I was surprised it wasn’t included too in the past, turns out Corona is considered a framework by itch:
https://itch.io/game-development/frameworks/most-projects
Quite funny when LÖVE is listed as an engine.
Since we are still a business until May 1, 2020, and if you want to use Unity Ads, you will still need to pay for the plugin. We will operate refunds on the existing Marketplace refund rules until we shut down the Marketplace. (FAQ in the footer of the page).
Rob
I was really sad to see this news today.
Many thanks to Rob and Corona for their help, and received a lot of help in this forum.
My idea is the same as dooq, after all, I am a lone wolf developer, and will probably release my multiplayer online game in March.
Since most of the logic is controlled on gamespark, it will not be difficult to move data to other platforms at that time.
However, I still hope Corona is better.
Although I have spent hundreds of dollars in the market, I will spend more money to fund Corona when I have funds after the game is actually released.
I really appreciate Corona for giving a single developer the opportunity to make a big game.
**UPDATED ANSWER**
I disagree. Professionals pay for their tools. We understand that this is the only way to keep the ecosystem alive.
As well, we want folks to pay for our products, so taking others’ work for free doesn’t sit well with us.
Indies and hobbyists being less inclined to pay for things I understand. It makes me sad, but I understand it.
The thing I don’t like is the ‘everything free all the time’ mentality that really started to come into play a few years back when all the major players decided to give away their engines/SDKs for free. I think it would have been wiser for everyone involved to keep them paid.
@firerabbit.info it was a big surprise for me to see that Defold has 165 projects in itch.io. It’s 3.37 times greater than the number of projects made with Corona. I always thought Corona had much more users than all other Lua frameworks together.
@roaminggamer I agree with you that this mentality of getting all for free is unhealthy but unfortunately it’s a reality. So that many good tools (Corona included) have financial problems.
I really hope Corona survives and get better and better. Let’s see how much the Corona user community is committed to maintaining its development.
I’d say it’s important to note that desktop games are a lot more popular on itch.io than mobile ones. Game jam projects are often uploaded to itch.io as well (my team alone has five jam games there). If you look at mobile stats, the situation is quite a bit different. For example, Corona beats both Game Maker and Godot on Android according to this:
https://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/details/corona/corona-sdk
0.35% of apps
0.31% of installs
https://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/details/yoyogames/gamemaker%3A-studio
0.30% of apps
0.13% of installs
(Not sure if this is actually the first one only, but this GMS is the only GMS listed under YoYo Games.)
https://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/details/godot/godot
0.04% of apps
0.01% of installs
Couldn’t find Defold or LÖVE stats for comparison, though maybe I just missed those in some less obvious library types.
I guess desktop devs just prefer having an editor more often, plus iirc Corona didn’t support desktop builds for several years of its existence, while Defold had it early (or since the beginning, not sure).
Personally, I consider Corona great for desktop games as well, but public perception most likely differs.
Hello everyone.
This is Vlad. I was with Corona Labs Inc. for almost 5 years. I love my job. I have been leading development of Corona for over 3 years now and I have hopes to continue doing so.
Corona will not die with death of Corona Labs Inc. This are not same things. Corona Labs at this point is a financial burden to parent companies, and I am very grateful to Appodeal that they allowing and funding generous transition period.
You may ask, where are we transition? Answers are in the blog post. We will transition to close-to-zero cost of infrastructure. All builds would be local, with plugins pre-downloaded to the disk. As I see it, at some point you would be able to press a button in Corona Simulator, and all your purchased plugins would be downloaded and you won’t have to worry about the thing, and all your apps would continue to build, only faster, because everything would be local.
But this is not what you worry about. Most of you expressed concerns about supporting Corona moving forward. I would like to continue working on Corona, supported by Patreon or GitHub Sponsors (this is proffered way, since they match money for some time). This are services which would allow community to chip in directly and if I would get enough money to support my family, it will be my full time job. I think this is extremely simple and transparent business model for Corona to move forward.
For now I am getting payed to complete transition towards not relying on expensive infrastructure we have now. After that, it is up to community to directly fund all the development, get involved themselves, or both.
Links are to my personal crowdfunding accounts. I am still payed by Corona Labs, and moving forward I’d like to get everyone involved in project payed as well (like Rob), so may be some changes would have to be made there. So don’t rush to give me money, unless you really want too.
I am actually positive about this thing happening. Corona Labs Inc.'s business model wasn’t working for quite a while now. Having a clear path to future is somewhat comforting at this point. After our announcement we received plenty of concerned emails from companies about the future of game engine powering their profitable games. I am sure we would be able to secure necessary funding for Corona to stay relevant in future.
Here is what I plan to do after the transition to offline/open source project is done:
-
Support Apple’s Metal APIs. Directly or through MoltenVK.
-
Migrate to AndroidX artifacts, which would allow for far more easier support of plugins for Android, including updated AdMob.
-
Migrate build system for Apple’s platform to Xcode-based, to allow easier management of provisioning and other capabilities which got integrated into Xcode smoothly since when Corona was launched.
This tasks are not easy, but quite achievable, and I have quite high level of confidence that they can be implemented in timely manner.
In short, Corona Labs Inc. is dead, long live Corona.
Thank you
Vlad.
