From The Blog: Corona Labs annual update

Getting Started Announcements
#127

I do not know that so much income ($) is currently obtained by disabling the “Corona splash screen”, but it seems good (very fair) to pay for it. At least I have been paying for it a couple of years ago.

Perhaps publish a free version of Corona SDK type “Community” with “Corona Splash Screen”, and another Version type “PRO” or “Membership” (annual payment, USD 99 today) without “Corona sdk splash screen”.

It’s just an idea, maybe the value should be less to have more participants … That’s part of the discussion.

Regards,

Solca

#128

Vlad sounds like he has a good plan and knows what needs to be done to keep Corona not just alive, but thriving.

We (RosiMosi LLC) will be contributing nicely to his GitHub sponsorship once his contract with Corona Labs ends. I also had the idea of some of the bigger developers doing a match of their own (up to a limit) which combined with GitHubs would essentially quadruple donations.

#129

You have been able to build your own ad plugins if you used Corona Native (formerly Enterprise). If you really needed the simulator, there was Self-Hosted plugins. The only restriction was we would not let you put free ad plugins up in the Marketplace. I think there may have been a restriction at one point about building plugins that Corona already had, but I’m pretty sure that got lifted some time ago.

But for certain, going forward that’s not going to be a restriction.

Rob

#130

I have used Corona SDK since it’s inception. Majority of my apps were Corona and it feels good reading the positive feedback form Vlad and all support of the community in the continuity of Corona’s future.

#131

Count me as +1 in feeling a tremendous sense of relief on hearing from vlads. I’m totally on board with paying to keep Corona up and running.

#132

In the end, it seems that enthusiasm wins over anxiety! Let’s hope this reaction lasts over time.
Like many people here, I am ready to help the transition phase.

@Vlads @Rob: What can we do to help in concrete terms?

Perhaps you could list the real needs (hosting, development, documentation, etc.): I am sure that many resources are available among community members.
 

#133

Reading from the post :

  1. “Appodeal will continue to fund infrastructure costs and work with the open source staff to keep the Appodeal plugin up to date.”

  • Does this mean that admob plugin will no longer be updated ?

  • Are ads still served with the admob plugin ?

 

  • Should we replace the admob plugin by the Appodeal plugin ?

 

Regards.

#134

By the way @Everyone - your contributions will further if you support Vlad on GitHub as they match funds for a year (I think)

#135

Hi @emmanuel.guerin.

It’s too early in the process to really gauge what resources are needed with regards to hosting and such.

Documentation is currently tied to our expensive infrastructure and build process. At some point it would probably be helpful for us to put that repo up on GitHub if it’s not there already. It’s all markdown. Once we decide where we will host it, documentation will probably need to move to a different system and help porting it would probably be welcome.  

You can get started on the development side today. The open source is already in GitHub. You can start familiarizing yourself with it. Learn how to pull it down, build and test things and generate pull requests. There is quite a bit of Lua in the core (widgets, timers, transitions, etc.)  Widgets need a lot of love, so that is an area where any Corona developer can pitch in now.

#136
  • Does this mean that the admob plugin will no longer be updated?

No, that doesn’t mean that at all. The Appodeal plugin is separate. They will continue to work with Vlad to make sure we ave the latest version of the Appodeal SDK to work with and since they are funding the infrastructure, we will continue to make sure the Appodeal plugin works. Now Appodeal includes AdMob as one of it’s mediated source. Appodeal would appreciate more developers integrating the plugin. It’s a win for everyone.

  • Are ads still being served with the admob plugin?

It’s working well with the exception of Rewarded Video and that issue may only be on one platform. We can’t update it until we implement Android X and as Vlad mentioned above it is one of his top priorities after we complete the offline builds and address Apple’s OpenGL deprecation. 

#137

@Rob - Can you explain what you mean by “course” source?

Thank you.

#138

Oops. Sorry. “Open Source”

#139

Documentation is one of my favorite things about Corona. It’s full of helpful copy-and-paste examples.

I have built a lot of widget libraries for my own projects, maybe I can contribute to the default one.

#140

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve used several engines and libraries and Corona’s documentation is simply top notch. Its readability and ease of navigation, visual style, the aforementioned examples, gotchas and everything. There’s not really all that much to improve in my opinion apart from fixing some odd typos or such that occasionally come up or adding new features when they are added.

#141

As a game journalist for more than ten years, I had seen many crowdfunding/donation campaigns: from content creators to game developers. If I can help at least somehow, then I will do it now.

You should already begin to inform the main customers about the transition to the donation system: write them e-mail, PM to social network accounts. The more important for them is to see:

  • who will be “project manager”, a man who will work with gamedevs and engine developer community
  • who will continue updating and developing Corona (and their personal donations pages, or common page)
  • a clear dots: how much will cost staying Corona alive (monthly support for android, iOS) and monthly extended support (windows, consoles), who will provide support/update.
  • clear roadmap, how you think to continue, what features you could add and how costly it will be.

