From The Blog: There’s BIG open source news on our 9th birthday

Getting Started Announcements
#101

About going open source; ever since I first noticed this in the roadmap I felt this was a good thing. Especially since I have feared for the future of Corona. This might just be the vitamin injection Corona needs.
Now there is also a chance that Corona survives even if Appodeal throws in the towel. 

Bring Corona geek back :smiley: That was the highlight of the week for me and the reason I stuck with Corona. Corona Geek gave Corona SDK a face. It should have been promoted better to get more views, but otherwise the content was great. 

#102

I think going open-source has to be combined with a complete re-brand and perhaps target a slightly different market.

Corona as a name hasn’t struck a chord, it’s too closely associated with the beer, surely the first result for your own brand name should be for your product, not a beer, pictures of the sun or a band.

Brand awareness is poor. Very few industry professionals I’ve spoken to have heard of it, if they have they haven’t tried it or considered it as a serious option. I listen to a lot of dev podcasts and have only heard Corona mentioned once, in passing, and this was by a guy who was still building flash games for a living and therefore the perfect prospective customer…

As it stands, while targeting pure 2D game development, its direct competitor Defold has big backing and credibility from King that it’s almost impossible to match. Making Corona open-source is a way to differentiate from Defold, but you still need to be out there and visible, at all the developer/Linux conferences in North America, Europe etc. getting it in front of people and engaging the wider open-source community.

A pivot away from purely being marketed and focused as a games engine might be an option. There’s still no industry-standard cross-platform mobile app framework, as opposed to Unity3D/Unreal in the games arena.

Xamarin, React, Flutter, Progressive Web apps, Ionic etc. all have their plusses and big minuses and many firms, while using these technologies, are always looking around for something better. The Corona Simulator is a massive feather in the cap given the speed of iteration it offers.

#103

My 2 cents: I’ve been developing with Corona for the last 6 years and it’s a great product with great documentation and support. What I’ve been missing in the last year or so are the newsletters where I could at least keep up with what Corona is up to. I’d like to see those brought back.

I also use Drupal and Joomla for my web development projects. They are great examples of how open source can be a great and successful thing. I agree with previous comments in this thread, that Corona’s marketing seems almost non-existent. I don’t know that going open source will help with that - I don’t know that it will hurt either. But I’d like to see the volume pumped-up!

#104

Regarding Corona Geek… I would love to see this rebooted. But if I’m being brutally honest, Charles did Corona Geek with a passion for it. No one realizes how much time it takes to record a couple of hours of video and then go split it up, polish it and publish it. It was probably 60% of his full-time job. That’s about 24 hours a week. I can’t commit that kind of time to running Corona Geek and doing it justice.

Another thing, many people may have forgotten, is that Corona Geek started as a community-owned feature. We only hired Charles after he had been running Corona Geek for some time. I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that there is nothing stopping you, the community from rebooting this on your own. I will probably have to get corporate blessing before I could transfer the Facebook and YouTube channels with the Corona Geek branding to someone, but you could start up “Corona Awesome Developers” channel.

I’ll ask about the Corona Geek brand and see what you can do about it.

Rob

#105

I bet it took a lot of time creating Corona geek, but it could be an alternative to create something like Corona after dark.

Once a week, 30-60 minutes casual talk about random Corona related topics. Then the work would be inviting people, little bit of editing and uploading the video with description about the topics that were discussed. 

I think these videos should be uploaded on the Corona labs Youtube channel. Today it is 6 months since last video was uploaded on that channel and that could scare off potential customers.

Someone please consider becoming the new face of Corona (for free of course…you don’t have to pay anything)  :rolleyes: 

And now back to the original thread…
 

#106

Thanks for the kinds words guys! Rob is absolutely right. Corona Geek started as a community supported passion project in the beginning. I saw that Corona didn’t really have a presence on YouTube, Facebook, and other social outlets. So I started a website, Facebook page, YouTube channel, and Twitter account for Corona Geek. Dr. Brian Burton was the very first interview guest and with help from Ed Maurina, Sergey Lerg, Greg Pugh, Laura Tallardy, Chris Byerly,  Jason Schroeder, Rob Miracle, Steven Johnson, and a bunch of other talented people Corona Geek grew into a full time gig that involved lining up interview guests, coming up with interview questions, hosting a live show, recording interviews, post production cleanup, writing show summaries, creating blog posts, uploading and tagging videos, and social media sharing. The point of the show was to learn from each other and surface what the community was working on. We got the chance to talk with game developers, as well as people who were using Corona in their hardware and non-game applications. That same need for community and inspiration exists today. There as so many talented people here, doing great work. It just needs someone to lead the charge and surface it. If you are concerned about time commitments, there are tools like Anchor for podcasting, or Facebook Live that go a long way to capture a conversation without requiring the post production that Corona Geek 1.0 did. In fact, Corona Geek 2.0 should be something entirely reimagined, which opens up a whole new way of approaching the goal of learning and community. If someone wants to pick up the torch, I’d be happy to jump on a call and share what I learned about creating content and community interactions, both what worked and what didn’t. You guys are Corona Geeks, every last one of you. The name was not about one person, it was always meant to be about you, the person who loves Corona, who can see its true potential, and is excited to share Corona with anyone who will listen.

