GLBasic V11 - Release & Pricing

[planetm]

I'm a total amateur, although I've dabbled with coding for years that is all I'll ever be. I'll never charge for anything, I have made a few programs available for free, but will not get any money back. I couldn't have considered GLB if it was hundreds of dollars. As it is I was happy to buy the full version eventually.

I do think GLB fully deserves a greater userbase though, I'm not sure that a price increase is the way to go. Clearly it's nothing to do with me though, I'm just happy that Gernot continues to develop it.

[MrTAToad]

Aside from various forums for devices, I don't know how to increase the userbase - computer magazines dont want to know unfortunately.

[Kitty Hello]

For a partixle engine: draw particles on an offscreen and then draw that with x_sprite? (As a quick worksround)

[Qube]

For a partixle engine: draw particles on an offscreen and then draw that with x_sprite? (As a quick worksround)

Not a solution I'm afraid. Say you want to do thrusters from a spinning ship or long trails of smoke from a moving object from each of it's sides. You can not do this correctly drawing off screen and then using X_SPRITE.

We definitely do need to be able to draw alpha'd 2D objects in an x,y,z coor system without have z-order issues 

[kanonet]

Shouldnt one X_SPRITE for each particle do the job? Of cause X_SPRITE is slow, so youre limited in how much particles you can draw, but it should work?
Btw you can replace X_SPRITE with something faster and more powerful.

[Qube]

Shouldnt one X_SPRITE for each particle do the job? Of cause X_SPRITE is slow, so youre limited in how much particles you can draw, but it should work?
Btw you can replace X_SPRITE with something faster and more powerful.

X_SPRITE does not play well with z-ordering and so alpha'd X_SPRITES that are not drawn in perfect z-order have major issues. To see the problem in action have a camera moving in a circle around an object that's displaying 3D particles and you'll see the z-order alpha issues.

[bigtunacan]

I prefer GLBasic to GameMaker Studio.  I did a trial of GameMaker Studio to see what all the fuss is about.  That said; GLBasic does not warrant the same price as GameMaker Studio for quite a few reasons.

1) Game Maker Studio can be used to make games by people that have ZERO programming knowledge.  An artist for example can drag and drop everything for many basic 2d games.  So there is a whole class of people that don't know/want to learn any programming that haven't many other options.

2) Game Maker Studio has a TEAM of core developers so they can pump out fixes, new feature support for the targeted platforms etc... much faster.  I'm sorry, but that warrants a higher price tag.  This also means they have a full customer support team getting paid where we have to figure things out here on the forums.

I know Gernot is very active here on the forums to help people; and we users try to help each other as well, but this is not the same.  New releases and new features are slow to come out, bugs are often slow to be fixed in the core.  If it is one person and new features, bug releases, customer support is low then your price needs to be low as well.  This product is also not well branded.  People find Cocos2d (or Cocos2d-x which is cross platform) and is FREE(open source) quicker; it is better branded.  For Android AndEngine and libgdx are better known that GLBasic and are both FREE.  The Corona engine only supports Android and iOS; it costs a little more than GLBasic, but it is also extremely easy to use and is very well branded.  The Corona website is phenomenal http://www.coronalabs.com/.  They are also way better at marketing; and good marketing warrants higher price tags.  I'm sorry; but those are just facts. 

I have suggested this before; and I will bring it up again, GLBasic needs to OPEN source.  Open source does not mean it needs to be free and Gernot never gets paid.  Right now there is a free version of GLBasic so some people aren't paying anyway.  What it will do is let those of us using GLBasic to see the code and help contribute to furthering development.  The whole project could be made available on Github where we can contribute. 

Gernot could use a DUAL license approach.  You can customize the license and use something like a MODIFIED GPL + a separate commercial license.  Essentially the modified GPL would state something like you can use this free, but any changes you make to the code you are required to commit back to the original author; under this license I hereby disallow charging for your products, etc... etc...  Then users can trial; update the code etc... and make updates onto Github and eventually we would have a core team that is helping to improve the project more quickly.

Then a commercial license could be offered like is offered today whereby users are authorized to distribute their apps as payware on any system.