Hi All,

Here is the recording of the broadcast we ran on Wednesday, feel free to spool through for juicy answers to many questions:


And for the questions I did not get to verbally, here they are in written form:

Q> You'd have to make it so the engine would not compile an executable if stock media is being used, making the assets that ship with GGM "test purposes only", basically, to stop asset flips.
A> That is a very interesting solution! Does everyone agree this? If any stock media is detected (say over 50%) then MAX adds a splash to all standalone saying this is for test purposes or similar? It would certainly scupper the eager flipper!

Q> When do you intergrate the terrain nodes?
A> The multi-node system for the terrain will be announced when we have finished the section related to map size and initial formation, and perhaps even when the whole terrain system is done, so no date as yet.

Q> Will the new MAX release allow the user to have media & models from another drive, rather than need to be installed on the main C: drive, which may only be a small 500GB SSD drive?
A> Yes you will be able to change the destination of your write folder (which would include your own custom assets) to a location of your choice on your local PC.

Q> Hey Lee, any plans to improve the core FPS combat? There's a slightly old thread on the forums talking about a lot of features the community agrees that an FPS needs that are missing from GG.?
A> We have added those suggestions to our internal list, and we will be working through them to make sure the Shooter game type experience matches what you might expect from a modern game. We won't go ape, but we will be tightening things up.

Q> Hey i want to make a 3rd person game but it animations and movement looks bad?
A> There will no out of the box support for 3rd Person Perspective for MAX. There is basic support for this in Classic and you can of course provide your own models and characters to improve the animations and access to LUA scripts to improve the movement system. For MAX, we want to focus on First Person Perspective which will keep us busy for a while.

Q> ​Will there be destructible entities? I mean, will most of them be?
A> There are no plans to add a dedicated destructible object system but we have added it to our suggestions list and spy an opportunity to include in somehow. It is not a top priority right now.

Q> Will Gameguru be able to compete against unreal and unity? .Also which engine do you recommend for beginners except for gameguru?
A> MAX will not complete with Unity and Unreal on almost every level, they are thousands strong. We are a few guys and gals. We can certainly compete against them on the ease of making 'a' game as I believe to do a good Unity FPS you would need to buy a pack or learn to script/code. Similar for Unreal (correct if wrong). As to my non GGM recommendation, I would opt for Unreal because it has C++

Q> ​When does the Multiplayer and last beta released?
A> There are no dates for any multiplayer functionality in MAX at present, we want to focus on First Person single player games. The last beta was released at the end of 2020.

Q> Will performance and load time be better in max?
A> I believe so. We are using Wicked Engine which is excellent at thread management for rendering, and we are determined to make sure our load times for the editor and the final standalone executable are reasonable compared to modern games.

Q> ​Lee, your streams with creating scripts were really helpful and fun but also provided users with no scripting experience with game logic. Will you be doing that again in the future for Max?
A> If I had to pick a dream job, that would be it. Alas I have a lot of development to manage and contribute towards which does not leave much time to deep dive into the joys of scripting. I think once MAX v1.0 is out the door, and I switch to more of an evangelist mode, I think I can increase my output for live coding sessions and more interesting videos covering different aspects of using GameGuru MAX.

Thanks for all your questions and I look forward to answering more next week!

Keep it up!
The constant comparisons of GG to Unity and Unreal are understandable, but newcomers to game dev don't all understand the use of niche focused engines like GG. The point isn't to compete with Unity or Unreal.

Not sure if I want a forced splash screen just because I made something that contains 50% of the "stock"assets, these are included in the price right? Also what would be considered a "stock" asset? anything that is shipped with GGMax at launch, or will it include all officially released DLCs? and any assets bought through the TGC Store?

If you are going to do anything, do a "forced credits" section, where you have a "made with game guru max" there if it meets the criteria, or if people want to give a shout out even if they don't use 50% of the assets.

It should be upto the end user if and how they want to credit the devs of the software, I am all for it myself, but I would like to choose where it goes. Having a forced splash screen on a paid for product will give it that "free trial" feel and may actually turn people away, especially as you said that this isn't really competing against the "big boys" (Unreal/Unity) but more for the hobbyist getting into development.. so is this really that big of an issue anyway?

