A very large client who baulks at paying $99 ?
Seriously now, a lot of people are taking this way too far.
If said large client used Unity, they’d pay a lot more than $99 to show their own splash screen.
Developing an SDK of this size costs a lot of money. Developers can’t put food on their families table with their good intentions alone.
The product has to take in income to pay the people working on it.
It’s that simple.
@Abdou23, here are the resources Brent mentioned:
https://docs.coronalabs.com/api/library/display/newEmitter.html
(look for the composite.normalMapWith1DirLight and composite.normalMapWith1PointLight entries).
@varun.raja.30 are you doing Simulator builds or Enterprise builds? I can get the team to look into this for you.
@juliusbangert Our splash screen has no effect on Apple’s use of UILaunchImages. You could produce your own which would show before the splash screen. The documentation is in the Project Build Settings guide: https://docs.coronalabs.com/guide/distribution/buildSettings/index.html#launchimage.
Rob
For guys using Corona since the beginning, it’s a new step (it used to be 99 per year, then 195 per year per platform, and so on). Having to pay 99 dollars a year should not be a problem (may be in some countries where 1 dollar is lot of money ?). The way it has been announced is not good. Hope this extra revenue can help Corona improve the Text engine and the widgets (I made a dream…)
The $99 is not the point. The point is the message it sends - yet another change of business model. Is Corona SDK going to be around in a year so we can continue to service our apps or is it going to fall off a cliff when they run out of new owners willing to take a punt on it?
We know Corona is great, but people making the decisions at big companies don’t, all they see is Corona Labs changing hands yet again.
Observation: worst roll-out strategy ever. I can understand that Corona Labs is a tech company, staffed by programmers probably doing double duty on all sorts of responsibilities, but is there no-one there with a business degree?!
Non-issue: sure, I’ll pay the $99 to remove the not-so-attractive nagware.
Immediate concern: build 2950 came out on 9/16, I built and published an update on 9/17, the blog releases details of the splash screen on 9/19 indicating that it’s effective as far back as build 2949. My published app does not currently appear to have this new splash screen, but is it going to “phone home” and download it and start displaying it eventually?
Ongoing concern: after having paid the $99, can the splash be ENTIRELY eliminated - ie, not one of yours, not one of mine, just gone COMPLETELY, WITH NO STARTUP DELAY ADDED? This will be a big deal.
I think the biggest and only reason we’ve seen several changes in business model is that every single time Corona attempts to charge in any way, shape or form for their product, this exact thing happens.
A vocal minority goes nuts and makes them out to be the new satan and attempts to force Corona to reverse the decision.
They are being fair in my opinion. Trying new things to get the balance worked out (balance between what the users are happy with and what makes financial sense for them) and are not digging their heels in with a system that people deem too much.
Since we really have no choice how about adding the option to at least chose your logo in a color that would be more aligned with the colors in the app - instead of the current pumpkin orange!
A metallic silver and/or gold, or simply setting a fill in color the user sets in the settings.
This would make the Corona splash screen a bit more palatable!
This is a Chinese style of promotion 
… A new plugin to remove a new feature :P You and me and everyone here are noticed now.
A beginner doesn’t care a 3 sec splash.
A developer doesn’t care $99/year for an everyday tool, and Corona worth it.
Corona, too much thinking…
Developers, you worry too much because you are too tired. :D 
I’m a Chinese and this happens to me daily.
@enterprise subscribers, you should not be seeing a splash screen. Please email support AT coronalabs.com if you are and let them know your particulars (build #, Android or iOS, simulator or native build, etc.)
@davebollinger, to the question about the build you shipped prior to our announcement, I need to verify that. For your other concern, if you purchase the plugin, and you do not provide your own image, there should not be any delay.
Rob
Fine, but there’s a right way to do things. Put a blog post up a month before announcing the changes, giving developers time to make a decision and Corona time to get the splash screen 100% right and customisable. Don’t sneak it into a daily build 3 days before the announcement.
