Open letter to team Gideros : growth and scale

Mells · August 2012

Hi team Gideros!
@deniz, @atilim, @gorkem

I was wondering what the plans for growth for Gideros are.
I believe there is a need for a bit of communication between you and us, and would be glad if you could read this message.
It's not short, but I think that's in the interest of both Gideros team and app devs.

Interest for Gideros is growing

I believe that more and more developers are looking at Gideros as a worthy contender (between Corona Sdk, MOAI, Cocos2D-X, etc...).
Some Third party developers are also making their flag products compatible with Gideros.
And last, the community is growing.

From there, people with different backgrounds have been making lot of feature requests, sometimes loudly because expectations around Gideros Studio are growing.
Also, the need for proper documentation and samples becomes important. Not to say that the ones available are not good enough, but there is need for better commenting, better "visuals", better search on the forum, full example projects.
The community has also done a great job (Appcodingeasy, giderostutorials, and members that are active here to help each other) but we get a lot of similar questions asked.

People are watching Gideros

My understanding is that we have come to a point where people are watching Gideros :

Devs that are not 100% happy with the framework they are currently using are wondering if Gideros documentation is good enough to switch quickly, and What are the most successful and beautiful games made with Gideros?
I've been in touch with some third party developers that are waiting to know how Gideros will scale and if it will meet dev's expectations before investing resources in making their product compatible
The community is great, but we all know how much time-consuming it is to participate to the forums and the forum search doesn't help at all. Also, great code samples are all spread across the net even if the Gideros community lib on Github is a great start to consolidate resources. How will those resources be organized in the future and are there plans for that?
Gideros website would need more love, the blog needs more attention also (case studies, announcements, interviews, tutorials). Few blog posts = abandoned product in a lot of people's mind.
1 blog post a month is already good (far better than nothing), but more communication between releases (behind the scenes, what you are currently working on, wip, how you are promoting Gideros) would help to build a story around the product/Gideros, attract attention; consolidate the community, give a sense to be part of a group and a movement.

How will Gideros scale?

I think that there is a need for Gideros to scale. But please note that this is just an opinion (and just mine, unless other people want to join).
Expectations are starting to become bigger than what Gideros is today, and what it will be able to become in the near future due to limited resources (while I truly, myself, appreciate and admire the work that has been/is done by the dev team).

So could you share with us, Gideros team, what is your vision for the future?
Will you scale?

Will you invest more?
Will you hire other devs to help building Gideros Studio?
Will you hire community/social network/blog managers?
Will you hire devs to produce full app examples, revamp the documentation and the website?

And for all of that to happen :

Will you be more profitable and are you, currently, profitable enough - I really hope so?

Or maybe you want to keep the current pace, because this is how you enjoy things and you are comfortable with what you have accomplished until now?

Any answer is perfectly fine, really, that's your baby.
We just want to know more if possible, and if we are all heading in the same direction.

Let's discuss how to make Gideros successful

I really like Gideros, it's a great tool that I use very often and promote around me, and I'd like to see it grow faster from now.

So please take a drink with us ~O) (all drinks are on me) and please tell us what you want to share.

We are listening

zakkwylde · September 2012

All ears 8->

techdojo · September 2012

Me too, I'd love to get involved further if possible.

GregBUG · September 2012

Me too...
I fully agree with Mells

Nascode · September 2012

Agree with Mells, the community is growing for sure

paulocarrasco · September 2012

100% agree with Mells.

ar2rsawseen · September 2012

@Mells just awesome post.
Yes, the list of feature request gets a lot bigger (much bigger than probably now can be handled by inside devs), but that only means that community is growing bigger. And this is exactly the right time to make it stronger.
And everyday I get more feeling, that Gideros is on some kind of crossroad. If Gideros walks certain steps and make community stronger, than Gideros will become a huge hit and there will be no way to stop it.
If one mistake is made, then there might even start a degradation (from new member/user point of view). It will not take much time for some developers to get frustrated and leave Gideros with all the negative feedback they can give.
Something should be changed. And why not start with the communication. Maybe even use irc channel for that. Discuss some steps with community members. Do some kind of evaluation of what features are most demanded and try to increase priority for them (and most certainly, post the results).
It does not mean to let community decide for you (that would be a "squeaky" disaster), last word should be always behind the dev team.
But if there would be a constructive explanations, like this feature is not impossible for now and we need to think how (end even if) it could be implemented. Or this feature would take too much time, we could implement these two features instead in the same amount of time. That would be just awesome.

