GameMaker Blog

Paul Eres has posted in the Indie Gamer forums showing the effects so far of allowing purchasers of Immortal Defense to set their own price for the tower defence game.  The Game Maker game, released just over 3 years ago, attracted 259 sales in the first 17 days of the offer at an average price of about $4. (graph below shows $ not number of sales)

Also on Game Maker Blog:

• Immortal Defense earns $7,500 in first 18-months
• Google Docs spreadsheet of Commercial Game Maker games revenue
• Who is making money from Game Maker?

Two days ago former Game Maker Community administrator Smarty posted a GMC topic urging anyone who is not confident with their system’s security settings to stay away from yoyogames.com.

Over the past few days visitors to the site have reported virus infections on their Windows machines caused by an exploit in the Acrobat PDF reader browser plugin.

There have been no public comments from YoYo Games on the issue. Although YoYo Games is a bespoke site the makers of Game Maker have a history of using out of date software which has been exploited on more than one occasion in the past.

Update (~12:35 BST): At around the same time as this post was initially written YoYo Games made a post about the matter. Russell Kay writes that the problem was caused by an attack on the OpenX ad server which was used to manage the advertisements displayed alongside games on the website. The ad server has now been removed with ads being served directly from Google and it appears that the issue has been resolved.

YoYo Games are finally on Twitter.

You can follow them at @YoYoGameMaker.

And if you aren’t yet following Game Maker Blog(!) then you can do that here: @GameMakerBlog

Several months back there was a fake YoYo Games twitter account which spouted ridiculous nonsense for a couple of weeks before it was closed down.

• On Friday evening I discovered that YoYo Games has a page on Encyclopedia Dramatica.  Mentioned are the rating system, the “glog” and the original choice of Game Maker 8 logo.  There are also a couple of quotes by site users as well as a “Sandy Duncan logic” section.

• Last week I started writing a review of the Stencyl beta but fellow tester Jack Brockley beat me to releasing something fully readable (as well as a fully playable game entered in the recent GameJolt Jam).   You can see his thoughts on Stencyl here.

Last weekend the GameJolt indie gaming community held their second Game Jam – the majority of submitted games were made in Game Maker.

The highest rated game is currently Chawp! created by Ted Lauterbach and Brian Rodriguez with sounds from Matt Scorah and Ashley Gwinnell.

In this arcade game “made over the course of 4 days” you chop coloured lines which connect moving points. If you chop from close-range you inflict more damage but risk making a mistake. Lines appear in multiple colours and are easier to chop when you have selected the right colour.

It even has online highscores.

Other Game Maker entries:

Read more…

Earlier today YoYo Games announced the launch of the “YoYo Games App Store” from which Game Maker 7 for Mac can be downloaded.

However “App Store” has been registered as a trademark by Apple in the EU.  In the United States the mark’s current status is listed as “An opposition is now pending at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.” “App Store” is also listed as a Service Mark on Apple’s official list of trademarks.

Here is the link to the entry at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.   There is no linkable URL for the EU database but you can find it by searching for “App Store” here.

Here is one of the three sections relating to the trademark application at the USPTO.

“IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Retail store services featuring computer software provided via the internet and other computer and electronic communication networks; Retail store services featuring computer software for use on handheld mobile digital electronic devices and other consumer electronics. FIRST USE: 20080306. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20080710″

A foolish and potentially dangerous oversight by YoYo Games?

Game Maker 7 for Mac has been released for sale at the new YoYo Games app store.  The free version offers all the features available in the full version but has a 10 hour usage limit.  Upgrading via the App Store will normally cost $25 but until September 1st the price is reduced to $20.

Download Game Maker for Mac

One feature in Game Maker for Mac has which has yet to be added to the PC version is a built-in automatic updating system.  Hopefully this will be added to the PC version soon so we can look forward to more regular updates.

The App store [our earlier thoughts] has been ready for a while but this is the first time it has been seen in public. Eventually the idea is to sell high quality Game Maker games through the website with YoYo Games earning a commission.

At the time of writing the App Store and Game Maker for Mac are yet to be integrated into the main YoYoGames.com website.

In the year to October 31st 2009 YoYo Games recorded a loss of £12,430 ($19,850/€14,950).

Company accounts, filed Friday, show that YoYo Games Ltd almost broke even after a loss of £180,000 in the previous year to October 31st 2008.

In January 2009 YoYo Games raised the price of the full version of Game Maker by $5 to $25. Although Game Maker registrations accounted for 90% of income in 2009 we don’t have access to the full accounts so can’t say whether this was the main reason for the change or if spending was reduced elsewhere.

These figures do not take into account the registration fees received for Game Maker 8 as this was not released until December 2009, however the offer of free upgrades to those registering in 2009 may have helped boost sales of the Pro version.

YoYo Games have recently been helped by a Regional Selective Assistance investment grant of £220,000 from Scottish Taxpayers – however will only effect accounts for 2010 (and possible beyond).

YoYo Games Ltd’s cumulative losses now stand at £428,006.

YoYo Games Ltd Abbreviated Accounts for year ending 31st October 2009 (click to enlarge)