It is a shame that Corona Labs pumps out half baked API and moves on to spending its time on greener pastures while we are left waiting…
Sure @ksan, there is the point, and free market would adjust. But what would be the point? And when that happens, what would you do with your active Corona apps?
I really don’t think that giving a monopoly for 1 company to create plugin is the best way to go…
I would rather have the community paying for the development of a plugin (or extra functionality) that then would become available for everyone.
I think we are getting ahead of ourselves. Who says there is a monopoly? I didn’t see anywhere in writing that only Gremlin can pump out 3rd party plugins. Did I miss the obvious? Where there is demand there will be supply. I applaud those who invest their time not knowing what the payback is likely to be. I hope others will step into the ring as well.
Well, if only 1 company can sell, is by definition a monopoly. You don’t need to have it in writing. Until we have a marketplace, we will never have a fair market.
There is a difference between being first to reach a market vs being a monopoly holder. I doubt Gremlin is given such a powerful (and illegal in many states/countries) position. If another developer offers plugins with similar support commitment and if Corona Labs refuses to put these plugins on the build servers then I’d like to hear about that because it would then mean you are right and that we have a problem. Lets hope a second company/person comes up with other plugins soon to test the waters.
Ok. So i would like to be given a chance to speak before my head is put on a stake 
- Pricing: Personally i do not think they are overpriced. Have you looked at the unity marketplace for instance? Not everything is free their marketplace either. Some of the plugins there can run you $200 +. We need to make a living after-all.
We have added a “2 app” license tier today to allow people who may not have the need to use it in 5/10 apps, to be able to buy it at a reduced price.
We would love nothing better than to give everyone third party plugins for free. But it isn’t possible because this is our day job. We do not have any other source of income at the present time. Is it a crime to try and make a living to support your family these days?
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Licensing: Maybe you are all right that yearly + app limit is a little much. Based on your feedback, we have removed the yearly license restriction. The app limit still applies, but we are no longer setting a license expiry. We realise that we over-did it a bit and have made the change, effective immediately. Thanks for the feedback on this.
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Any developer wishing to sell their plugin/s can do so via our store, providing they meet certain criteria. So neither we nor Corona are barring anyone else from selling their plugins.
If any developer wants to know more, please contact us at: info [at] gremlininteractive [dot] com
- Summary: we made these plugins to give you unprecedented functionality in your apps. We love the corona community and want to see it grow and extend. It is unfair to expect corona to make plugins and extensions for every x service out there, and if the service provider themselves does not make a corona plugin, then thats were developers like us can help you out.
I know only a couple of people said they should be free but I honestly do not see that happening, not now not from anyone. An official corona plugin market-place would not give you that either. It shocks me that a fellow developer would say they should be free. So should all of your apps be free with no ads or anything that will make you money? Should you work for all clients for free and make apps for them for free?
You wouldn’t/couldn’t do that right? Exactly. We are not in that luxurious position either 
Anyway, feel free to keep giving us feedback. We want this to work for everyone, so lets not judge too quickly.
That is incorrect. Apple allow apps to use PayPal. You are allowed to use PayPal in apps for physical goods or services, you just can’t use it to unlock in-app content.
You also need this SDK in order to allow users to login via PayPal. You can also use it in conjunction with the rest based api’s to extend the functionality further.
Good morning. Wow, what a lot of feedback this morning!
I want to clarify that Gremlin’s plugin marketplace is not a monopoly, but rather an umbrella; the Kiip plugin is an initiative of myself, Ladeez First Media, and I developed it with the help of Danny because I think it is a useful plugin to have, one that I intend to use. Since I have an enterprise license due to my work on Roomalyzr, I decided to write a useful plugin and Danny was kind and entrepreneurial enough to build this marketplace tool so that we can monetize our efforts and provide a service to the Corona community. Please be aware that there are real people that are behind the marketplace and that we are listening. We are happy to take feedback and I am sure will make changes due to pushback or valid concerns, but pillorying developers in the forums is not kind. I hate to paraphrase Mitt Romney but companies are people, too!
If you are an enterprise developer and would like to build a quality plugin, please contact Danny for consideration of your product for inclusion. I think we are all trying to make a living, or at least monetize to some extent our work, so creating products for sale surely can’t be an inherently bad thing. Please do continue to give us your constructive feedback. This is a new and novel initiative and we want to make it work.
best,
Jen
$200/year is extremely rare for a Unity plugin. Unity is 10x larger community than Corona and has like 15x the amount of live games. You can also publish to 10 platforms instead of 3. So there is some expectation for their plugins to be more expensive.
But they are not. Let’s take some really popular plugins, like Admob, Flurry, Parse, In App Purchasing, AAA Audio System.
Admob is free from Google, but could be implemented better, so most people use a third party solution, the two best are $56 one-time for unlimited apps and $95 one-time unlimited apps.
Flurry is $100 for both platforms, one-time, unlimited apps.
Parse is free, directly from Parse and is the best option out there.
Master Audio is $25 and considered the best Audio system for Unity.
In App Purchasing varies dramatically, from $25 to $160. I purchased the $160 one as it is the best solution out there.
All these are one-time and unlimited apps.