@atilim, @deniz, @gorkem I know you probably all are completely tired, but this is the time, when you either push as hard as you can (and together we will make it) or let it slide as it is and hope the consequences won't be too hard.

deniz · September 2012

Hi guys,
I have read all your comments and I am writing a long reply.:)
Cheers!

deniz · September 2012

Hello All,

First of all, I would like to thank you all for all your support. I want to be as open as possible to tell you our choices and options and the reasoning behind some of our decisions. I am glad you asked and I really understand it is for the greater good and your ultimate belief that Gideros is and will be the greatest tool for developers.

Our vision is to make Gideros the ultimate tool to make games.

First on mobile, than on other devices. Any device openGL/DirectX runs! That is how we started and told ourselves what we are going to do when we start it. We will build it, add more platforms, more features. We have amazing things in mind; you should see my “wish list”!!! We are committed to make Gideros the best tool there is. But there are decisions every start up should make at some level. We are in this business for the long run.

There are more than 8000 registered (free) users. We have reached this many developers with blog posts, word of mouth mostly with the efforts of our community (you rock!). For other marketing channels, you need cash.

It all comes to one question, really. It is about resources. You ask, will you invest more: short answer: YES, WE ARE. We are working full time to find ways to invest more. We are talking with talented developers. We are trying to find the best solution. It is said more than once in this forum: “If you make a one mistake, and all the love dissolves… “Actually I believe it is OK to make mistakes and hope all the love will not dissolve instantly:). BUT, we want to be really careful what we do. We think, think it over, again and again. We read other companies, try to understand what they did right, what they did wrong. We do not want to mess it up; we spent our every waking moment thinking about Gideros. (Maybe if we were living in SF, we could grab a beer with other SDK creators. I have great respect for them and their experience.)

You have asked if Gideros is profitable. No, not yet. Honestly we have thought more people would buy the license, but it seems the free version being not limited; many developers are comfortable with it. Which is fine, but we are exploring ideas to monetize. We are developers ourselves and have lots of empathy. We are looking for solutions, which will be best for Gideros developers and us.

There are two paths a start-up can grow. You can get funded or you can bootstrap. If we had millions of dollars in our pockets, these things would be obviously non-issue. There are a couple of investors interested in Gideros. (We have to invest some of our time to these meetings and pitches and being in Turkey, we need to travel overseas) But, first we want to make sure, it is the best choice. If you take money, you have to scale and monetize really fast. We want to work with the best people, who understand our world and concerns. We believe Gideros will be huge in three years. That is one way to go. We are talking.

The other way is to bootstrapping, which is what we are doing right now. But, right now, we do not generate enough cash to hire more people. We need to earn more. We are working on it.

So, what can we do, in the short run?

We agree that website, forum and tutorials are really important. But… We are in the process of hiring and our priority will be Gideros features. Product comes first. At the mean time, I will try to organize samples, add videos and add more samples. (We can discuss what is required on another post.)

I can use help!

If you guys write about your experience, write tutorials, explain things... It would be cool.

Also, I want to make a small Gideros video, in which developers talk about their experiences. So if everybody records a few words and send them to me, we can create a community video.

If you want to help…

I know Gideros community is great, very friendly, and very helpful and you already talk about us everywhere. We can not thank enough. Our community is our greatest asset. We are grateful.

If you want to help us and keep going faster, I suggest:

Buy the license, spread the word.

It would help us.

Write blog posts. Write guest posts for us, we can publish.

More tutorials, more samples would be great.

We are here, we are open.

As soon as we know more, we will tell.

