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2009 Predictions: 6 months on

At the start of the year we asked readers of this blog to predict whether or not certain events would happen this year.  Now six months on how have the predictions fared?

55% of you thought that the mac version of Game Maker would be released.  At the end of last year we had just seen the release of the first closed beta.  Recently we showed you some exclusive screenshots and videos of a more up-to-date version and the second beta has since been sent to testers.  We still do not know whether YoYo Games intend to release Game Maker 7 for Mac or will jump straight to Game Maker 8 Mac.  The current version however is Game Maker 7.

The same percentage of you thought that Game Maker 8.0 would be published.  This should happen with the recent release of a public beta and the latest word from Mark Overmars being that a launch is planned “during or after the summer”.

55% of you also thought that YoYo Games would reach 50,000 hosted games.  In the six months from then approximately 7,000 games have been uploaded which is well short of the target.  If uploads continue at the same rate there will be 43,000 games by the start of 2010.  The slow-down in the rate of uploads can partly be explained by the lack of a YoYo Games contest (although we should see one when Game Maker 8 is released).

Just over a quarter of respondents to our poll believed that one or more of the well-established Game Maker magazines would stop producing this year.  GMWeekly has gone and its KwikLook reincarnation has been turned into a blog.  MarkUp has not released an issue so far this year.

23% of readers thought that we would see a battle between the two rival video services GMTV and GMVision.  Although we have seen the first release from GMVision GMTV repositioned themselves to aim for shorter more frequent episodes however have not produced any new shows since GMVision began.

I am unsure of any reliable ways of measuring the number of active Game Maker users so whether or not Game Maker loses market share will remain a mystery.

What do you think?

9 Comments

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  1. Mattthew_H :@Kay Johnson
    I wasn’t aware that GMT was still developing issues.

    Issue 16 was released just over a month ago and issue 17 is due to be released shortly. We’re already planning into the future for issue 18 and beyond. GMTech is as alive (if not more so) than it ever has been!

    This year I’ve been most surprised by GM8 appearing, I didn’t think we’d hear about it until 2010.

  2. @Kay Johnson
    I wasn’t aware that GMT was still developing issues.
    In light of that, there is still some quality e-mags developing, that, obviously I’m not aware of.

  3. Interesting post. Hopefully GM 8.0 is released on schedule.
    GM 7 for Mac is just pointless in a way now. I’d say that the next beta SHOULD be GM8.
    The reason it hasn’t been is so that the testers are unaware of GM8 or…well, you know what I mean.

    The GM Magazines? All the quality ones (meaning not your HCG), have all stopped. Which is sad in a way, but, not unexpected.

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