Buildbox 3 Is Clearly Working...

Just going to call Buildbox out here. I am a Master Collection purchaser with the thought that we would get a working Buildbox 3.0 “early” as they pushed so hard marketing-wise, at least with the “Beta” version (alpha, fine I get it). Pretty much Beta just crashes and is unusable, YET as seen by Mykola Rudenko’s account on the app store (https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/mykola-rudenko/id1389688440?mt=8), BB3 is in working order and being used to try and get a deal with either Voodoo (most likely) or Ketchapp (again, but most likely voodoo) before they release to actual paying users of their product so that they as a company can either promote this as a “marketing” stunt or beat the rush that will happen once released to all of us (or both). I have to say this is definitely a cheap shot at all of us as paying customers. Sure there needs to be testing, but clearly this is beyond testing on their side. Definitely never falling for their marketing gimmicks again of "early" payments to them, and I would assume all the other Master Collection purchasers will feel the same.

 

Don't worry just another 2 weeks lol

 

Yeah 2 weeks from the date they sign the publishing contract with Voodoo.

 

Those games are clearly for testing purposes since they’re incomplete and full of bugs. You can still play Knife Drop after you lose and other things. They have to make sure people can actually upload games to the App Store.

 

Although full of bugs they are still good prototypes and could be used to show off to a publisher.

 

yes indeed they are testing (the retention of the game) to get a publishing deal, most likely with Voodoo

 

You guys are implying that they are actively holding the release hostage so they can profit from the software before anyone else. You don't think that sounds ridiculous?

 

What do you think is ridiculous @jmiller8031? I mean there is nothing implied. It's fact that there are 4 games on the main devs developer account (or his sisters or mothers) that are clearly made in BB3 and that are being clearly tested for retention while the normal boxer who pays for the software still has no access or has only limited access with a buggy alpha version that doesn't even export when people were drawn into buying MC2 or the subscription being engaged by promising access to BB3. I mean the facts are clear, if you can't see them then it's ridiculous from your side imo.

And to be fair, it happened with BB2 (with Ketchapp) and now its happening with BB3. And I can totally understand what Buildbox is doing here. But I also can totally understand the point of view of the customer. In the end it definitely feels wrong from an ethical perspective and it definitely provokes negative emotions. It's an ethical conflict per se, being a software developer and a game developer at the same time. And when sales strategies are getting mixed with a conflict of interests then this is going to happen.

Me personally I have learned that this is the way it is, and instead of focusing on what they do, I try to focus on what I do. But it's just that it's almost impossible to ignore at that stage.

Having said that, personally I believe that the software is not ready (and won't be ready for a long time). Most probably Nik is developing the engine with his games in mind. So every time he wants to do something for his game and the engine is not able to do it, he develops the feature at the moment. You could argue that this is an amazing way of developing the engine because it's being developed with a real world application in mind. But I also think that this means an even slower development and possibly a development in only one particular direction (like happened with BB2, remember the ghost jump?) which (obviously) can't be in our interest.

Definitely worth to talk about since we are all involved somehow. Ridiculous, not at all.

 

I'm a old BuildBoxer, I now use Unity to make all of my games but I have been waiting for BB3 to come out to test. After I saw Mykola Rudenko’s game and saw the splash screen I grabbed my laptop and ran to these forums They are most likely marketing the engines games before marketing the engine its self, as well as trying to beat the big rush of BB3 games when the engine comes out like Tout said. Also they're most likely going with Ketchapp as I am now signed with Voodoo and can distinguish which games are Voodoos as we are required to provide a private policy on the Appstore due to the sdks we use and Mykola Rudenko does not have any on his games. Cheers

Edit: After going through all of Mykolas games some have private policy's and some don't, which means they are most likely trying to strike a deal with Voodoo

 

Would be good to have some feedback from Buildbox regarding this @TreySmith @ZackGriset

 

Man, sometimes you guys are relentless.

Do you really think that after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars making Buildbox 3, instead of releasing it to recoup cost, we would just hoard it just to pitch half broken games to publishers in hopes for a big deal?

Guys, think about that.

Not only would it be completely unscrupulous, it would also be the dumbest business decision of all time. We will get a considerable amount of revenue the second we release BB3 beta. To trade that for hoping (god knows how long) to get a publishing deal would be ridiculous. Also, what would be the advantage? BB3 is not limited. It doesn't even make sense.

@AppTrout there is no difference between the Alpha Version 2 you have, and the one we are using besides export. Same API. We aren't using some super-secret final version like you think. It has a super buggy export option that you most definitely would complain about at this stage (though we almost have it finished now).

Let me tell you guys something:

There is a reason no one has successfully created a codeless 3D engine before. Development isn't easy to begin with, and this is one beast of a project. It makes Buildbox 2 look like Fisher Price. With something complex as this you hit tons of issues. Crazy graphic drivers issues, Open GL not rendering shadows on 10% of machines, etc, etc.

If we released what we had now, you guys would freak out.

You get mad when we release things that are buggy, then demand we release things instantly. It can not be both ways.

As for why we are making and releasing tech demos privately? Guys... How do you think we know what features to make? How do you think we make sure you won't have issues when you upload it to the store? How do you think we find out if we have everything in the software publishers will demand? How do you think we come up with the nodes required to make different types of gameplay?

We're running ALL SORTS of test.

We're buying traffic to older devices and checking retention to see if they are having issues, we're buying traffic ourselves to see if the games convert, we're making sure Apple and Google don't have an issue with our bundle, we're making sure we have all the nodes that create games that publishers want (so it won't require custom coding), and yes, we're also working VERY closely with all the publishers.

We want BB3 to be the go to platform for hyper-casual. To do that, we need to have every single major publisher on board. We're meeting with the major ones weekly. We're getting ideas from them, and showing them how we can build them in a day. They are blown away and fully on board with BB3, which is extremely important (especially after they were shoveled so much crap the last year with people buying BBDOCS).

If a pub wants to run a test, of course we'll let them. Why wouldn't we? But it's not the goal here, and as you can see most of the games are extremely incomplete with no sound, one level, etc.

Attempting to "Call us out" and say we're holding the release so we can strike a deal... Well, if you knew how hard the team was working to get this software out there, you'd know why that pissed me off.

 

EDIT: I'm locking this thread guys. I don't want the negativity on the forum, this place was just finally coming back around. You can DM me if you have any questions or comments.