I held off posting about it here, because I went through a publisher.. but it seems like it's o.k, so here goes...




I created Prison Ball about.. hmm, a little over a year ago now. Total time to make was about 3 months, I worked on/off on it, but when I worked on it, I worked pretty hard.
It's my first 'serious' project.. I took a lot of time working on it.

Prison Ball was ported to the iPhone by Yoyogames. Perhaps we may see an Android port soon, (shhhhhhh  )

Excuse me, while I copy&paste our little game description blurb...

Prison Ball is an arcade game, set in the deep, dark depths of the state penitentiary, and is an exciting new twist on the “Brick Breaker” genre that challenges you to Smash, Burn and Blast your way out through 140 uniquely designed levels against the clock.

From Fire Balls and Explosive Blocks to Multi Balls and Rocket Bats, Prison Ball’s special Power-Up system will test your reflexes to the limit.

Game Features:

• 140 Unique 3D levels
• Multiple Power-Ups, including Multi-Balls, Fire Balls, Bomb Balls and Rocket Bats
• Standard and Random Game Modes
• Game Center support featuring 2 Leaderboards and 12 Achievements
• Unique Visual Style
• Special Power Up System
• Environmental Audio

So break out your Prison Ball and unleash the power at your finger tips!

iTunes Link, for iPhone/iPad:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/prison-ball/id410593606?mt=8

Android:
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.yoyogames.droidprisonball



Have fun! If you don't have an iPhone, or don't feel like paying $.99, then feel free to try the older, PC version of the game here for free!
http://www.yoyogames.com/games/119171-prison-ball
(trust me, it's not as cool as the iPhone version..)

All ratings&reviews given on iTunes(or this topic) appreciated.

@Link: 14 kid devved a game on a library computer, put it on iPhone, and it became a pretty big hit. He make a game called Bubble Ball. It's been downloaded(free app) 2 million times or so, and it really hasn't been up there for that long.

Oh, look! Yoyogames was hacked by a Karoshi!

http://www.yoyogames.com/

What?

I can't get it to load

Or is that what you were trying to show us

Loads fine for me. Although it was loading slow 10 minutes ago or so.

Someone posted a screenshot of Enslaved, looked it up, and hey, I really digging the look! Great looking game.

Oh, look! Yoyogames was hacked by a Karoshi!

http://www.yoyogames.com/

Exactly. 50% for a full rework seems okay - although, as I said, I've seen parties take less - but that's not the case here.
And then there's the exclusivity. Of course, you can pull out your game at any time, but that means losing one platform again.
   

In an earlier post, I talked about how another guy Mr. Chubigans (VertigoGaming) is selling his game himself on the pc, while he published it on the PSP with YYG's.

Certainly, this may just be a one-off, while YYG's are setting up, but it's worth while talking to them about.

Once you've talked to them, and seen their best offer, sure, come back and talk about a bad deal you were offered.

And as for all those who still repeatedly keep bringing up that 'YYG's didn't give a dam about decompilers before..' this is after, I had clearly linked to 2 previous glog posts, where they asked people to not use the decompiler to steal. This is well before any GM4Mac, iOS, or PSP port. Certainly, the posts were not as 'harsh sounding' but then, they didn't have an obligation to protect people whom they had published.

In this current instance, they are clearly not only protecting their work, but the work of the people who published with them. This is not only their right, but I expect them to protect the work of those who publish with them.

How is that stupid?

I meant Desert Dog.

He was just ignoring everything except for a few stupid technicalities and repeating himself, and now he's just saying, "NO U!" so I got a little annoyed.

What change in the EULA are you talking about? I think most of this stuff just applies to you if you want to release your shit on the iPhone / care about YYG being a horrible company etc.

Where did I say 'no u?'

Clearly whether it's a scam or not is a matter of opinion. I've explained how it isn't. You can agree, or disagree. I'm fine with you disagreeing, but what's with adopting the attitude that I'm being unreasonable?

