Corona went free!

kontinyu

Hey guys,
I just learnt Corona has new -free (without any splashscreens etc.)- version. They only limit in-app purchases. So what do you think about that model.
Also is there ANY chance that gideros going to choose that method too???

beezir

Given that Gideros already offers great features for free that Corona doesn't (ie, native plugins, local build), I'd say a splash screen is a more than fair trade-off.

petec

I'd agree that a splash screen is a more than fair trade-off given the freedom and control that Gideros gives, not to mention the great support. Also, it doesn't cost that much to license if you don't like the splash screen. I started with the free version and bought a license to support the Gideros team as soon as I could.

BlueByLiquid

Why I don't care about the custom splash screen I think a better discussion will be the image Corona going free will have on Gideros and other platforms. I also thing Gideros would be silly not to evalutate options that might include different features or some changes to its pricing model. That isn't to say that they come to the conclusion that they don't need to change anything and it certainly isn't to say that one is better than the other but it is hard to deny Corona's market present and that doing free isnt going to help that.

gingerbreadkids

Without the splash screen there is little motivation for someone to upgrade to a paid version of Gideros... without people upgrading to the paid version, I think Gideros would suffer and not be nearly as good as it is now. I for one want to see Gideros keep developing and would support that in any way I could.

We can all develop for free with only a splash screen and then upgrade when we're ready to launch our app - that I think is a great deal for developers

kontinyu

Without the splash screen there is little motivation for someone to upgrade to a paid version of Gideros... without people upgrading to the paid version, I think Gideros would suffer and not be nearly as good as it is now. I for one want to see Gideros keep developing and would support that in any way I could.

We can all develop for free with only a splash screen and then upgrade when we're ready to launch our app - that I think is a great deal for developers

That is what i'm doing. And it's a viable option for me too. But keeping an eye on competition is always good. I'm concerned that if Corona gains traction on newcomers Gideros could fallback. So what could be done to keep up with so called "big guys"

gingerbreadkids

You make an excellent point @kontinyu - I can't speak for others but the reason we moved to Gideros from Corona was because it was clearly more "open" - for example, the native plugin support for free whereas Corona was always more expensive for most things.

Nascode

Right, i thought the Price is higher for pro version. Soon it will be $600 annually.

But i am more interested on Corona's new opengles2 graphic performance, they demoed 5000 fishes on 60fps. Look at this video on 35:00 http://coronalabs.com/blog/coronageek/corona-geek-hangout-33/

Let's see if Gideros could make it better @atilim

hgvyas123

Hey guys,
They only limit in-app purchases. So what do you think about that model.
Also is there ANY chance that gideros going to choose that method too???

well i personally thinks current method of Gideros is more they are just putting splash screen in the free version and there is totally no force to upgrade but in corona they are limiting our revenue what will you do with after making your game and no option for revenue. there is no iap and not much ad networks

amaximov

Corona has a strong core but terrible, I repeat terrible integration with 3rd party services because they do not allow regular subscribers to write their own plugins - something I appreciate VERY much from Gideros. I am personally moving from Corona for this very reason. I do not care about their project Gluon as it still does not allow regular subscribers to make plugins or have native access - something reserved for those who can afford enterprise, a product we high school students just cannot afford:(

phongtt

Corona has one *very good* thing IMO: thorough documetation with detailed examples, snippets,...

hint hint )

techdojo

Actually I think lowering the barrier to entry isn't necessarily a good thing, without a barrier there's nothing stopping anybody from having a go and throwing stuff out there - which IMHO is why there is so much crap out on the various App stores - look what difference a $99 + a Mac makes between iOS and Android apps.

At the moment ANYONE with access to any form of programmable device CAN make games and distribute them for free on the internet, I like having the barrier as it helps to separate the ones who are really serious about development from the one's who think it might be "a laugh" for five minutes and go away and do other stuff when it gets hard.

Just my $0.02

anefiox

I've been making my latest game with Gideros; Tiled map support and what I think is better Box2d performance all helps.

The only thing I'm happy about with Corona going free is that I can now release my Ragdoll game that was left half finished using Corona SDK. I was planning on selling the source code!



Also I only managed to release my game Yarnaby on iOS so now I can go back and give it a try on Android.

thanhquan1512

well i personally thinks current method of Gideros is more they are just putting splash screen in the free version and there is totally no force to upgrade but in corona they are limiting our revenue what will you do with after making your game and no option for revenue. there is no iap and not much ad networks

Totally agree

With free version of Corona it's hard to make revenue.

OZApps

Everything has a good and not so good side to it. Generally CoronaSDK free has enough features for most games that do not require IAP, etc (though many developers depend on that for revenue streams) So it can be a thing of concern. However there is also the point that it is what it is and cannot be extended, and for what developers need, it does get expensive.

Some of the features like OpenGLES 2.0 will soon be part of both Gideros and as mentioned CoronaSDK, where CL have a video and @Atilim still has to show us his secret stuff.

I guess when the widgets or naative UI get added to Gideros, it will become a force to reckon. The only problem is that the earth rotates everyday and everyday is a new day.

@kontinyu, Gideros was FREE from day 1 other than the splash screen and has plug-ins for free too.

@thanhquan1512, generating revenues would be possible with whatever framework has to offer unless one puts the app on the store for free. Be it Corona or Gideros or Moai or any other framework. I guess it is more about the game idea and the execution that is important and generates revenues.

