State of Corona?

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#21

This is a good discussion to have over beers, if I am ever in your city. But in short (or not so short) I think there is money in making free 2d mobile games, but not so much in selling 2d tool to make games. Big game developers already have the engine they are using (sometimes in house or sometimes one of the ones available in the market) and small and Indy developers want to use something free and if they win the lottery (have a hit game) they’ll pay someday. Many business try to keep core to their business. So if they make games they probably have a focus on making games. Not servers and definitely not maintaining a 2d tool.

A small AdNetwork that is trying to sell ads and doesn’t have that much inventory might see a 2d tool with some established users as a way to get inventory they can buy cheaper than in the open market and sell for a profit in that market. Make it as convoluted as possible to use anything but their network and you’ll get a portion of the user’s inventory. I think that is what attracted Fuse and Appodeal. I don’t know how many impressions the collective of corona has but just looking at my numbers, I suspect it is in the hundred of millions a day (maybe more).

#22

Literally all the top grossing mobile games (maybe excluding mincraft) are F2P!  From a framework viewpoint maybe not so.

Corona may know how to make a good (if totally outdated - no particle editor, no shader editor, etc…) 2D engine but they have zero knowledge of how to market it!  “Build it and they will come” only works in a movie.

From all the devs I speak to few if any know Corona, and those that do simply say “Oh I remember they used to be a thing”.  This is Corona’s problem.

Simply put, they have an outdated product (no improvements in the past year or two) and they simply do not market it.  Having a (sometimes works) website is just not enough these days.

#23

Hi,

I’ve been waiting for someone to bring it up, but at this point I’m inclined to believe that Vlad is the only person working on Corona. Rob has been handling other duties, probably out of the kindness of his heart.

Since Walter left, it’s been a slow motion spiral, and it’s absolutely crushing for me to watch. Corona is by far one of best platforms around for all sorts of stuff. I’ve spent thousands of hours with this friend. How things like this happen to incredible tools, I do not know. But as was pointed out, marketing was not a priority, and it really should have been.

When Corona went open source, that was a red flag for me. It’s one thing to open source a project, but Corona is more of a system (the recent build issues show this). I couldn’t imagine what type of effort that would take, or if it’s even possible to recreate outside of their known infrastructure.

All that aside, I too would be willing to support the continued development. But that is going to require some transparency from those at Corona, if it is even of interest at this point.

I consider myself an optimist, so I certainly haven’t lost hope yet, but this is the closest to the cliff we’ve been. Let’s hope for the best.

-dev

#24

well, I am really concerned. i have so many games, and all done with corona. love the framework! got 4 years of work put into corona. I really hope it will continue. right now i am about to finish a new game…:frowning:

we need Walter!  :slight_smile:

#25

It looks like it’s high time to look for some type of alternative and replacement. I do not see any positive dynamics or any hints on the upgrade. As far as I could investigate in my code area https://areaphonecodes.com/united-states/415 developers start to switch to other frameworks. Actually, there is a solution. But it is a pity so much time will be wasted now for this change.

#26

Consider reading https://coronalabs.com/blog/2020/02/12/corona-labs-annual-update/

Then catch up to the conversation at https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/77157-from-the-blog-corona-labs-annual-update/

#27

Stop posting your spam links. Everyone can see what you’re doing.

#28

He’s gone.  I warned an account doing that the other day, doing the same thing, but when I did a “Find Content”, this account didn’t seem to be the one I warned. But none the less, we have a zero tolerance for spam.

Please report them when you see them.

Rob

#29

 For now, I think, if you want to, you should better concentrate on creating of AR game for example. I think more and more people prefer AR games to consoles, because you can play anywhere and all you need is your smartphone

#30

Stop posting your spam links. Everyone can see what you’re doing.

#31

He’s gone.  I warned an account doing that the other day, doing the same thing, but when I did a “Find Content”, this account didn’t seem to be the one I warned. But none the less, we have a zero tolerance for spam.

Please report them when you see them.

Rob

#32

 For now, I think, if you want to, you should better concentrate on creating of AR game for example. I think more and more people prefer AR games to consoles, because you can play anywhere and all you need is your smartphone