Game Maker 7 for Mac, which has been in beta for over a year, has had its development “delayed indefinitely”. Progress over the last year has been slow but this is the first official word on its status for a long time.
“Sorry to bring bad news, but our Mac Developer has resigned this morning with pretty much immediate effect. The existing beta has expired and there is little point in releasing another candidate as there is nobody to deal with bug reports. There are still too many bugs, so until we know how and when we can complete the project, we’ve taken the painful decision to temporarily suspend our plans to produce a Mac version of Game Maker. We’ll keep you updated with developments as soon as we have any news.
Anyone with extensive experience with Lazarus development and a good understanding of OpenGL should feel free to contact us at yoyogames.mojohelpdesk.com.”
-Sandy Duncan, YYG blog
I honestly am on the verge of declaring the end of the YoYo Games Era. With the Game Maker for Mac version being suspended indefinitely, thousands of users angered over the choice of logo, Game Maker 8 almost completed but still almost a year late, YoYo has been broken promise after broken promise for too long.
YoYo Games ran through their cash allotment very quickly, I believe. Giving out thousands of dollars in contest prizes probably wasn’t a good idea, either. They have to deal with hosting and distributing a massive amount of data, both on the YoYo website and the Game Maker Community.
They have to pay their developers, directors, support team. They have to pay license fees to Softwrap for every Game Maker 7 sale they make. Top it off with the fact that until Game Maker 8 is out, YoYo is essentially without a revenue stream*, the are probably on the verge of financial disaster.
* YoYo gave every Game Maker 6 license holder a free upgrade to 7. So, the only non-invested money YoYo has earned in the past two years has been through advertisements and Game Maker 7 sales. And, since Sandy stated that all recent GM 7 sales would get a free upgrade to 8, that is basically a free pass on money until Game Maker 8 is out.
@niksha
lol, the YoYo disease has infected my grammar (not that it’s my mother tongue :P).
My god, YoYo game has to be THE most amateur “professional” company out there.
If getting a bunch of kids to design a logo for their commercial app wasn’t stupid enough, they can’t even keep the app (the reason why they exist) itself from being delayed.
GM8 still is coming out with old GUI (which is terrible), the only addition (the reason why it will sell) worth taking about is the PNG or transparency support for sprites. There are more issues and just disappointments coming from GM8 and YoYo games than anything else I have ever seen out there (software-wise in game development).
Also, it seem the only people working for this company are this Sandy (who replies like a kid to idiots bitching about a frakin logo in blog) and Mark. Every other employ it seems is just replaceable temp who doesn’t even need a introduction to the users (like the Mac guy.. who was he? why did he quit?).
PS: I am not saying I can do a better job at running a company. But I don’t see how a professional company throwing around money on random competitions can.
Yeah, I could care less about the mac port. GM8 and/or a linux port is what I’m looking forward to, however for the linux port they’ll have to go through the whole openGL hell anyway.
He probably resigned after seeing the new logo.
As long as GM8 is still in development! I’m not a fan of Mac anyway.
Tell me this is a lie. Did the developer not sign a flipping contract?! WTF?!
I think that it’s Sandy. He’s used to heading a massive amount of people with a seemingly endless amount of funds and that everyone is expendable.
YoYo, get your plans straightened out for the long run with the possibility of things going wrong in mind – your not Microsoft, you aren’t immune to everything.
Money doesn’t fix everything.
I find this quite funny. Heh.
Let’s hope not. They just need to stop and reconsider the direction they’re heading.
I seriously wonder how YoYo games will hold up in the long term. Their achievements over the past years have not been that astonishing. I fear they’ll suddenly throw in the towel one day.
Probably because he was in development hell. This ill conceived port has had problems from day one.
I wonder why their Mac guy quit.