Please ask again, if any of my answers are not understandable. I am happy to have more interaction. Thanks for asking.

Cheers!

ar2rsawseen · September 2012

Thank you for the great response @Deniz
Here are just my thoughts about profitability of Gideros.

I think there are 2 main reasons why people don't buy Gideros license:

1) Many developers have put Gideros into monitoring zone. Something like: "It's really easy to create, prototype, test and deploy application and Gideros has really great potential, but it's still missing some features that I need to develop my game, so I won't buy it for now".
That is why in my opinion you must concentrate on proper feature set, deciding what to include and what not. My suggestion would be to:
Evolve plugin infrastructure (provide templates, better examples, docs, broader API), maybe even create proper marketplace and get share of that (like Titanium is doing http://www.appcelerator.com/marketplace)
And in parallel concentrate on features, that can not be reachable by plugins (which community members could not do on their own)

2) Gideros splash in Free version is too unobtrusive. I think many of developers would agree to put it even in paid Version. Basically it's not obtrusive at all. It might be a better choice to (hope whole community won't kill me for that), put a small Gideros logo in any of the corners of exported apps, which always stays on. Basically making Free version suitable only for prototyping. And releasing some kind of "Home" developer license for about 15$ or 20$ per year (affordable price for anyone, who want to release an app) without small logo but with splash screen like Free version has now.

deniz · September 2012

Thanks @ar2rsawseen

1- Marketplace is definitely on our list. I agree on that
2- We need to make some changes. Thanks for your opinions. We will consider them.

atilim · September 2012

"It's really easy to create, prototype, test and deploy application and Gideros has really great potential, but it's still missing some features that I need to develop my game, so I won't buy it for now".

Whenever we release a new version, I always think "Finally with this release, Gideros is a almost complete game development tool"

zakkwylde · September 2012

Hi,
Ar2sawseen I think pretty much is correct.
'And in parallel concentrate on features, that can not be reachable by plugins'. People are happy to chip in and develop plugins, but if they are restricted in how they do this then we as a community are limited in helping you.

point two, how many people publish with free version (splash screen)? If there is a lot, then yes make it more obtrusive. If not many people are publishing this was keep it as is.

I understand it's a business, but you are in a very good position with your product, but you need some more essential feature's. You have the momentum....it's just been slowing down rapidly in the last 2-3 months.

Cheers
Z

ar2rsawseen · September 2012

Whenever we release a new version, I always think "Finally with this release, Gideros is a almost complete game development tool"

Unfortunately (or fortunately) if this would be true, you would probably be out of business.

No one would need any updates if everything they need is already here.

But yes, I get the feeling

GregBUG · September 2012

2) Gideros splash in Free version is too unobtrusive. I think many of developers would agree to put it even in paid Version. Basically it's not obtrusive at all. It might be a better choice to (hope whole community won't kill me for that), put a small Gideros logo in any of the corners of exported apps, which always stays on. Basically making Free version suitable only for prototyping. And releasing some kind of "Home" developer license for about 15$ or 20$ per year (affordable price for anyone, who want to release an app) without small logo but with splash screen like Free version has now.

totally agree.

many games out there (made with gideros) was made with free version.

Personally i have not published any games, but i subscripted Gideros License mainly to support Gideros Team and his unvaluable work.

i think that (15-20$/year) would be right price for "home" kind license. (with splash screen)
current price is right for current "PRO version" (without any splash screen and any logo)
and as @ar2rsawseen said current FREE version should have a small logo on it in any or one corner of exported application.

i understand perfectly that Gideros free is handly for many developer...

but hey,
Gideros TEAM need support to grow!
and include all REQUESTS THAT WE ARE ASKING FOR.

just my 2 cents.

ciao
Gianluca.

bowerandy · September 2012

Personally, I think you could do worse than model yourselves on C*SDK in a number of areas. They seem to be reasonably (very?) successful and, even if this isn't the case, they do a good job of appearing to be so.

