Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
- 7.8K All Categories
- 11 Help with translations
- 4.2K General questions
- 106 Roadmap
- 358 Game & application design
- 315 Plugins
- 70 User experience
- 74 Marketplace
- 290 Code snippets
- 34 Building a team?
- 269 Suggestions & requests
- 352 Announce your apps made with Gideros.
- 90 Step by step tutorials
- 659 Bugs and issues
- 195 Introduce yourself
- 236 Announcements
- 105 Forum talk
- 403 Relax cafe
In this Discussion
Open letter to team Gideros : growth and scale
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Edit: I reopened the forum, since bowerandy has something to say and I closed it in the middle of his post. I'm sorry.
I want to say right now, to anyone thinking of starting with the product, that I'm very happy to have adopted Gideros and I am actively trying to head for a commercial app release, hopefully next month. If you are reading this and looking to jump onboard, then first of all use the free product to validate that you can build your current idea as the product stands now. If not, go away, build in something else and come back to check on Gideros again in six months or so for your next project.
If you can build what you want now then buy a licence. DON'T WAIT until you release, do it NOW to support the product. If you are building for iOS and can afford the $99 a year for Apple you can surely purchase an Indie licence for Gideros. I'm afraid that I disagree with @moopf in that I don't think being a paid subscriber gives me more of a right to dictate the roadmap features than anyone else. I bought the licence for what Gideros is now, not for what it might become.
This is what I bought into:
1) Clean object-oriented Lua class library to create mobile apps.
2) Super-fast testing cycle on real devices. I never use the desktop player since I can test on a real device in 1 second.
3) Plugins to allow access to native OS features and to give a reasonable insurance against running into showstopper situations.
4) A good degree of portability across iOS and Android platforms (even though I'm developing only for iOS atm)
All of these things are there now and well worth the price of admission. Developing with Gideros is super-fast - much faster than C*SDK or Cocos2D (ObjectiveC). I suspect that it is also faster than developing in Moai too but I have no direct experience of that. The compile-test cycle is the key to this - all we need now is a visual debugger, but maybe the MY Developers - Glider will fill the gap here.
When I first started with Gideros I took to writing a few blog posts at http://bowerhaus.eu. My lack of recent posts should not be taken as a sign of waning interest in Gideros. Indeed, the situation is quite the reverse; I simply found that blogging was taking a fair amount of time and I just need to get on with the task of creating a real product. I still have a fair few blog ideas that need writing up, I just need to find the time to do it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I have also been stung by the recent rescheduling of the roadmap features. When I first came across Gideros I was working on an idea for an (IMO) cool app but one that required asynchronous texture loading. This was promised in the roadmap for the last release but has now been moved back. Fortunately, I didn't start developing based on the likely availability of this feature - I put that idea on the back burner and moved onto something else. I guess that if I had relied on the roadmap I would be more pissed (off) than I now am (which is not at all).
I do think that you should reinstate a more detailed roadmap. Include <1month, <3months, <6months and >6months. Keep the roadmap up to date on a daily basis; if you complete a feature - tick it off. This will keep up the sense of momentum. If you move a feature to a later release, update the roadmap immediately (not on the day of release) and make a post in the forum announcing the change. I think if you had done this before you would have avoided a lot of the FUD surfacing in this thread. But, hey, everyone makes mistakes, so let's move on.
The most important thing is for the Gideros team to ensure that the feature set is stable but growing at a manageable rate (for this reason, I would avoid moving into the desktop arena - even though I would like to see this eventually) and that you do what you need to do to aim for commercial viability within an acceptable period (to yourselves).
Best regards and keep up the good work.