Basically if I had known that any game I may develop either paid (very doubtful) or for free will have a massive "Made with" logo at the beginning just because I used the default assets when I pre-purchased.. I would have just said "Nope, I will just stick with GG Classic" or just stuck with the trial version and shared the map files with my friends telling them "you can download the free trial version to play this game" and saved myself a bit of cash.

I agree.
If a user is ready to create and publish a game, they should be ready to use custom media as well. imho

The 200 character limit on YT's chat made it difficult to get my full suggestion across, but to elaborate; yes. I've noticed that every Game Guru asset flip on Steam , at least the ones I've seen so far (which is several dozens because I actively search for them out of curiousity) ONLY use the stock media and characters that ship with GameGuru. Many of them more recently, just open a sample map, compile it and toss that up on Steam with a price tag!

So, making impossible for flippers to compile a game that uses mostly stock assets in it would very much discourage the majority of them from continuing to do this moving forward, I would imagine. Because it would, in the very least, require them to actually have to put in a little more effort to get their shovelware thrown onto Steam (importing assets to use), which should discourage a large lot of them, let's be honest.

Apparently, what they're doing with these asset flips is requesting hundreds of Steam keys for their "game" from Steam (which they get for free), and then they sell those free keys to key-sharing websites for a few cents a piece. Do a few hundred of those transactions every day, and you've got a nifty side hustle going.

So yeah, can't really think of any better way to discourage this from continuing to happen other than to keep them from using stock media outside of test game mode.

EDIT: Personally, I wouldn't bother with adding a splash page to an already-compiled game, I would simply prevent them from compiling an .exe with stock assets altogether. A "shaming" splash page won't stop these particular individuals from throwing that .exe up onto Steam anyway. And the purpose is to prevent it from getting there in the first place, right? Just my two cents.

Thank goodness for game dev quality control.
This engine has great potential the last thing it needs is flipping amateur dramatic games with nothing to them. I totally agree with this. Good work guys

This is a very interesting and promising idea, one of my biggest problems with GameGuru is the negative stigma around it due to the prevalence of stock/DLC media plastered over a default tutorial map in some worthless asset flip on Steam; ruining the assets for those of us who wished to use them in a more competently made work.

I really like the idea of it only being triggered if there's a high volume of stock content, so you can still use some of the more useful built-in stuff if you have an actual reason to. (Ex: I don't want to spend a ton of time or money modeling/purchasing all the rocks and plants!)

I am a bit worried about it only being a "This is a test" splashscreen though, I highly doubt an asset flipper would care about an unprofessional splash screen, or even notice (as I have reasons to doubt they even play their "game" after it finishes exporting before plastering it on Steam.) I would like to vote for a "lockout" measure instead, where it simply refuses to spit out an executable if you use too much stock media. Or if that's too harsh, some kind of restriction on the final .exe, like maybe the executable will check for the GG Max install folder to load it's assets from, rather than it's own folder; preventing it from being distributed. (Even if they manually copied their GG Max "files" folder to the executable's folder, it would ignore them and try to look for a GG Max install for the assets to load instead, and refuse to run with an error message if it's not found.)

So people shouldn't even be allowed to compile a .exe even if they use the stock media at all? What about the people who just want to make a game that they want to share with their friends? the ones that don't care about trying to make a quick buck?

Seriously if I can't export a single .exe just because I am using the paid for default assets I am going to ask for a refund for my money right now.

Everyone is treating this as a premium game engine and a real problem, the problem lies with Steam accepting any pile of crap on their servers not the people making it. Its like RPG Maker games, there are hundreds of them, and lots of them too make use of the default assets, does it make them any less playable? No they are good in their own right. The reason people use software like GG and RPG Maker is because they have an idea for a game, and don't want to go through the hassle of learning something like Unity, and/or learning to 3D model or anything else along those lines.

By stopping people from making their own games if they use the default assets will be the end of GGMax, who would want to spend time making a game that only they can play, and then why would they pay money for the software if they can't export it, they would do as I suggested, download the free trial and send out maps to their friends.

