gabriel (2 inches taller)

I can see how we've got here - if you're not doing subscriptions, you need to either keep growing your userbase at a certain pace (doesn't scale too easily), or release a new version every now and then and offer a complelling reason for people to buy/upgrade the program again.

The latter inevitably creates fragmentation - so GameMaker still has some people using GameMaker: Studio and even GameMaker 8.1, Construct still has people using Construct 2, and RPG Maker... oh no.

The current system is relatively kind in that there's no minimum commitment to subscription - you can make your whole-ass videogame, buy one month to export it (and inevitably upload a few bugfixes) and get another month when you have another videogame coming up. Or export smaller games to GXC, which isn't quite a desktop game experience, but no longer requires people to open the page in Opera GX.

Personally I'm just upset over how they're portraying the swap and silent deprecation of the ones that already exist. I had a discussion the other day and I'm half-convinced now that the PR team is working around the programming staff at YoYo to convince them they're not deceiving anyone about it.
No one I talk to understands the """new runtime""" is a cutoff, and the staff even managed to accidentally trick me even though I already knew it was. Fortunately I knew to keep pressing about it and asking pointed questions.

Somewhat unfortunately I still have to recommend it because it's probably the best at what it does, 2d high-intensity pixel art games. And the subscriptions I only really object to because I don't like required reoccurring fees. If the subscriptions also included the versions of that month and were clear with "hey this isn't going to be updated and will likely have unfixable bugs" I'd probably be happy with that, because it would let people make minor fixes without needing an active subscription but still push towards updating, since the pricetag on version jumping would be much lower than in the past.

I feel like I should probably compile what we know about the future of licensing, because it is most assuredly obtuse on purpose.

Asking as a person who tried to make a game in godot and has procrastinated on it for like a year, do you think gamemaker is an easier, more beginner friendly way to make a small game?