Crazy Pricing Model. C'mon Guys it's 2024 not 2005

I've been searching for a game engine that I could get up and running with quickly. I thought I'd found it in Construct 3.

However, the pricing model for this product is asinine.

I'll be the first to admit I've struggled with coding and this has meant I've had very slow progress with my game dev exploits thus far.

Given this pricing model I'm better off persevering with Unity or Gamemaker Studio 2 as both have decent visual scripting options, albeit not as intuitive as Construct.

I won't justify $170 a year for a recurring "personal and hobbyist" license. And to market that to me with the "save 58% on monthly pricing" tag is just kick in the teeth as to just how crazy this model is. $33 / month!!!!

I've had a successful career in business and marketing, I can't help but think this is a total own goal by the Construct team.

This engine is perfect for wannabe game dev's who can't code but can understand logic in the way presented by Construct 3. But the subscription model is just so mid 2000's.

I'm sure the owners of Construct would argue their model is due to being a small company and they need the revenue to fund growth. But this is small thinking - by a small company. A relatively small community is held back from growing by this crazy subscription policy.

Furthermore, what's the justification for a difference in price between a "personal" license and what is effectively a "personal business license", a solopreneur? What exactly am I getting for the privilege of paying you $229 versus $170? Because I called myself "CollyGames" instead of just plain "Colly" I get to give you an extra $59 more. Wow. Genius marketing.

It's asinine in the extreme. There's no added value to the customer. What idiot thought this made sense?

After all, how many devs would publish a game under their name? The vast majority would register a business name.

The whole thing just leaves a nasty taste and I can't help but think it's a missed opportunity to grow market share exponentially, especially given all the recent pricing upheaval in the industry, it just seems to compound the absurdity of this subscription model.

Great product. Insane pricing model.

Cool. Tell us about the MMO RPG you're planning. Or do we need to sign and NDA to hear about it?

$33 / month

That pricing is not even remotely crazy. There's other software out there that costs 5x this much monthly. And for everything there's free alternatives. Don't like it, don't buy it.

Every hobby costs money somewhere. Gamedev might not be the cheapest hobby, but it isn't an expensive one either.

I agree that the license is expensive. But what do you suggest? Making a "small hobbyist" license which is slightly less restrictive than the trial version and costs only $5 a month?

No, I'd suggest scrapping the recurring hobbyist license altogether!

Replace it with a free or one-time paid version with a percentage of revenue-based tiers.

Explore ways to develop the education license with other value propositions and develop that revenue stream. Get that education base to become life advocates for your brand.

Leverage those free or one-time licenses into a more popular and thriving ecosystem and asset development

There's a reason the most popular game engines are the most popular. It's due to the low cost of entry and it leads to a larger user base. The free user base fuels the popularity, longevity and creative potential to become the business license base while the business license base fuels the revenue.

The indie game dev market is changing. Expensive, recurring licenses do not lead to long-term growth. That's a SAS strategy from a decade or two back.

If you are trying to promote growth based on a strategy that requires you to fill your sales funnel through expensive recurring licenses it won't work long term.

Construct 3 is a great product but it's a crazy pricing structure for 2024.

It's the #1 issue people have with C3.

> $33 / month

That pricing is not even remotely crazy.<

Now I know you're Wacky!

There's other software out there that costs 5x this much monthly.<

Oh, you are Waky alright! I can't dispute that since you've not provided any examples to support your statement.

Regardless, I'll give you 4 of the largest engines that compete for market share with C3 that will support my argument and question yours; Godot, Unreal 5, Unity and GameMaker Studio. All use onboarding and revenue strategies that support customer base growth.

And for everything there's free alternatives. Don't like it, don't buy it.

I never said I didn't like it.

But no I won't buy it at that price.

I'll continue to use the free version of C3 for rapid proto-typing logic testing and use Unity for my main project.

I can't dispute that since you've not provided any examples to support your statement.