You're idea is turning me off GGMax and if it gets implemented I will be asking for my money back, I should get punished as a hobbyist "just for fun" developer for using the inbuilt assets to make a game that I want to send to my friends because people are worried that it will be used to make an asset flip that will be sold on steam... I will look for another solution plain and simple. obviously this software is only for the elite developers.

My opinion is to not restrict anything, there will be enough people only using stock assets of Gameguru Max to create their games and play with family or friends.

Some can't make the assets, and should not be punished for that imo.

Is there someway you can just make demo maps not compile into standalone - that way they can use all the assets if they want but have to put some effort into creating their own game.

OldFlak....

Personally the easiest way is just not to include very many assets with Max.
Leadwerks you only get a character with a gun and odds and sods for the demo level.
Other engines supply nothing but place markers.

The problem is if you can use the thousands of GG assets from GameGuru Classic im not sure how you can distinguish the stock from the imported anyway. I would say supply the basics and let users create, import their own.

Great work Lee and the team.

Can't wait to see the new installer next week and the auto updater.

If we get a sneak peek at the redesigned UI that will also be very welcome. See you same time next week.

Personally, I don't agree with doing this. I don't know if it's possible for someone to make a really great game with included assets or not, but why should that be a restriction? What if someone actually could make a great game with included assets? Should they not be allowed to do so because others make crap games by asset flipping? GameGuru is an easy game creation tool kit. Making games with included assets is a part of that, imo. Personally, I would create all my own assets. So, this is not something I would do (use the included assets). But I just don't see why there should be a restriction like that. In my opinion, TCG should just make the tool (GameGuru MAX) and let the end-user make what they want. But that's just my opinion.

Honestly, probably the better option, considering the points that some users have brought up against the idea. Maybe a character or two, a few weapons and a bit of scenery so users can see how everything works, play around with things a bit and then move onto the next step from there.

As DukeDudeston mentioned, this really is a "Steam" problem more than anything else, sadly. Unity suffers from the same image problem for the same reasons.

Only thing I could suggest to TGC then, would be to keep an eye on the projects users around here start working on with GGM, and if any of them stand out, maybe provide the developer with a bit of *ahem* assistance/resources/promotion/marketing to really get their game polished up, and then get it out there in the public eye. Synergy.

How about it, Lee? Have you ever considered becoming a video game publisher?

This is probably the worst idea since "Let's invade Russia in winter!"

Let me be crystal clear: If that was applied to stock assets from game guru classic, rightfully bought and licensed under the "you can do commercial games with the stuff you buy from us, no strings attached", it's such a severe breach of contract regarding those, that you would get legally slaughtered. I wouldn't even need a decent lawyer, a trained chimp could do the job.

Aside from that, where do you draw the line, how would you detect? If you have someone doing amazing retextures like Wolf used to, but it's saved under the same filename, would it count towards the threshold? What about DLCs, are they considered stock, too?`

No, seriously, stray away from that idea as far as possible.

I have been reading the forum for many years, and I actively use GameGuru . Never on the forum did not communicate. But right now, I just can't keep quiet. Are you seriously discussing restrictions? Do you seriously believe that restrictions will solve the problem with bad games? It's just fantastic. This will never happen.

Restrict or prohibit is the simplest and stupidest solution to the problem. I am against any restrictions on the use of standard GameGuru Max resources, because I paid money. I bought GameGuru Max. This means that I should be able to use all the resources as I see fit, without exception, that are included in my paid version of GameGuru Max. I don't understand why there should be restrictions? If the standard assets are high-quality, then they can appear in a high-quality game. Why do so many people here believe that a good game must necessarily have unique 3D models? For example, I need a 3D model of a wooden box. All wooden boxes are usually the same. I am 100% sure that the wooden box will be the standard 3D model of GameGuru Max. Are you going to tell me that I can't use the wooden crate model just because it's a standard GameGuru Max asset? I think it's stupid. A bad game can be made using any assets, just like a good one. There will always be more bad games than good ones. If GameGuru Max is poorly made, then all games will be bad. If GameGuru Max is made perfectly, then there will be good games. Just give people a good tool and you'll get good games. If your tool is of poor quality, then all games will also be of poor quality.

Thank you all for your attention. That's my opinion. I apologize for possible errors in the text - English is a foreign language for me.

