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4 Years Online – Celebrated by Downtime is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Most viewed
With more than twice as many pageviews as the next article the most popular post in 2010 was about the release of Game Maker 8. In second place (for the second year running) was a post about some advantages Construct has over Game Maker.  Third place went to the marvellous 100 Game Maker Games in 10 minutes video created by Matt Scorah (you can expect a 2010 version soon). Fourth place went to the Game Maker 7 crack formerly hosted by YoYo Games themselves and fifth was the announcement that a Game Maker 8 decompiler was under construction.

Most discussed
The top 5 articles from 2010 by the number of reader comments they generated were:

• Game Maker 8 decompiler in a month
• Game Maker 9 to be written in C#
• Preview the upgraded GMC
• 2009: 100 Game Maker Games in 10 Minutes
• GMIndie’s World Domination Plan

Most linked to posts
These are the most linked to posts of all time, not just in 2010.

• 100 Game Maker Games in 10 minutes
• Game Maker 8 released
• New Game Maker logo revealed
• Which of these Game Maker 8 logos do you prefer?
• Game Maker iOS file format cracked

2009′s top 5 articles

2010: Most Popular Articles on GameMaker Blog is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Last January we asked readers of this blog for their 2010 Game Maker predictions.  202 of you took part and gave your opinions on a range of matters relating to the future development of Game Maker and YoYo Games.  Now the year is nearly up we look back to see which community predictions came to fruition.

A Game Maker game will be shown working on a portable gaming device
With 62% of poll participants believing that this would be the case this was the mostly strongly made prediction. And true it came, we’ve seen videos of Game Maker games running on the PSP and Android and several games are available to download and play in the iTunes store for iPhone and iPad.

YoYo Games reduce their annual loss
42% of you thought so and it happened. In the year to October 2009 YoYo’s losses were just £12,000 compared to £180,000 in the previous year.  Things look good for the future too – although YoYo Games have taken on staff throughout the year they also received a £220,000 grant and they now have ambitious expansion plans.

Game creators will be able to play their Game Maker games on a portable gaming device
(39%) For a lucky few developers this has been the case but this poll option was referring to the general availability of the feature to mainstream Game Maker users. This hasn’t been the case as YoYo Games are yet to open public submission to their Game Store. Interestingly there are now multiple attempts underway by community members to create ‘compilers’ which would enable .gmk files to be converted so it is possible to play them on iPhone and iPad.

YoYo Games’ Instant Play can be used on sites other than YoYoGames.com
(39%) Nope.  The entire site has been neglected as the focus has been on porting games to new platforms and the YoYo Game Store.

An official Game Maker IDE for Linux and/or Mac is released
Only 35% of you thought this would be the case despite the fact the first betas were released in 2008 (53% of voters had previously said a Mac version would be released in 2009!).  Development was “delayed indefinitely” at the end of 2009 but the full release of Game Maker 7 for Mac finally came in August.  There have been some criticisms that the Mac version was released without the necessary support and then abandoned but a new ‘Lite’ distribution version was recently released. Unification with Game Maker for PC now looks unlikely until at least 2012 as Sandy recently posted that they did not plan to release a major new version of Game Maker next year.

YoYo Games introduce a method of developer compensation (e.g. ad-revenue share, able to sell games)
(35%)  The ad revenue share plans seem to have been shelved (will be interesting to see if they make a comeback as in-game ads on free games published by YoYo Games) and instead selected games have begun to be published on iOS with the creators receiving a revenue share. Sales of desktop PC based games will start early in the new year as the submission process is made open to all.

There is at least one regular decent quality Game Maker magazine for much of the year
Rekame Mag launched and released 3 issues but there was no regular Game Maker magazine. Wonder if we will ever return to two quality monthly releases? Looks like lots of you don’t think we will as only 21% of voters thought this would be the case.

Of the 7 statements 3 definitely came true, 3 did not and I’ll leave ‘developer compensation’ in the middle for now since it is available but it is not currently open to all.

We’ll be asking for your 2011 predictions soon.  If you have any suggestions for items we should add to the poll please post them in the comments.

Photo: snowy sunset by Liz West (cc)

2010: How your predictions fared is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Snow New Posts is taken from: GameMaker Blog

In October I wrote quite a comprehensive post about running this website on my personal blog in which I tried to imagine a viable future for Game Maker Blog without it being so reliant on one person.

Following my post a number of people stepped forward to offer contributions, in various forms, to the site.  Given some time to consider these I have, together with current and prospective volunteers, mapped out a plan to take the site forward.

Firstly there is to be a much-needed reorganisation of the membership hierarchy. Over time contributors come and go but many of those who are long gone remained in positions of power.  User permissions have now been bought up to date.

As an employee of YoYo Games Andrew McCluskey will not be able write on topics relating to the company. He has stepped down from his role as reviews editor but remains a contributing author.  Taking his place as Reviews Editor is Jack Brockley – responsible for ensuring that good reviews of Game Maker games appear reguarly on the site, be they playable on PC or any mobile devices.