For anyone with app thinning issues who were using an older build, we had the same problem and Apple sent us an email saying they’ve identified the issue on their end and were reprocessing the builds that failed so we’re not certain you need the latest build to submit successfully to the app store at this time.
It all comes down to one thing: Courage!
Seriously, when I first noticed the splash screen I freaked out a little. Having been using Corona since the very beginning and promoting it since, this “feature” causes concerns regarding how much I trust this platform / company. And it is not because of $99 but the uncertainty of what will be charged (with no warning) as extra features in the future.
For the management team: Please clarify the roadmap regarding future pricing schemes.
Thanks,
Dave
My biggest problem is that the functionality of the plug-in isn’t well communicated. I have to go to the Marketplace, select the plug-in, scroll the display down to reveal the Documentation link in the bottom left corner and then click it to go to this:
https://docs.coronalabs.com/plugin/CoronaSplashControl/index.html
Also, the documentation should carefully explain how the scaling is done. Is aspect ratio preserved? Is it stretched to fill? Etc. Some of us have carefully built our own splash screen modules to deal with different use cases and I’d like to fully understand how the new plug-in works before using it (for any purpose other than disabling the Corona splash itself.).
In summary, make the features more obvious (in the plug-in summary in the Marketplace) and add more details to the documentation page. Please.
As for charging the $99, it’s a one time fee (usually something a client would absorb) and a very fair exchange for the VALUE of Corona itself. I want Corona Labs to prosper and now that they aren’t a cost center for Perk, they need to make revenue. This is an incredibly reasonable way to do so IMHO.
Sales of platforms always make people feel a little worried. The fact that the sale was not immediately mentioned in a blog post makes it even more so. The fact that the developers don’t feel like they know where the platform is headed is also a worry. Time for another roadmap?
Rev share on advertisements, even if limited in scope, reminds people that they DON’T control the platform and at some point in the future may have to give up very high percentages. And since this would be a very effective revenue generation model for Corona long-term it presents a very scary proposition…
Changes to platform pricing and development tiers with no notice also does not imbue confidence. I don’t mind paying $99 to remove a startup screen. I think 30 - 90 days notice of upcoming changes is probably best though.
I’m normally not super jumpy, but recent events made me go and install Defold on all of my machines and begin reviewing it as an option… The more information I can read here about the Corona platform going forward, the less time I’ll need to spend poring over Defold documentation with a worried look on my face!
I’ve got a few contractors working on a project (just started) so I’m very interested in long-term plans for Corona!
Hi Ben. Thank you for the questions. I will try to address them. As for the price, everyone is going to have an opinion on the price from free all the way up to “Bring back Pro”. $99 a year is less than $10 a month and if you’re building apps for clients or where you don’t want our branding, we feel $99 a year is fair.
Regarding communications, sure they can always be better and I think we do try to be as transparent with you as possible when we can and we can always work to be better at it. As far as AdMob goes, I don’t want to hijack this thread, so open up a new topic about it and I will tell you want I can about it.
Rob
I agree that giving some notice would have been more optimal for sure.
What do you think whan you say “AdMob is kept in dark…”
Can you explain in one-two sentences or provide some forum links?
Many thanks.
@tschussler - The docs should have also been linked from the blog post. It’s also linked from the plugin doc’s index page. We probably should include more information on how you should prepare your own images. I’ll get that feedback to the team. I’ll also suggest improving the description on the Marketplace.
@gamedeveloper, regarding the sale: this announcement isn’t the proper place for this. This was about the release and the splash screen. We will be having more posts covering the sale and the road map coming soon. We have some exciting things coming soon too. But I do want to assure you, we plan to be around a long time and we plan to be the best 2D engine on the market.
@ivan888, I’ve asked that we take the AdMob discussion to another thread to keep this one focused.
@rich.stupek, I still owe you answers on that topic. Can you bump your thread for me?
@lessmsios, and everyone else regarding the look of the splash screen: We are working on this. It’s going to take more than a few minutes to pull the details together.
Rob
Thanks for the confidence boost Rob. I’ll keep an eye out for upcoming blog posts.