Game Maker Unfair Use Policy

Sandy posted this message on the Game Maker Glog (it is not tampered with by anyone. this is its original format)

Now that you’ve voted in favour of using Softrwap again with Game Maker 8 we thought it would be useful to talk about why we use Softwrap and what we think of poeple who want to use the Pro version of Game Maker but don’t think they should have to pay for the privilege.

In the Two and a Half years that www.yoyogames.com has been live we have had more than 30Million visits to the website and you’ve uploaded almost 75,000 games including beta and work in progress. EVERY DAY Game Maker is downloaded between 3,000 and 5,000 times. We deliver something more than 15 Terrabytes of data every month to people in more than 100 countries round the world. None of this is done for free, this is a big website and costs a LOT of money to run. 90% of our income comes from selling the Pro version of Game Maker. So, basically…Game Maker pays the bills.

We use Softwrap because they give us a well priced package that makes it reasonably easy for those of you who want to use the extra features and capabilities of Game Maker Pro to do so. Their technology allows you to automatically unlock the extra features 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Sure, there are occasional issues when the tech doesn’t work, and we ALL hate that as it costs time and money both for YOU AND FOR US to fix problems. Hopefully the recent decision to increase the number of installs without requesting a reset to 5 should make it easier for even more of us to use Game Maker 8 without issues. For 99%+ of you it’s a simple and easy way to get what you want from Game Maker quickly and easily and for us it means we can collect the money easily. Before we used Softwrap Mark personally processed every order, this is not something we could consider today as the community has grown significantly in the last 3 years.

The money we earn from selling Game Maker does NOTHING other than pay for your website and future releases of Game Maker. No Director of YoYo Games has ever earned a cent in salary or any other payments.

In short the DRM is not the most important part of the equation. We DO like the idea that it stands as a reminder that we’d like to be paid and that we don’t think it’s fair that you should copy our software that we have worked hard to create and maintain , but we have no burning ideology about cutting out unfair use through technology.

We also don’t like talk of “Software Theft” and “Piracy” as the people who are motivated to use unauthorised copies of Game Maker Pro have many reasons for doing so. More often than not they are people who will not pay for software under any circumstances, so it’s a pointless act appealing to a hard core not do it. Whatever their reasons for doing so we think the main issue is this is UNFAIR to the other people who ARE willing to make an occasional contribution of $25 to continue to enjoy, not only Game Maker, but also all of the facilities here on the website.

SO, we think it’s a pretty clear decision on YOUR part, if you want to continue to enjoy what we do here now, and in the future, then please go ahead and continue to use your fairly purchased previous versions of Game Maker , buy Game Maker 8 or enjoy what you get in Game Maker Lite without paying. On the other hand, if you want to use the Pro version of the software without paying for it, then that’s your decision, but you are making a CLEAR statement that you do not want to be a member of this community. So PLEASE don’t come here to use the forums, the Glog, upload your games or use any other part of the website. Stay away, we don’t want to share our facilities with you here. You are deciding for yourself that you are not part of this community.

Thx, from Sandy and Mark, on behalf of the community.

Hey Sandy, don't worry. I am going to purchase Game Maker 8 Pro in a few weeks. You can be sure that i will contribute to costs for the website which you did a great job with! Please do the same. Do not go and download a crack. It's dishonest and illegal.

Just for the record Sandy, get rid of Softwrap as soon as possible. It's the worst thing that happened to Game Maker. I hope you guys are programming something now. Game Maker has done fine without Softwrap for years and it can continue to do so in the future. As for YoYo Games, its the best thing that's happened to Game Maker.