Tag: support

YoYoGames: GameMaker Studio 1.4 sunset annonced for 2018

development
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Today, YoYoGames announced that GameMakerStudio 1.4 support will sunset in 2018.

Over the next 14 months, until 31 July 2018, we will continue to mend major issues and support platform updates for Studio 1.4. After the 14-month period, Studio 1.4 will still function normally however, we cannot guarantee it will remain compatible with every platform’s future updates.

While this day has been expected to come since the release of the 2.0 beta back in November 2016, this is quite a bit sooner than expected. YoYoGames support for the 8.x version of GameMaker continued for years after GameMakerStudio 1.0 was released, only ceasing very recently.

It’s not entirely bad for the company to focus itself on development and support for the latest version of their product, but it’s unfortunate for users who for whatever reason are not able to move to the new version so quickly. This also makes it all the more important that GMS2 be as good as it can be. Hopefully, by focusing on the latest version exclusively, this will enable YYG to develop it even faster, adding new features, fixing bugs, and addressing UX issues with the brand new IDE.

Ouya Support: needs improvement

development, reviews
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A few weeks ago, my kickstarter Ouya console arrived at my house. I was excited. Since every console is also a dev kit, I wanted to set it up and see if I could build a simple game for it.

I went to the website and tried to download the SDK, but found that I couldn’t. When I clicked the link, I got served an error message.

I sent an email to Ouya support to notify them about the problem, and received an auto response immediately, thanking me for contacting them.

The next day I figured out that I could get the download link to work, by trimming some unnecessary information from the url.

Weeks passed, and I forgot all about the email I had sent them. Today, almost 2 months later, I got a follow-up message. This time, it was a generic response, written like a form letter, advising me to go read an FAQ that might answer my question. Nowhere in the response was there any indication that a human had been involved at any point in reading my email, or generating the responses.

Obviously, I am disappointed by the experience. On the bright side, I figured it out for myself, and it didn’t cost anything. On the negative side, I got the impression that Ouya support is inadequate.

I imagine that they just don’t have the resources to provide higher quality free support for developers at present, and are overwhelmed by their success. This is somewhat to be expected, so I am understanding, but I do hope to see improvement from them in time. Developer support is, obviously, going to be crucial to the success of this fledgling new platform, and I do want to see it succeed and fulfill the potential that I saw in the ideas that they outlined in the original kickstarter pitch video.