What are you going to make with LE3?

[cassius]

purchased le 1 for a really low price and then we got the upgrade to le 2 for free because le 1 was never completed so I have had several years of pleasure and learning out of Leadwerks at a reasonable price. So maybe I will buy le 3. The price is a shock and the 30 day limit to buy the upgrade is not long enough in my opinion.

[Josh]

If the upgrade window turns out to be a big issue for a lot of people I will consider extending it.

[cassius]

I just checked the exchange rate ( dollars to sterling) so for uk buyers le3 should be around £329. Not too bad.

[Andy Gilbert]

This what I don't understand though. For £329 your only getting the base windows version that lacks the powerful features le2? Generally if your developing for windows you want all the nice powerful features that today's cards can handle but le3 doesn't seem to offer them but le2 does.

 

It seems to me to benefit from le3 the most you need to be developing for mobile, which is an extra cost.

 

But I think this is the wrong thread for this.

[cassius]

Yeah. A week ago I forked out over £700 for a new pc that delivers supeior graphics for le 2 and now I may be about to invest in an engine that initialy will deliver inferior graphics.It may be worth it in the long run but I have no interest in platforms other than windows.Is it worth my while is the question I am asking myself. It seems that le3 is not so much an upgrade as a completely different engine. Also what about the forum, if I do not buy le3 will my le2 questions still be answered on the forum or will le2 users gradualy fade away.

[Rick]

Yeah, I am concerned about LE2 support/community as well. Maybe an LE2 fan site needs to be made to make sure we have a place? If it's not being sold or maintained I think it'll die off though, unless the majority of everyone rebels against Leadwerks 3.

[Naughty Alien]

..sorry to bump like this, but, i was unable to find any info about pricing, everybody talking about..can you guys, refresh me about price tag/scheme ??

[gordonramp]

$1000 basic, $1000 for each of the addons.

Half price for LE2 owners.

 

Basic is currently missing features like Terrains, Real time Shadows, Water etc.

[Rick]

He wrote it in his blog: http://www.leadwerks.com/werkspace/blog/1/entry-1048-announcing-leadwerks-3/

 

The text right after the video.

[cassius]

Maybe le 2 should now become free.

Unity have a free version and its not because they are kind hearted, they see a commercial advantage of having a free version. It makes some people eventually buy the pro version.

[Josh]

Maybe le 2 should now become free.

Unity have a free version and its not because they are kind hearted, they see a commercial advantage of having a free version. It makes some people eventually buy the pro version.

That was actually considered, but what will appeal to "free" type people is extreme ease of use, at the expense of everything else. A free version of Leadwerks 3 with missing features would make more sense than a more difficult version with full features (LE2), but I have no plans to do either.

[YouGroove]

A free version of Leadwerks 3 with missing features would make more sense than a more difficult version with full features (LE2), but I have no plans to do either.

 

Actually it is missing terrain editor tools and other rendering features etc ... perhaps the actual version could be the free version ?

Just kidding, caus it must come from a big reflexion on what should contain a free version.

Perhaps some complete version for non commercial use also ?

 

ok i seen some trial annoucement on Youtube.

 

Even bigger indie engines like S2 engine (next version 2 is coming also) or Unigine offers a trial.

 

LE3 shouldn't go without the trial or free version, but well let's see what will happen next days

[Pixel Perfect]

As I've stated all along, I'll not be making anything with LE3 until I see a stable fully functional product ... which I suspect is still a long way off! Only at that point will I make any decision and of course not without comparing it to whatever else is around at the time.

 

The cost is not of primary concern, I've always been willing to pay for something that I concider worthwhile. LE2 was a good investment in that respect, good because it was cheap enough to put up with the two years or so it took to get the product stable. With hindsight I will not go down that road again though ... very frustrating for a developer.

 

I obviously have my doubts about the current pricing strategy but in the end I hope Josh is successful otherwise there will be no Leadwerks and any chance of a bug free LE2 will go out of the window too!

[YouGroove]

Perhaps i'm totally wrong, but would some free or limited version have advantages ?

 

The product with such price , only some fans or people having some solid idea or little studios will go that way.

LE 3 will need popularity so it will need all hobbysts, indies lonewolves, evene newbbies to 3D, so they will need some NON PRO version indeed.

 

The more people get involved and the more people you have active on forums is better indeed.

Even flowgraph templates will grow from people using some free or very cheap version.

 

So i don't say it's a mistke to put such prices, but LE 3 would benefit perhaps from accessible (cheap or free)version, perhaps not for mobile, but for PC accessible version at least ?

 

This way lot of people (hobbyst , indies) indeed will try and perhaps stay, will make games, and will make grow the contributions and tutorials.

Like PS4, LE 3 will need developpers

 

Yes LE 3 will be a serious concurrent to lot of 3D indie engines, but for that hight prices i don't know ?