I believe that what professional developers really want is security; i.e. the belief that any work they put in will not go to waste. They want to know that they won't find roadblocks that stop them completing a project (the existing plugin system goes a long way to achieving this) but they also want to know that Gideros won't just disappear and diminish the value of their time investment in it.

I think you already achieve much of the technical security (e.g. plugins and the lack of need to contact servers to make a build etc) but what about the product security. In order to achieve this I think you need to maintain momentum (and maybe even increase it). When I first joined Gideros I couldn't believe the rate at which the product seemed to be improving with every build. Communication was great (and is still) and I was amazed how all this could be achieved with a team of three (actually at the time I thought you were only two).

Recently, for whatever reason - be it summer vacations or something else, momentum seems to have dropped off. Indeed, I think this whole thread has been brought about by the recent downgrading of the various roadmap items. So here are my suggestions, prompted by the way that Ansca seem to do things:

1) Have you thought about recruiting some community members to work for you? Ansca did this with a couple of developers I think (Jonathan Beebe was one). You could entice them with cash or stock. You need extra tutorials/frameworks/plugins and all of these things can be written by non-core team members leaving you guys to add new features to the core. It is great that you have many third parties writing blog posts and creating add-ons and this is a good way to start but I think there are many developers out there who are just watching to see these things coming from Gideros Mobile, if only to show that you are continuing to grow.

2) New tutorials and frameworks (as above) can have a dual purpose. You can also e-mail them out as blog posts to all registered users like Ansca do. All this serves to generate a frisson of excitement which keeps people interested and generates word of mouth. Similarly, the inclusion of a "App of the Week" (perhaps right now App of the Month).

3) I think you need to rethink your pricing model. I think you should increase your Indie annual subscription charge (maybe $249 a year or $149 each for Android and iOS). Also there need to be more compelling reasons to upgrade to a subscription. I think the "daily builds" that C*SDK do for subscribers are very useful for serious users. Daily builds are unnecessary, though, and too time consuming; maybe once every one or two weeks?

Perhaps you could remove the ability to create plugins for non-subscribers? You need to keep the base system free so people (and schools and clubs) can play around with Gideros and create sensible apps, but being able to add new plugins is possibly a pro-feature? You'll probably still need to allow the use of existing plugins in the free system though.

4) Even though I think that at Gideros you need to start serious blog posting yourselves, without having to rely solely on third party blogs, I do think that the community you have is very important. Anything you can do to leverage their contributions would be most useful. Can you add features to the core product that give developers more access to important internals? That way the community can write more add-ons that save you having to add features to the core yourselves. I'm thinking here of things like being able to access the openGL buffers and textures to do fast graphics in plugins etc.

I'm suggesting all this from the point of view of an active Gideros developer beavering away to produce my first app release. Regardless of how you choose to go forward, I'm still appreciative of the pleasurable experience I get when developing with Gideros SDK and certainly very glad I switched over from C*SDK and Cocos2D.

Best regards

Mells · September 2012

Thank you @all for your participation. When I started this discussion, I really wanted to find the right words in a language that is not mine to express what I feel and what I expect for the future with Gideros.
I'm glad we are on the right track

@deniz
First of all thank you for your transparency. I appreciate.
This is what I appreciate and expect from team Gideros and I think we should find a way to keep this communication channel open.
Now that you are telling about it, I believe many of us will be relieved to know about the efforts you are putting not only in making the product the best one in the market, but also by finding ways to support this growth financially.

My feeling is : if this is what you are doing behind the scenes please tell us about it. More often. More transparency would be better.
We sometimes are a little bit in the dark, and we all know that this leads to a loss of trust in the relationship that devs share with your team and your product.
That would be sad if this happened and if we couldn't get the relevant informations, in time, to understand that you are driving the boat with confidence.

One thing, only one thing that I expect from Gideros

There would be many (

) but there is one thing that I know has taken people away from Gideros. And this is all about faith in the product.
If you could solve this one thing and follow some guidelines, people would trust the product and the team better and jump in the train.

This thing is :

| please help us to take business decisions with confidence |.

