C3 Love

C3 goes out as a abo (permanent pay?) Uhhh - definitly a reason for me to change to an other studio!

Great post and I read if from the start to the ending.

I completely agree with your opinion, could not have said it better.

Believe me, the way we create games with Construct is unique. This is the future of game development and Scirra is way ahead the competition.

With the new subscription model, we all can participate in our favourite game development tool Construct. HTML5 was indeed a very good choice.

> Want I want to know is why won't Tom or Ashley explain the sudden shift in business ethics. Why won't they explain why it's necessary for users not to own what they pay for?

>

There's several reasons:

- we're hosting the software in the browser, with a cloud service behind it. I'm not aware of any software or service that runs in a browser and is a one-time payment - it's just not economical given the running costs.

- we also provide other on-going hosted services like the new app building service. I'd also point out you get this service *and* the entire Construct 3 editor for less than the cost of PhoneGap Build alone, so I think this is actually a pretty good deal. We actually already run some on-going services for free with C2, such as the Scirra Arcade (which is chewing up tons of bandwidth these days!) and the multiplayer signalling server.

- the one-time payment model is risky in the long-term, especially since we don't regularly do the whole "new major version everyone has to pay for again" process. Scirra is currently sustained almost exclusively by new users buying C2 for the first time. If the flow of new users dried up, we risk going out of business - even if we have tens of thousands of active users. There's also the aspect that we're still supporting people who bought C2 five years ago at no extra cost, and this existing audience is getting larger.

- this is the way the industry is generally going, and some competitors are already doing it. It's harder to compete with tools that have on-going income when you only have one-off income with on-going maintenance costs, especially when there are various on-going services we're running.

I guess at the end of the day, if you absolutely cannot stand subscriptions, you can either stick with C2 or look for a different tool.

Thanks Ashley, these points all make sense and I'm glad you're discussing them. I think that most of us, even those who are unhappy about the subscription model do understand why it's happening and realise that it's probably a necessary evil. The particular model you've chosen however does seem a bit draconian with users being locked out permanently when not subscribed. I would have thought that support until the version you've subscribed to would be far friendlier. If C3 is updated as frequently as it should be on a subscription model then that should be incentive enough for users to continue to subscribe, but there is also a safety net there for the users as well. That is my biggest beef with the proposed system, but also the one that I think will drive the most customers away from you. Is there a technical reason why this can't happen or is it purely for business reasons?

I didn't know it was going to be browser based and with a monthly subscription . Then it's not for me. I'm moving on to other tools. I have previously tried few browser based tools and they are all slow, buggy and forgotten.

I only got C2 because I thought there would be multiple exporters to various platforms that I could buy. I'm most likely still going to prototype with C2.

Good luck with C3.

I didn't know it was going to be browser based and with a monthly subscription . Then it's not for me. I'm moving on to other tools. I have previously tried few browser based tools and they are all slow, buggy and forgotten.

I only got C2 because I thought there would be multiple exporters to various platforms that I could buy. I'm most likely still going to prototype with C2.

Good luck with C3.

Did you see in the announcements that you can use it offline and that they are going for quick one-click export for mobile (better than C2)?

> I didn't know it was going to be browser based and with a monthly subscription . Then it's not for me. I'm moving on to other tools. I have previously tried few browser based tools and they are all slow, buggy and forgotten.

> I only got C2 because I thought there would be multiple exporters to various platforms that I could buy. I'm most likely still going to prototype with C2.

> Good luck with C3.

>

Did you see in the announcements that you can use it offline and that they are going for quick one-click export for mobile (better than C2)?

It sounds like it's still going to use wrappers instead of native export. I also didn't see anything mentioned exporting as exe. I'm most likely going to buy Game Maker 2 as it only has a one time fee. As I'm familiar with older Unreal engines, Unreal 4 seems like a good option as it's free.

Great post, and indeed, Scirra been doing a great job.

But guyyysssss lol gimme gimme gimme an update that makes me smile.

C2 is so great and yet the only limitation is not being able to export to consoles. I agree with the op that this is the future. UE4 embraced same idea with blueprints as well.

But as a dev I have to think my future game's reach and being limited only to pc can greatly reduce the chances to sell. That's just my two cents.