It's a thankless task trying to please everybody and the number of free users often vastly outnumbers those paying and they often inundate with feature requests. When you have limited resources in my opinion it's much better to try to please those that actually make a bottom-line difference to your company, that enable you to continue operating and in turn provide the resources for you to push the product forwards. With limited resources you have to focus and the most obvious way to focus is by listening to those that you have a vested interest in keeping on board - the people who actually contribute financially so you can continue to exist. It's an old-school method of running a business that the Internet appears to have disregarded to a certain extent and that's why so many companies have problems monetising (I hate that word). I'm continually surprised at the inherent entitlement that people who use free software feel and it's a route to madness if you try to appease them.
Personally I brought into what Gideros had the opportunity, and it appeared the energy and vibrance, to become. And I paid to try to help that happen. Don't forget this isn't a one off purchase, it's a yearly license fee, which creates in the purchaser a completely different mindset than when you purchase a product as-is. That also means that for Gideros, it's in their interests to make sure those that pay are happy to continue to pay for the license when it comes up for renewal otherwise it has no real hope of becoming profitable in the long run.
For startups like Gideros any word of mouth marketing that it can possibly get is needed. So basically every member is valued (I don't say that all must be equal, I'd say support response for paid members might be faster, high priority etc), but opinions should value equally.
Look at this in another way. Zinga has millions of people playing their games. Probably more than 90% are free users, others left, are paying huge amount of money to play.
But would that other paying players even pay their money, if there would not be any of the free players? They just need a huge pool of users and every one of them is valuable. Same is here for growing product as Gideros.
Likes: MikeHart
Zynga is a completely different business, obviously, but had a clear and brutal way to monetise from the get-go. They fed off basic human responses of impatience and addiction to create heaps of money (and I know I bang on about it, but this is why no in-app purchases for Android amazes me in Gideros - rightly or wrongly it's currently the way that makes the most money on app stores). Zynga is also a bad example as they don't actually really give a hoot what any of their customers think. In fact, I'm not sure they give a hoot about what anybody thinks, customer/non-customer/competitor/employee etc. I'm not sure Zynga actually values any of them - so maybe they do value them equally in that case, thinking about it
What's going on with Gideros is there is no real impulse for developers to buy the product and that's wrong. I'm not saying get rid of the free license, but it certainly is the case that at the moment I kind of feel a little bit silly for having stumped up for Gideros to support it, and should I really feel like that as a paying customer?
Of course word of mouth is important (which is why I'm not suggesting getting rid of the free license) but, if you're going to make it so easy to just use the free version to release commercially, you need to make sure that the people that did pay feel like they haven't wasted their money. And at the moment I see the roadmap being cleared, everything resetting, a bit of a head-banging with @gorkem
If you don't want to value the requests of those that have paid for a license higher, then fine. But find some way of ensuring that come renewal time they still feel engaged in the product and want to continue to support it. At the moment I'm not really sure that's happening. Of course come a few months time everything might be different and I hope it is because, fundamentally, what is done with Gideros is done really, really well.
Anyway I think everybody knows where I'm coming from now so I'll shut up and let somebody else have a say
BTW have you checked the new built roadmap lately?
http://bugs.giderosmobile.com/projects/gideros-studio-sdk/roadmap
I have been in the forum for a quite time for now. Maybe even longer than you were. And I must say, there were no specific requests for Android sqllite and in-app purchases. Even after these features were released for IOS, I don't remember anyone stand up and say, cool I need the same for android (In fact if I'm not mistaken you were the first to ask and than other echoed).
Even running builtwithgideros.com website I see that most of the apps are for ios, only some of them are for android (mostly from the same developers) so the percentage of targeted android developers was very very small.
Now that does not mean that android should be diminished. But if a crowd of IOS developer's are shouting for platform specific features, it would be madness to start implementing and wasting limited dev time with the same feature on android, which nobody was specifically requesting.
Now I can really say that balance between IOS and android devs is changed, and is probably already almost equal (providing that most developers want to develop for both platforms). And there started to appear feature requests for Android too.
But problem is that many features were already promised and roadmap filled pretty quickly. There was no way such android specific feature requests could be inserted somewhere in the middle in any near future. Which I think is partially a reason of collapsing the roadmap altogether.
