Pricing model

Hi!

I just have to get this off my chest. It's just my opinion. I think Construct is fantastic. I did quite a bit with Construct2 years ago. Now I wanted to get back into game development a bit more seriously (i hope). I tried Godot, GameMaker, and GDevelop, and they all had something that didn't feel right or didn't work for me. However, all three are free to use initially (without event limitations). And that's the problem I have with Construct 3 as a casual developer.You might think €10 a month isn't much for a yearly subscription, but it's more about the psychological effect for me (although €120 for a year all at once isn't exactly cheap). I feel pressured. I'm using tools (hammer, pliers, etc.) that are only borrowed. That doesn't feel right. I'd rather pay once and then, if I actually sell something, pay a reasonable amount either as a recurring payment or a one-time fee. In other words, you should pay for an upgraded developer model if you're making money with it professionally. I think many hobby developers see it exactly the same way I do, and i think Scrirra is kind of shooting himself in the foot with their price model.

So I'll be working with Construct2 again. I have a lifetime license for it, so I'm not under any pressure (except that it will eventually stop working under Windows 12 or later). If Scirra ever makes the pricing model more realistic again, I'll gladly pay. Like I said, the product is really good (and the improvements in Construct3 are certainly appealing).

This is just my opinion, so don't criticize me for it. Perhaps Scirra will reconsider making changes at some point, instead of just occasionally raising prices. (I wouldn't even say the price is unfair, but it's not a one-off purchase.)

Regards,

Mischa

The pricing model might also be based on the fact that Construct3 runs in a browser and can therefore be considered more of a "service."

However, I generally prefer offline programs anyway. They feel much more premium and don't create an unnecessary dependency.

This has been discussed to death already, but in short we're not planning to change Construct's pricing model at this time. I do however want to point out that Construct's pricing is not too expensive, in the ballpark of a Netflix subscription in most places, and so should be acceptable to hobbyists. Thousands of people are willing to pay the subscription to get Construct because it's worth it to get a quality tool stuffed with countless features and has performance, usability and reliability that beats many other options.

Developing software is expensive, and ensuring the tool is economically sustainable is important for people who work on long-term projects. There are some tools out there that I'm interested to see if they can actually sustain themselves over the next few years as they may well be running at a loss, and I wonder what will happen to customer's work if a tool developer goes under. Sustainability is also important to avoid the need for drastic business changes like Unity's runtime fee debacle. In an alternate universe it's possible we stuck to Construct 2's model, sales petered out, and then we were forced to close the business and go do something else, even though there were lots of people still using Construct - and that would suck for them and their work. I can assure you we're a long way from that scenario, and the subscription model is a good way to avoid that ever happening.

I'd also add that there are significant issues with Construct 2 - by now I think none of the mobile exporters work out of the box, the desktop exports are well out of date, it doesn't properly support high-DPI displays, it has likely thousands of bugs that were fixed during Construct 3's development, if you run in to any problem there will be no support provided, as the technology ages more and more things will probably stop working, and meanwhile Construct 3 has absolutely tons of new features and improvements allowing for much greater flexibility and creative expression (many of which are listed here, but even that is quite out of date now) - not least the latest support for 3D models. Perhaps some people don't care about any of that. However I would say much of that is important to a lot of people, and there are years and years of hard work that go in to developing a product that is actively supported and continuing to advance in features.

Thanks for the reply. I didn't mean to offend anyone. While I still believe there are alternatives, I also respect the current decision. I was simply expressing my opinion and haven't followed the discussions on this topic for years. I'll probably subscribe eventually anyway, once I've progressed far enough in C2. I'm well aware that releasing a game with C2 wouldn't make sense.

Regards

No offense taken, just making the case for Construct 3!