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is Gideros slowly dying? — Gideros Forum

is Gideros slowly dying?

totomtotom Member
edited August 2014 in Roadmap
Dear Gideros team!

I can't help wondering, and I suppose I'm not the only one, if Gideros is slowly dying or maybe is dead already. Since the announcement that it's going open source more than a month ago (27th of June), nothing has been communicated anymore by Atilim, Gorkem or any of the stuff members. Ok ok, ar2rsawseen has tried to calm down our souls and give some time estimations, but they were already passed long ago. No news about releasing of the code or maybe a new Gideros version, or perhaps just a small update of what is really going on, which is a bit worrying. For these reasons, I think many developers (including myself) started to wonder if Gideros is still a reliable option for the future and maybe began to investigate the possibility to switch to other platforms. I mean, shall we go back to the beer SDK? This is not what Gideros developers want, since many of them ran away from that alcoholic mixture.

That being said, can someone from the stuff please give us an update, an estimation, something, so that we know if we should get drunk again or stay with Gideros? I really hope that Gideros is not dead. Either paid or open source, it is a pity to die. Either paid or open source, but at least alive.

Gideronians, hands up who wants an update from the Gideros team!
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Comments

  • DudDud Member
    Dead. Despite any comments to the contrary, I would say the support for Gideros has been slowly waning for a very long time now which is always a bad sign. It came as no surprise to me when the Open Source announcement was made. The uncertainty about how things will turn out following that announcement will mean that not many new developers will consider it a serious contender for creating their apps.

    Developers who are familiar with Gideros may stick around for a while and continue to use it but with so many good, free and *well supported* SDKs out there my advice would be to not waste your time waiting for announcements because you will be waiting forever.

    Choose a different SDK and go make something today :)
  • Even i agree on some points, i don't think that this friendly community will perish so easilly :D There are still so many contributors from the users.
    What i agree is it is a painfull and not easy process to opensource a SDK. But i believe that when this step will completed everything will be back to normal again.
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  • would definitely like to hear on this as I just switched over to Gideros but noticed there hasnt been an update since Jan and no mention on when open source will be completed.
  • Tom2012Tom2012 Guru
    edited August 2014
    I'm checking the forum each day.

    I dearly love Gideros and have invested years (ok a long time!) learning it and working on my game.

    A little concerned at the moment but lets remain positive. This is easily the best tool for making 2D games for mobile.

    But yes, would love to hear from the team. And thank you for your hard work!

    Likes: bali001, Disciple

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  • MellsMells Guru
    edited August 2014
    Apart from making the move to open source/free which seems to be now totally up to the team (= no concrete obligation to make it happen so if it doesn't happen, no right to complain), something else more important needs to be clarified :

    - Should current PAID USERS assume from now on that product updates and support that are supposed to be part of the subscription are dropped?
    - Did the team remove itself from any kind of obligation towards paid users?

    Having this clarified is important.

    I believe that an official statement has to be made about that, paid users seem to have accepted the situation very quietly but it could have been different.

    I have the feeling that moving to free is a way to say :

    "Gideros as a service is out of business.
    We are sorry but we can not assure our responsibility which was to support paid users with product updates and technical support.

    We understand you paid money for that. We had obligations. But we failed on our obligations.
    Sorry about that. We think that giving you the tool for free is a way to appease you in some way."
    Or am I misunderstanding what was part of the subscription?
    If product updates and support was not part of it, then my mistake.

    A quick message from the team would have prevented us from making that kind of assumptions.




    Talking to paid users should have been a top priority. By not doing it, you aren't giving any consideration to your best supporters. This is also killing any opportunity for the open source version to become well supported and then successful.

    And anyways.. is anyone reading this actually?

    Damn, why the silence?

    Yes, Gideros is great.
    Yes, it will probably be open sourced "some day" and will still be developed internally by the team. If Atilim said so, no reason to believe this won't happen. But by the time it happens, who knows if anyone will still be listening.

    About the community : look at the Top Posters' list. Scan the list of user names and see how many are still active in the forums.
    Look at those who contributed with libraries, third party tools, tutorials, and see how many are still active in the forums.

    That gives you an idea of the resources you can count on when it is open sourced.

    PS : if anything more serious happened to the team and I hope it did NOT (disease, or worse...) please tell us so users stop complaining (the team would have bigger priorities which is more important than anything else) and users can move definitely to the next tool.
    twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
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  • "Damn, why the silence?"
    - this summarizes my experience with gideros team during the last year, except for ar2rsawseen, but i'm talking about roadmap/plans/changes/etc. almost never being communicated. and investing a lot of time into making my app in gideros believing that i will be able to export it to win in a reasonable time (at least sometime).