Developer contingent changed so quickly, that dev team could not deliver new versions fast enough to adopt to new interests in community. In that perspective, I think it is right that roadmap is built from scratch (taking new interest of new developer balance in mind) and specific android features would probably get a higher priority if community will request them.
Disclaimer: that is completely my opinion and is not any related of what Gideros team is actually thinking or doing.
I ensure that the clients (if they approve usage of Gideros based on if it meets the criteria) purchase a license prior to releasing the app as a token of gratitude to say thanks.
As for updates and features, there are a lot of features that have been added if you look at some of the other threads, to be fair Atilim has been trying hard and fixing things, the best thing I like about Gideros in comparison to C*SDK is that bug fixes are more persistent, i.e they do not resurface every other build.
If you ask me if GiderosStudio is a complete package, no it isn't, and for that matter nor is the iSO API or the OpenGL ES library and therefore there are new additions every so often. Similarly GiderosStudio is also an evolving piece of software.
From my point of view, I see that Desktop and the Mobile needs better integration and I look forward to that feature. I have personal emails from C*SDK where they were promising bytecode compilation, Desktop application, and a lot more, but none of them were delivered including the ability to simply read the URL that launched the app for some integration and inter-app communication and things like Newstand app, etc
I had mentioned how it cost me dearly with one client wanting iOS functionality like pinch zoom, etc which C*SDK could not and the app would have been easier to re-create in xcode as per their specifications. So in all fairness, as a developer you have to choose what is the best fit for the type of project, sometimes you might have to find a completely different solution.
There are many who have started with Gideros Directly and then there are plenty that have come from the C*SDK experience. The Cetins have been quite transparent and honest about things, in fact much more than some at C*SDK. Not only do they take suggestions but they also do let you know the practicality and the rationale behind the fact. After my C*SDK experience, I do not favour any framework more than the other, but I do complement the features that exist.
Not sure if this will get posted as Gorkem is between closing this thread. It is a fair bit of work to get something off the ground and working on which others can build their apps. At the end the user that purchasing the app does not criticise the framework but the developer that created the app. So when there is some time taken to iron out the bugs and the features are not flying out left right and center, I think that is a good thing. It does delay a lot of things on a developer's personal front, but what they get would be solid. Just my additional 2 bits.
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
I'll be honest, as a software developer who's absolutely comfortable with Objective-C, the only reason to use Gideros is cross-platform compatibility. That's it for me and I've been getting the impression recently that this is less important to Gideros than I thought it was.
Like I say, maybe Gideros really isn't for me. Or rather that the users of Gideros mean that it will remain more iOS-centric. I guess I'm just coming at this from a different point of view - as somebody who has in the past just developed for iOS but who realised that, going forwards, it's better to release on Android as well - I no longer understand why I would develop for one platform, limiting the possible market. Especially when there are tools that mean I can fully leverage both in addition to desktop.
On sqllite - as I said on a thread to @gorkem I really have no use for it, but I was highlighting it as a feature disparity between supported platforms. Which is a valid thing to bring up and goes back to how, fundamentally, Gideros approaches cross-platform support.
@moopf: While I can understand your arguments to some extend, I am sure you have no problem using resources and help from freeloaders. Without their help here on this forum, this place would be much more empty! And not only the forum itself. I don't wanna start thinking about how much time I spend to support this place here and Gideros Mobile on the net. @Gorkem already stated in a topic that the input of payed users is taken more seriously regarding feature requests AND bug reports!!!! That should have told you something already. You already have more input on the product, even with bugreports.
@gorkem, @atilim, @deniz: Why did you came up with a free version after all? You have a splash screen there, right? Isn't it advertizing for Gideros? Doesn't it have some kind of value? Weren't you happy with the huge support you got from freeloaders?
