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Wanted! Your Predictions for 2009

yyg-gamemakerGame Maker 8 released?

Officially this is due to be released in 2009 however if the delays experienced when creating the Mac version are anything to go by we will probably be looking at 2011.  Work has clearly not begun on the ‘Maker’ part (see below).

“The first priority has been to get the runner into C++. The dev work for this is feature complete and we are in early testing. Separately we will start work on the Maker part later this year, though we haven’t as yet decided if this will be done in C++ or some other platform. (We could for example keep it in Delphi or maybe use C#).”

– Sandy Duncan’s response to my question published in Game Maker Tech‘s 14th issue

 

Game Maker for Mac released?

The closed-beta was released to testers in November 2008, however there do appear to be a number of bugs and incompatibilities. One of the testers, Dangerous Dave, has more about the Mac Beta on his blog.

 

Game Maker loses market share?

As you may have been able to tell from my recent post entitled 5 reasons why Construct is better than GameMaker I am excited about the launch of this new game development program. It is easy to use and certainly is better than Game Maker in some areas. Whereas previously touted potential alternatives to Game Maker such as Stencyl and GameSalad have failed to materialise publicly, Construct is available to download now but without the media hype.

 

YoYo Games reaches 50,000 games online?

The YoYo Games homepage - over 28,000 gamesOver the past two months YoYo Games has been growing by, on average, 60 games a day.

There are currently almost 29,000 games online, so if games continue to be uploaded at the current rate 50,000 games should just be reached by the end of 2009.  The number of uploads is influenced by competitions however, and of course the website could increase or decrease in popularity.

 


 

magazines-end-of-2008-loOne or more of the well-established Game Maker magazines will stop producing?

2008 certainly wasn’t as strong a year for GMTech and MarkUp as 2007 (see 2008 Review: Game Maker Magazines). Could this be the year we see one of them disappear? I don’t think so but It looks like we have seen the last of the near-monthly releases we came to expect in 2007. I think GMWeekly also fits into this ‘established’ category now and I would not be surprised to see them vanish or vastly change their focus.

 

We see a battle between GMTV and GMVision?

There is already a history of hirings, firings or walking-outs and cease and desist letter sending between these two Game Maker video services, and this is without GMVision having released an episode and nothing emerging from GMTV for a good few months.  I am amazed that there is even one Game Maker video show.

 

[poll id=”6″]

What are your predictions for Game Maker and the community that surrounds it in 2009?

What do you think?

18 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. I predict:

    YoYoJim will use the phrase “Yo Peeps” at least 5 times.

    KC LC will make at least one reference to cooking pumpkin pie at family gatherings.

    Hardcoregamer will use at least two more GMC login names.

    Recreate will make hundreds of idiotic posts, but his post count will remain under 1000

    Fredfredrickson will say white, but rinkuhero will argue it’s black.

    There will be no release candidate for G-Flash, G-Java, G-Creator, G-Spot, G-String or G-Anything but TGMG or his minions will continue referencing it as a GM solution.

    Phil Gamble will squat at least 12 more domain names.

  2. What I meant was that you have no episodes while GMTV has four. I hope you plan to correct that soon.

    Sorry for the way I originally phrased that, I was using some or other weird kind of slang.

  3. oh I see what you meant.
    yes, I am filming my first episode, it is going very well. we have the script under control, and we are waiting for the backgrounds to be finished so we can chromkey 😉
    we hope to release soon, but we will not release a date because we are not 100% yet. we also need to get our site up, and we can use donations 😉
    if you know the planned release date please do not shout it out just yet.

  4. The Mac Beta is HORRIBLE and not even remotely functional. I don’t know if I think the final version will be released this year, but even basic things like sound and keyboard input don’t work properly, let alone joystick input and even slightly advanced drawing functions (like transparency). It’s a mess and a new update hasn’t been released since the beta originally went out, so it seems unlikely.

  5. YoYo Games’ progress on a new version of Game Maker is even slower than when Mark Overmars was working on it alone. We don’t be seeing GM8 any time soon. I think it might lose some market share because of that.

  6. I predicted that GM Mac will be released, 50K games will be reached and that a magazine will stop producing. And so does the majority who have voted, so it seems.

  7. Hmm, I predict nothing exciting will happen. Everything will stay the same. YYG won’t finish non-website stuff, the magazines will continue to be irregular, but won’t die out, and GMTV and GMVision will keep on fighting (which is silly, because GMVision has nothing on GMTV).

    The problem with… just about everything in the GM world is that there’s a lot of smoke, but no fire. Tonnes of fighting, tonnes of promises, tonnes of plans, but very little in the way of stuff actually materializing. But that’s true of most things in the world, I guess.

    It’s entertaining, at least. *starts making a year’s supply of popcorn*

  8. I chose the Mac version being released and YYG reaching 50,000.

    Game Maker might lose a small amount of market share, but I don’t think anything significant will happen with that. I think the amount of users of Game Maker will keep on rising. Sandy is hoping for GM8 to be released at the end of 2009, but I see the inevitable delays kicking it into 2010. I’d be surprised if GMTV releases more then 3 episodes, and I can’t see GMVision lasting very long either. I think MarkUp and GMTech will carry on, not too sure about GMWeekly, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it stopped (or became GMBiWeekly).

    Good article Phil, I hope you keep up this trend of producing good discussion articles.

  9. Mac version of Game Maker will be released – I voted yes. Since the beta came out a couple of months ago (albeit in a rather broken form) I think it’ll finally get a release this year.

    GM8 release, I said no. YYG have enough on their hands already – I reckon GM8 will be a while in the making.

    YYG reaching 50K games, I said yes. I think the number of games on will increase exponentially, since more people will be beginning using it than quitting. If GM Mac is released within 2009, I think 50K will be hit shortly afterward.

    GM loses market share, I said no. There’s already tons of competing methods of game creation, one new alternative won’t damage its sales significantly.

    Battle between GMTV and GMVision, I voted no. Online programmes about GM appear to be released once every four months or so. Since they’ll both be free to view, most sane people will ignore comparing them and just enjoy them both.

    One or more […] stop producing, I voted no. Slowing up? Probably. GMWeekly dropping the weekly in favour of fortnightly or monthly? Maybe. But I don’t think any of the major ones will completely die off.

  10. I agree with NAL,
    people can enjoy both shows, thats fine with me. I still enjoy waching GMTV, for enjoyment, and to know what the competition is. I still communicate to danny, just to exchange release dates (se we don’t harm eachother’s shows) and other things.

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GMKing Podcast #5

Thanks KC_LC!