The Game dev shares 50% of the revenue.
At any time that the game dev wishes he can pull out of the deal, and start selling the game himself.

There is no scam, and if there is, the 'scam' is allowing you to pull out if you feel, uh, 'scammed'.

I'm unsure what your complaining about.

I (as I think I've made clear a couple times) am super uninformed on this but from the way people have described this it sounds like YoYoGames doesn't actually have a turn-crank program capable of making an iPhone game, what they have is a process for turning a GM game into an iPhone game but there's some step in the process (like signing?) which is "manual". So when you pay them to "publish" they're loading your game into a prepped XCode project by hand or something and then signing it with their own distribution key, because that's the only process they have for running on iPhone.

Is there anything known to contradict this theory?

If you mean, do they have a make-iphone-game out of GM game button, then no, they don't. To the best of my knowledge, or at least, definitely at this stage, a considerable about of effort is put into getting it working. Not just on iphone, but the other idevices, android, etc.


Look, there's a lot of griping going on in this thread. And I'm fine with that, but most of the gripes seem unfounded. If you have a gripe, go talk to yoyogames! Send 'em an email! Ask them questions.

Complain once you know the situation better. They are still in the 'setting up' stage, after all.

Well so far, the best game maker killer is  ...game maker.
The program is good, it just has these two flaws:
-decompilers

score_under wrote a decent decompiler
http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=422511&st=0

Which will stop someone who's running around with a decompiler program. Technically.

-yoyogames' ios scam

There is no ios scam.

I guess that explains why GM isn't dead.

@Paul: Here's to more GM updates more frequently!  

[observation]
It's my understanding YYG's have been pretty cash strapped, until finally about the time GM8 &GM4Mac were released, and then they got a decent cash grant from the Scottish government, there has been quite a flurry of activity, hiring programmers, etc, and quite a bit has been done, with the iphone, PSP, and Android ports happening in pretty rapid succession. So hopefully we're gonna see a bunch of great GM updates, since they seem to have a bit more 
[/observation]

The problem is the decompiler wasn't being used to pirate, it was just being used to get around using YYG as a "publisher." And it was a shitty cease and desist, even if they were pirating.

So an iOS decompiler wasn't being used to decompiler iOS games.
Even if that was true, do you really think that it would stay that way, and no one would bother pirating?

And maybe they should have used 'shitty' or 'fuck' a bit in their cease&desist.. would that have made it, uh, 'less shitty'?  

The "ONE platform" was not my main point there, and I didn't even bring up the exclusivity thing, so I'm not going to bother addressing your arguments in that area.

Just to make it clear, your real issue with YYG's is their cease&desist notice, is that correct?

[It’s been brought to our attention recently that some individuals have created what they openly refer to as a “Decompiler” specifically for the games we’ve been publishing on iTunes.]

Yes, but when one supplier offers an entirely different model for ONE platform just to cash in on any runaway iphone hits, and fails to deliver on multiple other platforms because there's no way to rip anyone off on them... that's fucking stupid.

quote 'most of their currently released games' are going to having Android ports worked on, and several have iPad versions released, too. So yeah, there promising another platform.

As I said before, but you seem to be ignoring it... someone IS selling their game themselves on the PC *platform* while it's getting published to *another* platform(PSP) by YYG's.
This one is the biggie, since it's the exclusivity that worries people.
This one really requires you to talk to YYG's, instead of shouting on some thread about how terrible you think there deal is.

And I can totally understand that you can not like the deal. So talk to them, let them know what you want, and see if you can't arrange something.

And I don't see why issueing a C&D to people who were building a decompiler which is used to steal their games is a problem. And don't bring up the 'they were building their own iOS compiler' because YYG's never even mentioned that. They wanted the decompiler gone, away from their games. Their actual words:
"It’s been brought to our attention recently that some individuals have created what they openly refer to as a “Decompiler” specifically for the games we’ve been publishing on iTunes."