In overall, great job Scirra, although lately none of my post has been replied to.

Cheers

Some intriguing ideas announced so far - but I'm still waiting for a killer feature that makes me go "wow"!

Everything so far has been linked to the browserification (it's a real word, probably) of C2, and therefore slightly predictable (at a guess I'd wager some other new features being built in webfonts, a shader editor, and maybe a curveball like dev stream integration with something like Twitch). I'd be interested in a different direction for the next reveal.

Ashley

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my post. I understand the points you made, but I disagree that they all justify a subscription model though. We don't really need C3 to work in a browser. It's an unnecessary feature. We don't really need another cloud service, and not everyone uses the Scirra Arcade to publish their games. The real reason for the subscription model is that you know you stand to profit from the services not everyone will use, but you continue to charge for. Also the incentive that people will need to subscribe or lose access to both the C3 engine and their C3 game files is too good to pass up. It's not about what is in the best interest of the community anymore. It's whatever makes the most money.

I guess at the end of the day, if you absolutely cannot stand subscriptions, you can either stick with C2 or look for a different tool.

I came to the same conclusion. Best of luck to everyone!

Maybe for most Construct users, using C3 locally is not an issue. However when you are like myself and regularly on the move it is nice when you can open C3 on every computer with internet with your account.

When I move from Belgium to my home in Gaborone Botswana, I am almost 48 hours on my way. Since I have Construct 2, I used it along the way to create a game based on my experiences and impressions along the way. When I arrive in Botswana, I let our little one try it and finish the details.

Browser based has more advantages than disadvantages. You always use the latest version, no more installing on your local computer. And when the internet is no longer good enough, C3 switch to the offline edition without bothering you, so you can work on.

Users never own the software, even with local runtimes. a licence grant you the use of that software to be creative. It is a common misunderstanding by many people, once they pay for a licence, they own it. That is not true

Maybe for most Construct users, using C3 locally is not an issue. However when you are like myself and regularly on the move it is nice when you can open C3 on every computer with internet with your account.

The mobile thing is definitely a big plus that it has! I really like the idea of tinkering with the event sheet anywhere I am - on my tablet or on my phone even!

But it is also something that a lot of people seem to be afraid of, because they assume that because lives on the cloud ,it will stop working for them when the service is discontinued or offline somehow .

That is partly due to the subscription licensing model as well, but it is what it is.

First impressions might be wrong. There is a lot to love about the engine. It is definitely evolving in the right direction if the focust is html5. Making the actual editor html5 makes a lot of sense to me.

I'd say that Tom and Ashley made the right call on that.

It will give the engine some web related and collaboration advantages that native editor engines can not do as easily and well.

Real time collaboration for example is a very possible thing already:

http://superpowers-html5.com/index.en.html

I am eager to see if scirra tries to do that with construct at some point too.

Being html5 doesnt mean that it must be a subscription based service that is hosted on some scirra server that people HAVE to rent out. I think it is just a licensing/marketing approach that scirra wants to try out

Superpowers for example can be hosted from a local machine and accessed via a web browser by other machines via localhost - the same way that construct2 creates a localhost to playtest a game, construct3 could create a localhost of itself that other users on the network could access to collaborate on a project!

THAT would make it kick some serious butt on gamejams and literaly give it superpowers <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_mrgreen.gif" alt=":mrgreen:" title="Mr. Green">

But seeing the licensing model that was announced, I am rather skeptical that they would give that freedom to their users. Although - hosting the game editor and engine could be set to a limited number of seats and scirra could sell the number of seats that a licensed user can host. Just throwing out some ideas here

Superpowers for example can be hosted from a local machine and accessed via a web browser by other machines via localhost - the same way that construct2 creates a localhost to playtest a game, construct3 could create a localhost of itself that other users on the network could access to collaborate on a project!

THAT would make it kick some serious butt on gamejams and literaly give it superpowers

Now, that would be awesome.

I'm pretty sure C3 is going to be the best thing since the discovery of fire.

I'm pretty sure C3 is going to be the best thing since the discovery of fire.

Burnt fingers.

> I'm pretty sure C3 is going to be the best thing since the discovery of fire.

>

Burnt fingers.

That's why children shouldn't play with matches.