Demo Forum
Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/Demo Forum
| ||
| Is there some other reason than fear of spam-bots that is behind the lack of any forum access for people who haven't bought Monkey? Could we maybe have a forum for demo users? If the purpose of the demo is to attract users it seems odd to then block those potential customers from posting questions. The result is a scenario where those questions end up going unanswered or posted on other forums (including the main Blitz site which is another no license, no post zone) or occasionally turning up in my email. |
| ||
| If the purpose of the demo is to attract (new) users, it seems counter intuitive that it's hopelessly out of date. |
| ||
| True, but that's been pointed out a few times and intentions to update it have been expressed in response. It seems a waste of time to go over it again. |
| ||
| I think it works for upselling. People who want to be able to engage the community will pay for a license. Those who are not serious about using Monkey, and do not intend to purchase it are just a waste of time. The only value these people have would be to bring up issues with Monkey which are not already known (and like has been said as long as the demo is out of date they would just be annoying with bringing up the same issues over and over), or to help build a FAQ for people who are serious about using it. There are other problems though, such as some of my friends being completely unable to purchase licenses. I think this is probably a problem and has limited the number of people who want to get into using Monkey, though I've been able to purchase two licenses without any problem. @Mark maybe add BMT Micro as another alternative payment provider? We have been using them for years without any issue. |
| ||
| True, but that's been pointed out a few times and intentions to update it have been expressed in response. Intentions don't really amount to much in the real world tho'. My point was that from the evidence presented it is reasonable to assume that the purpose of the demo is not to attract new users.Thus the premise of your suggestion is false, and there is little to no point in having a "demo" forum. Particularly so if their main purpose is to cross post absolutely everything from the "regular" forums, for the benefit of those who are otherwise unable to post. All in all the cost of Monkey isn't in a price range where buying it on impulse is entirely unthinkable. I mean it's only 20 bucks more than a year's worth of iOS developer fees, and I've certainly paid more for less. If the low price point and the demo doesn't sell it, I doubt a forum where you can ask questions would. Even less so if all the answers are going to be some variant of "This was fixed months ago", "Never going to happen" or "Nobody really knows, but here is 50 posts worth of speculation". :) There are other problems though, such as some of my friends being completely unable to purchase licenses. Tell them to stop using stolen credit cards. |
| ||
| The purpose of a demo forum wouldn't be to "cross-post" anything. This forum is entirely readable by anyone, so why would anyone cross-post? The purpose would be to allow demo users to _ask_ questions in a forum where the active community exist to answer them. As for the purpose of the demo, if your position is that it not being updated shows that it's not there to attract new users then you may as well go the whole distance and state that it's there to put people off. Good luck with the attitude that your assumptions are automatically superior to the next person's though. The demo exists. People use the demo. Those people have questions. |
| ||
| If the purpose of the demo is to attract (new) users, it seems counter intuitive that it's hopelessly out of date. It's not. |
| ||
| It could come in handy for something like this. |
| ||
| MonkeyDemo45c.zip? This is, ehm, surprising :-) |
| ||
| This forum is entirely readable by anyone, so why would anyone cross-post? Because they're not going to read *these* forums, are they? Even if they could. They'll just ask their questions there, regardless of whether they're answered elsewhere. As for the purpose of the demo, if your position is that it not being updated shows that it's not there to attract new users then you may as well go the whole distance and state that it's there to put people off. Why would I do that? There is no reasonable evidence to suggest that's the case. Good luck with the attitude that your assumptions are automatically superior to the next person's though. Assumptions based on logic and reasoning are almost always superior to those based on religion or feelings. It has nothing to do with me being superior to you. That's just circumstantial. It's not. I didn't think so. I would say I guess this settles it then, but I doubt it will... It could come in handy for something like this. Undoubtedly. But I think this pretty much falls into Soap's "upsale" scenario. I have no idea whether this really happens often enough to warrant a special forum, but I'm sure BRL do, so there's probably a reason behind it. |
| ||
| Because they're not going to read *these* forums, are they? Even if they could. They'll just ask their questions there, regardless of whether they're answered elsewhere. Firstly, that wouldn't be a cross-post. Secondly, by a demo-forum, I meant a sub-forum on this site that they could post in, not somewhere else. As for the rest of it, I can't be bothered to engage with someone who is so clearly driven by a need to find arguments and "win" them that they're blind to any reading of text that doesn't suit that purpose. |
| ||
| Firstly, that wouldn't be a cross-post. Maybe not technically. But the effect is the same. Secondly, by a demo-forum, I meant a sub-forum on this site that they could post in, not somewhere else. Yes. You're missing the point. I didn't say "somewhere else. I said elsewhere. I didn't mean "somewhere else on the entire Internet". I obviously meant "Another part of the site, which they have no incentive to visit". As for the rest of it, I can't be bothered to engage with someone who is so clearly driven by a need to find arguments and "win" them that they're blind to any reading of text that doesn't suit that purpose. Fine. I can't be bothered to engage with someone who can't read for comprehension on the most basic level. |
| ||
| I didn't think so. I would say I guess this settles it then, but I doubt it will... I was saying 'it's not' to your statement that the demo is hopelessly out-of-date - the demo is up-to-date. |
| ||
| I was saying 'it's not' to your statement that the demo is hopelessly out-of-date - the demo is up-to-date. Great, so now we've confirmed where reading comprehension should have led anyone not scrabbling to bolster their "logical" assumptions, can we possibly get a response to the topic question? Is there any chance of an area for the demo/free users to post in? Edit: And thanks for doing the update, by the way. It should reduce the number of times I have to explain to people why the Box2D demo isn't "broken". |
