Update Fee

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Slydog

I remember when deciding to buy GLBasic, I asked about the cost of updates.
I was told that SO FAR, there have never been a fee for the previous updates, and probably the same for the future updates.  That was a nice change from my other software experiences.
But, I was never promised there wouldn't ever be an update fee, and I checked the main feature and purchase page, and nowhere does it mention lifetime free updates. (that I found)

But I can see where people may have bought GLBasic with this assumption and expectation.
And, people may have different financial situations, where an upgrade fee would be undesirable.

But (again) I have to mostly agree with Hark0's ideas.
Say GLBasic has sold 100 copies at $100 (or 90 EUR) for a total of $10,000 (over the 10 or so years it has been around).  I have no idea really how many copies were sold, just going off of the number of unique people in the forums.  Gernot could expect/get everyone of these people to kick in an extra $20, for only a $2000 campaign.

But, if we all were to promote GLBasic (on social and programming sites for example), and we were to double the sales, or gather 100 new customers, that would earn Gernot another $10,000.  So our 'upgrade fee' could be just to try to get others to notice and appreciate the powers of GLBasic.  Then at some point it should reach a critical mass, where it can't be stopped, and people everywhere are recommending GLBasic to the new members of the game programming community.

I have left a couple posts on Stack Exchange talking about the merits of GLBasic, when asked for an easy to use game programming SDK.  Now, if we all did this, regularly, this could help us all.  Imagine the point where Gernot can make enough money from GLBasic where he can quit his day job, and spend his time adding new features and squashing bugs.

As mentioned, we could start with a game programming competition. Game programming has exploded in the past year or two, and I bet you could get a few new customers just doing that.
My current project (WIP) :: TwistedMaze <<  [Updated: 2015-11-25]

doimus

I'm totally against marketing and publicizing... why? Because that stuff only serves the business purpose (ie. selling game engine) and NOT users (ie. developing games). Look what GarageGames and Unity communities look like.... total wreckage.

If Gernot's idea is to live off GLBasic only, and is willing to work 24h a day on upkeep (somebody will have to answer all those "can I make MMORPG with GLB, can I??" questions  :D), then by all means, promote it and all that, but if the idea is to just keep it afloat, I'm all for premium model.
That's basically a "1000 true fans" philosophy. Find your loyal base and charge them enough to keep you afloat.
That's how small bookstores or art galeries, or small music bands work. And that's exactly what Apple did in the 90s. Granted, Apple in 2000s has A LOT more money but they must allocate much more resources into keeping the machinery working. It's completely different beast and business practice.

Schranz0r

Or you make a "service" for GLB-Games for iDevices, so everybody can publish his game for iPads and iPhones and so on (for people without a Mac and developerlicence!!!)
You earn some $ (maybe 10% ?) and get some money for further projects, like GLB-Developing...
I <3 DGArray's :D

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Hark0

#33
Quote from: Kitty Hello on 2012-Mar-29
I start to like the premium idea, where you pay a small fee/year and get access to pre-release software and maybe source code for some projects.

Pay fee each year (like apple) to get pre-release and snippeds?

And... what kind of version are "PRE-release?

:P

PS Like Dacarsoft I'm alone too... and I "expend" 2 hours time of my family every night for develope... We are legion of "alone" people  =D
http://litiopixel.blogspot.com
litiopixel.blogspot.com - Desarrollo videojuegos Indie · Pixel-Art · Retroinformática · Electrónica Development Indie Videogames · Pixel-Art · Retrocomputing · Electronic

Hark0

#34
Quote from: matchy on 2012-Mar-29
In regards to motivation, the idea that GLBasic developers need investors in this product and perhaps a forecast funding budget would be more suitable where the spending can be used on marketing and education with the ol' donation meter. Seems to be the trend now-a-days for all sort of new and old projects. ;)

Examples:
http://www.kickstarter.com/
http://8bitfunding.com/

Crowfunding are very popular alternatives to get $... If the project are interesting...

I think GLB it's one of this projects.

;)


PS please take note about my votation: please change my NO vote to No but maybe if my circumstances change...
http://litiopixel.blogspot.com
litiopixel.blogspot.com - Desarrollo videojuegos Indie · Pixel-Art · Retroinformática · Electrónica Development Indie Videogames · Pixel-Art · Retrocomputing · Electronic

Hark0

To "relax" post ... little intro like Trainspoitting movie:

Buy a PC Buy GLBasic Learn GLBasic Compile Corrects errors Compile Buy a Mac Buy an iPhone Pay a license Compile for IOS Corrects errors Compile Prepare a site Prepare banners Prepare manuals Application goes to the store Squeeze your ass Get the mail endorsement Activate the application Publish Squeeze your ass Watch the bank account Look back at the account Renew the license ...

Buffff  :D
http://litiopixel.blogspot.com
litiopixel.blogspot.com - Desarrollo videojuegos Indie · Pixel-Art · Retroinformática · Electrónica Development Indie Videogames · Pixel-Art · Retrocomputing · Electronic

Nathan

Quote from: doimus on 2012-Mar-29
Look what GarageGames and Unity communities look like.... total wreckage.
Just out of interest, what do you mean by this?

Leginus

I am happy to pay a yearly fee no problem.
However, what I would really be happy to pay for is additional modules.

I went indie, full time about 6 months ago and have had 3 very lucrative apps to write, however, the downside is that I haven't been able to use GLBasic as these were business apps and not games, and therefore I  could not use IOS or android functionality needed, e.g. UI Kit, google maps etc. without writing my own objective c libraries and the thing that won me all the contracts was the speed of development and being able to come in cheaper than the other competitors.  Imagine the speed with glbasic!

I would love it if I could use GlBasic for this (without having to write libraries myself).

That said, for games, Glbasic all the way, unfortunately at the moment games are not  making  me a wage, apps are  :'(



doimus

#38
Quote from: Nathan on 2012-Mar-29
Quote from: doimus on 2012-Mar-29
Look what GarageGames and Unity communities look like.... total wreckage.
Just out of interest, what do you mean by this?

Too much noise, too little signal.
I lurked around Unity forums back when they were Mac only engine. It was similar to GLB, with developers responding and users actually helping. Now it's mostly "Can it be done in Unity?" or "Unity vs Unreal vs Whatever". The quality of the community has deteriorated rapidly with user base increase.
With that comes the necessity to hire moderators, product evangelists etc. whose only job is to mentor the user base.
And most importantly, once you reach "critical" user base, you're officially in the race with the competition. Look what Unity did to Garagegames Torque... And with increased competition comes the need for faster product improvement and that means hiring more people again, and that means more costs.

And sooner than later, you're back in the same situation: you need more money to sustain yourself. And then again you need to either expand or increase value. That's economics 101.

Wampus

Oh, don't worry doimus. The evolution of Unity does not have to be the evolution of GLBasic. They are different creatures with different philosophies behind them.