#107

@tnkkmk Drupal and Joomla are gigantic compared to Corona. I am hoping more like Löve with about a dozen contributors or Moai in its heyday which had a few dozens (currently it only has 2 active) and not like LuaQuick that has not been touched since 2013.

#108

While it would be nice for it to be resurrected, the onus falls on Corona to make sure that there’s enough users around to make it worthwhile.

I took a look at the channel and many of the episodes have less than 100 views despite being up for years and that was when there was a lot more buzz around these parts.

I don’t see why anyone would stick their neck out to reach a bus full of people, however much they love the platform.

#109

Think we’ve been saying this for ages now. Without new developers joining (and paying) then there isn’t much of a future.

Corona should be pushing to get into education. They should be getting the platform out there. PR basically.

I just see a slow decline into obscurity.,. And bizarrely open source will be a requirement!

#110

@sgs For the education market, they need a web-based editor. Most of these kids have Google Chromebook, ipads or some sort of tablet. Also in the educational market school districts want a packaged curriculum with the software, I suspect private school might also be the same.

Look at where Construct 3, Gamesalad and GameCreator are. My son was in a GameCreator class in his middle school last year and it came with a teacher curriculum pre-printed and if you can believe it student workbooks. Another school around me is using Gamesalad and again it comes with a professionally crafted curriculum. 

Not saying Corona can’t get into that, I just think it would require a lot more work. I think Gamesalad is $1600 dollars per year per classroom and Construct $13.00 per seat in a school so there is real money there as appose to everything free or super duper cheap.

#111

I’ll explain something. I consider that of the people who have written here I am the one who has less programming experience. Let me tell you what happens to Corona from the point of view of a rookie. ex. I decide to make apps or games but I do not know how to program, I do a search in google and I start to try several programs, in my case, several drag and drop. None filled my expectations because when I used them I felt a prisoner of that program and, like many, I could not pay their high annual prices. Following the search (Google search!!!) I find Corona SDK with a good tutorial on how to make your first app and your first game, basic. When I saw the results in the simulator I fell in love, Corona got me hooked in your game. Now once the game is finished I feel I can do one myself, Nop “coqui, coqui, pio, pio”, just an empty room and the sound of the second hand of the clock (and some PC fans) reminding me how fast time runs. I saw myself very limited and I even had to ask many questions in the forum looking for answers. Now I can defend myself a little better. But, if you would like to attract more people to use your SDK, I believe that it is you who should have the baton. Ex 80% of indie developers has no money to start, although it is known that making good apps and games can be lucrative. That gives you the courage to continue. What every newbie would like to know is how to do things 10x faster, that is what Corona promote, right?. Well, that’s where you have to hook up with the new ones. Give what they want and fast. Ex. I’m going to make an app for android and I can finish it, “YEAHH!!”, Google rejects it for the bad use of the back button, Why there is not a section of tutorials where I can search for “Android Back Button”?, fast, accurate and effective! I read a short tutorial and I have it implemented, “OMG Corona Rocks!”, the same for the games, ex. manage sound, those important basic things should be given by you with short tutorials of easy implementation where I as a newbie use your way of doing it and have the option of expanding those instructions, but, that the main focus is the one that you provide.

Corona Geek? … NOOOO! Indie developers these days do not have time to watch 30-40 min of video, and, you do not have time to edit everything. Have you programmed watching a video? how difficult it is to minimize youtube 30 times to put into practice something that is done by writing.

I could keep writing about what a newbie feels and how to improve his Corona experience but I want to get to a point.

Corona creators, wake up! What is the strength of this SDK for a NEWBIE?

LUA

COMPOSER

ETC…

LUA - if the sdk uses lua and it is to know that lua is powerful, announce it, exploit it, grit it if necessary.  According to what I have read the lua language is very respected.  I do not know why they did not join forces from the beginning with lua.org and instead of Corona SDK it was called Lua SDK.

COMPOSER - It is a very effective scene template for the development of apps and games. Composer works for me, right?. So then, perfect it! in the same way and with the same affection with which you created the SDK.

If I use Corona SDK and instead of having to read 500 api libraries, commit a thousand errors, waste time watching videos, etc, I have an Android and IOS section with those basic standards of app and game creation, believe me, I’ll love Corona. Let me upload my apps and games easily, make me an addict to your SDK. I want to be recognized, you want me to like Corona so much that I give you $100 a year to remove the splash screen and invest money in your market place.

Corona staff work for me, I work for my clients. I take my ideas to the world, I earn money and then I invest in you, that’s the chain.

Make me feel safe. If I am a newbie I want to feel that I use a reliable SDK that will not bring me problems with my clients. If I am a programming engineer, I want to use Corona, evaluate it and feel safe too, I do not want to feel that the platform is breaking.