I'm really not seeing any reason why gameguru should be limited and hence even less attractive to buy.
Gameguru is sold and marketed as the easy gamemaker, 'gamemaking for everyone'.
It should be as accessible as possible for novices because that is where gameguru sets itself apart from other game engines.

So now you're saying a easy game maker shouldn't be included with many assets? Its not a "professional" level game creation software and by not allowing many assets in the default build means that you are going to alienate your target audience, people who just want a laugh and make a simple game to share with their friends. If I had to buy or make my own assets why would I pay money for software when I can do the same thing for free elsewhere?

How about a usage time restriction as in so many hours before exe becomes available. Or to go through the tutorials befire exe becomes available this surely will prevent the i have a software company and i have games and im 10 years old etc.

I hear about the fact people should not be punished for stock.
A suggestion is remove all stock dlc and make people pay for all packs this way they have to buy stock packs and may at least have some difference to the onslaught of dire games. The dire game makers will be supporting funds for ggm at least and more work to help some other games to be successful

As to DukeDudeston
Its not an elite engine at all. They were not saying. Lets be up our own arse its about future proofing the last jedi.

I agree with many parts of your argument but the shocking amount of iffy naff silly pointless and to be blunt embarrassing and criminal acts of game not making with stock and no effort at all and its in abundance destroyed gg And if allowed it will destroy ggm..

Now i do hear that the good games will also be out there in time as it takes longer to make a good game but, Future engine work will be in jeopardy if the mockers on YouTube and front line promotion only show the poor quality i made a game in 5 minutes and selling brigade games.
its imperitive that ggm gets a good promotion and some good games demos and quality to start with
Im a hobbiest and if it is just for you and friends. a splash screen shouldnt matter. or some ticklist course to release the exe shouldnt be a problem. a hobbiest will spend lots of time on a game if they have any self respect.

There will be a way to give you and main stream wannabes and even newbies who need models can have a way to get up and running and also prevent steam receiving iffy games made in an hour......! on steam...


This is not my main concern tbh and more concerned about the engine and its capabilities and how to make the product stable and for the first time a fully functioning world system

LOL I know the asset flips are a negative and detrimental concern, but looky here!

Lee; "MAX is supposed to be compatible with all Classic DLC, -- WHILE -- We are planning on new DLC releases with MAX."
Community; "If they use stock or DLC assets, don't let them release a game!"
Hmmm... guess buying DLC's is a thing of the past.

Secondly;
The LAST thing you want to do is put a splash screen in any engine-- particularly GG
because that's the forums we are on! Hey guys-- this silly asset flip was made with GGMAX!

I vote for better DLC's (made right!) There's a lot of problems with the DLC's that currently
are available. A scripter can **maybe** use about half the assets, maybe less! Let's provide
good assets and see where that takes us. ((Salute to those who do make script ready models.))
You really do have to go beyond MILITARY VS ZOMBIES. That's so old and worn out.

BTW-- to criticize a game should NOT equate to criticizing the engine.
Any mature, reasonable person will admit this. A critique of a game is a critique of the game developer, not the engine. On the other hand, GGClassic is known for it's GRAPHIC VISUALS and AI as much as stock assets, small worlds, etc. So MAX should try to outpace both those issues- then let the critiques begin.

Personally I don't see this as TGC's issue.

If gaming platforms allow people to sell games for a couple of dollars with very little work put into them its up to them and people will take advantage of that. I suppose they don't really care as you have a 2 hour window to request a refund and a lot of people probably don't bother so they get their percentage.

If GG was destroyed, it was due to releasing software which was at best early access with only few possibilities for the users.
Yes, you could place some items on the map and shoot the crappy AI but do not try to swim because under water is instant death.
Creating a multi level game or a huge map and finding out that it crashes due to memory limit.
Also reloading a level would crash GG due to stacking and let's not talk about the performance while the graphics aren't anything special.
Then after a huge overhaul we get entity pack updates with rediculously done PBR textures, mind you these are packs which people were paying for and in the end it is a member of this community (GraPhiX) who created better textures for those packs.
Releasing the code on Github has done a lot for GG because especially some highly valued members like AmenMoses, Corno and Preben added huge value to GG with their coding skills.
In short, those scam games weren't needed to kill GG but is has been steadily improved by efforts from members of this community.

