playMaker

Author Topic: Playmaker 2.0 concerns  (Read 14233 times)

daniellogin

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2020, 07:48:00 AM »
The other option might be to pay for add-on packages. Want navmesh, TMP or other options, then pay a small fee. That way, some costs of updates may be re-cooped.
The problem with that is a large portion of those things are actually made by the community already. Literally your two examples are ones that third party people in the community made and shared on the ecosystem for free.

But it's sort of what I meant by buying a version bracket. You buy something and it can do stated things, and work with a stated Unity version. The only free updates on that are to fix bugs with existing features. Anything that needs to be updated for compatibility, or added as new features, sell that as a new version. Have like a upgrade from last version fee and a purchase whole asset fee (needed if you don't have the very last version released).

I understand though if a business is under pressure to be viable that different models of payment may be required. It would really be a trade off though. I can only assume, but I really think you would lose a HUGE chunk of new sales if people can't own it without paying forever on for it. So sure you would get more money from the ones who do sign up, but that will need to compensate for the other lost sales before it can be additional profit. This would also mean that pretty much only people dedicated to and confident about releasing paid games will choose to commit to paying indefinitely to use it and have access to their own projects.

One thing I will say again though; at the very least, Playmaker is being sold way too cheap. Again, I don't know how much it will cost sales volume to put it up, but for it's worth it's being massively under priced.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2020, 08:03:01 AM by daniellogin »

tcmeric

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #16 on: July 30, 2020, 03:11:11 PM »
Navmesh was added by Hutong games directly. Text mesh pro was added by me :)

However, they may need to be re-made/ adjusted for version 2.

Yes, I think it's not reasonable to expect a free update from Version 1 to Version 2.

jeanfabre

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #17 on: July 31, 2020, 01:20:35 AM »
Hi,

 HutongGames is investing in its community aggressively, what is "Free" and available via the ecosystem and wiki is 90% done via HutongGames hiring us to provide this work. I personally started by contributing for free to the community and then got hired by HutongGames to do that properly.

Bye,

 Jean

daniellogin

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #18 on: July 31, 2020, 05:23:24 AM »
OK I didn't realise that, but now it makes a lot more sense.

Lane

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #19 on: July 31, 2020, 04:06:43 PM »
It's very time consuming to maintain an asset on the Asset Store. If you have a strong brand and a moderate level of success then you also have to factor in many other more complex things - consider:

  • Community : Video tutorials
  • Community : Written tutorials
  • Community : Wiki
  • Community : Documentation
  • Community : Marketing
  • Community : Support ticket review
  • Community : Bug report review
  • Maintenance : Unity new feature integration
  • Maintenance : Unity API changes
  • Maintenance : Unity Legacy feature support
  • Maintenance : 3rd party integrations
  • Core development : New features
  • Core development : Bug fixes
  • Recurring costs : Online hosting services
  • Recurring costs : Development licenses

Consider this in addition to other factors like

  • Rampant piracy of your asset
  • Source Code plagiarism
  • Strong Asset Store Competitors
  • Community support
  • Community engagement
  • Industry pivoting which affects your product roadmap
  • Users submitting bug reports for issues not related to your product
  • Unity introducing bugs which affect your product, and in turn your users, who in turn point at you

There have been discussions about how the Asset Store can change to help with making publishing a product more feasible because as it stands it is extremely difficult to make a single product which never charges upgrade fees. Inevitably sales will slow down once you have saturated your target demographic which leaves you in a position where income is now minimal and unsustainable and offering no capital for you to pursue maintenance.

That circumstance leads to either A) Annual version upgrades or B) Subscriptions. The general publisher community favors option A which means they try to publish a major update every year and will stop adding new features to older versions. This makes the old versions stable, but doesn't include new features. It's essentially passive subscription if you are a vested user.

In the end, users are oblivious to all the intricacies of publishing a product, handling devops and managing a brand -- which is fair --because they're really not supposed to be concerned with that anyway.

I hope this sheds a little bit more light on the subject.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2020, 04:14:24 PM by Lane »
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Reactorcore

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #20 on: August 01, 2020, 06:36:51 PM »
I'd like to highlight the big picture here.
A subscription model would be a death nail to Playmaker.

So you guys need money for ongoing support - that is ok.

I'm developing my first game on zero budget so I rely on Playmaker on being one-time payment only to be able to start and continue developing the project. If suddenly this becomes a subscription, I will be unable to continue and my project will die. This applies to Unity too.

