Hello all. Once again, I truly appreciate your patience and your heartfelt concerns. As the first step, we are dropping the January 1 cutoff date, pending our ultimate decision on this matter. You will continue to have AdMob accessible to you until further notice.
Brent
Thank you for hearing our concerns and sharing this positive news. 
Thank you Brent and the Corona management. That will allow for more relaxation (less anxiety) over the holidays. Speaking of which, happy holidays to you and Rob and all who support us on your end. We appreciate what you do!
Steve
Thank you as well. Please come up with something that benefits both us and corona. I think the general census is we’ll pay for admob support. We do want to support corona. Thanks again
Thank you Brent, Rob, Roj, and the rest of the Corona team for listening to our concerns. To me at least, it means a lot that you listen to and respond to your users. I think many of us get impassioned when changes are made to Corona because we are heavily invested in the platform. Not just money-wise but time and technology wise as well.
Maybe this is a topic for another discussion but I just want to say about the monetization restrictions for enterprise: Enterprise users are already paying customers, they are not the hobbyists using the free tier. Please consider adding back a truly unlimited tier, even if it costs more. From the other thread that was linked earlier, it sounds like the motivation behind the restriction was that enterprise is currently too costly to maintain. Enterprise users are obviously already willing to pay for the platform, so I’m sure they’d be willing to pay a little extra for true freedom. Those who don’t need it can keep on living with the restrictions, those who do need it can at least have the choice to upgrade and will support Corona by paying the extra cost.
As someone looking to partner with a publisher, I think having that option will be a boon in my pitch for why they should take on my Corona-made game.
Thank you very Brent much for the good news, we are ready to hold your undertakings which operate in good direction
OMG, i knew this was coming… first with the splash screen fiasco (i started worrying here) then with the enterprise plugin and ToS fiasco, and other subtle clues elsewhere, I just knew they’d be killing admob soon… the writing was on the wall. This is (apparently) their way of “enticing” devs to implement Corona Ads, so that they can siphon your revenue off the top. It obviously burns their butt that devs still had one or two remaining viable avenues of generating ad revenue without giving them a cut.
Nothing makes me cringe more than new issues of “From The Blog” – always chock full of screw-the-community goodness.
Did you read any of the staff responses in this thread before responding, or simply skim the overview on the first page?
@Brent Sorrentino
Do you consider the ramifications your pricing/policy/support -change decisions will have on the community before posting them in “From The Blog”, or simply run amok with half-baked ideas then sort them out later after having caused a ruckus in the forum?
Sometimes the first one. Sometimes the second one. When it’s the first one, it’s called “having conviction” or “running with it”. When it’s the second one, it’s called “listening to the community”. When you build a game, it’s likely important to do the same thing - whether it’s deciding that an IAP pricepoint makes sense and running with it only to find that your conversion rate is disappointing, people think the game is not worth the price and give a 1-star review, etc OR if you decide to release a game that has too many ads because you are trying to make a living and see 1-star reviews from users who say “TOO MANY ADS!!!”
Roj, if I may add just a few points to the discussion…
I understand Corona needs to get more revenue and Corona ads is probably (one) step in the right direction, but it’s way too early to force its adoption (I appreciate you backtracking on that for now).
You guys tried with the revenue share model on some ads platforms but it’s not really fair and I’m not sure it can possibly work in the long run. We may argue that since you give Corona and the ad-plugin away for free, the revenue share on ads should be justified… but taking a perpetual share on a third-party ads platform feels more like a “tax” on a solution built by somebody else than paying for something with a tangible added value.
Different types of developers are using Corona (from people just starting to code to devs making hundreds of thousands of dollars), but basically the main distinction is:
A ) Those who are just starting developing apps, and
B ) Those who already call it a “job”.
The A) type surely appreciate that Corona is free. Probably they don’t mind the revenue share on ads. And Corona Ads could be the best way for them to start monetizing, but there should be a clear added value (to justify Corona taking a percentage of ads revenue) compared to other platforms; in case of new developers could be super easy implementation, the ability to use multiple ads platform without having to sign up with all of them, smooth, fast and easy payments and so on…
Corona Marketplace is also another good step for this typology of developers (one thing I must point out though: many assets sold on Corona Marketplace are also available, often quite cheaper, on other websites… I recently purchased a set of tiles for a game prototype and found it was $18 on Corona Marketplace but $10 on Envato Market… a Google search of any asset title is enough to find out).
For the B ) type however, any revenue share model on third-party ad platform, or being forced to use Corona Ads, well, that can’t work. Those are the devs that used to have a Corona Pro license, or an Enterprise. They have no problem with paying a monthly fee to use Corona as their main dev tool. Any revenue share for them would mean a really variable and considerable loss of revenue compared to a regular fixed fee.