    Likes: SinisterSoft

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  • so many games released recently with gideros, it would be shame to let gideros die.
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  • i think the best .. the only solution to save gideros is to make it open-source ,yet . . we are still waiting
  • Im at a point, where im thinking, "is it worth spending time on developing a game in Gideros, or move on to a supported product ?" ... still dont know the answer to that one.
    Ive paid for a licence, and now feel that was a waste of my money.

    Likes: SinisterSoft

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  • As for me, i would use Gideros for 2 more year, or until something "really weird" happened on mobile world, for example, exe is able to be running on new mobile device, or weirder technology appeared.

    [ Right now i'm planning for a kickstarter (still a maybe), and it would use Gideros. And with the current situation, it indeed seems weird... :-\" ]
  • Here is what I would do (speaking as Gideros user, not as employee, as I'm already not working here :) )

    Started developing project with Gideros. Should I finish it or start from scratch in another framework.
    1) If your project is about 60-70% finished, try to make it through with Gideros
    2) If your project is less finished, then if all current Gideros features satisfy your project needs, definitely continue.
    3) If your project misses some functionality, which you think can be extended via plugin, then you need to estimate, what would be harder or take more time, port your project to other framework or create a plugin for Gideros for your functionality (Of course I'm not saying you are alone there, we, community members, are here too, to help, but for the worst case scenario, imagine you would have to create plugin alone from information that is available).
    4) If it is easier to port project to other framework, then do so, why not? Even when I was working for Gideros, I often played with other frameworks, like testing the waters, getting new ideas, experience, etc

    Same applies to new projects

    If Gideros is enough and you have enough skills, I don't see a reason to spend time elsewhere.

    I'm myself on the quest to finish all my started games and create some ideas I have and get them out as fast as possible to try out these ideas (currently working at about 1 game a week speed), and I don't see a better alternative for this job than Gideros.

    About paid memberships, paid members still have access to the Labs. Even if the labs will turn out to be payed afterwards, most probably paid members will still have an access to it, without additional payments. I am also supporting labs for now, as you see rolling out some updates on interfaces etc.

    About open sourcing, for now I really don't know what is taking @atilim so long to release the code. Tried contacting him over the weekend, but for now did not have any response. If I will know anything, I'll let you all know too ;)
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  • MellsMells Guru
    edited August 2014
    Hey @ar2rsawseen,
    thanks for stepping in.

    If it was an official answer from a member of the team it would have been different, but when you wear your User's hat, I agree with your 1) to 4).

    I still feel that a clarification is needed from the team about paying users : wasn't support supposed to be part of it, for instance. The lack of communication definitely made it a bigger concern than it should have been.
    twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
  • Tom2012Tom2012 Guru
    edited August 2014
    Good post as always @ar2rsawseen !

    Going to finish current game in Gideros and see what has happened in a month or so before starting a new one with it. Cocos and Corona are both interesting but the fast on device testing with Gideros is just invaluable IMO!
  • eezingeezing Member
    edited August 2014
    I started messing around with Swift + Sprite Kit over the weekend... It's a stinking pile of poo. I spent the majority of my time figuring out what types to use. Lua really is a dream come true, and Gideros is rock solid.

    I'd hate to have to switch to another SDK.
  • Gideros has features unmatched by others too, like super easy assets encryption, 16bit texture load, super easy API, and so on and so on. A little biased there, but.. damn, after all these years we got a nice overall knowledge of Gideros ;)
    have fun with our games~
    http://www.nightspade.com
  • Great post @ar2rsawseen!

    As for me I don't see a reason to switch to another platform, at least for now. Gideros does what I need and it's a great tool.

    A statement wouldn't hurt, though, I'm waiting to know how the labs will go.
  • OZAppsOZApps Guru
    edited August 2014
    I started messing around with Swift + Sprite Kit over the weekend... It's a stinking pile of poo. I spent the majority of my time figuring out what types to use. Lua really is a dream come true, and Gideros is rock solid.

    I'd hate to have to switch to another SDK.
    You might have to wait for swift books (hint hint!) and that way you might be able to catch up with using swift.

    Using Apple tech is not going to be cross compatible, but then... is the Android market really paying except for Adverts? If you are planning to change, then looking at Xcode + Storyboard + Swift is a good way to go.

    If you want to stay, we'd have to wait for the open source release (which is seeming like it's with Peter Pan, in 'Never' land)...

