From The Blog: Corona Labs annual update

Getting Started Announcements
#389

For a point of historical reference, the splash screen on it’s initial release did have the “with Love” as part of the language. You, the community complained about it and it was quickly abolished (the with love part). So if you’re seeing that, you probably have a version of Corona from 2016.

If you have suggestions on SEO, please feel free to do a View Page source, look at our titles and descriptions tags and offer us better keywords that we need to include.

Just keep in mind, Google 100% ignores the <meta keywords> tag. For news sites, they can use the News Keywords tag as long as they don’t abuse it, and it’s still the next-to-last thing considered. Bing, Yahoo and a couple of other search engines only pay minor attention to meta keywords.

#390

Changing the name to “Corona 2D Game Engine” would probably help with SEO, those are probably the words people are searching that would like Corona. We’d continue to just call it ‘Corona’ commonly. Even calling it “Corona 2D” could help differentiate it from the negative connotations somewhat

#391

There is no easy answer to this conundrum.  Yeah sure 301’ing a domain is an easy win but 3rd party plugins, git repos, etc will be a pain.

@Rob what century are you in?  SEO is not about meta tags (which all get ignored by Googlebot) at best meta description is merely a hint for SERPS (and often ignored completely).  That’s as bad as promoting 320x480 as a default canvas size!

If I Google my game name, every hit on page one is my game - be this Google Play/Images, Apple, Amazon, Pinterest, FB, Insta, etc. you get the point.

SEO Is SO much more than meta tags… SMH.  Active offsite links and social media is much more important and something Corona has sucked at for so long.

(FYI this was my business prior to game dev and I already extended help on this but you guys were not overly interested… and look where we are)

#392

I respect your opinion, but you can’t improve a mechanism that doesn’t have new followers, we’ll always be in a minority and worried about the framework not dying for lack of people engaged in making it grow, even changing its name to "Corona something ", there will still be results about the virus, as this is already marked in history and has more relevance in searches than a 2D game engine, it is like trying to search Google about 2D Holocaust to look for a engine and think that it will appear earlier than the Nazi-era Holocaust.

Sorry for the example.

#393

So many good and interesting points - it’s only a matter of time before people start calling Corona the killer game engine. Sorry for the point, but we’re stuck with the association to the virus no matter what. Therefore, I would recommend changing it from “Corona” to “Corona Game Engine” or “Corona 2D Game Engine” or “Corona Open Source 2D Game Engine”. If you do this, the search engines will learn the difference between the game engine and virus over time. The sooner you make sure the word “Game” follows every instance where we use it, the sooner the search engines will learn the difference.

As for being a money thing - I wouldn’t spend a dime on it. Just clarify the rebranding with Game when referring to it in the future, as its not realistic it will ever become a favorite biz app engine.

So for clarification, don’t change the name other than adding an adjective to describe it as a 2D game engine. And certainly, keep any money you have for those of you working to kee it relevant.

May I suggest an email marketing campaign to college professors and students? I have some expertise in that area and would be happy to lend and spend to promote this new direction once you guys have it ready for launch. Of course, we’ll help any other way we can!

#394

So many good and interesting points - it’s only a matter of time before people start calling Corona the killer game engine. Sorry for the point, but we’re stuck with the association to the virus no matter what. Therefore, I would recommend changing it from “Corona” to “Corona Game Engine” or “Corona 2D Game Engine” or “Corona Open Source 2D Game Engine”. If you do this, the search engines will learn the difference between the game engine and virus over time. The sooner you make sure the word “Game” follows every instance where we use it, the sooner the search engines will learn the difference.

As for being a money thing - I wouldn’t spend a dime on it. Just clarify the rebranding with Game when referring to it in the future, as its not realistic it will ever become a favorite biz app engine.

So for clarification, don’t change the name other than adding an adjective to describe it as a 2D game engine. And certainly, keep any money you have for those of you working to kee it relevant.

May I suggest an email marketing campaign to college professors and students? I have some expertise in that area and would be happy to lend and spend to promote this new direction once you guys have it ready for launch. Of course, we’ll help any other way we can!