[Josh]

If we made a "non-pro" version, what would differentiate it from the "pro" version? Probably graphics, which is what most people here care about most. So we'd just be having the same debate later.

[Andy Gilbert]

Not really.... Why not have a windows version that is a lower price with then the bolt on packages of mac, ios, android and any future ones?

 

LE2 was essentially that and look at its inital response and on going support. Like ive mentioned before, there is a big market out there for mobiles and it seems that engines can price for that, but for people who arnt interested and want to stick with windows development its a shame we have to pay for the price to. I know you have already done this with the availability of ios and android as extra addons, but i guess the price for the base version that still lacks alot of features that are expected of a windows only 3D engine?

 

Another way to look at it i guess is im not interested in mobile dev atm, so im interested in putting the full potential of todays graphics cards to there use on desktops.... does the base model at $999 (or $499 for a short while) do such that in comparison to LE2?

 

Andy

[Rick]

You could take the flowgraph out, and maybe even Lua & Mac support? We just get C++ and the Editor and only program for Windows. Charge $300 for it.

 

Want Lua? Add $200.

 

Want the flowgraph? Add $200.

 

Want Mac support? Add $300.

 

That's $1000 total there (the same you are asking for and you don't even have to give a discount to existing users now (I don't think anyway)). Then I think for the mobile platforms you are probably fine with still charging 1K each.

 

This would most likely keep your current base ($300 is very doable for basically what we have today but better API and ready for the future), and should help expand because of the other features you have available. If the flowgraph and Lua are really that useful, then people will buy them, but give them a chance to work a couple months to save for these things. If a small game dev company comes in, they can buy all those tools at once and it would be the same as what you are trying to do now.

 

This gives the best of both worlds and I think a decent compromise. You could then even charge like $25-$50 for each OpenGL renderer you make, but because it would be once a year or whatever, it spreads the cost out for people. I'm not opposed to giving you $3k but not in 1 shot for a unproven new engine. It's to risky. Let me ease myself in.

[Andy Gilbert]

I agree Rick, but i still think there needs to be a close look to the Base in comparison to LE2.

 

Surely an "upgrade" generally has the same and better features? Taking away lua scripting is a step back from le2.

 

I guess, and this might be down to the fact that there isnt actually much marketing/literature on LE3 (full feature list ETC) but what is the comparison between LE2 and LE3 Base? There both aimed at the same platform (besides Mac), yet apart from "better support" and "more stable" (which im not dismissing as there important) it seems to lack alot of LE2 features, so why upgrade?

 

I like the idea of $300 for base but it needs to actually be an upgrade over LE2.

 

Andy

[Rick]

The fact is a "base" LE3 would not be considered an upgrade on it's own (if you don't include Mac). What it would do is set yourself up for the upgrades over time. I think my proposal is reasonable and gets Josh his money and us a way to pay slowly over time for what we want.

[Andy Gilbert]

Hmmm I'm still unsure and I guess it's out of our hands. But at the moment I could pay $499 and get the base, lua and flow graph? Your pricing works out more for the equivilent?

Obviously this is taking the discount into account.

Andy

[BES]

I agree with Rick .

[cassius]

Will uk buyers of le3 have to pay vat on their purchase?

If so it adds over £60 to the £329 asking price.

 

I could stay with le2 instead and spend £100 on model packs from dexsoft. That would cheer me up.

I just can;t decide what to do at the moment.

Time will tell.

[EdzUp(GD)]

Porting a space game to LE3 to see how it handles the project, there is loads of things that can be done with LE I want to see if procedural generated galaxies are one of them

 

If we made a "non-pro" version, what would differentiate it from the "pro" version? Probably graphics, which is what most people here care about most. So we'd just be having the same debate later.

 

TBH I would limit it in some way maybe model count, texture sizes or item count. DBClassic limited the user to 400 lines of code which was good enough to make a simple game in and to get the feel of the engine.

[Andy Gilbert]

Yea I guess it's easy for me and people to say this is right and that is right. Personally I think for limits a lot the lines of lines of code or object count it needs to be free. I don't anyone would pay for an engine with big limits like that. Personally I think there is a huge indie market out there that majority of them know they won't make profit yet still happy to pay the right amount for the engine to play with.

 

I would prefer limits on the licience, an indie licience and a commercial licences.

 

Andy

[YouGroove]

Yes Unity was never free before, even when it had pro and non pro versions , you had to pay some 150 or 300$ for the non pro version (i don't remember), i baught the cheaper non pro version , then it was useless when Unity turned to free in the basic version.

(we got some reduction to buy IOS Mobile version)

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Rick suggestion could not work, Flow graphs seesm to be based on LUA.

And well i would see a simplified system :

PC version

Mac version

Android version

 

Well let's see that delivery date , let's wait for some trial to se how it works.

(for me as hobbyst i think on some 500$ for mobile , not 1000$ specially if you make games that don't sell or are bad, perhaps you'll never gain the investment ?)