I don't know about you, but I think it's perfectly fair to protect one's games.

OH WELL YOU CAN JUST USE SOMETHING ELSE is a shitty argument, although I'm sure many GM users are considering this now.

GM hasn't changed at all. I'm not sure why GM users would suddenly want to use something else all of a sudden, in fact, all that's happened is the potential platforms of release have increased.

Sure, it's great for getting 'younger kids' games out there, but I think YYG is making both a creative and business mistake in targeting their approach towards children.

So far, all who have been published have been over 18 (older than you mate?). At least one of these people has been an indie dev for years, and has published several indie shareware titles, one of which is now ported to the PSP curtisy of YYG's.

And shovelware dump is just rude.   

That looks really cool! Loving the look you have going. 

@desertdog - i didn't say the contract says that they own your game. i said that they gain the exclusive right to sell it: you no longer have the ability to sell the game yourself for any other platform if they are selling it for iphone. that's the biggest and most important problem with the contract. even if the share was 90-10 towards the developer it'd still be a ridiculous thing to ask and something no intelligent adult who makes games would ever agree to.

I was harking back to your earlier post in the topic where you simply refered to it as just giving the rights to YYG's(since that was where you said to look for the explanation of why it was a bad deal), although I'll accept that your intent was towards the exclusive sale bit.

I already showed by example before that Yoyogames are clearly flexible to negotiations, as Mr. Chubigans is still selling his game on PC himself, while it's getting ported to other platforms.

That is a huge part of the deal, and what would make it bad, it's worthwhile contacting them, and talking.. not simply writing them off because their current deal seems to be aimed more at the hobbiest GM user.

@Blademasterbobo: I guess that sounds about right. I'm not saying I wouldn't want 'all the apples' but I want apples in mexico, and the only way to do that is via AppleMaker... and since they recognised that I wanted apples in mexico, and actually went to the trouble of making that possible. (such a pain that the mexican government is taking 30% of our apples!)

I don't think that's unfair, the real deal breaker is the exclusivity, or as it's currently written&perceived, and the only real way to find out how flexible YYG's is with allowing you to continue to sell your own game yourself on pc/mac is by contacting them.

Stupid, they are only limiting release on one platform. It's a shitty thing to do. I think I'm gonna take the side of the people who want to avoid the stupid royalty fee. Also, I seriously doubt that Yoyo would be ok with someone making an iPhone thing from scratch. They never seemed to give a shit about decompilers until now.

My games wouldn't be on iphone, otherwise. So I'm looking at it with glasses for sure. I don't know objective-C, or whatever, and there are lots of GM dev's like this. YYG's is capitalising on this, for sure, but they didn't do it for free.

Of course, I expect people to want it for free, and without fee's. It's the old want what someone else has. A year ago, there was no way to get GM on any other platform except PC (and maybe Mac.. I forget when GM4mac was released) and people were clammering for all sorts of ports, etc. Now that someone worked on that, they want it for free.

It's a bit like a town all wanting apples, so someone plants an apple orchard. When the apples are ready, everyone wants to eat apples for free... it costs the guy nothing now, (the work is done) and it really isn't fair to ask for money for them.. he can't possibly eat them all himself, so it's a waste if we don't eat them!!
Is that an un-likely comparison?

And YYG's definitely kicked up a bit of a stink about decompilers years ago. I did a quick search, and they refer to it here:
first:
http://glog.yoyogames.com/?p=140
second:
http://glog.yoyogames.com/?p=141

certainly not as big as bold as this latest message.. but the warnings are there.

So you have been misinformed.

It is not publishing work. They aren't spending money on marketing. They aren't funding your game. These aren't tools that are otherwise unavailable. They're literally Doing Nothing.

Well marketing, are they or will they. Yes, no, maybe. Too early to tell, get ready in a year or so's time to tell me I told you so. :p I hope you won't be able to!!

