Platforms

[Caleb_P]

Before you dismiss this post as another “When is X platform going to be supported”, please continue reading! This is not that kind of post!

Hey, all! I’ve been happy with Corona’s platform support (iOS and Mac is all I’m currently interested in), but I’d really like to know what Corona’s official statement is on what their future plans are for platform support. Is Corona going to stay mostly mobile, or is it going to branch out into the console realm, or what? Or is the platform status ‘working on Mac and Windows; after that, we’ll see’?

Also, with Mac/Windows apps, will we be able to publish to Steam?

• Caleb

[Glitch_Games]

Obviously take this with a big pinch of un-official salt but my guess is that you hit the nail on the head with “Mac and Windows, then we’ll see”. Simply because new platforms take an incredible amount of engineering time and with Desktop support, quite a bit of it was already working because of the Simulator however it still took a long time, simply because these things do.

I know that if a platform uses OpenGL that makes things easier, so not sure what the consoles use themselves however either way that would be quite a big step up in development requirement, both from a Corona perspective as well as a user perspective.

In regards to Steam, the desktop builds are able to make completely standalone builds so in theory you will be able to release to Steam ( and we are looking into doing just that right now ) however at present you won’t be able to use any of the Steam APIs without a plugin.

According to the Steam FAQ you can release a game without using the Steam APIs, however, we’re not sure at present how well Steam users take to games without them. They may not actually get Greenlit if you can’t support those things.

[rob]

One of the goals of Win32.exe builds is to eventually support Steam. 

As far as future platforms, all I can say is that supporting new platforms takes considerable engineering resources and we have to consider things like how much revenue you are likely to make from it, how successful with the platform be and does it support OpenGL. Are there barriers to entry? (like hard to get into developer programs, etc.)

Rob

[Glitch_Games]

Obviously take this with a big pinch of un-official salt but my guess is that you hit the nail on the head with “Mac and Windows, then we’ll see”. Simply because new platforms take an incredible amount of engineering time and with Desktop support, quite a bit of it was already working because of the Simulator however it still took a long time, simply because these things do.

I know that if a platform uses OpenGL that makes things easier, so not sure what the consoles use themselves however either way that would be quite a big step up in development requirement, both from a Corona perspective as well as a user perspective.

In regards to Steam, the desktop builds are able to make completely standalone builds so in theory you will be able to release to Steam ( and we are looking into doing just that right now ) however at present you won’t be able to use any of the Steam APIs without a plugin.

According to the Steam FAQ you can release a game without using the Steam APIs, however, we’re not sure at present how well Steam users take to games without them. They may not actually get Greenlit if you can’t support those things.

[rob]

One of the goals of Win32.exe builds is to eventually support Steam. 

As far as future platforms, all I can say is that supporting new platforms takes considerable engineering resources and we have to consider things like how much revenue you are likely to make from it, how successful with the platform be and does it support OpenGL. Are there barriers to entry? (like hard to get into developer programs, etc.)

Rob