T3D studio license and the current license sale

#1 @Ryan - Unfortunately, no. The system for automatically adding licenses to your studio account is now disabled. If there is a dire issue on this subject, shoot me an e-mail: michaelp@garagegames.com

#2 Thanks Michael, but would the sale licenses be able to be added to the studio seats (manually)? Thinking about picking up a couple but only if I can apply them to my studio.

#3 @Ryan - Ummm, I'm not sure. I'll have to talk to licensing but I can't guarantee anything. Shoot me an e-mail.

#4 Ok, email sent.

#5 Michael, I too would like clarification on this. David on Eric's blog is also looking into it. Ideally I wouldn't want to purchase licences in the names of people, and they leave making the licence redundant. Cheers.

#6 Michael, any word yet?

#7 @Ryan - Just got the answer. If you buy T3D right now, you should also get TGE and TGEA. If this is not happening, then it is a bug we are working on.

#8 Lol! That's the answer to the wrong question. The question is for those of us that have a T3D studio license if we can take advantage of the current prices to buy additional seats to add to our studio.

#9 @Ryan - Sorry. Getting my threads mixed up O_o

Regarding T3D studio licensees purchasing the current $99 T3D under the same studio for redistribution, I'm afraid that is not allowable. The $99 are back to individual licenses, 1 per account.

#10 On a side note, I don't seem to be getting any email from the forums. Checked the spam folders and nothing there.

#11 So, our studio license is for nothing now? I know it was only a few bucks to get but I liked having the ability to reassign seats if I needed to. And its not like GG would be missing out on any sales, hell it would probably create more as I am willing to purchase 2 seats at the current price right now. But not if I cant reassign them if I need to.

#12 @Ryan - I hear what you are saying. The systems that were in place to allow multiple purchases of licenses in a studio environment are no longer functional. Reassignment still works, but new purchases can't be done anymore. Additionally, the new licensing plans and intent of the new GG do not align with the concept of the studio approach. I know this is probably an inconvenience for you, which I apologize for. Going forward, while the studio system will not be in place...at least the licenses are much more affordable now to help build up the teams.

#13 Yeah, but named licenses are a scary proposition to small groups. There is no way for me to maintain ownership of the license because it has to have an actual body that owns it, and on paper it wouldn't be me. Even at $99 a license I cant afford to buy a license for people that could walk out on me and take the license with them. That was the draw of buying the studio license upgrade. I think GG really needs to think about this one a bit more. Especially for those of use that do own a T3D studio license.

#14 I paid Baz Driller 25 bucks to have an extra line of text under my nametag and it's pistols at dawn for anyone who touches it!

insert your own ascii emote here ... I'm not sure which one to use

#15

Quote:
I paid Baz Driller 25 bucks to have an extra line of text under my nametag and it's pistols at dawn for anyone who touches it!

++

#16

Quote:Additionally, the new licensing plans and intent of the new GG do not align with the concept of the studio approach.

I think somebody needs to rationalise that comment.
The new GG seems to want bums on seats, actively dissuading people from buying extra licenses seems to me counter to this resurgence.

You are implying by your comments that indie = 1 developer and any more than that is a fully funded commercial entity, nothing could be further from the truth to many people.

Forcing people to find people within the community to work with is also counter to the new logic or at least it seems that way to me.

Forcing volunteers to buy a full source engine to even work on a project with somebody else even as a volunteer is an IAC tactic and also doesn't sound very much like "It's a return to the values that brought people together to make great games without the burden of unbearable pricing or royalties."

It seems clear to me that some method of addressing the studio issues needs to be done, heck even if you allow us to add binary seats at $25 a pop so that we can re-assign to temporary helpers or short term workers, change the studio system to allow a max of 2 source and 5-6 binary seats for indie studios, and bring back the higher price point for commercial studios, $500 per source seat, $100 per binary seat, with raised allocation levels. The creation of the studio system was one of the better ideas of recent time imo, and tbh I honestly think that repealing the studio system will just mean that more and more people will distribute tools builds to their volunteer modders regardless.

Adapting the studio to something similar to the above I truly believe would restore things the way they were and should be, all it takes is a clause in the EULA to state that you must own a source licence to legally publish a game and youve rendered the binary version impotent as anything other than a tool to help small devs.

#17 @Bloodknight - Hmm, after reading what I typed it does seem to make less sense than when I wrote it. I think the point I was getting as was reducing the complexity of the licensing. Before the shut down we had:

T3D
T3D Pro
T3D Studio
TGB Indie
TGB Pro
TGB Commercial
TGB Studio
iTorque 2D Indie (must have a TGB Pro license)
iTorque 2D Pro (must have a TGB Pro license)

Now we just have T3D, T2D, iT2D. I know a big focus was reducing the complexity of our product line. Also, looking back at the old GarageGames you will remember this is how things always were. You could not sell your license or redistribute. We are back to that now and are actively looking at ways to grow the community and company in a smart way. As for your suggestions, and those of others, I will bring them up with Eric. I won't commit to saying that you will get what you desire, but at least I can make sure your voices reach the ears.

#18 Even back in the old days there were studio licenses. They were more expensive up front but GG did have them. And they were allowed to reassign their seats. Personally I don't understand how allowing us to keep our studio seating is more complicated. If anything as pointed out it will sell more seats and the framework is already in place. But I am not about to buy a license for someone that they get to keep until the end of days even at $99.

#19 reduction in products and licensing to reduce confusion is awesome and i agree that it was badly needed.

I think part of the problem is that different products have different outlooks as far as game creation is concerned.

While T2D is fully capable of producing a game single-handedly that both competes with and doesn't look out of place against any other similar game out there. I don't think that T3D does fall into that same area, certainly not as far as the vast majority of gaming projects is concerned. it does take bodies, even if most of them are arranging trees in a forest or trying to line up lumps of sewers, all of which are time consuming.

That said there is room for solo-indie developers and the $99 single user licence is perfect for that, but... since you bring up the 'way things were' binary versions were free you just weren't legally allowed to actually publish a game with them, what i'm saying here is that really either we need to return to 'free not allowed to make games' and/or a studio version whereby the seat is licences to work on * somebody else's* game.

I think a T3D solo-indie -> studio -> commercial studio licensing chain along with free EULA restricted demos puts GG in-line with the 'other' engine people, while at the same time being way more indie friendly than the 'other' engine people. it also very closely mirrors the real world progression of not just game developers but business's in general, I'd love to get to the point where I got to say commercial level and had to upgrade all my licences and unless I'm really missing something on the site I cant see where my progression up the food chain helps GG at all either. Businesses thrive on partnerships even small ones. I've moved from hobbyist to student to hobbyist with direction to working on my first (hopefully) published release, I've looked at other engines, I've seen what they can do, and while I'm sure I don't speak for everyone, but I like torque and I'd like to form a long lasting and hopefully commercial partnership with GG.

I guess I'm just ranting now, and I had to replay because my original points sounded more negative than intended, I just think that not embracing the studio and maybe beyond that would constitute an opportunity missed in the opposite direction that IAC missed opportunity by dumping on the 'really important to the industry people' hobby/solo devs.

I guess I should stop now I'm posting on work time :P

#20 I totally agree they should probably keep the studio license reassignment somehow. An additional cost to each license, whatever it may be, so it's easy to handle when/if the regular price goes up.