Hi Roj,
Hi Roj,
Short question. When you say “add as a paid feature” are you considering new functionality or are you considering exisiting functionality as well?
/Joakim
Joakim - new functionality specifically
I have some questions:
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If i continue to use builds older than 2016.3005, does it mean i can continue to build with Admob V2 plugin? Or is there a cut-off date too for continuing to use this plugin too
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Please give more details about the new Admob plugin. Which Google Mobile Ads SDK version is supported for both iOS and Android.
Ben.
First of all, I am happy to see that there is now a flat fee.
That said you are still taking 5% from applovin. Why can’t you add Applovin to the bundle too? I would be happy to pay a bit extra for the bundle if it comes with applovin. If someone is making 100k+ from applovin he is still paying you 5k per year to use a plugin. This is not acceptable. Flat fee option should be available for all of the networks.
I built and updated my apps recently with build 3007 before this was announced. Whats going to happen to my apps now? Will Admob v2 still work normally?
How does this affect the corona enterprise plugins?
Finally, I have very recently bought Corona Enterprise (one reason was getting the custom splash screens). Can I get some credit towards the purchase of the bundle? Can enterprise users get discounts?
Hoping for the best.
Re: AdMob V2 plugin.
How long will we be able to build with this and what is the current revenue share for it? I can’t recall if it is 5%, 0% or something else.
Thanks.
I totally agree with you. You guys are totally forgetting about international devs. I’m from Mexico and I also make apps for the local market, this means that only Admob can deliver a good amount of ads for my market. Also, admob is the only one that has local banks withdrawal so if I use the other plugins I will have to use PayPal, which will get a 5.5% cut and a awful exchange rate.
I do understand you have to make money, but putting us in a corner like that is a horrible situation. We don’t want everything free, it’s just that the price is way way over the top. Just to give you an idea of how it is for us in Mexico, the $495 fee is more than 2 months of rent. It seems you are trying to get the most of something you are giving up on.
I have about 30 apps that make such a little income each one, and now I have to update all of those (which is a big cost, time is money). Do you understand how much time and money you guys are forcing us to spend? this is not the way to go, there must be better ways.
Adding this to the $99 plan would make almost every developer to upgrade but you guys are instead ripping out the trust we had in you as a company and platform. I’ve tried many times to work with Unity but ended up going back to Corona (for about 3 years) because I love the way it works and how easily I can share my code with my partner, but now it seems the best investment is in a Udemy course for Unity.
You are giving us an untrustworthy feeling that might be hard to overcome. I was very excited about the marketplace, but with this decisions I can’t see a bright future with Corona. I hope you reconsider your plans and pricing, not all of us are getting rich at your expenses.
You all have asked some great questions. Let me try to address the ones I can.
Re: Cutoff Date - We have not set a date yet for technical reasons. We will provide a date once we have one. The take-away here should not be to wait, but to start updating apps now.
Re: What happens if I buy a single plugin to day and the bundle later? We will pro-rate the difference.
Re: DoubleClick’s Ad Exchange: I can’t say with certainty, but given that they share the exact same SDK and same demand partners that the AdMob plugin does, I don’t see the advantage of having one named differently.
Re: Enterprise users: As of now, Enterprise users would need to purchase the plugins/bundle as SDK users would, but we might consider some discount options for Enterprise users in the future.
Re: Payouts: Corona Ads will continue to payout as normal until March 31, 2017. It’s important that you update as soon as possible to another provider so that your existing app customers can have time to update their apps.
Re: Dashboard access. I’m trying to see if we can have it added back to the developer portal, but in the mean time, you can access it at https://monetize.coronalabs.com
Re: AppLovin/FAN’s 5% rev share: One of the things that has become clear is we need different models for different people. This model works for some, so for now, we will likely leave this be.
Rob
You should consider an initial 50% discount for a month at the very least, due to the short notice, not to mention the time and effort we now have to put in to update our apps. It might also help with the initial uptake of the Pro bundle. You have done various things like this in the past when there has been major changes.
I’m willing to contribute and, until now, since I don’t need native libraries, I’m not an enterprise dev.
But what’s with this professional “bundle”? (Admob is the only thing that matters)
$500 for admob? They already get a superhigh share of our ads!
