Proposed licensing model

[Ashley]

How do you propose we issue licenses otherwise? If you pay a one-off for C2, does that mean you get free upgrades for ever and ever? Right now I have zero plans to ever create a "Construct 3". We're going to be incrementally upgrading, and producing new exporters, for the forseeable long-term future.

You do own the software once it's licensed and the no-DRM thing is directly aimed at allowing you to do what you like with the software (e.g. install to thumb drive, no phoning home). Once the license expires there'll be a notification which you can dismiss.

Is it so bad?

The problem with a flat fee is the incremental small updates. Construct isn't going to be "Construct 3" or "Construct 4" every year like Photoshop or similar. There needs to be a "subscription" of some sort. The problem with the proposed model is the limitations on publishing rights if I choose to stop upgrading. This would be like Adobe disabling my Photoshop CS2 because it's old. That sucks and wouldn't ever by any program like this, especially an indie one.

Make Construct 2 a one time purchase and charge for the incremental upgrades. I buy Construct once, I pay for upgrade periods. Something like this feels most logical and most enticing, while not making things complicated. For example:

Store Products:
1. Construct 2 + 2 years free Incremental Upgrades: $4X
---Includes the most recent edition of Construct 2, the ability to export to A, B, C systems, and free regular upgrades to Construct 2/exporters for the duration of two years.
2. +2 years Incremental Upgrades: $2X
---Add two additional years of Construct 2 upgrades to ensure uninterrupted updates of the newest Construct 2 features
3. Additional First-Party Exporters: $1X
---Broaden your user base by exporting to more systems.
4. Commercial License: $15X
---Ready to mass market your game? Buy the Construct 2 commercial license when your game sales are $2,000X or more.

Future Store Products:
1. Construct 2 to 3 Upgrade: $2X
---Ready to take your game making experience to the next level? Already own Construct 2? Save 50% on Construct 3 by upgrading. The remainder of your free incremental upgrades period on Construct 2 will be transferred and you will receive addition year of incremental Upgrades for Construct 3 free
2. Additional First-Party Exporter Upgrade:
---Already own several Construct 2 exporters? Upgrade them to their Construct 3 versions and receive a 50% discount.


If you imagine X being ~$10, this would seem very reasonable to me, while still allowing the dev's to profit. Publishing rights would always be available, even after Incremental Upgrade periods were finished. People could make unofficial exporters still, while dev's could make a little money on first -party exporters if they wished.

[quote="Ashley":m25oz3yr]Once the license expires there'll be a notification which you can dismiss.[/quote:m25oz3yr]
[quote="Ashley":m25oz3yr]no phoning home[/quote:m25oz3yr]

Huh? How else should Construct find out that you have a valid license? If you think that the license should be offline, then the pirates will sooner or later find out how to crack this.

Removed post, I don't really want to contribute to this, lol.

Just be careful Ashley

[Ashley]

Disabling the software when your license ends was never on the cards - and you can continue selling something you made with it after your license expires - the license is to use the software.

I think what several people have now said is right: the best model is you buy the software and 2 years of updates. You can continue using it after your license expires, it's yours and you bought it and it won't nag you. However, you can't get the latest updates after 2 years (if you ignore this and upgrade anyway it switches back to demo-nag mode).

I don't like the idea of paying for exporters separately. It faces the same "infinite forever license" problem. They may as well be thrown in free with the editor. It also reduces the perception that you're being charged over and over again for each feature you want to use.

I'll rewrite the proposal soon along these lines as I said before, just will give things a bit of time to cool off.

I repeat what i said few times already. It's all cool what you coming up with Ash. However maybe the way Minecraft was and is distributed would satysfy everyone on this forum? When in alpha MC costed 6.99 euro with indication that final version will cost 19.99 plus whoever buys alpha will be getting updates and addons fo free trough the lifetime. MC is in beta now and it cost, i think, 12.99 and there is indication that updates r for free till version 1.0, and after that fixes will be only free and for addons you will have to pay extra. And maybe this would work for C2? There is still houndreds thousends of people who never even heard of construct, so there is still massive market ahead. What do you think?

[email protected] sorry i don't think i was clear enough. Basicly C2 alpha should be sold for one of payment with lifetime updates, but after that the two year subscription would kick for evey new purchase when in beta.

[email protected] god , my english might be a bit terrible today ^^'

[Ashley]

I don't think we should issue lifetime licenses with our incremental version model, but I like the idea of an alpha/early-adopter license. It could help us raise funds for development, if we start issuing them soon. How about a �9.99 "early adopter" license which has 2 years of upgrades, with a view to increasing it to �39.99 as we add more features?

I understand why you want to do that. You spent [I don't know how many] years on this project.

Before switching to Construct I tried to crack MMF2, what made me use Construct was what is written on this forum banner "home of Construct, the free open-source game creator".
It won't be Construct anymore.

Why is Construct more and more popular ? Because it is "the free open-source game creator".
Clickteam (more than 15 years old) is a very small company (2 or 3 people), just like Scirra. Check their forum. Check yours.
If people needed to pay a license for Construct you would lost 60% of them, 35% would crack Construct (DRM free !!! World Of Goo, awesome independant game, DRM free, 9/10 copies are illegal), how much would you earn ? How much would you lose ?

Let's open our eyes, there are not millions of users, unfortunately. For now it is like commiting suicide, despite HTML 5 export feature. Why not wait for Construct 3, 4, ... ?

[quote="Ashley":1ury0i2q]I don't think we should issue lifetime licenses with our incremental version model, but I like the idea of an alpha/early-adopter license. It could help us raise funds for development, if we start issuing them soon. How about a �9.99 "early adopter" license which has 2 years of upgrades, with a view to increasing it to �39.99 as we add more features?[/quote:1ury0i2q]

It's cool, althought maybe you could add an extra year or two to the early version as won't it take some time, like a year or so, before it will be useful enough to make proper games?

Thank for the clarification Ashley. Not sure where I got my "Can't make games after license expires" idea from. All exporters free sounds great, as well I might be on a small list of people how wouldn't mind spending a little bit of money on them.

By the way, I finally got to downloading C2... it's 100x times better than I expected in my weeks of reading about it. Keep up the great work!