We (I particularly) had a very looooong and heated discussion about this last year where I was coming up with different tiers and possible monetisation options to suite as many people as possible with free plans, annual plans, monthly plans, open-source solutions and every single person on this forum was against all my ideas and some users did even throw insults at me. Finally a moderator locked the topic claiming the discussion is not useful.
In my opinion no point to waste any time with this discussion. The community does not support it and TGC is afraid to implement it.
As things was going this year, no I would not pay an annual fee for 1 maintenance release a year.
If we think about it, TGC have tried everything so far.
AGK Tier1 to make coders happy
AGK Tier2 to make C++ coders happy
AGK C++ source available to make C++ coders even more happy
Added extension support so the community can develop and share extensions and add functionalities TGC can not
AGK Studio with Integrated level editor to make people need a level editor more happy
Nothing is really worked. Coders are not happy with AppGameKit, visual game makers are not happy with Studio, nobody is taking advantage of C++ to make awesome extension. There are 0 extension worth mentioning.
Personally I switched to Love2D since we had that very heated conversation about this last year and received no response from TGC
So the way I see it, this is what AppGameKit need to compete with if they want to win me back to AGK.
-Lua scripting that allow any form of programming, data driven, oop, functional, name it, you can do it
-the entire repository of Lua libraries
-lots of Love2D extensions and libraries written in pure Lua (easy to integrate, straight forward to use), you can do even 3D
-completely free
-full C++ source is available if Lua was not enough
-ZeroBrane Studio a dedicated Lua IDE with full Love2D support
-lots of extension for many 3rd party text editors to add Love2D support, VS Code, Atom, SublimeText
-or just code in notepad and run your Lua code with Love2D without any complicated setup and configuration required.
-no setup, just download, code, run
The only way I would consider it to return to AppGameKit and may even pay an annual fee if........... I'm trying to think but honestly, no idea.
At this point I think TGC should make AppGameKit fully open-source, make it free and abandon it and let the community decide if anyone interested to continue maintain it or not. If nobody interested to maintain it for free, for the community then no point to keep it alive.... This is my final verdict. And I honestly sorry this is the way I feel. I loved AppGameKit and I was really hoping TGC can make it a success but at this point I honestly can not see how, especially after such a poor year in terms of updates as 2021 was so far. I'm really sorry.