If the ads generate profits teach me to implement them from the beginning, you want me to make money to invest in you, so, help me implement ads in such a simple way that I do not have to worry about that. Off course, have your moves to avoid the exploited developers who use everything without giving anything, those do not compose anything for Corona, let them go!

Think about the time, if making a game of average quality that can generate money for me and for you, it takes me a year, help me to do it in 6 months, guide me on the road of speed.

Could explain a thousand things of what we want, the newbies. I do not know why I chose these examples but the main idea is to carry the message that we want to do things right and fast in a reliable SDK, to have quality of life, family time, work, and if I develop a millionaire game, AMEN, we all benefit.

From a newbie’s point of view

DoDi

#112

I am not going to speak specifically about Corona because it is not my business and I know how hard it is to run a profitable business.

The business model of giving things away for Free and then finding a way to pay actual employees isn’t really working anymore (especially for smaller companies). Maybe it worked when all you had to do was publish an app in the store to have some level of success. In most cases, these smaller companies have come to the realization that most of these free customers never turn into paying customers. And in the meantime, they actually cost the company resources.

The trend lately as far as I can see is to get away from these free models. I can actually only think of 4 game development pipeline for games run by companies (read not fully open source) that are truly free. You can build natively on Android using the Google tools (subsidized by Google), you can use Defold (subsidized by King), you can use Lumberjack (subsidized by Amazon) and you can use Apple’s XCode pipeline (which I don’t think is free but added it anyway). All the others either removed the free option or have very limited free options usually with no official support. 

I am also seeing API providers moving away from free especially those that have no means of grabbing revenue from the actual API service. My Apptentive account was recently closed, they don’t offer a free level anymore. The free and the cheapest Zendesk account don’t have any support (I use the $60 a year plan with no support). No e-mail support. Nobody officially from the company answering questions on the open forums. OneSignal now has tiers with the “free” version not being GDPR compliant and your users’ data being sold to anybody who wants it. I can go on.

This does not mean that you can’t build what you think will be the next greatest hit on Android. You just might have to use one of the actual free products that are subsidized by larger companies. Or one of the open source products like Löve. Without any true employees to speak of you’ll have to wait for an answer to your questions and the answer sometimes will be to go and read the documentation. 

#113

@Corona staff

I think the topic has already gone from focus. For my part, I intend to develop to earn some money and invest in Corona, such as the admob plug-in. The question I want to ask is:

Can I continue with the development of my game?

It could take me 6 more months and I’m afraid of wasting that time ending it and that Corona ceases to exist.

#114

I’m still recovering from Activision-Blizzard’s stunt from last week concerning their lack of communication for months, followed by a sudden negative dump, so I am currently not coping well with long periods of silence. :stuck_out_tongue:

Are there any estimates regarding when we might see a roadmap for 2019 and what going open source will mean for Corona and its community in concrete terms?

#115

What was the Activision-Blizzard stunt? I did a quick Google and didn’t see anything that would be negative dump other than their third-quarter filings were not as good as expected and they took a stock hit?

I would hope we will have more information shortly after the first of the year about what things are going to look like.

Currently, we have a lot of working going on internally regarding the legal and business side of things like working on the licensing we will be using for the open source project, new terms of services and privacy policies, etc. This is why we haven’t said much because it takes time to get firm answers on this. It’s pointless for us to give you rumors or thoughts and plans that may not come into play.

From an Engineering perspective, we are actively working to get the source into a repository that you can clone, update and commit changes, report issues and such. Corona isn’t some small package of software. There are lots of dependencies and facets to go through. 

On a non-open source front, our engineers are working to bring Android API 28 support to keep up with Google, removing the Google Drive API’s that are deprecated from the GPGS plugin, and continuing work on converting our internal build system from ANT to Gradle.

I know this isn’t much of an answer with any real details, but I think the point is we have a lot of work to get done before we can have reasonable answers for you and filling out any answers now is premature.

Rob

#116

The Activision-Blizzard stuff is about the esports scene of one of their games, Heroes of the Storm. During Blizzcon (their huge annual fan event) they told everyone, the pro players, casters, fans and employees that the Heroes Global Championship league would continue in 2019. This was followed by around 1.5 months of silence, followed by them announcing that HGC was cancelled and that the casters and pro players would be unemployed just 2 weeks before Christmas. In addition, they stated that they’d shift developers from the game to their other projects.

So, it was first fanfare of great news, followed by ominous silence and then hundreds of people laid off and a game’s development being scaled down. :stuck_out_tongue: This was apparently due to restructuring within the company and assigning new cost cutting strategies. There’s quite a lot of news and content regarding it, if anyone is interested. Just search for HGC or Heroes of the Storm and you’ll find news about it.

While it may not seem like much, that information is already really helpful. Thanks, Rob!

#117

I’m confused here. Why does the licensing need to change and why new T&Cs.

Are you expecting usage outside of the normal Corona users?

#118

I assume there’s a decision to be made on what license the open source code will have. A bad choice there and someone with cash could fork it, take it in a different direction and then start charging for it. 

#119

You are going to reintroduce the way to detect bezels on Android devices with the latest API, I assume?