#395

One more thing - I’ve made over 50 video games and a few AAA. Nothing has been as easy as Corona to develop games that require dynamic placement and control of objects via code. Nothing comes close, actually.

I don’t know why the Composer UI was dropped by CoronaLabs, but I believe the smartest thing for someone to do would be to create a compiler for Adobe XD, since Adobe seems dead set on keeping it as a prototyping vehicle. There is already huge pent-up demand and frustration from Adobe XD users that it lacks a publishing element. Some others have tried but they stink. I suggest this because Adobe XD has been built with a great UI. Maybe not so much for games, but it’s an idea worth kicking around - it would undoubtably extend the life of Corona Game engine. Or then again, maybe just Corona 2.5D Engine.

#396

If Corona was as popular as Unity, re-branding would not only be unnecessary (regardless of the COVID-19 hysteria) but would also be a bad idea. For anyone who is against re-branding, let me ask this: If Corona SDK is still well known and relevant out in the world, why is Corona Labs shutting down? The simple answer is most people using Corona don’t have serious enough businesses that would compel them to pay $99 a year (let alone a month) to not have the splash screen in their apps. Vlad, Rob and all the people who were actively involved in Corona’s development in the past have done a stellar job so far forging Corona into a formidable product, but that message has obviously not been effectively relayed to the world over time. If marketing was aggressive and efficient (which would need a serious budget), we would have a bigger community that would translate to more paying developers which would further development and marketing efforts and so on (like the chicken-egg problem). It’s the same challenge we game developers face (user acquisition and retention). The reality of the situation is that our community dwindled to a size that could no longer sustain Corona Labs as a whole. Why are we still clinging on to the name Corona, especially when that branding is not being beneficial to us today? If the effort required to re-brand (especially in the documentation area) is daunting, that’s something we as a community can get together and work on.

A minor change like ‘Corona Game Engine’ can still be ambiguous to the uninitiated (is it a pandemic simulator?). If re-branding is given the green signal, I firmly believe we need to pick a unique name like Defold or Godot that cannot be confused with any other product or brand out there. The likes of @SGS can then use their experience to tweak the SEO. We could also reach out to channels like Ask Gamedev, Gamefromscratch etc. to give the SDK a fair evaluation and present it to their viewers. We don’t really have much to lose other than that it will take a bit of effort to get there.

#397

Really well said Murthy.

#398

We’ve followed this thread all the way through and it’s made for very interesting reading.

We’ve worked with several different platforms / languages over the last 10 years, but without a shadow of a doubt, for simple 2d multi-platform game development, Corona SDK is the best we’ve found (in our opinion). By a mile.

We don’t use it for everything we do, but we’ve used it a fair amount and quite simply, for certain projects, it’s absolutely perfect.

I struggle to understand why it isn’t used by more people. What’s not to like - seriously? It ticks every box for us. What is “better” for straightforward 2d multi-platform game development? If you asked me what I wanted from the product we use to create our apps, the features I gave you would be pretty much bang on what Corona offers, with a few tweaks.

As an aside - if you search for “multi platform 2d game engine” or “cross platform 2d game engine” then Corona comes up second. Remove the “2d” and it still hits the first page. Those are exactly the sorts of phrases we would use to search for what we use Corona for - multi platform 2d game development…

A massive thank you from all of us here to Rob and Vlad (and any others involved behind the scenes) for all your hard work over the years. Whatever happens with Corona (and I really hope you are able to make it successful and continue to stay involved), you created something that has enabled a lot of people to make their living from the games and apps they created in Corona and you developed a product that, in our eyes anyway, is the absolute best we’ve worked with. Well done and thank you.

#399

SAME HERE!!! Exactly what I wanted to write! :slight_smile:

And we are still believing and betting on Corona in the future! And of course will support it!

Dani (and Chris)

#400

I started using Corona in late 2010, and for at least the next couple years this place was booming and Corona was being promoted at conferences, etc. I don’t have inside information on what the numbers look like at that point, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that after Carlos died the numbers started trending down. If not before that.

