Google Hangout this Saturday

[Josh]

Let's do a hangout this Saturday at 1 PM Mountain Time. Check back here for the link when it goes live.

[Josh]

Don't forget!

[reepblue]

Usually out and about on Saturdays, but I'll try to be there!

[Roland]

Will be there if I manage to figure out what time that is in northern Sweden

[burgelkat]

i think 8 PM in Europe

[Josh]

It's up:

https://hangouts.google.com/call/kkq5eavxofbinan2haekf3oieie

[DooMAGE]

I missed :/

Can someone please share a sumary of the hangout?

[Rick]

@Jen, look at the time difference in Josh's "It's up" post and yours right now.

[f13rce]

I missed :/

Can someone please share a sumary of the hangout?

 

From what I still remember:

• Josh is really happy with the new site, thinks it really shows what Leadwerks is capable of and deflects the "unfit" users.
  
• Josh has been working on VR for a while now (Oculus and HTC Vive) using OpenVR. Almost implemented except for a few things like a skewed rendering result, which seems to be fixed when looking at today's status.
  
• Leadwerks now has a big client, which is a reason why Josh has been working on VR so much. Couldn't say who because of NDAs.
  
• Said that if Leadwerks had some more reliable income that he would hire a few people to work for him. Right now everybody just buys once and you have it forever, but if that was a $5-10 subscription per month then Leadwerks would've been in a different place right now. There weren't any plans to make subscriptions happen.
  
• Said he was worried about Steam Direct. If it takes Steam's value down then he might release Leadwerks on it own or somewhere else as well.
  

Can't remember anything else right now, I think this was pretty much it

[Thirsty Panther]

From what I still remember:

• Said that if Leadwerks had some more reliable income that he would hire a few people to work for him. Right now everybody just buys once and you have it forever, but if that was a $5-10 subscription per month then Leadwerks would've been in a different place right now. There weren't any plans to make subscriptions happen.
  

 

 

I bought LW 2.0 and have not paid a cent since (apart from workshop items). Even if Josh charged $20-30 for each version upgrade he would have gotten an extra $100 from me.

 

I'm not a big fan of pay-by-the-month. Who wants to pay $60-100 a year for something you use to pay a $100 outright.

[AggrorJorn]

I bought LW 2.0 and have not paid a cent since (apart from workshop items).

Really? I remember the 2.3 update introducing Lua and costing around 30 dollars. Purchasing a license for LE 3.0 at its release was 200 dollars for me. Haven't payed anything since, but I don't mind paying for a major version updgrade.

 

I don't mind the option for monthly licenses, as long as you have an option to buy a lifetime license.

[Rick]

The whole reason for not charging for upgrades was because the workshop was supposed to cover that. I guess it's not? It's tough coming up with ways to make people part with their money when a good number of engines do it with royalties which seems like free at first.

 

Perhaps a monthly service is a good way to generate income. Not for the engine itself but for some other kind of service? $5/mo for "basic" support, $10/mo for "premium" support from Josh?

 

Perhaps charging for add-on utilities for the engine? There are probably some nice to haves but not required things that could charge for. Behavior tree's and visual editor would be one of those. It's not required but is a nice to have for some games. There are probably other things like that too.

 

I've said this before but personally I think Josh should make specific noob friendly engines based off LE's API. Much like how RPG maker is a specific game maker based on PIXI javascript library. It adds an editor that's pretty much specific to RPG's. Josh could do that with all genre's really. I know Josh said it's not his dream to do that but it probably is someones dream to make an 3D RPG maker so if he could get one person for each genre to do this for a promise of a % of the sale and he helps them out where he can he could have multiple revenue streams coming in from that. Leadwerks would be the HUB engine serving these different specific engines. People like specific things and are willing to pay for it I think. Josh would probably just have to give the editor source to these people so they could create custom dialog's and adding/removing features for that specific genre. Then their requests for engine features would take priority for Josh and Leadwerks as a whole would benefit from it in features.

 

I would imagine RPG Maker is the first step before they try their hand at a simple and friendly 3D RPG maker that LE could be the backbone of.

 

I don't know, seems like a win/win if you get the right partners.

[Jazz]

I would imagine RPG Maker is the first step before they try their hand at a simple and friendly 3D RPG maker that LE could be the backbone of.

 

There is already a very good 3D "RPG Maker" on Steam.

[Rick]

 

 

There is already a very good 3D "RPG Maker" on Steam.

 

What a boring world it would be if competition didn't exist . If josh had that mentality he never would have created Leadwerks. There is always a way to do something different/better.

[Roland]

I've said this before but personally I think Josh should make specific noob friendly engines based off LE's API.

As long as the current "have it all" version is available

[DooMAGE]

@Evayr thank you for the summary

 

I've said this before but personally I think Josh should make specific noob friendly engines based off LE's API.

 

This may split the community and delay the progress of the main engine.

[Rick]

We're obviously exploring an idea I'm sure josh will never do but the way I'd see it playing out is josh is teaming up other people who make these products so he's not the one working on them so he'd still work on LE. However those people would give josh a % of thier sales in return for access to the LE editor source and top priority on feature requests. It would also be known that those specific engines use Leadwerks at its core.

 

It seems like a win win. There are people who want to make specific games but the idea of starting from scratch with a generic engine just scares them. They aren't programmers or artist, they are game designers. They enjoy working with dialogs to configure thier game. So they most likely aren't buying LE anyway. So josh picks up a portion of those sales. Eventually those people want to maybe try thier hand at another genre so they buy the RTS engine perhaps and josh gets a portion of that sale. Then after years they build up enough knowledge and currage to try LE engine itself so he gets that sale. It's like holding a persons hand as they go on thier game development journey in life.