The possible advantages of Corona Ads (at least for now) aren’t that attractive for this kind of devs, since they are experienced developers and know how to handle different ad platforms… also, they may prefer to stick with a certain platform because it’s reliable and consistent (and AdMob is unbeatable on that). Maybe in the future, when Corona Ads is mature enough, solve some issues (for example, the only payment method is Paypal?) and offer clear advantages they will be open to trying it.
That kind of devs are surely already paying for the SplashScreen plugin (99usd), will buy the AdMob plugin, and probably even future pro plugins you’re going to introduce them…
BTW, if those kinds of devs will be required to pay hundreds of dollars per year to have the tool they need… wouldn’t then be more logic to just re-introduce the Pro license then?
My advice… focus on those ( A ) and ( B ) types of users distinctively, find different ways to get revenue from them, but don’t force a single solution on both.
What you’re doing recently (giving Corona away for free, the revenue share model, discontinuing AdMob, forbidding using third-party monetization platform on Enterprise, the marketplace), are good solutions for new devs but not so much for experienced ones…
Anyway, hope you can find the right compromise, because I really enjoy using Corona and appreciate your work guys… I started using it 6 years ago and I like so much how easy and powerful it can be…
Hey Roj I understand where you’re coming from, the main difference being if we make a wrong choice the player just doesn’t play our game. If Corona make the wrong choices however our livelihoods are in jeopardy.
That’s what I took away from the reply as well. This cavalier attitude towards devs, manifest as 3 major (imho) pricing/policy/support “bloopers” in as many months, may come back to bite them. Once a dev “jumps ship” to learn some other tool, they aren’t as easily replaced by another “player” of a 1-day-retention-span-current-fad-twitch-game; which seems to be how Corona SDK is being treated and marketed these days - as a loss-leader for ad-share to entry-level devs who don’t know any better. I really miss the old pro subscription with no limitations/no strings attached approach. All this “drama” just to be able to claim Corona is “free”. (though in a “you-better-read-the-well-hidden-fine-print” semi-free sense of the word)
This is going to sound harsh, but I for one can’t believe this thread is still open:
They have backed tracked on the Admob plugin and are looking for alternatives. That Admob plugin is ancient. It still uses the EventKit and probably if your game does not have calendar functionality it will get rejected with the first update in 2017.
The game engine as a business is really hard. I am not sure the subscription model works for them. Look at Game Salad and Marmalade Studio, both subscription based and both now completely changing focus. I give Roj points for trying something new.
Roj bought this company from Perk with his own money. And as the owner, if it fails or succeeds it should be based on what he wants to do and not based on the opinion of customers on the board. I have been a part of two small companies and I know how a million dollar loss flys out the window while customers continue to make money.
The thread is still open because the difference between what you are referencing and this situation, is that Corona is actively taking a slice of revenue from profitable devs, and has changed it’s policies on a whim with little or zero notice to it’s (at least, nominally) consumerbase, so this thread in particular is serving as a feedback channel. Not to mention, had this thread not existed, the discontent contained herein would have spread through many different forum posts, which would have an even more negative impact on the impression of Corona’s decision-making, because at this point, they can just point to “one or two” isolated threads with acrimony and claim that on the whole, everything is going swell.
To your third point, I don’t know what kinds of businesses you ran, but I feel like you’re making a false equivalency. It’s not as if we paid for a perfect nailgun and are building a house with it at an increased pace with increased profits due to the speed, while the nailgun company goes bankrupt because they innovated too fast for the market. We are being charged per nail we drive successfully with this new “improved” nailgun, while being told that we need to call in if we need to switch the type of nail we use, and being told that, in 2 months, we can only drive nails while suspended upside down.
@davebollinger hit the nail on the head. The business model is changing, and when your product is an SDK, it’s harder than ever to judge the best way to make money before innovation either consumes you or sling-shots you past your target userbase. They’ve made their decision, we just need to weather it.
I agree with a lot of the negative feedback but most importantly, like others have said, your successful users would be willing to pay you and then get on with their business. Rather than having to react to these sudden & significant changes that introduce uncertainty and threaten their livelihoods.
Have you talked to your user base and tried to figure out a reasonable monetization model? Tried to segment and identify the users who have been around for a while, and likely are reasonably profitable? I.e., active more than 2 years, more than X builds per month, more than 10 apps total, etc etc.
I’d happily discuss the revenue drivers for my business and what I consider a reasonable pricing. To give some frame of reference, right now I pay about $750 per year for Adobe CC. It feels like a lot, but it means I always have great tools when I need them. I paid $2000 for a perpetual license of Tableau (business intelligence tool). That was bit much, because I don’t use it as often as I thought.
For Corona? I’d happily pay $1000 annually. More if you’d show a real and consistent focus on making my life as easy as possible, i.e. fixing and improving core functionality and core ad networks rather than adding yet-another-ad-network.
We have an update! Please see: https://coronalabs.com/blog/2016/12/19/new-corona-professional-bundle-retiring-corona-ads/
Let’s continue comments here: https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/67013-announcement-new-corona-professional-bundle-retiring-corona-ads/
Thanks
Rob