Canardia Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Yeah, a low price OpenGL 1 version would kinda like be Blitz3D 2.0, now that would rock! And then people could upgrade also from the lowend version to the full version without losing any money. And the full version would also include the lowend version license. That would allow many school kids and students to start their game with the lowend version, and the same code would work directly with the full version then. Quote ■ Ryzen 9 ■ RX 6800M ■ 16GB ■ XF8 ■ Windows 11 ■ ■ Ultra ■ LE 2.5 ■ 3DWS 5.6 ■ Reaper ■ C/C++ ■ C# ■ Fortran 2008 ■ Story ■ ■ Homepage: https://canardia.com ■ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 Yeah, a low price OpenGL 1 version would kinda like be Blitz3D 2.0, now that would rock! And then people could upgrade also from the lowend version to the full version without losing any money. And the full version would also include the lowend version license. That would allow many school kids and students to start their game with the lowend version, and the same code would work directly with the full version then. Exactly. This is the same reason why Unity, UDK, and CryEngine have free versions. The key is to get a large install base. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 There are a lot of people who piss and moan about paying for major updates. Then they aren't potential customers. There are a lot of people who piss and moan about paying for major updates. In my opinion, paying for major updates is beneficial for the customer and the developer. It gives the developer a true incentive to provide quality updates. If the update isn't worth the price, the customers won't pay for it. This forces the developer to innovate and add useful features. A great case study for this is to compare the path of GarageGames vs Unity. GarageGames gave free updates forever and went no where. Definitely. You want your major software applications to be an ongoing relationship so that your input matters. I'm sure you've had a piece of software you used that stopped producing updates even though you would have paid for one. Unlimited expansion doesn't happen. You may want to consider releasing a OpenGL 1.x only version for free or for a very low price. I'm planning on an OpenGL 1 / Lua "indy" version for free or cheap. It would be a great strategy to also offer a license for all platforms in the pro license (minus XBOX, PS3, Wii, etc). Generally, you want to segment your market so that you can get the most you can out of each type of customer. Some want all platforms and will gladly pay for them all, while some want a cheaper solution on one platform. I also want to have data on which platforms devs actually pay for, so I know what they value. I'm leaning towards making Windows/OSX the base package and then having add-ons for mobile platforms. This also means when a new mobile platform comes along, the addition of support for it can be self-funding; it doesn't rely on attracting new customers through added benefits. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcus Posted July 9, 2011 Share Posted July 9, 2011 I'm planning on an OpenGL 1 / Lua "indy" version for free or cheap. Smart move. I think this will prove very valuable for your long term strategy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rekindled Phoenix Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 You can sell a product which doesn't exist with a pre-order, and use the pre-order money to start developing the product. So you can basically start any project with zero budget. That's exactly what Overgrowth was doing, though with each stable build they give the community a new download. I wish LE3 did this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 10, 2011 Share Posted July 10, 2011 I wouldn't call LE3 even in the "pre-order" stage yet. There's no product to use at this point, even in a limited manner. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephan360 Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 Will the 3.0 be an updater to the LE2? I guess i am just wanting to know if i purchase LE3 will it be a separate application than LE2? Be able to develop games in both engines separately? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 16, 2011 Share Posted July 16, 2011 It's a completely new engine, but a lot of the design and ideas of LE2 will carry over. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 I missed this discussion (red it only now). It is interesting. I think the key will be the price. There are now, in the market, two prices for engines: 1) "low cost" (even if engine is good). 100->250 euro. Good engines, but missing (or primitive) of some key tools (material editor, world editor, etc...). Or not cross platform. 2) Unity engine, in my opinion (I used Unity for some time, and even completed a game: http://www.massivecreek.com/home) , but the engine self is missing of many features (no LOD, real-time shadows are not so... good, missing HUGE terrain support, etc...) But Unity has an un beatable IDE: flexible, works well, customizable, etc... (Win & Mac). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 I am not aware of any low-cost engine that is doing well. Price isn't the big issue. People will either pull out their credit card or they won't; If people are willing to spend $100, they are willing to spend much more, if they are getting value for their money. Right now there is a lot more value people would be willing to pay for, and the limitation is the time it takes to create that product. Look at this thread, people are asking to give money in exchange for a product that doesn't fully exist yet. That's why I am putting so much effort into the art pipeline. If I can spend 100 extra hours on something that saves 10,000 people two hours each, it's worth it to them. Much better than saying "sorry you have to edit a lot of text files, but you're getting a low price". It also means in the long run, my ongoing support costs are lower because there is an established documented way of doing everything. I just have to make sure we are delivering something that's really valuable to the end users, which is why I am paying more attention to your experience using LE3 instead of just focusing on the underlying technology. