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GameMaker Price Increase & New Product Announced

YoYo Games have announced that the price of GameMaker Studio Master Collection will be increasing in mid-August 2013. In an email sent to mailing list subscribers, customers are advised to “take advantage of the current and very low $499.99 price of GameMaker Studio Master Collection.” As of version 1.2, the price of GameMaker Studio Master Collection will increase by 60% to $799.99.

Customers who purchase GameMaker Studio Master Collection are currently provided with newly released modules for free, though in a recent post Game Maker Blog discussed the ambiguity of YoYo Game’s “free modules” offer after a GameMaker forum administrator suggested that the offer was only guaranteed until version 1.2. YoYo Games have now promised that customers who purchase GameMaker Studio Master Collection will receive  “all current and future export modules as they are made available.”

The email also notes that a new “YoYo Compiler” will be sold separately for $299.99, which will apparently “increase performance 100 fold.” It is not clear if customers who purchase GameMaker Studio Master Collection prior to the 1.2 release will receive the YoYo Compiler for free, though sources suggest they will.

If paying this much for GameMaker sounds ridiculous to you, remember that GameMaker 8.1 for Windows is available for $39.99.

What do you think?

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37 Comments

  1. Thanks so much for this heads up. I have applied for the upgrade and really appreciate not having missed this opportunity.

    Also, I believe that YYG is charging very prices for their products. I have been an iOS dev since the AppStore opened, and I have spent over $4K on Unity alone. So YYG’s prices are more than fair. (I’ve also spent lots of money on trying other SDKs (like Corona) which ended up a total waste of money in the end.)

  2. Where’s the new “product”? Your article’s title mentions it, but doesn’t talk about anything else but the new compiler.

    By the way, YoYoGames has always promised modules for 1.x for GameMaker Studio although they only ever announced two paid modules since offering the Master Collection: Linux and Windows Phone 8.

  3. I don’t get all the complaints here. Why would you expect that a company releases major product enhancements (like the YYC) or additional export modules for free?
    There is absolutely no reason to do so.
    If you bought any version like GM:S for Windows or the Professional edition you bought the product “as is”. You have no right at all to demand future improvements for free.

    Look around, all other companies do it like this – for years! Do you expect Microsoft to ship Windows 8 to you for free just because you bought a PC with Windows XP on it 10 years ago? Or does Adobe release newer versions for free? Photoshop Elements for example doesn’t even offer ANY upgrade mechanism. You have to buy the new release again for the full price…

    I think YoYo Games treats customers pretty well if you think about it. Price increases are announced several weeks ahead, most of the time they even start some bargain campaign to give you a chance to buy in. And they do have fair upgrade conditions.

    All those massive product enhancements (GM:S alone, shaders, YYC, export modules, documentation, tutorials, etc) don’t come for free – there are a lot of employees at YoYo in the mean time who want to get a salary every month. How do you expect YoYo to pay them if you demand everything for free?

    You want a professional tool and I think GM:S is on a very good way to get there. But that’s simply not possible for a one time fee from your side.

    Just my 2 cents,
    Thomas

    • Agreed. This is a commercial company with a commercial product and they deserve to try and make a profit from their work.

      Is the price too high? Doubt it, we in Australia pay waaaay higher prices for software than the US does.

      And what does 3Dmax cost now? $4,000 in Australia.

  4. Does this mean that if you stay with Pro, you’re not going to get the new and better compiler, unless you pay for it? So I bought Pro and have to pay extra for performance increase, even for the target platforms I already own? I don’t really get this, having to buy the compiler…
    And will the export modules increase in price too?

  5. I guess the price increase makes sense when you consider how much they have added to the Master Collection since it was released, but it’s still unfortunate to me that they’re continuing to put it further and further out of reach of newbie developers. I’m glad I decided to upgrade to the Master Collection when they had their last sale of it; if they had announced that the new compiler would cost so much as an additional module for Professional licensees, I’d be pretty upset, and feel like I should be entitled to the compiler since it targets a platform that I already can build for, and is simply a performance boost on that platform.

  6. Read this on YoYo’s web site which could make the offer more interesting…

    *Minimum upgrade price of $0. If you have previously purchased GameMaker: Studio Professional and export modules to a total value equal to or greater than the Master Collection price of $499.99, you will receive an upgrade to Master Collection for no additional cost.

  7. Like Alex said, pro is also available for 50. When you want to make games for say, mobile, you’ll pay fees to Microsoft and Apple which, if you do well, are way higher. I think it’s fair.

  8. “If paying this much for GameMaker sounds ridiculous to you, remember that GameMaker 8.1 for Windows is available for $39.99.”

    I think studio for windows is only 49.99, which is pretty good for what it is. It’s when you want to publish on mobile devices that it starts to get expensive.

  9. GM 8.0 ftw! Stable, doesn’t bug your game with every update (I know there are none, but fixing random bugs every week is annoying) and doesn’t have the 8.1 problems.

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