Today YoYo Games, the developers of GameMaker Studio, officially announced their plan to replace the GameMaker Sandbox with a digital store. While the sandbox used to be a popular destination for gamers and developers alike, in recent years it has been neglected by YoYo Games and subsequently become obsolete.
GameMaker Sandbox is being replaced with a new service called GameMaker Player. Read on for more information.
GameMaker Player is an application designed to support the GameMaker ecosystem by allowing developers to share concepts and early access builds of their games. Developers can also distribute their free or paid games on multiple platforms, with YoYo Games taking a 30% cut of any profits.
YoYo Games describe GameMaker Player as “an application and a service” so we may see both a standalone application and a web service, a format popularized by Valve. Considering that it is becoming easier and easier to publish games to Valve’s incredibly popular Steam platform, it may be too late for YoYo Games to create “the YouTube of games” as they aspired to 6 years ago.
Official Response
YoYo Games CEO Sandy Duncan said, “For as long as YoYo Games has been developing GameMaker, we have focused on providing everyone – from beginner to professional – with a simple and accessible solution that makes it easier for all to make, share and play their games. We are now taking a huge leap forward. With the introduction of GameMaker Player we’ve added [a] brand new service that is extremely easy to use”.
Key Points
- Set to launch late October 2014 as part of a GameMaker Studio 1.4 beta release
- Only Windows, OS X, and Linux will be initially supported
- All GameMaker Studio users will be able to publish games for the Windows version of GameMaker Player
- Free users can only upload 2 games, Pro users can upload 5, and Master Collection users can upload 10
- To publish paid games a GameMaker Studio Professional license and relevant export modules are required
- YoYo Games will take a 30% cut of all profits
- Use of ads and in-app purchases is not supported
- Free games will have no review process, paid games will
- GameMaker Sandbox will be completely removed shortly after launch
Your Opinion
What do you think about GameMaker Player replacing GameMaker Sandbox?
Will developers use it? Will players? Did YoYo Games already miss their opportunity?
Let us know in the comments below.
Why would You Guys DO that Thats Really Unfair To The People That Made Such Great Games On There removing That Made Your Service No Longer Fun so I’m Just Keeping Your Old Version Non Paid Till Someone Fixeds There Big Mistake That They made -Shame On You gamemaker
If they are going to nuke the sandbox they should at least take every game, tutorial, and demo that people have uploaded to the sandbox over the years and dump them all into one zip file so us die hards can download them all at once. There is a lot of stuff on the sandbox, good and bad, and it would be a pity to lose it all.
I’m sure such a zip file would be like 80 gigs in size, but hey, I’d still download it.
So what would be happened to those games that already uploaded on sandbox? You know, many post useful tutorials and examples there.
Seconding this question. It’s a very important matter and yet it goes completely unmentioned in the announcement. Some games can be found nowhere but in the Sandbox, since most other hosting websites delete files after a while. Are YoyoGames just going to delete all their users’ creations in one fell swoop?
http://help.yoyogames.com/entries/101815476-GameMaker-Player-FAQs
“Is the sandbox being removed?
GameMaker: Player will replace the Sandbox and as such uploading to the Sandbox will be disabled when the Player is released. Sandbox content will remain available for a period of time until the GameMaker: Player is fully live.”
So, yeah. They’re just going to delete everything.
Dammit.
Woah! You mean the people who spent close to a thousand dollars will only be able to upload ten games I’m not exactly too thrilled at the restrictions for paying members.
I think the same.
Im in Pro version and now i will upload only 5 miserable games?
99.99 $ at the trash bin
They should really keep the limit on the free versions, and keep quality high.
Overall I think this is exciting and exactly the same direction I would have taken as CEO…maybe with slightly different execution though.
This will make it much more convenient to publish in a familiar environment, rather than having to go first to other publishing platforms…and as well be a good place to test your games on a focused community. Once confidence is built it will be even easier to go publish your game and know how to improve it to other sites or portals. I like how only paying user can give feedback, which will make it more constructive. I just pray that they will support us in South Africa and not be like google!!
This is another revenue source, and should be good news to us all, and we should help them help us.
I was talking to Russell on the GMC yesterday. He stated that later on the Pro and Master limits will be adjusted or lifted after a while. The Free limit is staying though.
WHAT!? There will be a limit on how many games we can upload! I’ve been waiting for this thing since the last year and now I am not interested in it at all!
This really stood out to me as well. It’s quite a strange limitation, but I doubt it will be permanent.
It seems like a pretty reasonable limitation to me:
1) It gives people an incentive to upgrade to paid versions ($).
2) It’s also likely a measure to stop the store from being flooded with crappy, half-baked games. The thinking behind that is if you can only upload 2 games, you’ll upload your best ones. Additionally, free/potentially less experienced Game Makers will be less likely to throw all their projects/games onto the store.
You’re probably right, however they should communicate this e.g. the incentives are unclear and YoYoGames knows exactly how to come across amateuristic xD It never feels ‘right’. Even if it’s in Beta, you’re putting it out in the world and in their case, I believe the use of co creation would hand them so much more love.
Either way, I don’t feel motivated just yet. The design is tacky and if they plan to open another mass market for games, I don’t see anything captivating yet. Like… hey! We ALMOST missed the band wagon! It doesn´t stand out in any positive way (YET!), so I hope they’ll find something :):):)
My last thought would be, that it might be aimed towards beginners and children, who could never really share their games and now have a nice place where the thresshold is super low. Yeah, that makes sense.