Corona has been promoted and it didn’t go anywhere – – I have no clue why because it is so awesome. But anyone who thinks a name change will turn that around now, it’s probably very wrong.

The big difference between then and now is that that Corona is open source, but that’s a two-edged sword.

Why aren’t we the Godot of 2D game development? I have no clue. But it’s not like effort wasn’t put into it.

#401

I have worked with numerous people/companies across various industries and most clients rely on us developers/consultants to suggest the SDK or technology to build the product with the hope they would be given a suggestion based on low cost, quick time to market plus ease of maintenance. Corona is ideal for MVPs due to its quick turnaround times

Not all companies have a technical founder or tech person, just delivery folks and idea guys. Corona ticks all the key boxes and has always proven its worth. Everyone who I have introduced it to are very happy with the results and were amazed at cost savings compared to getting the same thing done on cocos2dx or unity2d (they saved enough and made enough that they can easily remake in a new sdk if the time comes). Main focus being 2D games and apps, including business ones. It is definitely used by alot of people and also educational institution as its fairly easy to pick up. It just needs support from the community esp those studios which are doing well using it. Most of my clients are/were on self hosted / priority support as I asked them to

Developers tend to jump to the most popular SDK in hopes of finding work which is perfectly fine but what Corona offers for 2d game dev, I have not seen in any other SDK and I tried a fair few, including unity2d over the past 2 years, once rumours started flying. 

We just need to continue supporting it as a community, promote it as best as can, and as someone suggested bounties, paid support plus revenue share based plugins all will help out in addition to core projects people do as freelancers or as studios. It offers everything you can possibly need for 2d games and the extensibility is super easy to 3rd party libs, a fairly complete package.

#402

@J. A. Whye

Neither am I saying that re-branding will suddenly change Corona’s fortunes, nor that effort wasn’t put into promotion in the past.

Take a look at this intro page for Unity 2D. First, they sprinkle the whole ‘50% of all mobile games are made with it’ dust on you. Then they give you a ready-made 2D platformer kit to tinker with. Followed by the claim that you can create a 2D RPG in less than an hour! Then they introduce you to 2D gameplay mechanics and tools. And finally, they hook you up with streamlined tutorials from developer channels like Thomas Brush and Brackeys (just in case you’re feeling overwhelmed). At this point, you (a person considering 2D game development) will at least be willing to give Unity 2D a try. THAT is the tipping point; Just like we game developers jump through hoops to get that dreaded install. The Unity 2D page never talks about features or performance, just the ease of creating 2D games (and even splashes some eye-catching artwork in there). It doesn’t just try to target serious game developers, but also everyone even remotely considering learning 2D game development. Now compare that to the Corona Labs landing page. Like Megamind says, it’s about presentation. :slight_smile:

My viewpoint is that since Corona is getting a second wind, the opportunity is there for re-branding and we must grab it. After that, since we don’t have a marketing budget like the Unity team does, we must at least try to get some Youtube influencers to promote our SDK since it’s not only great but also completely free now. Of course, none of this will matter if we as a community cannot come up with a decent crowdfund every month to keep the SDK development ongoing.

#403

Since years ago, when I google cocona with some error text, some other things come up, because corona is such a common word. Now with the virus-name… Better rebrand to a new name not associated with common items.

For promotion, I would suggest those with websites, put up some sort of tutorial or guide about Corona (after renaming?). This will rank Corona higher in searches.

#404

You can do your search like this:   site:coronalabs.com your search terms.

This will filter out all of the other Corona non-sense, but you will also loose Stack Overflow posts, but you will get all of our forums and blog posts.

Rob

#405

I just wanted to provide a quick update on rebranding. While our focus right now is making sure that on May 1, 2020, you can build your apps. We have a lot of work left to do. But a rebrand is important and we are going to go ahead with one.

This thread is not appropriate for continuing this discussion. 

Please see: https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/77419-rebranding-corona/

to continue discussion.

Rob

#406

Writes anything then corona sdk