I agree that you need money. The problem is recent events are making me feel insecure with my long term projects:
Selling the company twice in a ridiculously short time. Umpredictable pricing model. Coronium updates closing abruptly without post explanation. Corona ads retiring in months with so many developers envolved.
It’s getting difficult to convince partners to move here.
Corona is the platform for new comers. Game market is extremely risky, 80% of indie starters fail to profit and die. If I’d look at this prices when I was starting, I wouldn’t be here right now.
$500 for admob is just too much. And if I’m going to pay $1k, I want more features like offline builds. I also need assurance that there will not be more costs added randomly on surprise.
Exactly, the cost is way over the top. Paying $1,000 for something we already had a few months ago is crazy. I would understand if it would add other features but no, it is like if Netflix sent you an email telling you that if you want to continue watching the same series you were watching, you now have to pay 10 times the price you were paying. If this is a way to filter big developers or big companies from indie or small devs, it will definitively work.
First I would like to congratulate Corona on listening to the views of its developers, I think this is awesome.
I am a long term Corona tinkerer (used to be pro) but have yet to publish any of my content, I am looking at releasing my first game in a month (after a year of development) so I thought I would give my two cents.
At first when I saw this announcement I thought it sounded fair, Corona has responded to the concerns shared by many in the other thread and pretty much done what many people asked for (albeit at a high price point), and there are still options available for us new developers. However the more I read this thread, the stronger feeling I get that I am missing out on something by not using adMob, there seems to be some talk about using another option until you can afford adMob and then when you can make the jump to adMob. As someone did share earlier, this does seem a little bit on the nose to just start charging people for something that was previously free.
As an alternative, would it be possible to make adMob free using the 5% revenue share model up to the point Corona has received $495 as their %, at which point the 5% share is removed? Those who want to buy it outright still can, and those like myself who are small fish can still use adMob with the security of knowing I will have to recode at a later date, and new developers who want to use adMob will not be put off my the price?
Cheers,
Craig
my hobbyist thoughts:
I get a few hours a week to work on apps, and I hate having to spend it reading through blog posts and forums to figure out all of the ramifications of your frequent changes.
I just implemented CoronaAds - now I have to spend more time researching and selecting a new provider, implementing, updating the store - for me this sets me back a week, maybe two - just to get back to where I already am.
The change to CoronaAds was based on believing it was a legitimate long-term solution. Now, how can I trust anything from Corona about pricing and availability of any of your features? What if I switch to Applovin? Next month, are you going to add that to the developer bundle and make me pay to continue using it? It seems you are just as likely to take other plug-ins previously offered for free and once they become popular, start charging for their continued use.
Your attitude of ‘we have other options, just switch to one of those’ is not feasible every three months - there are costs associated with switching (time, resources, opportunity costs) for people like me.
The splash screen was something I didn’t like but don’t carry enough weight to argue about. The same is true for your ‘elite’ level pricing of features. However, what is most frustrating is that you are forcing me to make changes to what was already built and released.
Obviously, you will do what you will, and probably continue to do it without advance notification. And in three months, when you change management or ownership again, you will start another round of changes. Please, continue to make the changes as you want, but I am already discontinuing my recommendations of Corona SDK to other app developers.
I would highly consider staying with Corona for another year if the following plans are offered:
Basic Tier: USD99 per year
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Access to Admob Plugin
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No Corona Splash Screen
Professional Tier: USD499 per year
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Access to all paid plugins
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No Corona Splash Screen
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Offline Build
I believe with the above tiers, you will be getting many more subscribers. I can’t say if you will be getting overall higher revenue compared to your current plans but at least I believe you will have a stronger and bigger community to support you in making Corona a better engine.
Of course, if you guys prefer to have a smaller community consisting of mainly premium users that probably your current business model will work fine.
I believe this is not possible with Admob.
Hi @sonyayllc,
As with all comments in this thread, we value your opinions and concerns, and we listen to all of them. I know its tough to keep up with changes and recent shifts and blog posts, so I just want to clarify one point here. As stated in Roj’s post above, the idea of the Corona Professional Bundle is not to gradually rip apart more free plugins like AppLovin and suddenly make them paid-only or package them in the professional bundle. We intend to add to and enhance the bundle over time to make its value even better for serious developers, while retaining the free rev-share monetization options for hobbyists like yourself.