To me there is nothing more important than that.
I would love to have feature x, y, z, but if I can't have it that's ok *if* I know exactly what I can count on.

Let me explain.
The biggest problem currently is that we, devs, can't make plans and take business decisions because we have no idea of what features Gideros will be able to support in a month, 3, 6 month.

The first step would be to have a public roadmap with the list of most requested features by devs and validated by team Gideros, if those fit your plans.

The second one, and this is the important one :
When somebody asks for a feature on the forum, be totally transparent about what your plans are.
Say "yes", say "we will find out and follow up" (and don't forget to follow up), say "no", and it will solve a lot of troubles for us devs.

Guidelines

For example, here are some guidelines that I believe to be effective enough.

Is feature X available in Gideros?

Yes -> feature X is available in Gideros. Please look at { documentation link } to understand how to use.
Also, please use keywords a, b, c in the forums or visit the { name of the forum category } category for more help.
Don't hesitate to ask more and the community will try to help.
No -> feature X is not currently available in Gideros
- Our plan is to make it available in version , that should be available in { month.year } (When) if everything works according to the plan (and if it doesn't, please keep us updated)
- This is not part of our roadmap but we will discuss its priority and see how it fits with Gideros. Please tell us more at { Gideros email address } how you would like to use this feature and why this is important for you (please be as much specific as possible). We will post an update on the discussion when we will know more about it. (and please keep us updated)
- I'm sorry we have no plan to support feature X. We have already discussed about it many times internally and decided that it doesn't fit our vision for Gideros. Sorry!

Only providing us with those answers would solve a lot of future issues.
We know that you have been doing the best to build Gideros and answer our questions, but I believe we are discussing to try to make things even better.

So the only thing is : don't leave us in the dark.
I got a client who is interested in a 2 player mode (bluetooth) for a game made around two of his characters. This is a big client, and I'm willing to invest in paying a developer to deliver the quality expected.

Ok, I'm going to be honest : that was the first time that I had such a big opportunity in game dev (I come from another bg) and it would have been a quite profitable project (yay).

Now look at this discussion : 2 players game via Bluetooth in Gideros.
Did I get a satisfying answer? No.
Is that the community's fault? Not at all.
Is that Gideros' responsibility to provide an answer? Well I don't know, but I still don't know if this is possible or not to do it with Gideros. I'm not a technical person, but if you tell me "it's possible" I can take decisions to make it a reality.
So even a "No this is not possible" would have been useful.

I'm not a programmer, I can't write plugin myself, but I know I can take business decisions.
And what was the wise business decision in that case (very short time)? Let the client go for this time. I didn't have enough experience and time to find another solution.
If this happens twice, then I certainly won't be as happy as I still am.
This is not Gideros' fault at all (that's my responsibility) and I sticked to your product because I like it. But this time, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Business decisions need more transparency

I believe that there are a lot of experienced devs with bigger clients than mine that don't want to guess if feature X is available or not, who don't want to fish for answers.
Don't misunderstand me I love Gideros, but I hate the feeling that I sometimes don't know where I'm heading.

Client asks : "We want this mode in our app, is that possible for price X?"
He expects "Yes this is possible" or "We would need to invest more resources so I suggest that we discuss the price more".

No other answer is acceptable.

Being profitable

Make us have a clear understanding of your progress and what the next steps are.
That's all I ask, personally. And I have no doubt that it will be one of the solutions to a better profitability.
You are doing a great job, just consolidate the pleasure we have to use your tool in faith and trust to what it will be tomorrow.

OZApps · September 2012

@bowerandy, the traction that C*SDK got was more from Mario's Fruity Girlfriend, more than it got from Beebe, and for whatever reasons.

@Atilim, at the end of the day the decision is entirely yours based on the bottom-line but if you do change the pricing, you will find a lot of developers move on to find other options that would be Free. Gideros is value for money at the current pricing, however if it increases to match up with the competition, it could lead to a situation where it might incite discord. The issue being that the moment we pay for something, we start to expect and when the expectations are not met, it causes negative feedback. Just thought it would help if you keep a few of these points in mind too.

