Why did king make its own engine public?

Questions
#1

Hi,

I’m an unity3D user since 2008. I like it a lot for 3D but for 2D it is pretty akward in my opinión. So, I’m looking for an alternative 2D engine for fast prototyping and production.

After playing with cocos2d-x, monogame and some others I read about defold going public and I have been trying it for 1 week and I must say I like it a lot.

My main concern is the support this engine will have from their creators and the bussines model that will apply. At a first glance it seems that you are moving towards a “service seller” like unity is doing (I say this because of the analytics tab you can find in the dashboard, etc.) but would like to know from the devs what is going on here before using this platform as my main 2D game tool creation.

So, here come the questions:

  1. Is it posible you could explain why King released its own engine to the public? One option could be, to let all the community improve it and free the Company from putting a lot of money into it, but it seems that source code is not available (I could be wrong here).

  2. Is there any roadmap we could have a look at?

  3. Will source code be available anytime soon?

  4. Are, other platforms in the Works? PS4, Xbox one, etc…?

  5. How could we add native plugins? For example, integration of admob ad network into defold.

  6. Will the engine and editor be free forever?

And that’s all, hope someone could answer this questions to let me start using this awesome engine/editor with confidence.

Cheers!.

3 Likes
#2

Hey!

  1. This is one of the most common questions and it’s answered in the faq on the front page: http://www.defold.com/ Source access is not required for the community to improve the product, we hope someone will make a great tutorial, or make us aware of a bug we have not yet seen. Or simply give us a great idea on how the engine should do a particular thing. The quality bar is automatically raised when it’s available external to the company. Another aspect is to give back to the echo system. Free tech is really a good thing for things to happen.
  2. Not yet sorry, but there will be one available quite soon.
  3. Not anytime soon. There are a few things we need to iron out before considering this from a practical point of view.
  4. No consoles in the works at this time, but AppleTV (tvOS) is the latest one. I think that should come in the next stable, or the one after. We always do things by what is requested the most. Steam support has been discussed. If you want that console feeling, we support the different gamepads. :wink:
  5. That’s not possible at this time, but it’s something we talked a lot about lately and formulated a rough idea how that could work. We will come with more info down the line, but it’s a very highly requested feature so it will be done, no doubt.
  6. Yes! :smiley:
4 Likes
#3

Hi,

There is just one thing that wasn’t clear to me. Do you mean Steam support will be comming? It is one of the platforms I target the most.

Thanks in advance.

1 Like
#4

We haven’t taken a decision in this yet, but it has been requested before. If there is enough demand for it, then we need to add support for it.

2 Likes
#5

Still planned for soon?

#6

I’m currently experimenting with various engines; Steam support is a pretty big ‘must have’ on the list of requirements for our team, so hopefully you guys lean towards implementing it in the near future.

#7

AFAIK it was officially put on the todo at some point.

1 Like
#8

Yes, but my mistake in how soon it would be shipped. There is not much left to get it integrated, but the low need for it and very high need for better web-support had put it on the backburner. The amount of people requesting it is still basically zero so I guess it would come during the autumn.

#9

Yes, another thing the new extensions system will help with.

2 Likes