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Fully agree with you. The problem is several people are not companies (they can pay 100$ or 500$ or 1000$... ). Single developers (or small team) cannot spend too much (3d engine, 3d modeler, buy some textures or other models, etc...). So I wish to spend 500$ but I can't. I used UNity free edition, but features are really limited (no shadows!!! in free ed). What I want to say is: please don't forget that even small team can achieve great results. So please help them with an affordable license. For example (I found other engines with this concept): I pay 200$ but I can publish only a game. Or other licenses like UDK. I know you are not a giant company like Unity, so it' s a pleasure for me that I can talk with you and not with a "commercial support". So I can ask you to help small teams, or "poor" guys. Help them (and me :-) ) to unveil their talent :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tournamentdan Posted July 23, 2011 Share Posted July 23, 2011 Fully agree with you. The problem is several people are not companies (they can pay 100$ or 500$ or 1000$... ). Single developers (or small team) cannot spend too much (3d engine, 3d modeler, buy some textures or other models, etc...). So I wish to spend 500$ but I can't. I used UNity free edition, but features are really limited (no shadows!!! in free ed). What I want to say is: please don't forget that even small team can achieve great results. So please help them with an affordable license. For example (I found other engines with this concept): I pay 200$ but I can publish only a game. Or other licenses like UDK. I know you are not a giant company like Unity, so it' s a pleasure for me that I can talk with you and not with a "commercial support". So I can ask you to help small teams, or "poor" guys. Help them (and me :-) ) to unveil their talent :-) I think a lot of people forget that some of those engines that are free at first made a great deal of money before giving those types of licenses out. If Josh had used the same license when he started out he would have made $00.00 money so far and the engine would of no doubt been abandoned a while ago. Unless Josh is independently wealthy and likes doing this stuff for free. When I first got into this stuff I was against royalty fees, but it may be the only way to keep the initial price affordable. I certainly do not mean 25% like one of those other engines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Every estimate I can make for LE3 sales looks good, which means I can give you more. I want to find 2-3 really good programmers so I can keep the company small and efficient. When you add more programmers, each one yields diminishing returns, so I want the best. I'm strongly opposed to royalties or subscriptions. I think major new features in a paid update every 12-18 months is the way to keep the engine growing and keep giving people new things. I mean, look at BlitzMax. They made it "free upgrades for life" and now they have people begging to pay for new features, but they can't ever get what they want: Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Currently, you are the only developer? Did you make something in C/C++ or you work in Blitzmax only (or mainly)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 I am writing the core engine, and I have help for a few specialized tasks. LE3 is written in C++. The editor is written in BlitzMax. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tournamentdan Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Every estimate I can make for LE3 sales looks good, which means I can give you more. I want to find 2-3 really good programmers so I can keep the company small and efficient. When you add more programmers, each one yields diminishing returns, so I want the best. I'm strongly opposed to royalties or subscriptions. I think major new features in a paid update every 12-18 months is the way to keep the engine growing and keep giving people new things. I mean, look at BlitzMax. They made it "free upgrades for life" and now they have people begging to pay for new features, but they can't ever get what they want: http://www.blitzmax.com/Community/posts.php?topic=95303 Yeah I really do not like how most people have set up royalties. I myself would not mind a one time royalty fee if my game made x amount of dollars. In the future I would like to provide custom characters for indie developers and prices can be at $1,500 and up for CUSTOM characters and most small developers would not be able to afford that much for one character. So I think I might charge say $300 to $500 up front and if your game grosses $100,000 then have a one time $1,200 to $1,000 royalty fee. I like the paid update. Maybe even offer it like a add-on features. People could pick and choose what features they want and would be charged accordingly. Although I am sure you would like to create as much value as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Josh Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Yeah, then I say "look guys, what do you want us to focus on next?" and if what we carry out makes you happy, you upgrade a year later. it keeps the market feedback going, instead of only trying to gain new customers. It gives me a good estimate of income, so I can say "Okay, we can spend this much money to develop these new features" and plan accordingly. Quote My job is to make tools you love, with the features you want, and performance you can't live without. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tournamentdan Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 I like the direction you are taking this engine and community. I think it will create large opportunities for the LE community. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megigames Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 im a part of this conversation now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.