If I can continue working on the game without being threatened by a subscription model, then I will eventually release my game, promote playmaker and actually have some money.

In turn, I will attract more customers towards Hutong Games and if you had a patreon where I could give you monthly money for simply you to continue to work on improving Playmaker and other related project. The important thing is that you'd *post the information publicly without locks/paywalls on your progress, no matter how small, slow or minor*.

This would be enough for me to happily give money to you even though I've already purchased Playmaker. There are a lot project on patreon that thrive on this model.

Please consider other options of securing funding to playmaker besides subscriptions and one-time payments. There are more and better options than these two outdated models.

You also need to communicate your needs for funding more louder and honest to us, so we know that you need the support and that we have a clear avenue to help you.

For those of us that can help now, we will.
For those of us that can't at the moment, will know how we might be able to once our situation changes.

If you go for a subscription model, we'll be fucked and it'll be widening the wealth inequality gap once again for those less fortunate of us.

If you need help, please see https://marketingforhippies.com/
You can get tons of info for free without actually buying anything from this guy (he will appreciate if you do tho) on his youtube channel:
Please, reconsider.

GrumpyGameDev

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #21 on: August 01, 2020, 06:59:25 PM »
I'd like to highlight the big picture here.
A subscription model would be a death nail to Playmaker.

So you guys need money for ongoing support - that is ok.

I'm developing my first game on zero budget so I rely on Playmaker on being one-time payment only to be able to start and continue developing the project. If suddenly this becomes a subscription, I will be unable to continue and my project will die. This applies to Unity too.

If I can continue working on the game without being threatened by a subscription model, then I will eventually release my game, promote playmaker and actually have some money.

In turn, I will attract more customers towards Hutong Games and if you had a patreon where I could give you monthly money for simply you to continue to work on improving Playmaker and other related project. The important thing is that you'd *post the information publicly without locks/paywalls on your progress, no matter how small, slow or minor*.

This would be enough for me to happily give money to you even though I've already purchased Playmaker. There are a lot project on patreon that thrive on this model.

Please consider other options of securing funding to playmaker besides subscriptions and one-time payments. There are more and better options than these two outdated models.

You also need to communicate your needs for funding more louder and honest to us, so we know that you need the support and that we have a clear avenue to help you.

For those of us that can help now, we will.
For those of us that can't at the moment, will know how we might be able to once our situation changes.

If you go for a subscription model, we'll be fucked and it'll be widening the wealth inequality gap once again for those less fortunate of us.

If you need help, please see https://marketingforhippies.com/
You can get tons of info for free without actually buying anything from this guy (he will appreciate if you do tho) on his youtube channel:
Please, reconsider.

I feel like you are saying with a subscription if your game doesn't release it'll be the death of playmaker which definitely won't be the case. Correct me if I'm wrong. Playmaker you've already bought and can continue using if they do a sub. model for playmaker 1(that you've already paid for) then a lot would be angry which they won't do at all. Doing a sub-model for playmaker 2 makes sense.

djaydino

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #22 on: August 02, 2020, 02:43:47 AM »
Hi.
Quote
A subscription model would be a death nail to Playmaker.

I totally disagree with that.

Actually for some people it would be more affordable to pay for example $2-3 a month instead of paying $50-60 in 1 time.
Also people that would just wanna try out making a game and use Playmaker would spend less.
Many people start with developing and stop after a few months for different reasons.

Current Playmaker would not suddenly change to a subscription.
IF that would happen, it would be for PM2.

Just so you know, these are speculations.
Nothing is confirmed or denied by the author himself and might even not know that we are discussing about this.

Lane

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #23 on: August 02, 2020, 10:49:07 AM »
 Since the Asset Store doesn't even support a subscription system at this point is unlikely that PM2 - if it's even a separate product - would go with a subscription method since it would have to be entirely off-store and that really just doesn't make sense. Some publishers have done that, but it's not a great approach unless you have a bunch of enterprise customers or something.

In terms of subscription vs one-time-fee licensing, most asset store users that have been surveyed expressed that they prefer the latter but there were a non-trivial number that prefer subscription. Sometimes we don't realize it but the Subscription model is basically industry standard at this point. Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft, Unity, Substance, etc are all doing subscription models. Almost everything else is subscription based too, everything from streaming music, movies, shopping, grocery store memberships - all subscription model.

