Oh, and GMFetch, judging from the photo below Sandy Duncan is most definitely male

There has been a lot of fuss about the decompiler. What actions are YoYo taking?
“I think there’s maybe been a little bit too much fuss about this decompiler. There will always be a few idiots who will try to upload a game they didn’t create, but the mods can handle most of that if it happens on the YYG website. The biggest problem with the decompiler is for people who want to make money from their games.

“Mark (Overmars) has identified several ways in which we can make games considerably more secure in future. We’ve almost finished rewriting the runner in C++ and we will use this as the basis for introducing new ways of preventing games from being decompiled.”

A local GMC user claims that his game was decompiled by another GMC user. What’s your response to this?
“He should raise this issue with the moderators. If a game that has been copied gets uploaded to the YYG website we have ways of telling who originally created the game. If we find this, then it will likely end in a total ban from both the GMC and YoYo Games. We will also try to make sure that other sites such as 64digits are aware of who these people are and encourage them to take action.”

Do you have a message for readers that use the decompiler?
“Firstly , I’d say “don’t get used to it” it’s lifespan will be confined to existing versions of GM.

Secondly, There’s a difference between “use” and “exploit”. If anyone tries to “exploit” the tool by copying games and uploading them as their own, then this is theft. I know it bothers the GMC sometimes…but YoYo Games is a BUSINESS and we will use the law if we have to to protect our business if we feel it’s being threatened. We have investor’s money at risk and they will expect this.

“Finally, we’re working on a lot of very interesting new features for both the site and for Game Maker that will render this decompiler as useless….”

Whats your view on the decompiler. Do you think its amazing they cracked GM’s exporting system, or pathetic and a big waste of time.
“I think it’s overrated, an annoying distraction and it will become pretty useless in only a few months.”

Source: GMFetch

The majority of this is unsurprising, however the update on the progress of re-writing the Game Maker runner in C++ could be welcome news to many who have wondered what YoYo Games have been getting up to so far this year.

And YoYo games are still yet to release a patch to prevent an issue which has been dominating the Game Maker Community in recent months. Considering YoYo appear so happy to comment on the decompiler on their glog and in this interview I am surprised and disappointed that they have done yet come up with a fix.

GameMaker runner in C++ almost complete is taken from: GameMaker Blog

GMFetch becomes a blog is taken from: GameMaker Blog

They are arrogant – slogganing their magazine with the phrase “Its not about beating the competition – because we’ve already won”, which they also managed to mis-quote on their blog.

The issue is poorly laid out. Making terrible use of empty space, with large borders and cramped text.

They take digs at Game Maker Magazine, “I ain’t gonna steal GMT’s design like GMM”, after the issue had been resolved between Game Maker Magazine and Game Maker Tech.

Sure, these issues are probably similar to those faced by every Game Maker magazine that starts out, and will probably improve with time.

But, to top it all, it appears anonymouss joined the magazine team after the release of the first issue. I haven’t mentioned my view on anonymouss publicly before – but I’m sure some of you know that he irritates me. Anonymouss takes every available opportunity to promote his site. If this was only done at relevant times then fair play, but he will find any reason to include a link from the GMC to iWannaPlay. Take for example this rather blatent attempt.

I don’t want to read what looks like it is turning into yet another advert for iWannaPlay, as seen in this screenshot released of Issue 2:

Why I dislike GM Fetch is taken from: GameMaker Blog

I will take this opportunity to collate information about all of the recent Game Maker magazines. I will give my opinions on the output and will also talk to some of the people behind the magazines. Whilst I will not be rating the magazines as such I may compare them and bonus points will be given for FredFredrickson interviews.

GMTech

This is certainly a magazine on the up. Led by gamez93, who also writes for GameMaker Blog, GMTech have produced 11 issues and have recently undergone a dramatic design change.

There’s no FredFredrickson, but GameMaker Tech became only the second GameMaker publication to publish an interview with GameMaker creator Mark Overmars in their 10th issue.

MarkUp

As far as I am aware GMKing‘s MarkUp has released more issues than any other GameMaker magazine to date, with the 13th issue due for release later this month. It hasn’t all been plain sailing though, the current form of MarkUp launched in February 2007 however there had been a previous version of the magazine which flopped.

