Why is GameMaker Studio so much more popular than Construct?

I think that the fact that Construct 2/3 does not generate an exe (it does not do it without NWjs) and has to rely on external technologies has some importance.

Actually, I think this is part of the reason we've been successful. It's hard to tell but I'd guess YoYo Games have about 10x as many staff/developers as we do - but we are perfectly capable of keeping up, or even overtaking them (we're shipping timelines before their equivalent, for example). A huge part of the reason we can keep up while being far smaller is because we have a single codebase, and use HTML5 for everything. Also while the technology has certainly had its quirks in the past (especially when we started in 2011 and it was seen as a big gamble), these days the tech is working fantastically. People publish NW.js games to Steam and I don't think any players notice the difference.

As far as we can tell, only a tiny fraction of Construct users are actually publishing to Xbox, which Construct does support (at no extra cost, I'd add). That's not to say it's not important - often those that do have the best games - but I think that actually this idea that most devs publish to consoles is not accurate (at least when talking relative to the entire userbase of Construct). I get the impression most devs aren't actually actively publishing to console, just they want the option. They're essentially asking themselves "what if my game does turn in to a success? Will it then be easy to take it further?" This is a reasonable question to ask - it's essentially planning for success, which is a good business consideration.

However this then ends up with a slightly odd situation that everyone wants console exports, but very few people actually use them. It's a difficult situation to do something about because it seems likely that actually making console exports is uneconomical. Consider just how expensive the console exports are for YoYo Games, even with a much bigger staff, more funding and presumably more customers...

Meanwhile there are third-party porting companies out there like Chowdren who are already successfully porting Construct games to consoles. I also think one of the reasons we don't see much usage of Construct's own Xbox export option is because people who go to third parties to cover consoles tend to throw in an Xbox port while they're at it. This also suggests that unless we cover all console export options - the most difficult and expensive option of all - then in practice a lot of people still won't use them, reducing a small userbase even further.

So I think the main impact of the console export aspect comes down largely to perception. Also trying to solve it ourselves could prove very costly, especially as a small company playing the single-codebase card to great effect - and then there may well end up being very few people who use it. I think the best thing we could do about that is find a way to partner more closely with third-parties who can port Construct games to console. That's something we're thinking some more about and we've already had some conversations about it. It could be that there's little awareness that option even exists for Construct, and more people would choose us if they knew about it.

I also bought GMS2 but I used construct

My reasons for liking Construct over other IDE's is pretty simple. How many dev's from GM would respond to a thread on their forums with an honest reply asking why Construct is cheaper than GM?

I like it when I experience turbulence and I can open the cabin door and ask the pilot, WTF, and get an answer.

I think one big factor might be the community itself and especially the marketplace for plugins assets effects and such. People are generally lazy, and don't want to reinvent the wheel.

When I started using Construct 2, the forum section for those kind of things were the way to go. With the transition to C3 I noticed that there is still very few plugins ported. Many are unsupported, many broken links.

A lot of Non-Coders are heavily dependant on good plugins for making life easier, or just because some things cant be done out of the box, or can be done with poor performing or complex workarounds.

If I were Scirra, instead of trying to cater for all various needs and requestsfocus on the plugin developers. for example:

** Create an easy tool for non coders to build plugins, behaviours and effects, for sharing with the community.

** Make it easier and more profitable to share and monetize plugins... Not everyone want's to share their hard work for free.

** Add an in-app plugin marketplace. For ease of use. Just directly browse available plugins and assets from within Construct and click install/add/purchase.

** Better marketplace in general for everything from Assets, Plugins, Templates.

I think those are the main pain points for me at the moment. I wouldn't mind using my own money hiring devs to create and maintain plugins if Scirra made it easy for me to monetise them, and for people to find them.

So in short.

Steps for creating and sharing plugins and behaviours or even events/code for non coders is a hurdle, and even if you are good at it, it's hard to get exposure and hard to monetise your creations. Plugins are hidden away somewhere in a website section where you have to browse, search, download, install, restart construct, open again... Way way way too many steps as a user to find and use plugins... can't even imagine the hurdles of creating one.

Game maker 8 was actually my first game engine I remember very fondly trying to figure out the basics they had there own language back then GML game maker language I'm not sure if they still do. Then they started to move away from the drag and drop development and into a more code forward environment. I can without a doubt say I would have never learned to develop a game without construct. This engine is so much easier to use and it amazes me how much I've learned the amount of times I've re written code because I find a more efficent way to achieve an end goal. I know that's a bit off the topic but any one who tries both engines will see construct is the better of both. Game maker is more known as said earlier because if you want to make a game and you have no knowledge of game making

Your search will include both words 80% of the time driving thier SEO out the roof.

GameMaker's popularity is waning. These are the stats from last weekend's Global Game Jam. Construct was used more than GM for the first time. Construct, however, is also losing game jammers.

Delenne That's actually pretty insane, never thought Game Maker would fall under Construct. But yeah, Godot is improving rapidly and has a free model, so it's game over in that aspect.

I have bought 2 licenses since the release of C3, because it's insane. But, C2 does the job for the price paid. It's not even the price, I just have such a strong anxiety to it if I work on a project and my license expires, I might not be able to afford it anymore and continue working on my project.

So I pretty much have the license, just to support the guys, but I still work in C2 due to anxiety C3 licensing gives me. I also have many friends that refuse to use C3 because of this, and tbh I changed my mind too. I'd honestly rather have a Construct release like C4, C5 every couple of years than this. It would be a x100 cooler and more exciting.

Cheers for the graph.

HolidayExplanation Yes, the bottom segment of the indie game engine market is experiencing some disruption, which I think is mainly due to Godot. Yesterday I read the news that Corona Engine is now open source, but any game made with it must have its source code made available to the public (or negotiate a commercial license for big $$$). I doubt the engine will survive that transition.

I still use my Construct 2 license for quick game prototype tests, and then switch to Godot when I am satisfied with an idea. Lately I've been testing GDevelop as a replacement for C2 and quick prototyping, since GDevelop is actively developed, and C2 is not. That said, my scripting skills have improved a lot in Godot: meaning I can do most prototyping just as fast in Godot now.

Construct 3 sounds nice, but I refuse to be hooked into a subscription model for any development, because I feel it is too volatile. Besides, Godot/GDevelop being open source is very attractive to me.

Take a look at showcase by construct and godot or gamemaker. It sometimes seems to me that construct themselves do not want their product to be more popular (although I know that it is not) But why do they show such bad games? This is the face of the engine. These are games of the 2010 level, plus some of them are just prototypes. What is this nonsense? Why did they remove nice beautiful games, for example, a rhythm game from Steam, from a showcase?

The C3 editor has become slower than the C2 editor (the animation editor is slow, the graphics on the layout take several seconds to load). At first I thought the problem was in my laptop, but on the new modern laptop the editor is still slow.

Ashley says all the time that they are a small team. So hire more employees. I will not believe that you do not have the means to expand your headquarters. You have 5 million downloads of C2 and 100,000 users create games every month. More employees -> better engine quality -> more users -> more profit. It work like that right?

Wow, I didn't know GDevelop, it's a copy of Construct 2 practically.