Basically the point is that there's no support on the asset store for regular assets doing subscriptions, but there is interest in adding it at scale in the future. Whether it is a new asset or an update is up to Alex and whether or not there are any technical issues with making it an update versus a new product.
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heavygunner

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #24 on: August 02, 2020, 09:04:13 PM »
I prefer, We can use Playmaker 1.x forever since we paid One-time fee. I am okey with recurring & affordable* pricing for  Playmaker 2.0

Coz we spent $1k+ on a one of the worst so-called No code Game engine couple of years ago. That s**t is nothing in-front of playmaker. They later , reduced the prices. Check their lowered price and features  ;D
https://signup.buildbox.com/plans

GrumpyGameDev

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #25 on: August 02, 2020, 11:25:56 PM »
I prefer, We can use Playmaker 1.x forever since we paid One-time fee. I am okey with recurring & affordable* pricing for  Playmaker 2.0

Coz we spent $1k+ on a one of the worst so-called No code Game engine couple of years ago. That s**t is nothing in-front of playmaker. They later , reduced the prices. Check their lowered price and features  ;D
https://signup.buildbox.com/plans

Ah, this engine has a history. Not surprised tbh. Sells prob were dwindling or they had to do it for some reason. What were some problems you have with buildbox? Just curious

heavygunner

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #26 on: August 03, 2020, 01:21:33 AM »
I prefer, We can use Playmaker 1.x forever since we paid One-time fee. I am okey with recurring & affordable* pricing for  Playmaker 2.0

Coz we spent $1k+ on a one of the worst so-called No code Game engine couple of years ago. That s**t is nothing in-front of playmaker. They later , reduced the prices. Check their lowered price and features  ;D
https://signup.buildbox.com/plans

Ah, this engine has a history. Not surprised tbh. Sells prob were dwindling or they had to do it for some reason. What were some problems you have with buildbox? Just curious
I didn't used that for long time. Reason for why i left is, I found Playmaker is much better.

1. buildbox is expensive. you have to pay more to have more scenes and integrate Facebook sdk
2. Very very limited
3. Bugs
4. We have thousands of actions to make the better games. they now very less. even below 200. Not sure
5. my aim is to get a Hyper casual game get published by a publisher like voodoo. There is 0 buildbox games published by big publishers so far. ketchapp did few years ago. They stopped later

 :)

jeanfabre

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #27 on: August 03, 2020, 02:10:22 AM »
Hi,

I also think there is a cultural difference between say Europe and US market. I have been involved in some fairly big software production and you have to consider that in US people are often ok with subscription ( subscribe and forget type of attitude), while in Europe, we prefer paying for a product like it's off the shelve.

I am not sure about the Asian and other market though.


I think we also have to make the difference between a Subscription model that is intended to be fair and one that is intended to have people pay for something they don't use and force them to pay for the whole year. I like some of the subscription model that can be cancelled and reopened  on a monthly bases. I think Adobe is doing that. So as an indie, you don't need to commit to full year of subscription, you just pay for the months that you need it. I hope unity will not miss that critical feature if they decide to democratize subscriptions on the asset store.


Bye,

 Jean

10high

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #28 on: August 03, 2020, 09:36:57 AM »
Just to add my two cents, as more of a consumer user. I do agree with djaydino above.

Quote
Actually for some people it would be more affordable to pay for example $2-3 a month instead of paying $50-60 in 1 time.

Making the decision to pay around €60 was a big decision for me at that time. It was totally worth it, but still a big decision, and I probably only arrived at it because I'd used the free student version before - so I knew the price was worth it.

I generally don't like subscriptions because their total monthly cost really adds up, but if it was low enough, I'd be OK with it because I know I want to keep using Playmaker. I think my pain point would be a maximum of €5.

And I can say with certainty that if I hadn't used the student version and Playmaker had been a subscription service, I would have definitely tested it out.

Just as a suggestion (and I have no idea how realistic this is), seeing as Asset store doesn't support subscriptions, wouldn't it be possible to offer a much higher one-time purchase fee on the store in tandem with a subscription service run via your website?
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Broken Stylus

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Re: Playmaker 2.0 concerns
« Reply #29 on: August 03, 2020, 10:00:31 AM »
Rampant piracy of your asset

Oh, that. Do you have any figure on this? Doesn't Unity send you some data about it?
Do they have a policy to block illicit developers from publishing with pirated assets?