  1. If I understood correctly, the current infrastructure exists only 2 months. Use this period to inform as many people as possible - post an update on the main page of the site and on the forum, in your social networks.

  2. Start to take donations now, this process ALWAYS has issues with credit cards, expiration date, money transfer, and cashout. You need to create a crowd, and it will not come together at the click of a finger. Use this 2 months for all such things.

  3. As I understand, in the new conditions there will be no general project management, and its active participants are scattered across different locations. It’s not very good. Yes, the Corona сore can finance the developers of the engine, but who will pay for hosting of the site and forum, other project infrastructure?

Perhaps you should make a page about Corona in Patreon, the money from which will go to pay for any common things. And the engine developers will collect donations on Github.

  1. Who remains in the Corona project? Decide as soon as possible. I saw Vlad’s Github page and I can say that his goals are quite reachable. But he can’t do all alone, right? If smb in your team needs more money - probably he will not get them, or he will get them later, which may be inappropriate.

Focus on the basics. If after 1 may only 2 people will be standing behind the Corona, it will be strange to show a plan that they could not pull.

  1. Note that your personal pages reflect your personal participation in the project. Let’s say daily help on the forums is $ 100 per month. Daily work on improving/supporting the engine - $ 1000 per month. So for global things like switching to Metal, adding new platforms (Switch), it’s really better to create separate tasks with a total cost and look for additional developers on the side for faster implementation.

So main thing right now: your clients need to understand - who they should send money to support and improve the engine, and how much it will cost to support the site and forum. While the community doesn’t have full info, it’s hard to say about Corona’s future.

#142

Short-term question: 
In about 75 days (21% of a year), Corona Labs as a business closes, and, if I understand correctly, the licensed “Splash Screen” comes to an end. My license for “Splash Screen” expired two weeks ago. I need to do a small app update by June 1 at the latest. I can wait, but would prefer to do the update in March since I have an opening in my schedule. Do I need to pay $99 for a 75-day license? Thanks.

#143

Hello Rob.

Yes, I can imagine it is early But in the long run I think it would probably be good to structure the calls for help.

I started looking at the development part ; it’s going to take some time to get familiar with it all, but a really interesting period seems to be starting now.

Ok that’s good, I have a lot of love to give :slight_smile:
 

Thank you Rob. I hope you’re not going to leave the world of Corona; no doubt many of us hope so.

 

#144

Hi @fer5. Until May 1, we are still having to pay our expenses, so Splash Screen renewals are still important to us. After May 1, we will still have expenses, but hopefully less + whatever contributions can got to support the people working on the project.

Given that we are going to a voluntary support model (Patreon, GitHub contributions, etc.), it would be awesome if you continued to support Corona financially. Purchasing a splash screen control plugin helps us in that regard. If you love Corona (and in particular if you’re making money using Corona), purchasing a splash screen now would be the same as contributing to a fund raising campaign later. If you have no plans to help financially supports us voluntarily, I would wait until we put out a build without a splash screen and update after that. Keep in mind, this may be close to May 1 before we do. You can develop and test your app/game with the splash screen in the mean time.

Rob

#145

Barry here!

I haven’t posted in a long time, but I do occasionally check in here and on Slack.
I used Corona for many years in the past and miss it greatly today (javascript is ok, but LUA is more fun!).
I got to know many of the team behind it, and for a few brief months even had the honour to work with them as part of them.

So the main thing here is I want to express my gratitude for the team - hard-working and passionate is a massive understatement! Thank you all very, very much for everything you’ve done!

While this change was inevitable, it is a bit sad, but I do see some possibilities, and it has also prompted me to take a look at the state of one of the unreleased libraries I didn’t get to finish in my time at Corona years ago.
It appears to still (mostly!) work, so apart from the possibility of supporting Vlad on his quest to continue developing Corona, I’ll see if there’s still a potential need for it (no idea what has been released in the last few years!), and if I can knock it into shape I’ll happily release it on github so everyone can go in and criticise my coding :wink: I won’t say more than that because I don’t know when I’ll have time to look at it, but I’ll bump up its priority a bit with this news.

Also, I’d like to give a bonus shout-out to the community here. There’s still some really old-school users floating around, and I do cherish my time here - definitely one of the friendliest I’ve had the pleasure to be active in!

#146

Also, I’d like to give a bonus shout-out to the community here. There’s still some really old-school users floating around, and I do cherish my time here - definitely one of the friendliest I’ve had the pleasure to be active in!

rakoonic, I’m pretty sure I remember you from that old Corona irc channel!