If the devs are having trouble keeping interest in upkeeping the AGK2 engine for publishing... I would be willing to pay a fair fee once in a while for them to update the publishing engine.. (say $40 once in a while?)
I wouldn't be adverse to even a small monthly fee either... But for my budget it would have to be around $5-$7 a month... (for more code and tips in the newsletter)
Just a thought....

Subscription has already been mentioned several times and is a non starter.

Classic uses a very old version of Geany which is difficult to support across multiple platforms which is why the focus is now on AppGameKit Studio.

Do you mean AppGameKit and AGK2?

It looks like AGK2 is now AppGameKit classic
If you continue to use AGK2, it looks like you can upgrade to AppGameKit Studio and still use the same code. (Which means we can ignore or use the new stuff, which is good)
(Loves these guys,,, always did)

You are correct.