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Sandy Duncan Interview – Coming Soon

Sandy Duncan Karoshi
Karoshi Shirt!

Earlier today I spoke with YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan and asked him about App publishing, Game Maker 8.1, Game Maker for Mac, the HTML5 runner and company itself.

I was hoping to post a recording of our conversation here but Sandy asked that I instead publish edited transcripts.  I will do so covering various topics in the next week or so.

Listed below are the points we covered, due to time constraints on my behalf it is unlikely that I will be able to write up everything so I will try to focus on those most of interest to readers.  If there are any particular areas you would like covered sooner rather than later please post them in the comments.

  • How YoYo Games really started
  • The revelation that Mark Overmars had already agreed to sell Game Maker to a big company before YoYo Games got in touch.
  • The problems in finding the right people to work at the company
  • Issues regarding publishing to PSP

  • The fact that the C++ runner can be pretty much put on any device in a shippable state with about a months work
  • The process of porting games to different platforms
  • The current limitations of runners
  • The YoYo Games submissions process including timescales
  • When they decided to try HTML5
  • A “none DRM” game anti-piracy mechanism will be in place in the Game Maker 8.1 runner
  • C++ runner is up in the air, but it definitely wont be Delphi
  • That Android device performance varies dramatically and can be a problem
  • Portable device runner support including Game Maker 3D
  • Free and Paid release model of Apps
  • Interesting in-app advertising revenue
  • High piracy of Android Apps, including piracy of free games!
  • Android App refunds
  • Cumulative downloads of Solitaire are approaching a million
  • Marketing of apps
  • That they will be offering extra help to good developers
  • The cost of porting a game
  • YoYo Studios will be announced at some point
  • Thoughts on the publishing revenue share deal
  • Licensing of runners to third parties
  • Game Maker download figures
  • Interest in Game Maker from large companies
  • The decision to work on a HTML5 version
  • Socially connected games
  • Game Maker to ActionScript/Flash
  • Status of HTML5 version
  • Game Maker 8.1 – the changes
  • The most disappointing and embarrassing thing for the Game Maker community over the last 4 years
  • Not Game Maker 9?
  • Neglect of Game Maker for Mac
  • HTML5 version as a product – not $25
  • Quality of bug reports received by the team
  • Linux version
  • The early years of YoYo
  • Helpdesk requests
  • Current employees
  • YoYo Games’ relationship with the community
  • YoYoGames.com website overhaul

Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions of questions.

What do you think?

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Sandy Duncan Interview: How YoYo Games Really Started & PSP