.

I think most of that list is reasoned fairly, and unlike other criticisms you've given reasoning as well which is much appreciated. If we did it again, I think I'd agree with you on most of those points.

wmsgva

I have a similar background and I don't think releasing details of features on a weekly basis is childish at all. They're just giving people what they want. People in the forum have been begging for clues and information about C3 for over a year. I don't see anything wrong with that. And the blog posts are detailed. They take a lot of time explaining things, and I can appreciate that.

- I only only noticed a few problems with their marketing:

1. I think they've been marketing to the wrong group. Both professionals and hobbyists want to use the best tools for their work. If it's good enough for professionals, it should be marketed to professionals.

2. The subscription model should have been announced much, much sooner to give people time to deal with it and accept it. People had certain expectations based on what they knew about C2 and they had those same expectations for C3 for a very long time. It was a shock to most of us when they switched payment methods.

3. It think they should have released information about their best features first, but also saved they most important feature for the last week just before release. You want a rollercoaster effect of excitement for your new product.

4. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but their advertising seems nonexistent, other than social media.

- They got a lot of things right though too:

1. Their websites are very well designed, and looks fun and professional.

2. Their product looks professional.

3. Teasing is a good thing (all popular media does this, movies, games, etc.). I don't think they released too much information too early. It's not to uncommon to start teasing 6 months out, just to keep the product fresh on people's mind.

4. They have a lot of contact with their user base. I don't get the feeling this is some soulless company. They are also very knowledgeable about their niche in the game industry.

5. Good customer service. When I had a problem, they didn't agree with it, but they eventually addressed it.

6. They are active on social media.

I think if they ever hire a marketing team, it's going to be a breeze for them because Scirra is already doing so much, so well. The most important thing to a marketing team is to have a good product.

A lot of software companies drip-feed their features up until the beta release or actual release. It's nothing new. The biggest problem I believe for some people was the pricing first, features later thing. But it seems to be rounding itself out pretty okay here lately I think, for some, definitely not for others, anyway.

A lot of software companies drip-feed their features up until the beta release or actual release. It's nothing new. The biggest problem I believe for some people was the pricing first, features later thing. But it seems to be rounding itself out pretty okay here lately I think, for some, definitely not for others, anyway.

That's a good point. People didn't know what they were paying for. I still think if they announced they were considering switching to subscription model, it wouldn't have been such a shock to people.

Moot

You're making incorrect statements about what I had said. My point was that it would have been good to release a full list of features and then post weekly detailed posts as Scirra has been doing. Not have people wait week after week to be able to have a general idea of C3's overall features & capabilities. I never said the detailed blog posts were a bad thing.

You also give the impression I said teasing was a bad thing, which I didn't . I just criticised the way it had been managed. As you mention, "It's not to uncommon to start teasing 6 months out", yet as you also mention, "People in the forum have been begging for clues and information about C3 for over a year". You're basically proving my point, the teasing started too early and then waited too long to start publishing a few insights to get people excited.

Anyway, things are as they are now and we just have to wait and see what C3 will offer when we get our hands on it.

Moot

You're making incorrect statements about what I had said. My point was that it would have been good to release a full list of features and then post weekly detailed posts as Scirra has been doing. Not have people wait week after week to be able to have a general idea of C3's overall features & capabilities. I never said the detailed blog posts were a bad thing.

You also give the impression I said teasing was a bad thing, which I didn't . I just criticised the way it had been managed. As you mention, "It's not to uncommon to start teasing 6 months out", yet as you also mention, "People in the forum have been begging for clues and information about C3 for over a year". You're basically proving my point, the teasing started too early and then waited too long to start publishing a few insights to get people excited.

Anyway, things are as they are now and we just have to wait and see what C3 will offer when we get our hands on it.

I said that detailed blog posts are a good thing, as a separate thought apart from what you said. It's something I added to the point that they are handling it very well. We disagree on your point that they are being "childish."

When do you think they started "teasing?" From what I noticed, they announced there would be fewer updates to C2 because they were shifting their focus to developing C3. It got people excited, but it wasn't a tease. It was an explanation. People would ask direct questions about C3 in the forums, and they gave answers from time to time, but I wouldn't consider that teasing either. I don't know when you think the "teasing" started. I think we both agree that teasing something too soon is bad thing, but I think we might disagree when that actually started.

I would also like to point out that we agree with more things than what we disagree upon. I don't really think this is an argument to be won. It might just be a difference of opinion. You expressed your opinion and I expressed mine.

What a lot of people forget, is that we chose not to tease too early because it puts our revenue at risk. If we teased 6 months ahead of time and sales dried up as everyone waited for C3, we'd be screwed. We decided to take the more risk averse route.

What a lot of people forget, is that we chose not to tease too early because it puts our revenue at risk. If we teased 6 months ahead of time and sales dried up as everyone waited for C3, we'd be screwed. We decided to take the more risk averse route.

That's understandable.