MarkUp was the first magazine to receive official recognition from YoYo Games. There is a FredFredrickson interview on pages 18-20 of issue 5.

It is widely accepted that GameMakerTech and MarkUp are the “big two” GameMaker magazines as they have large numbers of contributors and regular releases which many other magazines have not been able to match. Originally MarkUp focused more on the game development side of GameMaker whereas GMTech was a general community magazine, however in recent issues the boundaries have become blurred and both magazines focus on similar issues. People still have their favourites though…

Indie Game Central Magazine

Released its sole 23 page issue in May of 2007 with a rather unorthodox design. The text was quite hard to read both because of the fonts chosen and also because it appears that all text was converted to images prior to the creation of the pdf.

The future of the magazine died after a problem with the hosting. Drewdelz who lead the project writes “once the site went down it was a two month hassle just trying to get it back up. After we finally got it back and running, 3/4 of the staff had vanished, people lost intrest, and I was putting more of my time and efford into my own games. So the Mag stood no chance to come back.”

“Even still today, if I could put together a good sized and more devoted staff team, I’d still attempt to bring back IGCM.”

FredFredrickson interview on pages 17-18!

Gnazine

Containing a rather unfortunate word within its title this publication by nateistoraw/hardcoregamer24/prodigygm managed just two issues. The GameMaker content was, well, limited and of low quality – but there was only one writer. Nateistoraw does not have plans to create further issues “any time soon” which I’m sure will please some people.

Astonishingly for a GameMaker magazine Gnazine doesn’t feature any interviews in either of its issues.

GMFetch

“Its not about beating the competition – because weʼve already won!” [sic] screams the first issue of this “GameMaker Extension magzine” [sic] which contains just four pages of content despite having three contributors. It’s too early to see where this magazine will fit in, I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if a second issue appears and if it does whether or not it contains an interview with FredFredrickson.

Game Maker Magazine

By far the most original name, writes Philip Gamble of GameMakerBlog.com, this recently launched magazine is improving. The second issue in two months had 27 pages and looked very different from the first issue, however there has been criticism of the quality of writing which suffers from appalling grammar.

Issue 3 should be out around the 10th April and will be the first to be lead by new editor Broxter who is “one of the most hard working users” Matt has ever seen. FredFredrickson interview on pages 10 and 11 of the second issue.

Russell’s Quarterly

Russell’s Quarterly is very different from all of the other magazines that have been mentioned so far. Not only does it not soley focus on the GameMaker platform, in fact “GameMaker” is only mentioned once in the 74 pages of issue 1, but it is a one-man no-frills-design output. The first issue was Winter 2007, so perhaps we should have already seen a second release for Spring 2008….

There is no FredFredrickson interview and I wouldn’t have expected one either as this is so unlike anything else the GMC has seen.

Game Makers Data Magazine

If not the first GameMaker magazine John Hempstead‘s Game Makers Data Magazine was certainly the first big GameMaker magazine to receive widespread recognition from the community. Released under Hempstead’s “Morphosis Enter-Active” banner four issues were produced in the years 2003 and 2004.

As well as being significantly longer than any of the magazines around today, GMDM also featured an exclusive first look at GameMaker 5 and columns written by Mark Overmars. But I can’t locate an interview with Martin Crownover!

The majority of GameMaker magazines fail after just one or two issues because people don’t have the time to commit to such a project on a regular basis. Whilst I believe that having just one community magazine is not the ideal I do feel that too many people needlessly create their own ‘magazine projects’ simply so they can be in charge. The efforts of editors and contributors would be far better spent improving one of the existing stronger magazines rather than a one-issue-wonder (perhaps for the wrong reasons!).

So far Game Maker Magazine has produced 2 issues in 2 months we will just have to wait and see if they progress or, if like so many other magazines, they fail after just a few months in existence. Matt from Game Maker Magazine says that he sees GMM “as a long term Gamemaker Magazine like GMTech or MarkUp”. It certainly will be interesting if they have grown to the size of MarkUp/GMTech in 6 months or so time.

Game Maker Magazines is taken from: GameMaker Blog