While I hate that asset flippers are giving GG a bad name and the problem will probable occur with GGMax.
GG and GGMax are marketed as a tools for anybody to make a game.
Asset flippers may be intellectually and/or morally challenged, exclude them though could be seen as discrimination.
But then again, selling a demo level as their own work is a copyright infringement is it not.
Ps a good copyright lawyers can be worth their weight in gold.

As a non-modeller I use purchased assets to create levels, so I hope this will not exclude the assets I purchased from being used in a .exe file.

Maybe if the demo levels only were excluded from being made into a .exe file that would be a better option, and not the assets.

To put restrictions on genuine people who are trying to create something is a definite bad idea.

ouch no, terrible idea , I want be able to asset flip .... just kidding

This was only a question on the Stream Guys.
Do not take it as anything seriously considered,
I still think as I posted above the answer for asset flipping is simple. Just limit what comes with the engine.
That would at least encourage users to create their own or source them elsewhere.

I think we are mixing the things here.
This is just a case where both sides are right.
One thing is the user wants to make a game just to share it with friends and family, and another different thing is the user wants to place some char, a couple of houses, some aid pack, and ammo, and he is done, next step publish the "game" in $team or somewhere else.

At least in my case, I'm referring to these guys than want to publish a game without a lot of work.

In other words, do not make it compatible with classic?

Yet the response from Lee was:



So, yeah, I'd think they are taking this seriously and Lee did ask if we agreed with doing something like this. So, responses one way or the other are justified, I think.

There really isn't much you can do about the so-called asset flipper games - it is inevitable - it's just the scumbags doing their thing. Has nothing to do with the capabilities of the engine - just the incapabilities of the idiots making them.

Limiting what comes with the engine will just make all the asset flipping 'games' identicle.....

Probably best to do nothing at all.
Just make MAX great - and useful to those who do want put some effort into their game.

OldFlak....

IMHO, absolutely NO restrictions on what you have paid for, especially GG Classic assets and DLCs, which can and will be imported in GG MAX.
Pausing restrictions makes for ...???

Cheers!

I do not think that is such a good idea. Not now anyway as that's what users are expecting.
However how much stock content comes with Max has not been decided or discussed yet


Asking if we agree does not mean he or the rest of TGC does
I just mean there is no need for anyone to over react.
The solution would simply be to copy & rename a stock model anyway. Seems hardly worth the effort.

I can imagine that there will be DLCs for Max, and at nice discount prices if there is a sale.
Asset flipping is something which is going to happen, either with entities from Classic or DLC items, it is just not preventable in my view.
Should we want to prevent it at all, when such a scam game is opened, it is obvious that it is a scam.
Maybe there should be a step approach to creating the stand alone?
With that i mean, going through the stages of adding the desired resolution, adding background textures, music or video for opening and loading the game.
Maybe that is a better approach to prevent those easy scam games without any effort.
I also wonder if it is possible for TGC to place copyrights on any game demo and demo maps which might be released with GGM.

Now that's a question that does need consideration.
Pretty sure that those who are making the Demos for Max do not want to see them on Steam 2 weeks later ..
Unless of course TGC are supplying all the content in which case that's up to them.

The 'sense 50% assets" things sounds like a nightmare especially if it doesn't work properly. Put a splash in, make it kind of tricky to remove it, along with other stock assets. Basically, how Classic is right now almost.

You guys are all noticing the GG asset flip games, so it's not like they're subtle or trying to hide. Also, there aren't that many asset flips - let's all be honest. This isn't a real problem but logically it does sound like a potential one if tons of people are ripping off GG's assets with flips and making money.

People asset flip unity and Unreal. If you guys are worried about GG's reputation being tarnished by hobbyists using it, that frankly only makes some sense but not enough to believe in.

Asset flips are fine, the actual issue if there isn't a single GG game that shows GG can do other things. That should be the focus for developers and creators, not putting soft legal watermarks on hobbyist creations.