Best regards,
Brent
P.S. - May I inquire if you implemented Chartboost or AdColony in your live apps while they were integrated through Corona Ads?
I understand this and I agree. Have different models for different people. Its a good idea. But what you are doing here is having different ad networks for different people. You are forcing big developers to steer away from applovin since they don’t want to pay the 5%. Have different models for different people and create the option of a flat fee for applovin. Currently there is only one model for applovin/FAN.
Thank you for listening to our concerns and answering our questions.
I like the thought - but can I trust it? Will you devote resources to plug-ins that don’t bring in $50/month? Or will the elite plug-ins get all the development attention? We will see, but it certainly feels like hobbyists are being left behind and it is probably time to move on.
To answer your question:
My live app, interestingly, has CoronaAds (interstitial) implemented with AdMob (banners). I believe I saw that this is a conflict in later documentation, but it seems to be working with my app.
As I and most of the people stated before, you are losing credibility with those sudden moves. I, for one, can’t say that you won’t be making the Steamworks plugin paid at some point and say “You can still publish your games so we are still committed to Corona being free. Also, you have other options like itch.io, GameJolt etc.”
The problem here is, you are cutting out an industry standard plugin which is _ mandatory _ in many countries if you want to get the most(the only way to get highest fill rate) out of ads and making them pay something closer to the old Corona Pro subscription for just one plugin! Also, you are charging more than the Small Enterprise tier which I guess was once able to create their own AdMob, Chartboost plugins and more before you changed the Terms of Service.
It seems to me that you are bringing back the Corona Pro subscription we all knew from years ago but not being upfront about it. “Not being upfront” part is what annoyse me the most.
(For the newcomers: Corona Pro was something like this before Fuse Powered bought Corona years ago. It was around $649 dollars and developers needed to subscribe to use some of the plugins and get rid of the waiting time before taking a build.)
On the side note, how about providing a C++ / Lua support for Windows / Mac builds through Enterprise subscription? That would provide us more value with new plugins and I’m pretty sure there are some companies out there that would pay for it.
@Roj and Team,
Thanks for listening to our feedback. Truly, I respect you guys for doing that. I know you have to walk a fine line between being profitable and appealing to the various levels of devs out there. There’s the hobbyists, the mid-tier devs, enterprise level devs, freelancers making their client’s apps in Corona, devs trying to shop their games to publishers, and of course everyone else in between. It seems like with every new change you guys announce there’s always a group that doesn’t agree with the changes.
I think ad plugins should have two versions: A 5% rev-share version (if this is not possible with AdMob then perhaps through DoubleClick since they supposedly share the same inventory), and an up front yearly fee version that’s more affordable (maybe $299) where the developer gets to keep all revenue. Then of course you can have your bundle prices. The free users can stick with the rev-share and won’t have to pay anything out of pocket. The bigger users who can afford to pay upfront will do so and be happy that they can keep 100% of their revenue.
Also - I said this before in the last AdMob thread and I’ll say it again here - I still believe that there should be a truly unlimited enterprise tier that doesn’t have the monetization plugin restrictions in place. Enterprise users are already supporting Corona by paying for an Enterprise license. They are not subverting your business or getting a free ride. If you have to raise the price a bit for Enterprise to keep maintaining it then so be it, but users who pay thousands per year should have the advantage of making whatever kind of plugin they want. Moreover, Corona often lags in updating the plugins and Enterprise users should not have to wait around for you guys to catch up if you haven’t added the latest features of an ad plugin. For example, AdMob has had SDK-less mediation since Feb 2016. As far as I know the current AdMob plugin doesn’t support that, and I have no idea if the new AdMob plugin will - but please correct me if I’m wrong.
Final thoughts: I agree with others who say that these business model changes need to be less frequent and have a longer notification time. For big changes like retiring Corona Ads or charging for AdMob there should be a lead time of at least 2-3 months to give everyone a chance to prepare for the changes. Some developers have over 50 apps that need updating and that’s a huge time commitment.
This is more comfortable for general Corona developers, which I don’t think they (Corona) will consider. At least the “Offline Build” should be removed from the Professional Tier.