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How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

gamemakerblog.com

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Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#21

Post by drhayes9 »

amarsahinovic wrote: post #18
astrodust wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he's doing this well with GameMaker, a tool like Unity would open up even more possibilities. It's like someone saying they're successful as a landscaper with merely a shovel. Invest in a backhoe and you'll get a lot more done.

As with everything else in life, it depends. If you want to build 3D games, then by all means, use Unity (or equivalent). But if you want to build 2D games, I think that GameMaker does a good job (I know you can do 2D games with Unity, but still).

Unity 4.3 is gaining "native" 2d tooling: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/08/28/unity-native-2d-tools/

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#23

Post by [deleted] »

amarsahinovic wrote: post #18
astrodust wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he's doing this well with GameMaker, a tool like Unity would open up even more possibilities. It's like someone saying they're successful as a landscaper with merely a shovel. Invest in a backhoe and you'll get a lot more done.

As with everything else in life, it depends. If you want to build 3D games, then by all means, use Unity (or equivalent). But if you want to build 2D games, I think that GameMaker does a good job (I know you can do 2D games with Unity, but still).

[deleted]

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#24

Post by amarsahinovic »

drhayes9 wrote: post #21
amarsahinovic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with everything else in life, it depends. If you want to build 3D games, then by all means, use Unity (or equivalent). But if you want to build 2D games, I think that GameMaker does a good job (I know you can do 2D games with Unity, but still).

Unity 4.3 is gaining "native" 2d tooling: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/08/28/unity-native-2d-tools/

I just saw that, seems interesting, I'll be checking it out.

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#25

Post by derefr »

Nekorosu wrote: post #10
popopje wrote: post #2

it's unfortunate that the process doesn't result in games that are particularly enjoyable to play. Spelunky (the original - the newer, paid version is not made with game maker though was made possible through the popularity of the original) and Gunpoint were both made with game maker and have been very successful monetarily - Gunpoint in particular was the first game the author made, and its success means he is now a…

So Spelunky was made with GameMaker. It was extremely enjoyable to play which led to the development of the XBox version. It contradicts your statement "it's unfortunate that the process doesn't result in games that are particularly enjoyable to play.", doesn't it? Also I'm sure the dev tools don't play such a big part in the gameplay's quality of the result as you think.

Game Maker is scriptable in a Turing-complete language, so of course you can make anything in it--it's just a matter of blind determination. VBA is also Turing-complete, which means you can write your game in Powerpoint. (It's a lot like Flash, in fact.) But I don't see many people doing that, and for good reason. :)

But I think another, more devious way to phrase "it's unfortunate that the process doesn't result in games that are particularly enjoyable to play", is:

"It's unfortunate that the process doesn't prevent more bad games from getting made."

This seems needlessly cruel at first, but seen another way, it's immediately sensible: languages with strong typing prevent bad code from getting compiled. We prefer compiler errors to something that runs, but buggily. Maybe we could rely on tools, of sufficiently high level, to point out things like: "this finite-state-machine representing a game mechanic has a very high connectedness; this could indicate that your game mechanic requires the player to make repeated choices with too many options, which will induce choice fatigue, making them quickly bored of playing."

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#26

Post by mratzloff »

So if I can sum up: the author made some games with Game Maker, made a small profit, then started primarily making libraries for Game Maker. Now he buys GameMakerBlog.com and posts an article about how much money you can make with Game Maker and you should really use it.

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#27

Post by lifeformed »

phoyce wrote: post #12

Interesting that people are trying to dissuade the OP from using GameMaker. From reading his post it appears he is doing very well for himself and most importantly he is happy. I don't see much incentive for him to learn a completely new tool at this point. Nice post OP. Keep up the good work.

GameMaker has gotten a LOT better in the last few years. It was pretty stagnant for a while, but now it's multiplatform and has got lots of great features for 2D work.

I think people still associate GM with amateur games, but the lines are blurring now.

Re: How I Make A Living Using GameMaker

#30

Post by beernutz »

speeder wrote: post #13
kbenson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any (non-identifying, if you prefer) details?

Beside the skull incident the guy in the other reply mentioned, we had for example: DRM from Game Maker 6 and 7, made the software refuse to launch entirely sometimes, it was specially worse when other products with the same DRM were installed (interestingly, the other products worked fine... I believe GM implementation of the DRM that was particularly broken). Also the forums frequently had people complaining of the…

I have LOTS of respect for people that make costumes!

lol, sorry could not resist the typo in the last sentence.

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