Quote
Source Code plagiarism

I haven't seen any copy, at least in the US/EU market.

Quote
Strong Asset Store Competitors

Well, the main one which wasn't even a lookalike got integrated into Unity and that's not going to change much.

Quote
There have been discussions about how the Asset Store can change to help with making publishing a product more feasible because as it stands it is extremely difficult to make a single product which never charges upgrade fees. Inevitably sales will slow down once you have saturated your target demographic which leaves you in a position where income is now minimal and unsustainable and offering no capital for you to pursue maintenance.

I would not find it scandalous to have a small paid upgrade for Playmaker 1.9x LTS version and a larger price for the major push of Playmaker 2.
So if you paid for PM 1, you will not have to pay unless you want to upgrade to the LTS version, so the money will cover the costs of updates to make sure it remains afloat.
PM 2 would therefore be a new product, with a new UID on the Asset Store; a new item in other words.
I don't know when PM really hit its peak market but it's somehow of a niche product, only a portion of Unity's market share and PM 1 has been out for many many years now. There is just that much money one can run with before hitting a wall.
I agree that the tool could be seen as somehow underpriced considered the time it's been supported. Yes, it is not a standalone tool and remains dependent on Unity (although I wonder if it could be made cross-tool, including OS engines like Godot), but it is a colossal tool nevertheless which, perhaps for budgetary reasons, has not been able to produce enough communication in proportion to its high technical value.
I also agree that you could consider some supplementary functions to become priced as extra items. A few ones though because it's obvious PM wouldn't work so well without the support from a few generous people from the community who did all of it for free.

Quote
That circumstance leads to either A) Annual version upgrades or B) Subscriptions. The general publisher community favors option A which means they try to publish a major update every year and will stop adding new features to older versions. This makes the old versions stable, but doesn't include new features. It's essentially passive subscription if you are a vested user.

'A' was the basic model used by all companies before they decided a subscription would be better to make more money and cover all costs, including support of some older versions if the company started to have a large catalog of old versions to maintain.
Playmaker is not there yet so 'A' seems classic and fair and the Asset Store's lack of subscription model blocks publishers anyway.
But it also forced users who would usually skip one or two yearly versions to pay every year then and the extra costs could be felt.
There was also the number creep: version 2, 3... 15, 16. But this isn't exactly bad, especially if a new version is released every 1.5-2 years. Not everybody plays Google's Chrome insane version-numbering game.

The reality is that with a subscription, one never owns anything. Some people might not like this at all.
It however obviously has the advantage mentioned above, namely the low entry fee.
But a student version with limited functions would be nice too, again, available as another separate item. Perhaps it's about time HG deploy a full catalog of several products?


Since the Asset Store doesn't even support a subscription system at this point is unlikely that PM2 - if it's even a separate product - would go with a subscription method since it would have to be entirely off-store and that really just doesn't make sense. Some publishers have done that, but it's not a great approach unless you have a bunch of enterprise customers or something.

In terms of subscription vs one-time-fee licensing, most asset store users that have been surveyed expressed that they prefer the latter but there were a non-trivial number that prefer subscription. Sometimes we don't realize it but the Subscription model is basically industry standard at this point. Autodesk, Adobe, Microsoft, Unity, Substance, etc are all doing subscription models. Almost everything else is subscription based too, everything from streaming music, movies, shopping, grocery store memberships - all subscription model.

Basically the point is that there's no support on the asset store for regular assets doing subscriptions, but there is interest in adding it at scale in the future. Whether it is a new asset or an update is up to Alex and whether or not there are any technical issues with making it an update versus a new product.

It's pushed to appliances, to TVs, to cars.
So you never own anything. It's the end of private property which has been a staple of our civilizational model for eons. Which is therefore very surprising that it became so widely accepted in the US (as per Jean's remark, which the same could be said about pay-and-forget spirit too which I think many people are still clinging to). But it's not like Silicon Valley giants really cared and unless a political power forces companies to provide paid versions of their SaaS too, this will not change anytime soon. So you better get used to subscription.
It's also the model used by Unity. Which means that outside of non-commercial, personal or scholarly projects that can work in a totally free Unity environment, even if you owned a paid version of PM, without a Unity subscription you would not get anywhere, meaning that I wouldn't even be surprised if a full subscription system were to become enforced in 4-5 years from now.