(snip)

Time and money? What? They're fucking iPhone games, there is no publishing cost aside from the $90 a year to put shit in the appstore. Whatever they made to run shit on the iPhone is not "publishing"; would you give them the rights to your game if they did nothing but allow you sell it on Windows or OS X? Bullshit. Allowing you to compile to a certain platform is not publishing. 50% for what they're doing (nothing) is a huge amount. And the other problem you failed to mention was their "cease and desist," which was completely fucking stupid, even if you ignore the things I just outlined.

Sorry, I guess I was speaking from my 'own' personal experience with them, so scratch the time&money bit, as there isn't anything official in it.. I'll merely mention that YYG's have been very helpful to me&my game.

And 50% for nothing isn't exactly correct.... but certainly, time will tell whether they are earning their 50%. So far, I'm satisfied.

If you don't think they are a good partner, then use your right to pull out of the deal.

As I mentioned above, we certainly see a case where a GM user is selling his game himself, while also getting published on other platforms by YYG's.

And what was your problem with the cease&desist?
A general GM decompiler is a heck of a lot different from a decompiler made for YYG's iphone apps.

More specifically, the sole purpose of the iOS decompiler is to... decompile, and mess with games published via YYG's. That means games published by GM users. It isn't anything about recover source code of lost projects, just stealing,( and damaging, if it's released elsewhere for free) someone else's property.

The decompiler creators claimed that they were merely trying to create their own iOS compiler.. i.e. steal YYG's work, so they don't have to publish through them.

Crying because YYG's asked them to stop trying to damage their published games, and trying to steal their work doesn't garner any sympaphy with me.

If it seems I'm painting them with gold&silver letters, and what a wonderful company they are, and such a fantastic deal, then no, I'm not. I can well understand another's displeasure with having to jump through a 'company/publisher' hoop, who 'nabs' 50% of profits for themselves.
To me, they're working for that 50%, and I like what they are doing, and I personally think it's a great opportunity to get published onto the iphone.

Also, could you ease up on the expletives? Thanks.

We WILL NEVER OWN YOUR GAME. The copyright (IP) for the game itself remains yours at all times. We DO ask that you don’t sell the same game elsewhere or to anyone else at the same time that we are selling it. This is what we refer to as EXCLUSIVITY.

You can ask that we stop selling it if you want to do something else with your game.

This certainly seems to imply to me that once they are not selling the game, you can 'do something else with your game' including sell it elsewhere.

I flicked through this topic, and read every post you made. Your gripes where
1: we can't publish without giving YYG's the rights to your game [partially correct/incorrect. They get the exclusive selling rights, but the original IP is yours. Selling rights is much different from full rights, correct?]

2: They get 50% of profits [You had ID distributed on sites such as reflexive.. how much did they take? 40%?
I can understand one disliking publishers, and the cut they take, but that doesn't make it a bad thing, just an undesirable thing, and I can understand you not liking that.

3:"because you aren't allowed to sell it or give it away for free on pc if you have yoyo sell it on iphone" Correct, by the contract, but arguably incorrect. I have a feeling YYG's will be very flexible with negations this way..certainly, they are flexible with me, and are happy (at least for now) with me continuing to distribute Prison Ball as freeware on the PC, as their other games are continuing to be distributed.

Another indicator of their flexibility would be Mr. Chubigans, who is selling his game GreenTechPLUS on his website:
http://vertigogaming.net/store.php

But also selling it with YYG's on the PSP network:
http://glog.yoyogames.com/?p=2290

For the record, every game that is published so far by Yoyogames is by people who are over 18, by my knowledge. Nal, Rhys Andrews, Mr. Chubigans,  Chad Chisholm, and myself.