Also, asset flipping is not a con or anything illegal or even immoral. The other engines deal with having their engine represented through default asset flips (ie unreal).
This should be obvious coming from a community with a lot of hobbyists, especially from GG. GG is a royalty-free engine and trying to run it like Unreal, getting nosy about what assets folks are using in their released titles, doesn't make sense and may be the opposite of what a developer is looking for with GG.

Also, as a non-modeller, I use many, many assets that came with the product, please don't restrict this.

The best publicity Max will get is if a few people actually release some decent games made with it. There will always be asset flippers with any engine with a reasonably low barrier to entry, but no one will blame the engine if there's proof it can make a decent multi-level game with a few modern features. For that to happen, Max itself needs to be capable. It's, frankly, a scandal that our showcase board contains less than 90 releases in 6 years. This, from a community with literally thousands of members.

AE

I am sure there may be GameGuru users that only want to make games for themselves and their friends to play. Or make for their families to play. In such cases, they may not want to sped a lot of time creating or looking for assets. Instead, they are going to want to use the assets included with GameGuru. Why should they be restricted from creating a stand-alone version of their game? Keeping people, who only use stock media, from creating an actual stand-alone game would hurt people who want to do this sort of thing.

And there you have it really..
Rubbish games are made with Unity and Unreal but reviewers blame the Developer of the game and not the engine.
Why .. Because most know what Unreal and Unity are really capable of.
So if Max turns out to be a great and capable engine there is no reason why the same should not apply to Max

The graphics in Max alone are going to be evidence you can make a very respectable modern game with the engine.

The quality of the assets are so high i don't think it will be viewed as asset flipping any more.

Retaining the right to decide for yourself is a great thing, it is or should be the case in all aspects of life, so why not?
We'll trust in the good sense of the users and that each one decides for himself.

Now we have to show what GGMax can do.
So Mr. Lee & the teen continue working on GGMax and make it talk by itself.

Right so lets just get this nailed down.

So for people like me, which I believe is the "target audience" someone who is interested in making games, someone who wants to share it with friends and family and not really in for it to try to make money. Thats what I think GG is aimed at, the easy game creator that gives you all the tools needed to make a quick and simple game. lets be honest no one is using GG to make a blockbusting hit are they?

So for the average user, They may have to have a forced splash screen for using the default assets that came with their product they paid upto £40 for, each time they want to play their game or share their game out, all because of the off chance someone might use these assets in a "asset flip" game. I mean I would just download the demo / free trial and share maps out with friends who also have the free trial, if I am going to get a forced splash screen (which is what happens during demo's and free versions right?)

Or the other option is pay upto £40 for a map editor.... and then have to buy assets seperatly. So what do you get for £40 exactly? Are you really suggesting that GameGuru Max without any assets is worth £40 on its own? And do you think anyone would buy GGM for £40 knowing to get any realistic use out of it will cost them more money?

And even if someone does pay £40 for the map editor, then say £20 on an asset pack, you think that will stop people asset flipping and selling on Steam?

CORE uses Unreal. You can make and play multiplayer games with it.
You can only use the models they provide with it (can't import your own). Some of the games are really quite fun to play, and some are just rubbish. But in each game you may notice models that are used in another Core game, textured differently, sometimes, but still the same model.

I don't look at any of them and say 'Asset Flipper" - I just think 'wow good use of that model' or, 'better textures on that one'.

To me "Asset Flipping" is just a rubbish catchphrase made up by wannabe YouTubers, and people who have no ideas what goes into making a game - just like to hear their own voice.

It would be pointless trying to stop it.

Maybe watermark Standalones made from demo maps, or make it so you can't export the demo maps easily - but even then is there much point.

Just spend valuable dev time on making MAX awesome.

OldFlak....

Im more concerned of the engine and what's promised.
In 2012 we were offered this new amazing engine that will deliver all these amazing features on an engine.
The process took over 4 years to establish any form of use
Around 2016
The money ran out and the games were of poor quality and the reputation was getting destroyed by you tube and flippers a new term to me. Funds dried up at one point and gg became a one man show
Things were slow. then it became open source due to no funds and any help was welcomed Bring forth preben, bored, small g, cybernessence, teabone, and gralhix etc. Who helped to try and save it.