From a business point of view, their trial version can now be used to deploy to the stores, which simply means many new users could give it a try and then could move on to the expensive PRO or the Enterprise versions.

From a Gideros point of view, developers need a few things implemented (which is soon, hopefully)

john26

I am a little surprised they did this. Surely they will lose most of their income. I suspect most developers make less than $599 per year from apps so there seems little incentive to go for the pro version. I guess they are feeling the pinch from free alternatives. I noticed a while ago, when I was transitioning to Gideros, that the Corona forums went very quiet for a while, like a ghost town. So maybe lots of people are jumping ship and they had no choice. Certainly they are not doing this out of altruism!

fxone

I chose Gideros Mobile for two reasons: 1. because I have only Android's armv6 device, which is not supported by Corona at all.* 2. because I didn't want to pay 100$ for learning and publishing games by Corona seeing that Gideros exists... And I must say that developing games is some kind of exciting hobby for me with business profile (but only like an option).
@techdojo believe me I would like to pay Corona the $100 (for exciting hobby) only to see if it could be returned. Well after 9 months it turned out that this is possible. So ok I have 100$ in my pocket and more flexible SDK, trained at medium level by myself for free. And I remind you, that over 60% of super fancy apps from Apple Store has never been downloaded. BTW I'm not sure, if my monetization from AdMob (or whatever InMobi) at Corona could look exactly like at Gideros SDK... (ad format on tablets etc.)

* ok to be fair: it is supported but only at early stage, semi-functional in comparison to the last builds

ar2rsawseen

Corona has one *very good* thing IMO: thorough documetation with detailed examples, snippets,...

hint hint )

I finally took control of the docs yesterday
http://docs.giderosmobile.com/

And will be updating and maintaining them. So if there is any thing that needs to be added/removed/modified/fixed/etc, you can contact me here on forum or directly

mysps

thanks! @ar2rsawseen.

it looks great. its so much easier for me to read & understand.

SinisterSoft

Great new documentation.

zoolax

The site and documentations looking great:)

OZApps

@ar2rsawseen, that is an amazing looking site and if I may make a couple of suggestions/observations.

1. If that is for the beginner to learn then you should avoid using member variables, it is only confusing and might give an impression that Gideros has these as standard (part of the language, like

.rotation

etc which work for another frameworks but in Gideros one has to use

:setRotation()

).

2. If the entire documentation could be stored in a database and parsed and then displayed using a template would actually be what a lot of developers are looking for, each of the entry could have sample code links like the Apple documentation.

I must applaud the effort it is indeed something that will help, but it might be easier to manage/maintain if it were in a database of some sort, easier to add new API, search, list, etc.

just a few thoughts/observations

OZApps

another little note if you read the release notes...

For iOS builds (Mac), requires Xcode 4.5 or later and OSX 10.8 or later

which would automatically render more than half the developers unable to build for the iOS, How many of Mac users have moved on to Mountain Lion? I migrated my Snow Leopard to Lion and while I am settling down with it (my MacBook Pro is Mountain Lion) and I am not sure I want to move the iMac to 10.8 and that too just to build.

ar2rsawseen

@OZApps
1) could you show the example in the docs, what are you referring to?
2) yes that is the idea that might be implemented. We are trying to decide what would be the end benefits of storing and managing in DB rather then current system and would the transfer, which would need a lot of effort, pay off.
We are also deciding on the format of the Docs, for example you can view possible format here: http://appcodingeasy.com/new_docs/index.html
Which would have common usage examples, etc
3) (another little note if you read the release notes...) where did you find that?

gorkem

FYI: Appcelerator has also updated pricing plans:

http://thinkmobile.appcelerator.com/blog/bid/280453/Appcelerator-Platform-Pricing-Updates

The starting price for the platform is $999 per named user/month, and includes:

* The base foundation of the platform,
* Up to 10 million push notifications and API calls per month,
* 100GB of storage per month,
* 5 test devices, as well as
* Annual subscription with a minimum of 5 users.
* The price of the platform scales linearly from there at $250/user/month for each additional user or test device.

That means you have to pay USD60K if you exceed the free plan in cloud (USD 999 x 5 x 12)

However there's always a free/open source version that can be used unlimited if you don't mind the cloud services.

OZApps

@ar2rsawseen, the little note in the release notes pertained to Corona, not Gideros, sorry if that misled or confused

ar2rsawseen

Cmon, you got back on-topic, who does that?

OZApps

I did

ar2rsawseen

@OZApps that was the joke, referring to the situation, where actually I was wrong, assuming you are not on topic

gorkem

@ar2rsawseen I can share the back-on-topic-shame 50%

OZApps

@ar2rsawseen,
If this is the template for the new docs ( http://appcodingeasy.com/new_doc/index.html ) it looks amazing. However try not to have all the API on one page, let each API function have its own space/page.

The API db was something that I had been in discussion with Gorkem around August 2011 around the same time the forums were opened up the first time. BeerSDK had the same issues by having a non-db based API and I guess ultimately they had to go that way. It is an executive decision to be taken. However if the html can be styled, then it can also be scraped based on tags, making it slightly less intensive perhaps. But then I would not know about this as I have no idea on how it is maintained at this time.

If it looks good, that is what any developer would want, even if it is maintained by hand by a team of elves in some basement