It doesn’t bode well for Corona.
IIRC, Charboost dropped Corona support. Also, Playhaven and now Gremlin.
Who would want to delve into 3rd party plugin support for Corona now knowing that it appears not to be financially viable?
I wouldn’t mind Amazon Ads right now but it looks like I’m too late. Amazon IAP will have to do.
Best of luck to you Danny. Best out of it!
Martin.
If Corona could add some support for the plugin to do the license check during build process, it would be a different story.
Gremlin plugins are extremely great and I really don’t want to see it ends this way. It could have a bright future and benefit all Corona developers. But now it becomes unsupported and if there is some major change in the underlying SDKs, we all have to start from zero again. Gremlin had a very good intention to do something good but… (shake head)
Thanks for the kind words everyone. I wouldn’t call this the end, in the sense that the plugins that are released are now dead. I open sourced them for a reason. I’m sure something good will come of that. If the community contributes to them, updating them and such, then who knows? I’m not going to speculate, as I don’t want to put words in anyones mouth, but you know what i’m getting at.
Whilst x or y could have been different, the main problem was lack of revenue. That is something that Corona are not responsible for, so if your looking to blame anyone, it shouldn’t be them.
I was the one that proposed the idea, I was the one who insisted on making it happen. I sunk two months of my savings (that of which, was a very small pool of money which I had to live on) into making all these plugins, and hoped that I could at least “eat” by continuing to develop more. Unfortunately that did not happen, either there was not enough demand, or I made the wrong plugins. That money ran out, things were not improving, so to keep my business alive I had to prioritise and move on to different things.
So again, we still love Corona and think they are doing a fantastic job. Please don’t judge them for a decision that a third party made.
Cheers 
I agree with the consensus here. Plugins like these are important to the health of Corona, and it seems like Corona doesn’t really want to put in the effort to support them properly and give the plugin devs the tools they need. Most of the ad platforms offered by Corona natively seem to be lackluster, so it’s going to be difficult going forward if additional and better-CPM ad networks are not supported and plugin authors don’t have any incentive to build plugins.
Cool post Danny. Its great that you made it crystal clear so there is no misunderstanding. It was great that Corona Labs allowed this 3rd party plugin market concept and hosted the plugins.
I don’t know if they will be equally supportive for the future versions of your plugin code updated by community members. After all, in you, CL had a sense of comfort in that you knew how these things worked being an ex etc. I doubt that they will be equally comfortable with updated plugins from us random developers…
IMHO, the plugins as they are now will work now but once the APIs behind them are updated there will be no more updates to the plugins simply because we will not be able to get CL to host these updated plugins even if someone with the knowledge in the community updates them.
I think when you make a plugin, you can’t expect to make the money back right away plus the revenue. It’s more like a long-term business. Those plugins you have made were your assets you could generate revenue from continuously every day, week or year. It takes time for people to know about your plugin (and most developers don’t buy your plugins until they actually need them, which requires time too) and besides, there are new Corona developers joining every day who are also your potential customers.
But I can understand you want to move on to something else because you had different expectation. Wish you best of luck.
Like ksan said, the plugin might disappear sooner or later. It’s really a pity.
Hi,
I for one is NOT happy about this situation. I bought two plugins (Amazon and Chartboost) less than a month ago for $60 with the expectation that they will be supported for more than ONE month! Making the plugin open source is a very easy out in my book.
I do appreciate the plugins, I really do since the Chartboost especially was solving a big issue. But there is no reason for you to state that you will not support them for at least the next 6-12 months. If you are not able/willing to do that then I think a refund for people who bought the plugins in the last month will be appropriate.
Just my 0.02
Mo
Mo, i appreciate your sentiments, but the situation cannot change.
The plugins take up a huge amount of my time, almost 40>60% of it, and i was not making enough money to even put food on my families table, heck, not even enough to pay the electric bill at the end of the month.
If i were to support them for 6>12 months, i would be living on the street without a penny to my name. It is seriously that bad. I never made any promises on my site that explicitly stated how long the plugins would be available for, nor supported for. There was no agreements or guarantees put in place, by us, on that front whatsoever.
I am sorry, but business is business. Businesses are popping up and going down every day in this day and age, it’s common place. I cannot refund everyone just because they are now free.
When you change your paid app from paid to free, do you refund everyone who bought it within the last month prior? I’m doubtful that anyone does that. When Corona went free, I’m sure you didn’t expect them to refund everyone who paid within the last month. Then why stop there? People who bought a month and a half back will want one… Then two months back… And so on. This isn’t an attack, nor is it directed squarely at you, I’m just trying to put this into perspective for everyone.
The plugins were designed to make you all money, for instance, i’m sure that Chartboost can make $30 back very quickly.
I have refunded eligible individuals who bought within a certain time frame, and did so of my own accord, without being asked. Everyone eligible has been dealt with, so this chapter is now closed.
I wish you luck with your future endeavours.
We are now closing this topic, as we have completed all of the goals of open sourcing the plugins, moving the documentation, restoring the license server and so on.
We are also no longer monitoring this forum (i.e. the corona forums as a whole), so please do not be offended if you do not see a reply from us in the forums from here on out.
Thanks to everyone for their support and we hope you all make lots of money using our plugins.
Regards,
Gremlin Interactive.