Though you have many free licenses registered to developers, I do not see those many games as yet in the market, the point is that a good developer would purchase a license prior to releasing the app (more like with an honour system) If 8000 developers also release a free app, that can get you more benefits than sale of 8000 licenses can.

Lastly, you might have seen a few requests, the demands these will only increase, and with a paid platform, there aren’t many that remain patient.

I guess I did mention something that Bowerandy has echoed too. You should look at expanding your team and have community engagement, Gorkem is good, but he comes across as a marketing person or admin more than of a technical or developer type. The alternatives picked up the author of a framework that uses Lua to form a bridge with the Apple's Mac OS cocoa layer. Then they already had some developers and then Beebe, who's main role seems to be StoryBoard and LevelEditor.

I do believe that Gideros is heading towards becoming a complete package. The unfortunate truth of the matter is that Gideros will always be measured in reference to the existing competing product and in that regard there are a couple of things that still need to be added before it is the same or equivalent.

Just my observations and two bits.

OZApps · September 2012

@Atilim,
If you can provide static libraries (sans the touch/acellerometer, etc) for the Mac (like in the desktop player) then basically the desktop player that you already have would become the Mac App (if compiled as an xCode project for the Mac), That would definitely be the point of differentiation that Gideros users will love (for sure) and given the additional features that will be added in the coming versions will make it a tool/framework to look out for and use.

moopf · September 2012

Well I'm definitely interested in this as I'm getting close to moving to a different system for production. Having been away from Gideros for a while, and having purchased a license for Gideros the first day it was available because I liked the way it was going, I've come back and been left pretty disappointed by the steam going out of development of the product. I kind of figured I was the only one until I saw this thread.

There are lots of pros to Gideros, the player is a fabulously quick way to prove code on devices, it's well structured, the IDE is nice and simple and does the basic well etc. But I've been left a little confused in the last week as to whether Gideros is going for cross-platform or not. Gorkem called it a 100lbs gorilla but, as far as I can see, it's one that has to be wrestled with - personally the *only* reason I would continue to use Gideros was if it did commit to full cross-platform support. So if you release something for one platform, if it's available on another, you do it as well either at the same time or very shortly afterwards. In-app purchases is a big one here and I worry that if there isn't such a cross-platform commitment then the discrepancies will be much greater going forwards.

The license situation disappoints me as well. The model you have now is unsustainable. Now is the time to rework your licensing, not when you have tens of thousands that get used to getting everything for free.

And I think that's what worries me most about Gideros going forwards - is this a hobby or is this a serious business? I must admit, I've never quite been sure.

Dale · September 2012

First on mobile, than on other devices. Any device openGL/DirectX runs!

This one scares me a bit. Support iOS and Android makes a lot of sense, good bang for the buck. But if you are committed to supporting every device that supports openGL/DirectX, I worry that new features on the existing platforms will be neglected.

I noticed this with Corona. There were several core features that could use some improvement (or in some cases, like anti-aliasing, webview, ... were just plain broken), and they wouldn't work on these; meanwhile, they were adding support for other platforms, and adding other non-core features. (For example, with Corona, the Kindle, Nook support is interesting, and the director, etc. stuff is nice, but not when other core things remain broken or missing for the original platforms.)

I have had colleagues say that they are hesitant to switch to Gideros due to the small team. I think that team's focus and productivity has remained high, but I worry they will run the risk of losing that Gideros tries to do too much, and be everything to everybody.

I'd sooner Gideros address the majority of the mobile device market by focusing upon the top 2 or 3 devices (anyone have the real numbers?) Going beyond that worries me a lot. I remember Gorkem talking about the complexities of automating the build/test process; this will only become more of a necessary bit of additional complexity if you spread out to more devices.

I guess one of the main things I love about Gideros is the smart "focus" that has been shown. Branching out to too many devices could threaten that. With Corona, each release seemed to have more and more features or platform support that were irrelevant to me, and fewer features I actually needed or was waiting for.