I really think playing the 'exploiting kids' card is slinging mud, because it's something that can be thrown.

maybe i'm mistaken about it, though i do personally know someone who is 16 who is going through the process to get their iphone game published by yoyo, so even if it's the case that all of them are over 18 now that won't be the case for much longer. and when and if it's not the case, it'll still be exploiting children who are too young and stupid (their brains literally haven't finished developing) to realize that yoyo's terms are taking advantage of them.

Hey, good news for the poor kids who are being exploited. When they wake up, and realise they are being exploited, Yoyogames have an extremely generous clause in their contract which allows you to ask Yoyogames to stop selling your game, so you can do whatever else you want to do... generous, because Yoyogames is going to some expense with money&time to publish these games.

I'll ask again, I'm interested in hearing how you think this is a bad deal.

also, yoyo games is arguably exploiting children, because most of the games they've released for iphone seem to be made by people who aren't 18 yet (yoyo just asks that you get your parents' permission), often people who are 12, because it's only really the younger people who are foolish enough not to realize that yoyo's deal is a truly terrible deal.

I'll be honest, this was actually my suggestion. I was reading their T&C, and they were asking for any feedback... I pointed out that I know lots of very talented GM dev's who are under 18 who would love to get published, and suggested they make it clear you'll have to get permission if your under when signing these things.

For the record, every game that is published so far by Yoyogames is by people who are over 18, by my knowledge. Nal, Rhys Andrews, Mr. Chubigans,  Chad Chisholm, and myself.
I really think playing the 'exploiting kids' card is slinging mud, because it's something that can be thrown.

I understand that people can disagree with their decisions, and dislike the direction that they're heading. But there is no need to bring up a lot of untrue insinuations.

 I don't know where you got that 12 year old number from, and I'm sure a 12 year old sounds very innocent, and how terrible YYG's is for exploiting them.. but that is simply not true at all, and I'm a little disappointed to see you write it. I'd rather read about 'why' you think it's a terrible deal, rather than hear about the nonexistent underaged children being exploited.

Don't get me wrong, I have immense respect for you, but unhappy about that post.

On a side note, I think some people mentioned in this topic about Flashpunk being sweet? It totally is, I can't say I like flash, but I love GM, and Flashpunk is like a Flash/GM combo.  

@theowitter Stop reading this, go make a game!

Best advice I've seen. I shouldn't be lurking on forums either. I need to get to work! 

Ditto. I'm off now.

G'day mate!

Scrolling is a little insensitive, at least for me. I have to shove the mouse way up, or way to the side to scroll the view.

First episode of chapter 1 wouldn't play.. said something about it had to be played on some site. So I just went to chapter 2, fight 1. Works well (except for the scrolling) good fun.

Fight 2 was harder, had to keep grouped together, and try pick of single ships. It's simple strategy, but good.

Fight 3 is looking to be tough. After 3 guys, figured out you can group select all your ships, and target individual enemies, to blow 'em up faster. Once I knew that, won it well enough.

Fight 4 was a big one, lots of ships, so looking forward to it. As I'm busy trying to select my ships, my mouse goes outside the window, and clicks on platform explorer, which then promtly loads. That sucks! :p

Otherwise, I smashed 'em.

Fight 5 was too tough. Lost a few times. I'll probably come back to try it again.

Again, no. We're kindly giving our game away to the public. Hundreds and thousands of man hours have already gone into it and we aren't asking anything for the final project. So the choice is up to you, donate or not, complain about it or not, but it only shows your worst side when you're complaining about developers who spend an uncountable amount of their free time to ultimately give their game to the community for free out of simple passion for making games.

Now, that's an entirely different story.  Should have said that right in the first post.. asking people to contribute to getting quality art for a freeware game that everyone can enjoy is a heck of a lot different from asking for funds for a commercial project which will profit you directly. [Again, not that I think that is necessarily a bad thing]

I presume you were addressing other people in general, because I wasn't complaining, merely interested in your sitatuation. I, too, as well as most of the people here, are dev's who spend 'uncountable' amounts of time working on games, often of which are released for free.

Best of luck with your game,
~DD