BuildABox? Unity 3D? Marketplace Templates.

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#21

This is exactly what I was talking about. As a beginner how am I supposed to know that the link has moved to somewhere else? And to where? Why not just update those pages - most of them are your old blog posts, so you must have access. If you ask me this is the worst option that you guys have chosen.

And I can tell you I hit A LOT of them. My first week in corona I spent more time on web.archive.com (looking at the exact pages you seem to be trying to remove - and learning from them) then on your own site. I just don’t see the point. Update the pages - put a notice on the top that this is for an older version or a link to the actual new page. At least it gives people a way forward.

Another bad one is: https://coronalabs.com/blog/2014/09/09/tutorial-working-with-curved-paths/ - this teases me with some explanation and an example program, but the example program links are not valid any more…

Corona blog links
#22

It seems this topic has been hi-jacked and is now about broken links

#23

Oops sorry @anaqim. You’re absolutely right, it should be it’s own topic. There was a reason I brought it up initially but the topic should get back on track…

[EDIT] Moved the links discussion to https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/72970-corona-blog-links/

#24

No worries mate  :slight_smile:

#25

Sorry for hijacking the thread!

Back to the topic, does it really increase awareness @Rob? Do you have some positive numbers at hand that this approach is worth it?

By the way, I’m mostly talking about templates for other development platforms. I’m fine with any graphics and music assets on the Marketplace.

#26

My vote is for Corona only templates or assets that can actually be used in Corona.
I also kind of agree about mmihajlovic statements about marketing. I saw two new video tutorials on YouTube recently, but that’s about it.
Ed is doing a helluva job and has been amazing on CoronaGeek, but you have to already BE a corona dev to discover him, I guess. For beginners Jay has some great tutorials and he has a good way of explaining things. Corona should hire him for some new tuts.
Also, I would love to check more apps that were made with Corona and from you all. I know there’s Corona stories and a forum post about this, but I think a nice page Made with Corona with app icons layed out would be more helpful. Also perhaps a YouTube channel with all video previews in one place. It would all make a better way to seduce a newbie and create somewhat a more connected environment.

#27

Yes.  This is intentional.  At first I thought it was weird, but now I see there is a sort of genius to it.

As I understand it, the idea is to get cross-pollination.  This way people looking for BuildBox, etc. content can find Corona and see what we have here.

This means folks like myself (and others who make templates) need to get more and better looking templates in our store so folks coming for BB can be enticed by the Corona content instead.

#28

Oh. Man. Luckily tomorrow is payday. I have to buy all the “non-polished” template I want before they get polished and cost more than I can afford. :slight_smile:

#29

Hmm I havent seen that until now and im at the its weird part

Seems more like cross-polution to me  :rolleyes:

#30

When an artist uploads artwork or a sound engineer provides an audio pack, those assets can be used in many different platforms. Limiting those items to only Corona developers could mean missing a bunch of sales. Offering templates for other platforms helps make our marketplace more attractive to a wider audience and as @roaminggamer said above, there is a component of this to increase awareness of Corona to a wider group of developers.

This is a good thing.

Rob

#31

I have to admit i have never used a template, but it is my understanding these are full games with code, emphazinig the code and not neccessarily graphics or audio, which is easily and expected to be replaced.

If this is not true then i stand corrected, orherwise i fail to se how i, a corona user and coder, could have any use for a template written in a different code and/or for a different system, hence my strictly subjective comment about polluting the marketplace.

What am i missing? (as a corona user)

#32

I buy templates all the time for the same reason you mention. For the games I make, I can either spend a day or two ( or weeks of mucking around) trying to figure out the mechanics or buy something for up to $25 dollars and have it done for me. Then I have all this extra time to make it my own. Like that Sudoku template for under $10 bucks that I’ll buy tomorrow and maybe have a game up by Monday.

The only way this marketplace having a host of random templates works is if they see it as its own business outside of Corona (and there is nothing wrong with that). In that case and if it catches ion, it will become something like ChupaMobile or gamegorillaz where most of the templates are not Corona.