That being said, I definitely have a bias towards iOS, and would prefer additional platform-specific functionality (a la UIKit) rather than additional platforms. I may be the exception.

On the business side, please keep the free-with-splash-screen version of the product. I love talking about Gideros and encouraging others to give it a try; the free model is great for getting your feet wet with the full product. If a freely built product takes off, you'll either get a license fee from the developer, or a lot of visibility; it's a win in either case. (I think most people with any reasonably popular app, would pay for a Gideros license.)

Also, I would place Gideros between Corona and Moai in terms of ease of use. I found Moai confusing and poorly documented, but it is open source and freely available. Your free-with-splash helps (to a degree) neutralize the cost comparison of the competition.

As much as I loved Corona for awhile, the platform seems to be overshadowed by the business more and more. The final nail in the coffin for me was when they finally came out with plugins, but only for the mysteriously (that is, highly) priced enterprise version.

When the focus changes from "let's make the best platform! (and make some money doing it)" to "how can we make the most money out of this!?", that's when I change camps... I feel Corona has already made that shift, and hope that Gideros doesn't.

-d

gorkem · September 2012

@moopf there are over 500+ functions in Gideros SDK and some functions exist in one platform and not another. This is the same in all other cross-platform, mobile SDKs out there (if I'm not mistaken). We are doing our best to sync cross-performing functions, but choosing which feature to add also depends on requests coming from users/customers. This week I'll have a cleanup on the roadmap and make sure that IAP for Android takes part there.

Gideros Mobile has 2 full-time staff (Atilim & Deniz), Atilim being the coder behind all Gideros Studio related stuff. Therefore this is not a hobby but a serious business.

techdojo · September 2012

"It's really easy to create, prototype, test and deploy application and Gideros has really great potential, but it's still missing some features that I need to develop my game, so I won't buy it for now".
Whenever we release a new version, I always think "Finally with this release, Gideros is a almost complete game development tool"

If only

To be honest for my $0.02 (whatever that is worth) I think the current high level retained mode stuff is fantastic and great to start off with, however such is the nature of game dev that you often grow out of that very quickly and need to do lower level things (or approach problems laterally) to get the best effect, so I'd say leave the high level stuff alone now, focus on the low level, expose OpenGL in direct mode, we (experienced dev's) know what we're doing and how to get the best out of an engine so just give us the tools and get out of the way (something Ansca never seemed to understand).

Case in point - changing the texture region a bitmap points to, is it possible? It should be it's a fairly common and simple thing to do. Currently using Gideros games like Worms (one of the best selling franchises ever and available on 20 year old 16 bit platforms) are impossible to make - I don't think they should be. If you have a low level engine that's too complex for beginners then you can bet your bottom dollar that at least one community member will step up and make an intermediate layer.

Anyway as I said this is just my $0.02 - I really love Gideros and think what you've done so far is amazing, I want to help it grow as it's helped reignite my passion for making games and I rave about it all the time (it was me that got @Scouser involved and I try and spread the word as wide and as far as possible). I'll be in the queue along with the other top ten posters on the board if you guys ever consider drafting in extra help.

Jon...

deniz · September 2012

Guys, guys relax:)

I was talking about our long term vision, when I say "everything that moves". Currently our most important focus is mobile(iOS, Android) as I said. I was talking about a five to ten years of vision. We are in this for the long run. And we are working like hell!

We are committed to do great things and it is just starting. We are growing our team, we are working on getting more resources. I will announce when things are finalized.

We are thinking from every angle. There are a lot of factors and we are searching for the optimum solution. Sometimes you can not make everyone happy, but I as told before, we are thinking and moving very carefully, to decide what is best for everyone: The business and Gideros users.

To be more open and communicate more, yes noted. I will spend more time on forum from now on. We hear you. On the other hand, sometimes, we need to know more before we can give an satisfying answer. We try to answer very quickly. But, please understand us on this. Some of the things you asked need to be explored first. But in the mean time, we can say, "yeah we are looking into it."

But, communication more. Yes. Of course.

