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Been a longtime follower and user of Construct (all the way back from early Construct 1 days) and the work that's been done in both Construct 2 and Construct 3

by Daiz 10y ago

Been a longtime follower and user of Construct (all the way back from early Construct 1 days) and the work that's been done in both Construct 2 and Construct 3 has been extremely impressive - I was initially skeptical about C2's move to HTML5, but over time it made a very convincing case for the fact that web can indeed be performant. I think moving the whole IDE to web was the logical way forward for Construct itself, and I'm glad to see it's working out with C3. However, as things are right now, it seems that the time has come for me to part with Construct. I do web development for a living, and game development is something I do for fun on the side mostly for my own enjoyment these days. The limitations of the C2 Free Edition were too much for me (as a programmer even my tinkering tends to be event-heavy, and even my smallest toy projects tend to start with creation of more layers than what's available in the free version), but this wasn't really an issue since the Personal License was simply a one-time investment, and I've been very happy with my purchase. However, with the move to a subscription-based payment model, this changes completely. I can't justify paying $99 a year for how much I use the program. The Free Edition is also not an option because it seems to be even more restrictive than the C2 one. This is extremely unfortunate from a personal standpoint, and I'm clearly not alone with this opinion, seeing how much negative feedback the move to subscription model has garnered on the Construct forums. But there is also the business standpoint to consider. The one-time payment was a huge pro for C2 and more than made up for the restrictions of the free edition in my books. But now with the move to a subscription model you're competing more directly with the likes of Unity that also uses a subscription model. And if you look at what Unity offers in the free tier[1] and compare it to Construct[2], the latter looks like a complete joke in comparison. With Unity, you get a full-featured engine with all the export options that you can make money with (with a revenue cap after which you need to upgrade, similar to C2 Personal -> Business), with the most notable "downside" basically being a "Made with Unity" splash screen. Something like this is what I would expect to see with the C3 Free Edition as well in order for it to be truly competitive. After all, game IDEs don't exist in a vacuum. [1] https://store.unity.com/ https://store.unity.com/ [2] https://www.scirra.com/store/construct-2 https://www.scirra.com/store/construct-2

Scirra_Tom 10y ago
We don't think we directly compete with Unity. If you imagine all engines in a pyramid, Unity is at the top and we're somewhere in the middle. Construct users often graduate to Unity, but conversely people who try Unity and find it too overwhelming come to us. I think in comparison to our direct competitors in our space, our pricing is still competitive.
- Daiz 10y ago
  >We don't think we directly compete with Unity. Well, you should, because both C3 and Unity using a subscription model vs the one-time payments of many other options makes it the most direct comparison. Both concretely and psychologically a subscription model requires a much more serious commitment to the product compared to a one-time payment. And beyond the payment model, I've long thought that Construct offers a serious alternative to Unity for serious development purposes if you're making 2D games, and in fact I'd say in many ways Construct has the edge over Unity in this space since it's built for 2D development from ground-up whereas Unity is a 3D engine first, which makes 2D development in it more cumbersome. This is why I was happy to see you mention in another comment that you intend to shift the marketing of C3 to a more "serious" direction, where C2 often gave the impression of a "toy". But that's just another reason why you should consider yourself as a serious alternative to Unity yourself. I assume that the "direct competitors" you're talking of are along the lines of Clickteam Fusion and Game Maker. It's certainly true that these are both 2D-focused game IDEs, but both are sold as one-time payments, much like C2. As someone who moved from Multimedia Fusion 2 to Construct 1 back in the day, I personally think C2 has already been the king of this space for years, wiping the floor with the competition when it comes to both usability and performance as well as scaling to big projects. This is why I'm not at all fundamentally opposed to "going bigger" with a subscription model to compete against other subscription model game IDEs, because I believe C3 is very much capable of competing in this space, all the while having a lower barrier to entry. But again, to be competitive here, things should really change with the way the free edition is handled. Ultimately right now Construct 3 falls into a very uncomfortable position where I would never want to downgrade to the likes of Clickteam Fusion (neither the current 2.5 nor the upcoming 3) or Game Maker Studio 2 (because they are both less powerful/performant as well as less usable on the whole and scale big way worse), but I honestly wouldn't want to use Unity either because while power-wise it's definitely capable I'd still be somewhat of a downgrade in terms of usability for 2D development (I have actually used Unity for a couple projects in the past, but I've stuck around with Construct 2 for this exact reason). As a professional programmer there isn't really any insurmountable obstacles to using any of these programs for me, so it's all about the convenience for me, and 2D development with Construct is where I believe the sweet spot lies in this regard. But as it is, C3 free edition is just too restricted power-wise and the subscription is too big of an investment. Because of this I also see myself having a hard time recommending C3 to other people in the future, where recommending C2 used to be a no-brainer.

by Daiz 10y ago

Scirra_Tom 10y ago

We don't think we directly compete with Unity. If you imagine all engines in a pyramid, Unity is at the top and we're somewhere in the middle. Construct users often graduate to Unity, but conversely people who try Unity and find it too overwhelming come to us. I think in comparison to our direct competitors in our space, our pricing is still competitive.

Daiz 10y ago
>We don't think we directly compete with Unity. Well, you should, because both C3 and Unity using a subscription model vs the one-time payments of many other options makes it the most direct comparison. Both concretely and psychologically a subscription model requires a much more serious commitment to the product compared to a one-time payment. And beyond the payment model, I've long thought that Construct offers a serious alternative to Unity for serious development purposes if you're making 2D games, and in fact I'd say in many ways Construct has the edge over Unity in this space since it's built for 2D development from ground-up whereas Unity is a 3D engine first, which makes 2D development in it more cumbersome. This is why I was happy to see you mention in another comment that you intend to shift the marketing of C3 to a more "serious" direction, where C2 often gave the impression of a "toy". But that's just another reason why you should consider yourself as a serious alternative to Unity yourself. I assume that the "direct competitors" you're talking of are along the lines of Clickteam Fusion and Game Maker. It's certainly true that these are both 2D-focused game IDEs, but both are sold as one-time payments, much like C2. As someone who moved from Multimedia Fusion 2 to Construct 1 back in the day, I personally think C2 has already been the king of this space for years, wiping the floor with the competition when it comes to both usability and performance as well as scaling to big projects. This is why I'm not at all fundamentally opposed to "going bigger" with a subscription model to compete against other subscription model game IDEs, because I believe C3 is very much capable of competing in this space, all the while having a lower barrier to entry. But again, to be competitive here, things should really change with the way the free edition is handled. Ultimately right now Construct 3 falls into a very uncomfortable position where I would never want to downgrade to the likes of Clickteam Fusion (neither the current 2.5 nor the upcoming 3) or Game Maker Studio 2 (because they are both less powerful/performant as well as less usable on the whole and scale big way worse), but I honestly wouldn't want to use Unity either because while power-wise it's definitely capable I'd still be somewhat of a downgrade in terms of usability for 2D development (I have actually used Unity for a couple projects in the past, but I've stuck around with Construct 2 for this exact reason). As a professional programmer there isn't really any insurmountable obstacles to using any of these programs for me, so it's all about the convenience for me, and 2D development with Construct is where I believe the sweet spot lies in this regard. But as it is, C3 free edition is just too restricted power-wise and the subscription is too big of an investment. Because of this I also see myself having a hard time recommending C3 to other people in the future, where recommending C2 used to be a no-brainer.