I felt the same way a year ago, but I think it's safe to say it's become more than a fad.

However, you can still visit the AppGameKit Facebook page and view the video without actually having an account.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_219670334729754&ap=1

Still requires that I sign up for one.
I think it's safe to say that Facebook is going to become more of a pita for a lot of people.
Besides that, I honestly do not want to get harassed by the number of relatives that I have.

I honestly do not want to get harassed by the number of relatives that I have.

I hear ya there.

The Facebook page is really a mess. It is very hard to keep up with what I have and have not read. It is also annoying to get constant notifications from customers posting on the page. I basically just ignore it now. I wish all was handled through the forum instead.

On the AppGameKit Facebook page at the top just right of center there is an Edit Settings button. You can tell it to not send you emails.

FWIW I hate the format Facebook uses too, but if you ignore social sites in today's business environment you lose out on a lot of potential customers that would have otherwise never heard of you.

I've turned off the email notifications, but still receive FB notifications. I'm not saying ignore FB, but they are all but ignoring this forum.

I just want a release date.

Will there be a pre-order page some time soon.

I don't fully understand the tiers

If I purchase the tier 1 I can't sell my games to the app stores so can I only sell games by purchasing tier 2.

Can I still make games using the DBPro scripting language?

Also can you port 2D DBPro games to AppGameKit or do they need a lot of code changes?

Thanks

From what I understand reading the newsletter, the forum posts here and the Facebook page, and making some minor assumptions.

Tier 1: You submit your game to TGC, they check it out, approve it and send it to the App Store(s). The App Store takes their percentage of your game's sale price and gives the rest to TGC. TGC takes their percentage and gives you the rest.

Tier 2: You make your game and submit it to the app stores yourself. You pay the developer fees and digital signing fees. The app store takes their percentage, and gives you the rest.

At least that's the impression I get. We'll have to wait and see what the final word is from TGC to find out for sure.

There will be a fair amount of rewriting to do to convert a 2D DBPro game to an AppGameKit game. The Sprite commands are different.

See the Asteroid Blast thread for an example of the AppGameKit source. I posted it in Code blocks about 2/3 down the page.

: If you publish via TGC then we will take a 30% cut of any revenues received via any app stores the app is published into. So let?s say you earn $100 from Apple App Store. Apple will take a 30% cut of the $100 which leaves $70, then TGC will take 30% of the $70 ($21), you will receive $49.

But look what would it look like when our game is pretty popular and this comes out;

We have 2000$ out of our mega game. Apple takes their profit,
we're left with 1400$, now TGC takes their magic 30%, we're left with 980$ Less than a half, but that's how it is with Tier 1.

Yet, i guess developers fees of tier 2 will be outstanding high. Which will give us almost the same... Until we make great games.

Here's what you could expect, if your app/game is good enough, based on 100,000 copies of a game sold.

Game cost (0.99 x 100000) = $99,000

After iPhone App Store's cut, you're left with 70% of $99,000 (99000 x 0.70) = 69,300

After TGC take their cut you're left with 70% of $69,300 (69300 x 0.70) = $48,510

If you live in the UK, you are taxed at 40% for anything over ?35,000 and 50% for ?150,000 and over, as far as I

know.

With the current USD-GBP conversion rate at rougly (?0.63), (48510 x 0.63) = ?30,561.30p.

After the UK Inland Revenue take their 40%, you are left with 60% (30561.30 x 0.60) = ?18,336.78p

Considering TGC takes care of the deployment through tier-1, what is everyone complaining about?. If you game takes

you about a month then 18 grand for a month's work is great. Most people have to work an 8 hour/day for a year, hard

graft, to take home that amount after tax.

If the app stores are going to take their cut either way, giving up another 21% of the gross for the service TGC would provide seems reasonable.

Thanks for the info guys.

So if I'm not mistaken the only difference between the tiers is that you can only code native C++ in tier 2 for the additional performance and you have to publish via TGC with tier 1.

I would like to know if the cost of publishing with tier 1 is more or less than publishing direct to the app stores.

Think tier 1 will be sufficient for my needs. I can only code in DBPro anyway and having TGC help get your games into the app stores seems like a good thing.

Can you develop and deploy games to iphone providing you have the AppGameKit runtime on the device or is there any device restrictions for tier 1?

I wrote my own version of Jetpac some years ago so am looking forward to doing an AppGameKit rewrite of that. Having built in collision and physics is going to be even more awesome compared with the dodgy routines I used to hack in.

Does anyone know how the automatic player collision works for world collisions. I noticed it wasn't working on the newsletter r-type clone but everything else looked good. Like the particle effects also.

Think tier 1 will be sufficient for my needs. I can only code in DBPro anyway and having TGC help get your games into the app stores seems like a good thing.

Yup. But you gotta be ready to take less than 50% of your sales. (If your app would reach 2000$ for sales, you will have around 980$ remaining.)

Can you develop and deploy games to iphone providing you have the AppGameKit runtime on the device or is there any device restrictions for tier 1?

You can deploy your apps on any supported device, both with Tier 1 and 2. (Eg. You can deploy your game for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and MeeGoo at the same time)

With Tier 2 you are likely to get to keep more of your money, depending on how many app stores you choose to deploy to, and which ones. Some of them have annual developer fees, some don't. (for now) Some of them require your app to be digitally signed, which is another annual expense.

The additional cost in developing for iOS is Apple's requirement that you develop on a Mac. So if you don't have one that's going to set you back a fair amount.

If you don't know C++, and don't have (or don't want) a Mac, then Tier 1 puts you on the playing field with some really good tools.

(Eg. You can deploy your game for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and MeeGoo at the same time)

Initially the AppGameKit is going to support 5 platforms.
- Windows
- Mac
- iOS
- Meego
- Bada

Support for Android and other platforms will come later.

I'm really looking forward to this.

TGC seem to be really ahead of the game on this one.

Tier 1 is my choice, since I don't want to use C++ and have to pay for signatures...


Cheers.

I'm so going to buy AppGameKit

Updated: Now Tier 1 and Tier 2 have been united so you just buy AppGameKit and you get the best of both worlds. yeah!