That being said, Corona’s market is much smaller than Unity’s, so there may be a need to charge more to make up for that. But $200/y is not the norm with Unity, I don’t even know of a Unity asset that is yearly, and less than 0.1% of Assets are $200. Most are under $100 and even $50.
Thanks for the information. I appreciate the detail.
The only thing that put us off the “unlimited” apps idea was that it would require a higher price to be viable for us. We thought it was better to offer tiers, so people who only need to use it in a few apps can pay less… and those who need more can pay more.
As always, if someone lays out plans for a system which everyone believes is fair, in terms of both licensing and price… then we are all ears
At the end of the day, just like Jen said… we want this to work. We are not looking to “rob” anyone. We just need to make ends meet, thats all.
Also this is a marketplace. Just one that needs more content. Like if you go into a shop and it’s only selling one item… is it then not classified as a shop?
We are working with others already to get their plugins into the store, so it will fill out. Just takes a little while.
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Unity is 10x larger community than Corona and has like 15x the amount of live games. You can also publish to 10 platforms instead of 3. So there is some expectation for their plugins to be more expensive.
An expectation that doesn’t make any sense. The smaller the market, the more things have to cost in order for vendors to stay in business. If I have a possible pool of 250,000 buyers, my pricing will probably be different than where I have a possible pool of 2,500,000 buyers.
CL is making a move that has the potential to increase the pool of Corona users (Composer GUI) but I think we’re still a ways from tool vendors being able to make a decent living in the Corona world while dropping prices to Unity levels.
Jay
That’s why at the end of my post I mentioned I understood a smaller market had to charge more but it was mentioned unity plugins cost $200/yr which is far from accurate.
Thats why i said “some” I was not trying to say that they all were that high. Naturally.
Yeah, I saw that, but if that was your summary then why put the first part at all? Just to cause trouble? Want to take it outside*, buddy?
Nobody said that generally Unity plugins cost $200/yr. “Some of the plugins there can run you $200+ a year.” The point was, there are varied prices and they often depend on the rarity and usefulness of the plugin.
Jay
* I’m old and fat; I don’t want to take it outside.
@Jay: Exactly my thoughts.
This is just the beginning. But it would really help if everyone could create their own plugins and sell them through third-party vendors - just like it has been done by TandG-Apps, roaminggamer, etc…
CoronaLabs do not even have to host their own marketplace - they just “have” to give us the tools to create these plugins so we can create awesome third party content for everyone. (only limited to the Corona SDK subscription)
Just my opinion on this.
So to summarize, my understanding is…
Danny & Jen are pioneers who braved the unknown and invested their time and energy not knowing the ROI they would get. For this true entrepreneurial spirit they should be applauded.
Could have, should have, would have… If you can do any better and sell for any cheaper please do. I will be the first to applaud you as well.
There is no monopoly that I can see. Just a team that seems to have gotten to the finish line first. Others will reach there no doubt in due course and thats wonderful.
In the meanwhile, it appears that Danny (aka Gremlin) is willing to host others plugins on the marketplace he has created. This is great too. If you have the chops to write a plugin but don’t want to be bothered with hosting a licensing server and running all the shopping cart stuff then here’s an outlet for you till other marketplaces emerge. What’s wrong with that?
Overall, I truly think this is an amazing development and I do want to take another moment to thank Danny and Jen for what they did here and for Corona Labs allowing this exciting development to occur. Bravo!
Lets all remember the Crab Bucket and Tall Poppy Syndrome and try to do/be a little better than that. We need to support these amazing developments and the people behind them.
Before pro becomes the new starter edition (which it is looking like it is becoming) they should allow Pro users to use plugins developed with Enterprise. Unity does, you can buy on or off the marketplace.
@Gremlin name one plugin outside of substance DB that is $200/yr for Unity. In fact it’s hard to find a single plugin for unity that isn’t one-time.
@jay I was addressing the unity plugins for $200/yr comment first. There is arguments for and against smaller system like Corona costing more. On one hand the smaller market justifies higher cost but on the other hand smaller feature set doesn’t. If you were selling a plugin for MS works it likely wouldn’t sell as high as a plugin for MS Office even though the market is smaller. But I understand the logic and in some situations a smaller niche requires higher prices.
But a few plugins at that price with Corona cost puts you at Unity pricing.
One other thing that bothers me with the way this has to be done due to the lack of market place and per app pricing is having call home functionality in the plugin that ends up in my production apps. I do not like that at all. It’s one more thing to break and one more set of network io.
Before pro becomes the new starter edition (which it is looking like it is becoming)
You’ve said that a couple times – but I’m not sure what you mean by that. Current Pro version will become free? Starter/free will go away and Pro/paid will be the new entry point?
Jay
Pro is going to deteriorate value to Enterprise as Corona seems to be making moves to push people to it. But the average Corona user doesn’t want to code native for two platforms. Pro price increase already funded the free version so Corona can get a larger user base for VC attention without giving the promised pro features (marketplace and exclusivity of plugins; most plugins work with free now).
I got mixed up with a plugin that was $100 per year. There are quite a few plugins that are $150>300+ on there though. However you are correct, they are one time fees. So my mistake.
You will see in my original post that we have dropped the yearly licensing requirement anyway, as the community was spot on with that. So I guess this debate is pointless now anyway
I will edit my post to remove the “yearly” part of my unity statement.