 

An RPG is a daunting task even for the most seasoned devs here. Having an engine that has all the same level editing LE has but specific systems and configuration setup for an RPG game is a big value. I'm sure a decent number of existing LE users today would buy that too honestly.

 

By the sounds of it josh is struggling to expand the company. He needs a different or more revenue streams. He seems to be hoping VR will do this but given the cost of VR stuff it seems a novelty at best in my opinion. How many people are not buying LE because it doesn't support VR and is that number really a game changer in revenue? I think the number of dreamers who don't know code or art far outweighs the VR crowd.

[Rick]

@Evayr thank you for the summary

 

 

 

This may split the community and delay the progress of the main engine.

 

Josh wouldn't be the one making these. He'd partner with a person/people who do want to make these. If anything it would probably advance the engine as it's another revenue stream as josh takes a % of thier sales and can now hire an employee who can make LE features that those other specific engines are requesting. He can focus on what he likes doing which is the generic systems for the generic engine.

 

It's basically like he's franchising out the engine while still maintaining LE itself and has a say in the other specific engines.

[Rick]

Doesn't the equipment that josh is targeting cost like $800+? That's a heavy investment right up front for such a market where those people are already buying consoles at similar costs and gfx cards at half/quarter the cost every few years. VR has traditionally always been fools gold. Unless he's targeting mobile VR devices, much cheaper, it would seem surprising that the big VR vendors is the bread and butter.

 

As for the first part that's what my statement means. How many people pass up,on buying LE because it doesn't support VR? I know Josh mentioned upgrading certain things for PC gives VR for free and that's nice but will adding VR mean josh can hire more employees? If not then we have potentially a worse LE experience as this is another area to take Josh's focus away.

[Rick]

Yeah if it's the mobile VR support, which it didn't seem like it was, then I get it as you'll have the numbers because it's cheap. If it's the big vendors then you'll have less numbers. Remember an LE license cost the same for everyone so Josh needs quantity of users to make money. That was the issue with mobile support. Very few people bought it and it didn't seem to drive in new people either. If regular mobile didn't how is big vendor VR going to drive in the qty?

 

The reality is when you don't charge royalties then you are selling dreams to people who don't know how to make games. There are a lot more people who don't know how to code or do art but want to make games. It's basically a large % of gamers that fall into that category. If you add mobile VR on that then sure I get it but the big vendor VR I have a hard time seeing that being a big factor in profit.

[gamecreator]

Leadwerks Game Engine - VR Edition DLC

Though it might be a turnoff to have to buy 3 different versions and if I remember right, Josh wasn't a fan of complicating the process.

[deadlinegrunt]

I always viewed having LE tied to Steam limited its adoption in things other than hobby/indie/academic targets. I work in the casino industry during the day for the last decade+ and installing Steam is not a thing that is going to happen. Obviously the casino industry is not a target demographic for LE but even Unity has special licensing for casino content created than the Free, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise license due to the money it makes and requires contract negotiations. I mention Unity only because it is what casino game development are using these days in most of the major player game studios moving forward from legacy in-house engines.

 

I paid $100 for LE3 std, $100 for LE3 pro, and I would pay and additional $200~$500 just to be able to ditch being wed to Steam...and yes I am aware of running Steam in Offline mode; not my point. I am surprised I haven't been charged for an upgrade to LE4.3...which I would clearly pay until such time as I outgrow what I need from this product.

 

It has also been my understanding there is no mobile support moving forward with LE 3+ on because Josh doesn't believe it is profitable for a variety of reasons that may or may not be fact. If this is the case then mobile VR can't be a possibility. I also remember console support was written off because the dev rig cost and licensing for PS, XBox, etc. prohibits it being anything more than an advertising gimmick because the average hobby/indie/academic target I mentioned previously is not going to have this kind of access. That can only mean VR for the PC.

 

I want to point out that I really enjoy LE even when I dislike it - despite being geared at people whom have no experience making games, it is VERY capable of making them with someone that does. As a "hobbyist" game maker off hours I think highly of LE but it seems very narrowly focused. I am clearly not the primary demographic being targeted so none of this is a slam on the product or the business of LE. Just an observation.

 

Wished I was able to attend the hangout personally but prior scheduling prohibited it. Thanks for the summary though. I find this stuff interesting.

 

*Note: My mention of Unity is not for promotional value. I believe Unity will collapse under its own weight from trying to do and be too much to all things which is one area Josh nailed correctly. Anybody using Unity professionally will understand what I am referring if they are not emotionally tied to a tool.

[Josh]

I don't think making a VR tool for game developers is a great idea as far as uptake / sales go. The market is just too tiny to make a $100 software package for VR game developers. This is why I never released the Oculus implementation I had working early on. For large clients, supporting VR does make sense. It is very easy to sell companies on Leadwerks VR because it has some really major advantages (described on the VR page).

 

You are correct that academic and business customers will want a standalone version that does not require Steam. That means I have some freedom with the pricing and payment model, since a standalone is not currently offered.

 

@Rick, the game templates I have planned is what you are describing, without writing a new piece of software for each genre.

[Rick]

@Rick, the game templates I have planned is what you are describing, without writing a new piece of software for each genre.

 

That's nice but at first glance it seems like it won't be enough value to charge for. I was just thinking about how leadwerks can get more revenue streams going so that you could hire people and expand the business given the comment you seemed to have made on the hangout about if it was a monthly charge you would have been able to do so.

[Josh]

I do not have any plans for a subscription model at this time.

 

Steam sales are good, but they are very erratic. Making half the sales during December each year is not good, and I think it's pretty likely they will go the way of the iOS App Store when Steam Direct hits.