    Other Lua based frameworks are more or less a the same stage.
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
  • @OZApps, hi long time no speak.

    Even though learning XCode would be a good thing, we loose option of deploying to Android (if/when) we make a game that is worthy of both platforms, tis why i looked for system like Gideros. :(
  • Hi @ArtLeeApps,

    Yes it has been a long time, been busy... lots of things happening...
    Are you going for DevWorld? I was supposed to be a speaker for that event, but could not as I will be overseas at that time.

    yes I love the cross platform ability that I get with Gideros and there's not taking that away. In fact I was quite excited about Windows, etc being added to the mix as well.

    However, do I need to have a $150 plan that one day I might get NBN? When Telstra offers me only ADSL1, similarly, if Cross-platform is not a pressing criteria then you can look at other options, let's be honest most developers have admitted that they have made money off the iStores as compared to the gStores (Apart from ad revenues) plus clients look for iOS apps more than Android.

    Lastly many even seek native apps with access to all of the features that are available with each release of the frameworks, many other frameworks fall behind and thereby is a bit of a delicate situation.

    Working with the new Xcode6 and Swift is not bad, yes it is not cross-platform, but then maybe some company might provide that functionality to convert the code for android (there are currently some offerings, but do not work very well).

    Do not get me wrong, I love gideros, but I would like to access functionality natively and even with plug-ins, etc I am targetting iOS and using Objective-C via Wax or plug-ins, then why not work on xCode directly? Why have the middle layer? Those will not be cross-platform with Android as there is no Wax for Android.

    cheers,
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
  • ...and yes, I chose Lua because it took away from all of the overheads of writing boilerplate code to get things done. Swift surprisingly is similar, compact and easy to read. It might catch on, it is a bit like lua, a bit difficult to grasp at first, then once you get going, its smooth sailing.
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
  • MellsMells Guru
    edited August 2014
    @OZApps I'd buy it
    twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
  • Amazing, it's been 7 days since this post was created and absolutely no reaction from the Gideros team (if we consider that ar2rsawseen does not work there anymore). Not even a "wait, we are still working on it", or at least a "we are having some difficulties, we'll get back to you later".

    It is more and more difficult to trust the team and the framework and make any plans for the future. Pitty...

    Likes: SinisterSoft

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  • @OZApps I'd buy it
    Not 100% what that was in reference to, hope it was to the Hint, Hint! :)
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
  • @OZApps yes it was ;)
    twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
  • john26john26 Maintainer
    Well, personally I think we should all stay calm for a while at least. It's far too early to say Gideros is dying. After all there is this lively forum, lots of games being released and a lot of devs with deep knowledge of Gideros, who are heavily invested. That support and commitment doesn't dry up overnight. Let's wait for at least another month before we start drawing conclusions. (IMO of course!)

    Likes: Disciple

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  • @john26,
    you are right, but the (lack of) speed in which things happen around gideros does not help much in keeping this momentum you mention (which indeed could push gideros through the change to open-source).
  • I'm going to finish up my project and not lose any sleep over it for now. My philosophy when choosing a framework is to never pick one with the hopes that it will eventually support this or that. There are plenty out there to choose from these days. Gideros just happened to be perfect for what I'm doing as-is.

    If it eventually supports things like Windows/OSX, Windows Phone, shaders, GL 2.0, etc., great. In that case, I will very likely stick with it for future projects if they require any of those things. If not, I'll find something else that supports my needs right out of the box (though I'd strongly prefer sticking with Gideros!).

    My main concern for now is compatibility. My hope is that the Open Source transition is complete before iOS 8 is released, or that 8 at least doesn't have any backwards-compatibility-breaking surprises for us.
  • MellsMells Guru
    edited August 2014
    I'm surprised no one talks about paid subscription though...

    Is anyone here a paying member?
    What were your expectations?
    How do you feel not being taken care of/answered?

    I guess I have already expressed my own feelings here and there.
    twitter@TheWindApps Artful applications : The Wind Forest. #art #japan #apps
  • @Mells,
    i completely agree with your concern. I became a pro member recently as a reward for my tutorials, so i don't worry about this much. but if someone paid for a year of support, i imagine that he could be angry about the whole communication and leaving him without any promise of support.
    on the other hand i imagine that if support will indeed stop, people can get back their money if they wish so. this seems to be the only fair solution.

    Likes: SinisterSoft

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  • ar2rsawseenar2rsawseen Maintainer
    edited August 2014
    @Mells, no of the premium members are much concerned, because there were only few of them (the real paid onces), thus the decision came :)
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