Adobe creative cloud 60$ per month

Autodesk Maya 235$ per month (or 156$ per month if you buy 3 years in advance)

Nuke VFX 236$ per month (their cheapest option btw)

ZBrush 43$ per month

It's a moot point anyway, either you like the price or you don't. Maybe Scirra changes something or maybe they don't. My guess is they don't plan to because they don't have to.

Great product. Insane pricing model.

--That's the price of a beer or a café with a girl. There are regional prices, I don't understand.

--For this money I get constant updates, easy builds, quick bug fixes. Unity has had bugs for seven years.

--I like that the engine is very lightweight and quick to start.

--I like that builds are lightweight, suitable for web or mobile.

--I love the transparent monetization model when you pay and get a quality product. Of course it's good to pay once, I also like this model, but this product is constantly improving and the engine has its own servers for building, so the team should have monthly sponsors.

he have lot of right, Construct 2 have one time price but C3 have higher cost and its subscription plan for year and c3 is still in development, have lot bugs, 3d elements are still not complete (most basic 3d light / shadows is missing)

I dont think you should mention Unity as a good business model, they are in big trouble.

I used to think the same way about subscribing to Construct, but have changed my mind a lot over the years. We all want the best value for money we can get.

Somehow we are all allergic to pay for software.

But you go to watch a 2 hour film at the cinema and it cost around £10+ now, swimming or sports hall session is the same.

For a hobby paying yearly works out to £8.66 per month at the current price.

I looked at Gdevelop as a mainly free similar alternative but decided to renew C3 another year. Gdevelop has some features over Construct i like, but found you never know if or when a bug will get fixed and they seem to be moving more to a tiered subscription model themselves.

Lastly if i'm reading Scirra's tax statements correctly they continue to increase their profits each year, so i doubt they will be motivated to change from a subcription model.

You spend hundreds of hours learning and working with any game engine you choose. In the end that is the big expense. If you waste that learning time on an engine that goes out of business or quits doing updates, that is the biggest loss, not the price you pay for the game.

I support keeping construct in business for years to come mostly for the sunk learning cost.

yours

winkr7

I think the product has a bit of an identity problem, being that it is heavily marketed toward absolute beginners - who are probably also the audience least likely to commit to a subscription model. And while it might be beginner friendly initially, anyone who has worked on a substantial project will know that there is a hell of a lot of hard work hidden away there to get something really good done. I generally avoid any software subscription service and have only bent the rules with Construct because I was already familiar with the workflow before the subscription model was introduced - had I not been, I wouldn't have even booted it up to try out. I've been using construct since classic, own a C2 license and pay for a C3 sub, I don't like the subscription system as a consumer but I do understand why Scirra use it as a small business, and while it would be one of the things hindering really widespread adoption, it is obviously working well enough for them at the moment, so I guess we're stuck with it.

I think the product has a bit of an identity problem, being that it is heavily marketed toward absolute beginners - who are probably also the audience least likely to commit to a subscription model.

I do somewhat agree on this. When I was a wee lad I was toying around with all kinds of engines and such. My first "game" was made with powerpoint lmao. I then also tinkered around with various pirated versions of rpg maker (XP my beloved, 2000 was also neat tho) and game maker. Why pirated? Well, free was always too limiting for me (and my brother gave them to me). Why not buy? Because I had no credit card, and even tho I'm pretty sure my parents would have bought me these tools if I just asked... my child brain didn't conceive of it as a possibility for some reason. But back then we were talking about one-off payments, a subscription seems like a big hurdle for lil Toasty waddling to his parents asking for money to buy something online (I also got scammed once when I was like 8-9yo so that didn't help my case haha).

Maybe that was just a me problem, maybe kids/parents nowadays don't think twice about that. Or maybe there's just an untapped market of children that want to tinker around with gamedev but are scared off of Construct due to the subscription, while at the same time it might be the perfect entry-level engine for them. Afterall it is marketed towards beginners, and beginners are quite often children. Maybe even younger than I was back then, since internet wasn't even remotely as accessible as it is today. God I'm old.