We are also welcoming some new members aboard.   Matthew Bowden joins us as an editor and will be focusing on future site development and in an effort to encourage user-submitted contributions from a wider group of people we have decided to re-open registration at Game Maker Blog.

All registered members will now have access a new feature – the ability to create a new blog post which they can submit to be published on the main site.  We feel that this will encourage people to become casual contributors to the site without feeling the need to dedicate large amounts of time to the project in much the same way that many readers enjoy commenting on our articles. If you are already registered with Game Maker Blog to comment your account should have been upgraded.

Submitted content will be reviewed by our editorial team with only high quality articles making publication.  More details on writing for Game Maker Blog.

To reflect the hopeful reduction in workload that will fall on me I will be separating the finances of the site from my own so that any funds generated remain available to improve the site. The site covers its costs but does not make a significant profit. In the future perhaps revenues can be shared amongst contributors, but this is a decision for another day.

May I also take this opportunity to thank everyone who has written blog posts, reads articles, contributes to discussion and sends news tips our way – the site would not be possible without your support.

Some Changes at Game Maker Blog: You Can Post is taken from: GameMaker Blog

I posted some details regarding my work on the re-write on my personal blog last weekend.   A quick summary of changes is below:

• Automatic detection of animated .gif banners which you can block from displaying on your site
• Ability to stop particular banners appearing on your site, or if you prefer you can block all banners belonging to a certain member
• Can now change the background colour of your code blocks
• Able to register and login using Twitter if you don’t currently have a GMA account (I will add the ability to link an existing account to Twitter later)
• Ability to pause a particular banner – stats aren’t lost if you no longer want to use it
• Upload an unlimited number of banners
• Click stats enabling you to view when your ads are clicked and where the browser came from

Since its  launch in 2007 Game Maker Affiliation has served over 20,000,000 impressions and has delivered more than 65,000 clicks.

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Game Maker Affiliation Rewritten is taken from: GameMaker Blog

It feels strange to have had to ask in this way as readers are happy to comment on Game Maker, Game Maker games, and the Game Maker websites and media publications we cover but we rarely get to hear your opinions on the site itself.

Below is a summary of the results:

• Opinion was split pretty evenly on whether we should add more game reviews and interviews.
• The vast majority of you (~90%) wanted to see more technical items.
• Two thirds of you thought more posts would be good but only 10% wanted “lots more”.
• I was pleasantly surprised with the ratings for trustworthiness, speed of coverage,  breaking stores and quality of articles.
• 90% of you knew that GMTalk existed but less than a quarter of respondents had listened to it.

Should we have more game reviews?

Would you be interested in more technical items?

Do you want more interviews?

What do you think about the frequency of posts?

Perhaps the most insightful feedback came in the form of the textual responses received to the last two questions in the survey.

There were several mentions of the general blandness of the site’s design with people wanting to see more colourful pages. We also got useful suggestions on the types of content people want to see covered – these ranged from a request for “more opinion pieces to provoke debate about Game Maker, and it’s community” to in-depth analytics of trends in stories and graphs, for in-depth technical articles and reviews of tutorials and for more content that is unique to the site and cannot be found elsewhere.

Although in general the feedback was overwhelmingly positive the sheer range of suggested improvements and topics to cover bought home to me that however hard we try we will not be able to please everyone and indeed that it would be foolish to try to do so.

In an ideal world we would cover everything submitted but it isn’t practical both in the amount of time it would take us to research and present such materials and the demands it would place on you if you wanted to read it all!

We will work on incorporating many of the things you wanted to see over the next few months.  You have have already noticed that we know allow you to make ‘nested’ comments in response to a message left by another visitor and the nature of the recent post comparing the Game Maker radio shows partly came about as a respondent said they enjoyed such articles.

Several of you asked if I would make a copy of the results available publicly. Here is a copy of the data with the names removed and some comments I made in response to suggestions.

Looking back at this post I do hope we don’t have too many colour-blind readers.

GMB Survey: A Big Thank You (and the results!) is taken from: GameMaker Blog

There were approximately 10 entries submitted.  Some were based on our existing grey theme and avatar whereas others used totally new concepts.

Although the winning designs are similar to what we previously had they are definitely an improvement and don’t require a dramatic redesign of the website (something which will not be happening soon) if implemented.

Here are the winning images created by Matt Scorah.  Matt gets to choose from a copy of Game Maker 8 Pro, an Indie game of his choice or advertising on this blog for his prize.

GMB Design Contest Winner is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Survey: Help Improve GameMaker Blog is taken from: GameMaker Blog

Will you make us a pair?  Oh go on, please.  There will be a prize.  If your design is picked as the winner you can choose from either an upgraded version of Game Maker 8, an Indie game of your choice upto the same value or two months advertising on this site.  Sadly our budget doesn’t stretch to PSPs, iPhones or Nexus Ones.

• Favicon requirements: 16×16 size, .ico format.
• Twitter avatar:  73×73 size, .png format
• There are no other requirements other than to use your imagination.

Submit your entries as a direct message to @gamemakerblog or by PM at the GMC.

Deadline: February 12th.

A contest for you graphically clever people – Win Game Maker 8 Pro is taken from: GameMaker Blog