#33

I couldn’t agree more with you.  I fail to see how a unity or buildbox game template adds anything to the Corona developer?

Let’s take one example https://marketplace.coronalabs.com/app-templates/drop-block-buildbox-template  this is a free template if you own buildbox.

let’s take another one https://marketplace.coronalabs.com/app-templates/blocky-traffic-support-unity-2017-3 wanna use this template then go install unity

@Rob  I have to strongly disagree…  let’s cut out the crap here shall we… we are not talking about sound or graphical assets. To use the template the user has to install buildbox or unity and therefore this is a lost Corona customer!

Seemingly promoting your competitors for a few $ has value?  Way to go to make us core devs feel valued!

Oh yeah… lets promote Corona by hosting game templates for other competing platforms… like wtf?

I am sure unity/build box are just laughing at this…

#34

I agree… Corona has a tough enough time getting the word out and competing with other 2D engines.  This feels wrong, and (imo) makes it harder to praise the virtues of this engine when the store sells assets you can’t even use with the core product.

In addition to using Corona, I also have been using Unity for quite awhile, and until this post, I kept these 2 worlds separate.  I would never of considered coming here for assets, support, or discussion that wasn’t Corona related.  If I wanted a Unity asset, I would go to the Unity asset store/forums/git.

#35

This is a great discussion.  I can see both sides of this and I’m not sure where I fall.

I want this to be a good thing, but like you guys parts of it bother me.

I hope more folks chime in with their thoughts.  A healthy discussion about a core feature of the site is a great thing for us to discuss as a community.

#36

So surely the artist then uploads the assets to the other asset stores/marketplaces.  I can’t see any real advantage to anyone other than the other companies by having templates for their product here.

I’ve bought a few templates for Corona but I would never think of going to the Unity store to look for one.  I wouldn’t even google, I’d come straight to the Corona Marketplace.

#37

It would be more useful if there were comparable templates in lua/corona as well then you could use the templates to “compare” or learn how to “move” to corona from the other framework/library/game engine. Basically have the template with a corona and a unity\buildbox\etc… project in one that uses the same assets.

As is it just seems strange to me.

Being quite new to corona I can tell you the marketing need to improve, so if this is what they are trying to do I understand, but they should be promoting their own product over others, not the other way around. As it is searching around it seems corona was popular in 2011 and 2014 and everything in between kinda seems like a black hole of nothingness.

If marketing is the problem there are other things that need to be improved: Corona university/geek needs to be re-instated - I learned a lot from those videos but seeing that everything is old (pre 2018) kinda put’s me off and also they made a huge mistake if you ask me deleting a bunch of old blog posts and examples - since searching on google for things very often leads to broken links or irritatingly so-close-but-yet-so-far searches (I see in google results there is an exact response to something I search but I go to the link and it’s been removed - and this from corona official blog/tutorial links)

#38

I also don’t see the value in this for Corona. I understand the sound / graphic assets but I don’t get why anyone can select the platform as any of the competitors. Like @schizoid2k said above, if anyone wants to have templates for those specific engines / frameworks, they won’t come looking for that in the Corona Marketplace. Every single one of them have their own communities and asset stores. Just like we don’t go searching for Corona templates in Unity’s own store, they won’t come looking for one in the Corona Marketplace. Again, I don’t see the PR value in this for Corona but I hope that the team is following the traffic closely to see if it works like the way they intended.

I need to back @mmihajlovic up about the broken links subject. That’s pretty annoying even for seasoned Corona developers like myself. Corona should at least direct those requests to a more recent page when the “broken link” is outdated or something else. Noone should face a 404 page when they thought they found the solution to a problem. That’s just bad practice.

#39

What URL is 404’ing?

Thanks

Rob

#40

@rob I have only seen one. this one under services goes nowhere:

https://marketplace.coronalabs.com/service/arienggo

Corona blog links