I understand that money has to be made. But don't underestimate the power and support freeloaders can give your product and its community. They are the majority here and they can make or break the reputation of your product. Quick and easy. Word to mouth is so powerful in the internet. You had the advantage a few months ago when some Corona users jumped ship and opened their mouth about how wonderful gideros is. Don't degrade your biggest support group here to second class users. From what I see, they had more influence on the reputation of this community and at other places than the paying ones.
@OZApps: Do you remember when we talked about that with a subscription you are at the mercy of a company? That if they change their business model, you can be left hanging without the possibility to update your app? Time to think again.
@Gorkem: Do you remember when Gideros went out of beta and I had concerns about your statement regarding that the free version will be always free? Only 6 months since then :-)
I completely understand that money has to be made, but do it reasonable and in a fair way.
Likes: talis, jack0088
I notice your emotional use of the word "freeloaders". Not a word I have used at all, and I haven't suggested for a moment removing the free version - did you miss that part? I haven't seen the post where @gorkem said that either and it's certainly not the impression I've received from his, or @deniz 's, posts on this thread.
As for my use of resources or advice from "freeloaders" here, I honestly have no idea if I have or I haven't. I know I've also offered plenty of my own feedback and help (both here and via. email to several people). I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with that comment, but I think you're barking at the wrong person to be honest. I certainly won't deny that there are a handful of users that really go out of their way to support the community, and that's absolutely fantastic and should be fostered, but I have no idea if they do or do not own licenses.
I'm not sure what else to say. You've taken a ball and run with it as far as you can, and I'm not sure where you've ended up.
Is that even a topic of discussion?
It makes sense to listen carefully to paid subscribers because they are the ones who are already committed to the product, and the ones that will have to renew their license one day.
It takes far less resources to make them satisfied and pay again, it's one way for profitability (no doubt) and can support the growth and better support for the free users.
Evernote (and this is just one example) is doing great by following this path.
My concern is that Gideros has access to enough financial resources to support its growth, and keeping paid subscribers is with no doubt something to keep in mind.
Free users
But this attention is not exclusive to paid subscribers. Free subscribers generate word of mouth and constitute a basis for upgrades *if* you can give them incentive to upgrade and if you maintain open channels of communication.From my understanding, @moopf (or other participants) didn't suggest to get rid of the free version. That would not be the best monetizing strategy in my opinion.
Free users constitute a good monetizing strategy in the long term.
Note : if a free subscriber is currently ok with having a splash screen in his apps, he probably will *always* be ok with it and *never* become a paid subscriber..
So it is totally wrong to assume that all free users have the same potential to become paid subscribers.
On the other hand a free user who is influential (bloggers, tech journalists) can bring many people that could become paid subscribers (again, *if* there are reasons to upgrade).
Better differentiation between products
But who said it's one strategy or the other?I would suggest to make a better differentiation between product offers.
It would be worth taking the time to sit and rethink the paid product's value.
You can not be profitable if you ask people to support your company by buying your product. That never happens. People pay to satisfy a personal need, to a certain extend it's better to consider customers selfish, so you can focus on understanding their needs and see if it fits your own vision for your product and if you are heading in the same direction.
You become profitable by giving them clear incentive & benefits so they buy your product.
You make people "upgrade" to the paid version by showing them that the investment is worth the benefits.
Gideros License system
It's complex but I would suggest to :- upgrade the paid license (additional features, even a reskinnable IDE would be a start)
- Add a watermark in the free version - Like screenflow
- Reward early adopters (long subscriber - pays less for each year's renewal)
You want to differentiate free users that are fine with the splash screen from those that would need a bit of incentive to upgrade.@MikeHart While I agree on some parts of your comment (and we all know how much you have contributed to this community & product) I think you are assuming a bit about what the intentions from the Gideros team are.
They haven't made any announcement that would suggest their intentions to :
Focus
Why I started the discussion :- discuss with the Gideros team
- get their opinion about our concerns
- have a better understanding of their vision for their product
- get a clear idea about their resources, their strategy for scale, and make my own opinion about wether their business strategy is one that I believe to be effective or not.