| ||
| A 'free' forum is unlikely to happen. Full forum and website access is an added incentive for people to purchase the full version, and helps to encourage sales amongst people who might otherwise just use a pirated copy. |
| ||
| I'd say that you're putting an obstacle in the path of potential purchasers rather than incentivising them to buy. "Give us your money and then we'll help you find out how useful our product is" seems a bit back to front to most people these days. Also, if Monkey takes off then you'll be missing the opportunity to own the conversation by being the home for that conversation. Your call though. |
| ||
| Why wouldn't people post here if it takes off? If they buy it they can post here. How is not allowing people who have not purchased to engage the community detracting from all of the other things showing how useful it is? No one is stopping people from building their own Monkey communities... but it's unlikely most of us would post there. I think us making games and releasing them will do well enough in selling people on using it, showing them how useful it is. Monkey will have an extremely long tail in sales and use. >Tell them to stop using stolen credit cards. Two separate, well established developers with lots of money were not able to purchase Monkey because the payment processor refused them. Neither of them live in the US... I don't know if it's really a big problem but it might be. We may have had double users here by now if this is really a problem, but who is to know. |
| ||
| Good grief. Read my post again. I didn't say that "people" wouldn't post here if monkey takes off, I said that BRL would be "missing the opportunity to own the conversation" in reference to the demo users that clearly wouldn't be able to post here. I didn't say that it detracts from what is here, I said that it denies direct help to demo users in discovering its usefulness. Yes, people can start their own monkey communities, that's my entire point about BRL relinquishing ownership of the conversation. As for who will be on such forums or not, if the customers start there and find all their initial help there, why wouldn't they stay there? Whatever. BRL clearly has its own way of doing things and an audience used to that. I'll learn my lesson and stick to just posting bugs. |
| ||
| @muddy_shoes: "Give us your money and then we'll help you find out how useful our product is" seems a bit back to front to most people these days. Sounds a bit like the game industry's "Give us your money and you can play the beta to see if you even want our product, since we don't make demos." Bad Company 2 Left 4 Dead (was a demo, but you still had to pay for it) Team Fortress 2 (pre-orange box) |
| ||
| Two separate, well established developers with lots of money were not able to purchase Monkey because the payment processor refused them. You need to have them talk to their bank. Share-it uses Verified by VISA (and Mastercard's similar authentication service) to significantly reduce credit card fraud, by ways of using what they (incorrectly) think is a two factor authentication scheme. If their bank (or account type) isn't compatible with the enhanced authentication, the payment will be denied. Sounds a bit like the game industry's "Give us your money and you can play the beta to see if you even want our product, since we don't make demos." Except its two distinctly different markets. The entertainment industry (including, but not limited to games) is targeting a vastly different (and broader) market than Monkey. As I see it, Monkey is more of a business to business product, where the entertainment industry is largely business to consumer.Is there a demo of BizTalk? A trial version of SAP? No, of course not. Why? Because as a customer, you already know if you want/need it or not. Abstractly it's the same thing with Monkey. The point of entry is pretty high (you need previous experience with another BRL product, preferably BlitzMAX, and you need to know that documentation and tool chain is something you have to figure out for yourself, and that you're buying the product as-is, with no expressed or implied roadmap of future functionality). What you have is what you got, and BRL are the key masters. Is an up-to-date demo, or even a demo forum going to change any of those factors significantly? Not likely. But if you can accept and understand these terms, Monkey is an excellent product for the money, which is a trivial amount for a serious developer. The cost of an iOS and Android account alone are more than that. Add to that the cost of a decent IDE (Sublime 2 or JungleIDE for instance), hosting for your business site, software licenses for the other software you'll need (like Photoshop), cost for content (graphics/music/sound effects/levels/story/etc.), an accountant, a Mac if you want to develop iOS games, FlexBuilder if you want to develop Flash games, an iPhone and Android phone if you want to test your games, and the cost of Monkey is absolutely dwarfed by all your other expenses. The main cost of using Monkey is time. This is true regardless of whether you are using the demo or the full version. You can reduce this cost somewhat by having access to the forums, where comparatively more seasoned Monkey developers are usually ready to help you. Insisting that this is not an incentive to buy is demonstrably false. I realize that personal anecdotes aren't data, but it's the reason I bought it. |
| ||
| I came from haXe. To me Monkey is the user friendly version of haXe, and to me more immediately useful, though haXe can be seen as more powerful. When I heard about Monkey and what it is that was enough for me to become extremely interested and I purchased my first license immediately - the cost is SO LOW compared to other tools and softwares that I have licensed that even if it didn't live up to my expectations it wouldn't be a major loss, because I am very selfish and I wish to fund things which show promise even if they are not immediately useful. :) Luckily for me I didn't have to wait months for Monkey to be more feature complete and stable as I originally had expected and we're almost about to release our first major game built with it. For many like me it is an impulse purchase... because it is clearly so great. But I'm not convinced opening up the forum will make things better than they are or convince more people to buy it. Instead I think it will just raise the noise in the forum and influence Mark to focus on things which are of no consequence to non-serious devs... and to me it's clear more people would just pirate it as it has no DRM and the ability to engage the community is the only controlled value. Say if someone does pirate it and gets into using it heavily but needs some help... so this community being licensees only is an incentive for them to finally buy it. So... you out there who have not purchased Monkey yet. Should you? Absolutely, yes! Come join us in the forum! :) |
   |