iTorque Update

Hey guys,

I hope most of you caught my blog a week ago announcing our pricing and licensing model for iTorque. I apologize for not being able to keep up with all the emails you guys have sent and hope you don't mind the generalist response. I'm assuming you guys value speed over the personal touch at this point =) Your patience over the past couple weeks has been appreciated. You may have followed our progress on our online forums. If you participated on either of any threads we listened and we really appreciate your feedback. I'll summarize the model we arrived at here quickly:

Quote:
Indie Licensing (non-transferable, per seat, for those licensees with less than $250k annual turnover)

For current owners of TGE:
$500 for the iTGE SDK and right to publish 1 title. $100 per title thereafter. No royalties, ever.

For current owners of TGB:
$500 for the iTGB SDK and right to publish 1 title. $100 per title thereafter. No royalties, ever.


Commercial Licensing (transferable, per seat)

For current owners of TGE:
$1000 for the iTGE SDK and right to publish 1 title. $500 per title thereafter. No royalties, ever.

For current owners of TGB:
$1000 for the iTGB SDK and right to publish 1 title. $500 per title thereafter. No royalties, ever.

Note that in order to purchase iTGB, you must actually be an owner of TGB Pro. This was something I goofed on in my last blog. Sorry for any confusion there. There is just simply no way to use iTGB without access to the source code of TGB.

So after several weeks of development and contemplation on the best licensing approach for new product, we are pleased to announce that iTGB and iTGE Indie licenses are now available for pre-order. What does that mean? Both iTGB and iTGE have made great progress, but we're not quite satisfied that either is an Indie friendly first experience yet. That's our version 1.0 goal. Right now, we're nearing that stage, and we're targeting clear 1.0 delivery dates in the coming weeks. Indies who pre-order iTGB or iTGE will have a second title release waiver automatically added to their account (two titles total). Pre-orders can be made online right now through our online store.

Until we get to 1.0, you're welcome to follow our development progress on the iTGB and iTGE product pages (we'll be updating these weekly) or check out what Commercial developers are talking about in the iTorque forums. If you can't wait till Sept. 31st for iTGB 1.0 or October 15th for iTGE 1.0 or if you are a truly experienced developer who's comfortable working with a new codebase in flux, Commercial Licenses are available for both iTGB and iTGE now.

Thank you for all for your time and attention and we look forward to seeing your game on the iPhone!


Updated FAQ

Q. How do I get iTorque?
A. Right now iTorque is only available under Commercial license but can be purchased directly on our site. Indie licenses are available for pre-order now with license to an additional title at no extra cost, but no download will be available until the product is at 1.0. If you're part of a studio that wants to use iTorque with different licensing conditions, send us an email at licensing@garagegames.com.

Q. I'm making a TGE / TGB game now. Will it work with iTGE / iTGB on the iPhone?
A. Yes. Nearly all TGE's features will be supported, but as always, you'll need to watch your memory and consider the hardware. The input mapping is obviously different as well, so you'll need to consider that in your game design.

Q. I want to buy a license for an unlimited number of developers / titles. Do you offer any other choices?
A. Yes. Studio licenses will start at $15k for iTorque Studio and first title. An unlimited number of titles will be more. Contact licensing@garagegames.com for more details.

Q. I'm an Indie. Why can't I license iTorque at the Indie price now?
A. We're concerned that the product will be too difficult to work with for most amateur hobbyist developers at this stage, so only after we're satisfied that the documentation is solid and learning curve is not so steep will we roll this out under the Indie License.

Q. Will iTorque require a splash screen?
A. Yes.

Q. Will iTorque developers be able to share code resources on GG.com?
A. Yes. There are now iTorque private forums where you have our blessing to collaborate on projects. I honestly don't think Apple is going to care one way or another, but so long as you're not posting up their documentation whole hog or doing anything abusive, what you do is up to you. It's always fine of course to post Torque script and code resources in these forums.

Q. Will iTorque work with TGEA games? Will we ever see iTGEA?
A. Not at the moment. TGEA does offer some performance advantages, even at the fixed function level over TGE. The code is also cleaner and has been used by our studio more recently to produce games. The biggest advantage of TGEA over TGE, the advanced visual features like shaders and such, will not be portable to the iPhone though. The iPhone hardware won't support shaders. There may be reason in the future to deprecate these features in a port of TGEA to create an iTGEA though.

Q. Will iTorque work with Torque X / XNA games?
A. No. The iPhone uses an OpenGL ES graphics layer that's not at all compatible with Torque X or XNA.

Any other questions? Feel free to ask in the comments.

-Brett

P.S. I'll be up at PAX through Monday along with lots of other GG'ers. If any of you are there, please stop by our booth and say "hi."