If some of us (devs) and Gideros are heading in the same direction (and I hope so) that's great.If not, that doesn't mean that this isn't a great tool, but it's understandable that some members will step back and monitor Gideros for some time.
Now I'm waiting for the next message/announcement from team Gideros.
@gorkem Please close this discussion, we will wait that you post in a new thread with something more "official". I have the feeling that we are not moving in the right direction if we keep it open.
Disclaimer : I'm a free subscriber and will buy a license soon. But I'm still considering moving to another framework for my future games if I can't get a clear idea of the roadmap and access to certain features. I need to plan my business decisions better and that's why I opened this discussion.
if your product is worth, user will pay for it (no doubt).
i agree with @moopf at some points. Although Gideros is Lua sdk which easy to use, although Apple took 77% profit of smartphone, but the most important is "Gideros is cross-platforms sdk". So many common features need to be supported same on ios and android (ads, iap, facebook,...).
back to some days ago, Gideros seems isnt actived, roadmap is "cleared", many questions need to be answer, android plugin is total mist. After this post, its getting better, thanks to @Mells.
http://www.giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/comment/10708#Comment_10708
And there is this quote from Görkem where I read that paid subscribers are taken more seriously.
@Mells: Free vs. paid wasn't the topic at first. It was extended after Deniz stated the fact that they don't have enough sales (aka the free version hurts them) and @moopf stated that free version users should not have a say at all.
I don't see the "free" version being free at all as I do advertizement for Gideros Mobile with every app I publish with that version. Adding to that, some of us free version users have promoted and supported (tutorials, code samples, forum support, ultimate guide, plugins) Gideros Studio and Gidero Mobile to a huge extend. And that took time and time is also money. I am so stuckup to say that I spent more time on this that it values at least 10 yrs worth of a pro license. Did it matter to me? Not till the issue free/paid was broad up. It was my way of paying back that I could have used this app. And I am sure other did the same.
A great community and great supporters (not only if they pay) are worth gold and can make or break a product. Unless GM is doing everything themself. Giving user support, writing tutorials, promoting GS on the net is mostly done by users these days! If you cut out free users, you will see this behaviour degrating big time! But at the end it is up to the GM people anyway what they want to do. With a subscription system, you are at mercy of them anyway.
Also, I'm not sure Gorkem should be commenting on development issues, as including the word bug in there is wrong - it's never right to think that bug reports from free users aren't as worthy as bug reports from paying users. Nor should they need a weight of support to get something done about them.
Having said that @mells I completely agree with all your other points.
When I do purchase a Gideros subscription, I still intend to display the Gideros splash screen (although probably after my own splash screen) so having a paid subscription will make no difference (except financial) to me or the way I use the product.
I agree with some (but not all) points made by various members and think that some features requested by non paying members would benefit all users. I understand (and agree) that as you have paid for a subscription it is only fair that the ability to monetize your apps (and recover your initial outlay) is a priority.
I personally would love to contribute more but real life has a habit of getting in the way but I do try to solve problems where they benefit the whole community as in this thread and this one. These may be only a minor contribution to the whole but I also have plugin projects in the works which will also benefit the whole community.
I personally have requested a few features (with gentle reminders every now and again) as without these features I have put 4 projects on hold.
My personal opinion here is that IAP (in app purchases) for both IOS & Android should be the highest priority features, then maybe a Windows 8 port to allow all devs here to benefit by being among the first to get their apps onto the new Windows 8 devices. Being among the first developers to get apps out on a new platform enhances your chances of making a killing and to be honest, that's what we're here for to make money.
Just my $0.02, it may not be worth that much but that seems to be the going rate for a rant
Likes: techdojo, MikeHart, phongtt, ar2rsawseen
Website: http://www.castlegateinteractive.com
https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Castlegate+Interactive
In fact I was trying to express the fact that in my opinion, in some way, both MikeHart and you are right and I didn't see how the discussion turned to an opposition : free users and paid users are both needed.