EDIT: of course, there are still many things to figure out. Above is rough draft of my personal plans. It can change, it can become better and I am open to suggestions. Feel free to reach out, or comment here.
Great to hear from you. This is the first big positive news since the announcement of the impending closure of Corona Labs. I am sure many of us will definitely support you to keep Corona alive. 
As Vlad and Rob have already pointed out, it is generous and outright fantastic of Appodeal to fund this transition to offline builds and true open source, especially when the easiest and cheapest option for them would have been simply to drop everything.
@vlads yeah that is so good to hear and you are worth everything to corona. I have such high praise of your work… I will 100% be supporting and backing you whichever way needed financially. Definately would be cool for @rob to still be around to, he feels like the face of corona
This is great news, thanks @Vlad! It seems like we should all do GitHub since it matches funds for a while, right?
I have another idea. Since Corona will be open source, we could have a place where we post a wishlist for Corona features. If it is low on the priority list but we really want it made we could personally post a bounty to attract a developer who would add that feature to Corona. It could be @vlad working extra hours or a developer anywhere in the world. I used to subcontract to a developer in India and it was quite reasonable financially.
For instance:
• I’m always asking for sprite sheets to be available for composite paint (currently it’s just images)
• @SGS is always wanting access to the frame buffer
• @everyone is always asking for Switch support
so (just making up numbers here)
I could post a $500 bounty for sprite sheet integration with composite paint
@SGS could post a $5k bounty for frame buffer access
@everyone (maybe 200 developers together) could post a $15k bounty for Switch integration
The money could be put in escrow to be paid when the work is complete (maybe a portion gets paid upfront).
I used to hire industrial design grad students to work on my projects and they were talented, hungry for work and relatively inexpensive. I’m thinking there is a corollary for our new Corona 2.0. This would be a great way to bring some talent to the open source Corona engine and also a way for @vlad to supplement his GitHub/Patreon income.
I’ve got to admit I’m personally feeling a bit more excited by the prospect of Corona being a completely open source project now. For as long as Vlad is able to work on the core I think we’ll be fine, and there’s clearly a lot of people here willing to support with that.
If Rob sticks around too we might not even really notice much of a change 
One thing has occurred to me. Until now, there’s basically been a restriction on the creation of monetisation plugins. All of the ad network plugins have been built by Coronalabs through affiliation with those networks, and mostly offered on subscription based models. With Coronalabs dissolving and the existing plugins going open source + the splash screen being removed etc, will this restriction effectively be lifted?
We’re a Sagepay partner and might at some point be able to put together a Sagepay plugin if so. I.e. a plugin to add payment forms directly to apps/games.
Not something we’d be looking to do any time soon, and perhaps not useful given the app stores have their own APIs for IAP sales, but it would be good to know that this kind of thing would be an option now.
I will continue using CoronaSDK. I have some experience in the use of other tools and the truth Corona SDK has a lot of advantages. To mention just a few advantages: Documentation, Forums, Learning Curve & Support.
Vlad and Rob are professional gladiators. Without demeriting other team members, they are the most visible.
Has anyone tried to activate a simulator in react navite, for example? In Colombia we say “It’s like a birth, it’s like giving birth.” In Corona SDK, the simulator “is there, always”
Note: I’m a developer who has just reached 60 years of age and never in my professional life had I felt as comfortable using software as I have done with Corona SDK. I do not have many or large projects published, but the few that I have delivered have been of quality.
(Apologies for my English, my language is Spanish)
Regards for *,
Solca
Great to hear your plans Vlad. I will support your Patreon for you and hopefully Rob. Since the 2 of you have been doing nearly all the work on Corona for sometime now, I see no reason Corona will not be able to go on and thrive as long as enough of us support thru Patreon or even a monthly/yearly membership fee. I feel better now, after hearing from you.
Thanks!
So we are getting offline builds, splash screen removal for free, open source, Appodeal paying for the transition, Vlad and (I hope) Rob positive to keep working on Corona (the product).
The most important for me, is having on board two guys who are capable and love their work.
And all we have to do is to be supportive and give some money (imho it will happen).
Not bad at all
I can hear the good plan of vlads after getting up. I am very excited. Your professionalism in the forum has always helped us developers a lot.
I use both corona (for the main build) and unity (for the production of objects), and I have to say that Corona is really easy to deal with everything.
Although I was scared yesterday about Corona’s future, I will continue to live with Corona in the future.
Finally, I will actually support the Patreon project and hope that all Corona partners will together.
I was also looking into other Lua based engines - no more, after Vlad’s reply. I am a hobbyist, but I’ll pay my share every year to be able to use Corona.
Thanks for the clarification, Vlad.
I have a Corona game generating significant income, so I’ll be able to contribute monthly when Patreon is set up. Much more than what I’m paying with plugins right now.
I think we should be optimistic, many engines have thrived with open source systems. And if we can’t keep Corona forever, then we should make it last as long as possible.
A break down on iOS would be catastrophic for me and the combined losses between developers would literally be in the millions.
Also if Rob manages to stay would be fantastic
After hearing Vlad’s words I felt calmer and I have a hope about the future of Corona, we as developers must assume the commitment to make a financial contribution to keep Corona alive, it is fair, especially those who earn money and It is our business as a way of life.
(sorry for my horrible English, 
)