I want to thank you again for your amazing support. I think we have a constructive discussion. Some of the fear comes from some of the bad experience. I understand. Believe me, we are really really careful and very picky. There are trade-offs.

cheers!

moopf · September 2012

@deniz I'll be honest, I'm finding your responses busy on words and low on content. If you have so few developers that have actually purchased I'd suggest that as a constructive way forward in the short-term with your limited resources that you prioritise their feature requests above those using the free version.

As somebody who's paid, and appears to be in the small minority from what you've said, I think you'd engender more support from those who've made a commitment if you did this. Look after those that support Gideros financially - if you don't, that's a sure fire way to turn them against you.

And @gorkem - I'm not asking for functions that only exist on one platform to be replicated. I'm asking for higher level features to be supported cross-platform *where that's possible*. Like in-app purchases. And I'll refer you to what I've said to deniz in this post.

I'm a massive believer that the free users shouldn't have any right to dictate the development path for Gideros at all.

deniz · September 2012

@moopf

Believe me, you made it very clear about in-app purchase feature:) And I read it, understood it and at this point, I do not know what you expect me to say.

The feature selection is done considering the best interest for all users and the path Gideros wants to go.

@all

So to be clear:

More communication: Yes.
More resources: Yes.

Cheers!

moopf · September 2012

@deniz Unfortunately I'm sensing a real disconnect here between who you should be supporting (those who've shown support to Gideros' bottom line) and the more inclusive attitude of the Gideros team which, whilst laudable, sounds like it might be unsustainable with your current resources. As I see it, if you're not responsive to those that have made a commitment, then you're heading for more threads like this and I doubt people will remain so nice about it going forwards (been there, done that, learnt the lessons). That actually needs a change in ethos at Gideros though which it currently sounds like you're not going to entertain - and that's your right, absolutely.

I'm going to have to step away from Gideros again and take another look at the competing products (like Moai) and Marmalade as well, which I feel may currently be in a better position to support my needs. I need to feel comfortable that (a) a system already supports most things, (b) that it's moving in the right direction at a reasonable speed and (c) that there is full commitment on cross-platform support for features in a reasonable time frame without needing push against a bit of a brick wall. Maybe I'm not really who Gideros is aiming at - I've been a software developer for over 20 years so I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty - I'm not sure.

It looks like Gideros needs some time to reorganise itself and get itself clear on the way forwards so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and re-visit it again in a few months time. At the moment I don't really see how I can use it for projects I have coming up, but I hope that changes and I can get my confidence back in the product.

deniz · September 2012

I am really sorry you felt that way. I respect your opinions and decisions.
We do our best to support Gideros users and will continue to do so.

ar2rsawseen · September 2012

Well at least now everyone knows how difficult it is for Gideros Team to make decisions. Because even in this thread, there are so many opinions (which are sometimes completely opposite each other). Everyone is trying to pull the strings in their own direction, trying to sneak in feature they need. In a way it's a game of thrones we have here.

And it does not matter how good your intentions are, in any situation, there will be an unsatisfied members. And these kind of decisions are hard to make.

Kudos to @deniz, @atilim and @gorkem for keeping sanity, clean and sharp thinking and open mind in all this mess.

techdojo · September 2012

Look's like everyone has had ample opportunity to say their piece and I think the team has done (and is doing) a terrific job despite all the obstacles in their path.

I'd say it's probably time to wrap this up now so we can all get back to doing what we love! CODING!

Any chance of closing this thread before it degenerates or it's potency is lost due to off topic spam?

gorkem · September 2012

@ar2rsawseen still, some thoughts that are brought by you, @mells, @ozapps, @moopf , @techdojo, @dale and @bowerandy after @deniz 's reponse are still not answered. We'll be consolidating them and come up with a prompt response.

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Categories

In this Discussion

Top Posters

Open letter to team Gideros : growth and scale

Interest for Gideros is growing

People are watching Gideros

How will Gideros scale?

Let's discuss how to make Gideros successful

Comments

One thing, only one thing that I expect from Gideros

Guidelines

Business decisions need more transparency

Being profitable