So I meant free VS paid users was not a topic for a discussion because I thought we all agreed that in the whole strategy, ultimately, if it has enough resources to support it, it makes sense for a company to provide a service/product that appeal to the two audiences differently.
@mikeHart We all agree, and I stated that in my previous comment, that free users have a value. I don't think that anybody, even @moopf, argued about that.
The only thing is : it has a value, it's obviously very much appreciated, but it was not a requirement when you downloaded Gideros (Terms of agreement).
There is not a minimum level of involvement that is required to guarantee that each free user brings some measurable (that's they key here) value to the product.
That supports my point that not all free users have the same potential to bring financial value to the product. And that's totally understandable, but it seems that finances is the area causing things to slow down in our case (I say "our" because all users here, even if some are disappointed, have expressed their interest and appreciation for the product and the team - In some way, we are all involved).
You dedicated a lot of time for Gideros, but there are also some free users that downloaded the product, didn't invest time to learn more about it, and asked for some features after a few hours of play (that's fine : they are testing the product and trying to get a better understanding of the roadmap).
But you will agree that from the company's point of view it's far easier to seize the potential of paid customers, and it helps a lot to plan business investments for the future because it gives some precious informations about the customer lifetime value.
Making a choice
moopf's (how do pronounce it?Not that you like it, but it's necessary to focus for growth. Else, you take the risk to disappear.
Taking strong decisions is, in my opinion, the less risky path.
Even if there is a risk that Gideros make some choices that leave me unhappy in the future, I hope for the product that they will make some choices. Trying to keep everybody happy (above all with limited resources) is not sustainable.
Free resources, and the limit of "all for free"
It was said that providing tutorials, blog posts, and being active on social networks was a way that free users could contribute to the growth of Gideros.But sadly, there is a limit to the time and dedication that users have to share their work for free.
I believe (and it was already mentioned) that it would be better to have some members paid for providing well commented tutorials (not half documented), plugins, curated resources. That would be a better strategy.
I am ready to pay so that users spend more time providing frameworks, examples, resources.
I want HD video tutorials explaining me how to add X or Y feature to my app, I want to pay for templates, I want to invest because I know it's sometimes worth 10x the investment.
That's healthy, and that's how we would all get value from the (even free) product.
A marketplace would be a good way to go.
So either :
- Gideros becomes very profitable and commissions/hire users to provide resources of quality
- Gideros focus on features development, and in the meantime provides an infrastructure to guarantee the quality of resources available
There is a limit in quantity and quality to what users are able and willing to share for free.Waiting for an announcement
And for that to happen, there really is a need to have a better understanding, specific, realistic, about what's coming for Gideros.I get that the team's intentions are great (and I support it whenever I have the opportunity) but it's not enough without (1) resources and (2) a strategy and strong decisions.
My hope (and I keep positive about it) is that everything is already well planned, and s.m.a.r.t.
Hello,
From now on I feel like, whatever I write I am repeating myself for the time being. I have already stated what I wanted to say.
This all started with Mells’s statement that more resources and communication is needed. I already answered that: we are and have been working on it. The reason I am not very specific about is, there are things that are not finalized yet.
The announcement will be about the roadmap issues, not business model. We were talking about different models for months internally, long before this discussion. We will announce it, when it is also finalized.
I have not said or implied “we are removing the free version” and there is no single line that can be interpreted as that. Please do not over interpret. I try to write in plain English; try to be as open as possible. I thanked many times to all users who write, who contribute.
I believe most of you write long posts and spent time to interact, because you see the great potential Gideros has. Thank you for that.
I am sorry Gideros can not yet fulfill every need. But, even with more resources there may be times when the feature you requested can not be completed as soon as you ask for it. I am a developer myself and sometimes you need to search for different tools for specific jobs. It happens.
This is all I am going to say for now.
Thank you for your contribution.