Tgc went quiet on the last year or so. They then said they were bug destroying

A year later a new vr product became available on gg's base program but we would have to buy it again and tgc got paid money to update the gg engine that was already done.

We would have to pay to have this engine. Hence uproar on the forums and tbh it was fair play

Then told a new ggmax was to become available which would cost more and promises of a new super features And will be available in September 2020

Its January late jan 2021
no release no dates no anything but a few vids and a very basic buggy beta. I worry from history that people's demands of none essential crap Will stifle the engine from progress and then funds run low again and on steam a bad rep through a buggy release as they take too long on the engine and have to release it to get new funds as the other runs out. and then the youtube tribe destroy the reputation and then it relies again on forum legends and then A new game guru max ultra is presented Due to this engine didn't succeed due to taking too long and no funds and sales wain due to flippers and no real functions were completed this is from actual experience of this company. the forum and steam and how it all unfolded.
This is how it happened its not about anything other than this set of events

I don't agree with this and I think it is a bad idea. Like mentioned above, the root of the problem is with Steam and I'd also say a large part of the problem is with GameGuru itself. GameGuru is marketed as an easy to use game maker that is for everyone. Naturally, it is going to attract people who are only interested in creating a game as quickly and easily as possible. Unity also suffers from the reputation of being an "asset flipper" engine, however, Unity is still a respected and great piece of software. GameGuru and the games that come from it are always buggy, unoptimized, ugly, and sometimes just don't even work. Even the "best" GameGuru games are still pretty terrible. It is not fair to compare GameGuru to Unity, but the reputation GameGuru gained isn't from the "asset-flipper" games, it comes from the state of the engine itself. Adding restrictions to a paid engine will not fix the problem.

I am trying to view this from someone who is completly new to GameGuru, imagine you are seeing this "fun and easy game creation software" for the first time, you are seeing the trailer showing off some of the creations the software has, you are getting excited you see that it costs well within your budget, you also see that it is royalty free and everything you create is yours to do as you wish. Fantastic you slap down your funds, download the software and either.

A) Create a game using the stock assets to then find that a "made with game guru" is forced into all your projects, because you used default assets, kinda making you feel a little guilty that you can't afford your own assets or know enough about 3D design to make your own.

or the worse case scenario,

B) Opening up the software to browse the assets to find... nothing. nada.. zip... to then find to add assets you will have to pay more money, by this time you are not even sure how to use this software, if this software actually lives up to its promise of "easy game creation" instead you are asked to pay more money first.. to find out if this is the right software for you. So you are forced techincally to pay for day 1 DLC for the software you paid for before you can decide if this is even right for you? I thought this was TGC, not EA?

I mean if that sounds like a brilliant idea and a way to attract new people to this already niche peice of software, then lets do it!

@science boy
4 months isn't a huge amount, nor a tiny amount of time behind first announcement. Actually I pretty much agree-- in that if MAX takes another year+ to be released sets them back. Rome wasn't made in a day, and it didn't just fall out of the sky complete either! It takes many people to establish Cities. They are (have) taken this time to create a quick update system. So in fact why don't the take advantage of it? I don't think they can really test appropriately in - house. Or that would take too long. So I think there shouldn't be tooooo much more of a delay in at least a MAX Beta 0.7 or 0.8 released on Steam, etc. -- With plenty of notation stating this is a test version Beta.

And this should happen in a couple months; my opinion - they should try to get it out sooner than later in order to take advantage of all the marketing hype that >themselves< already presented over the last 12 months. Don't put it out looking sloppy, but put it out with the flow of the remaining momentum.
The other side of all //the above// good or bad is; upon release, there is now specific public discourse and commotion to respond to - which is of course the point in testing? Isn't this quite common in a new piece of software? Just some thoughts.
@DukeDudeston
Lets do it!

I have a suggestion regarding stock assets and asset flips:

Obviously, I am in 100% agreement that it's wrong to load up a new map, load in a bunch of stock content from the default assets, and then post it around online. Personally, I would never do something like that, and I don't believe anyone here would.

But, I think that if the stock assets are used in conjunction with thoughtful level design, well placed assets, clever gameplay, and an actual effort is shown to create a great game; then maybe they shouldn't be penalized. Now, I get how that's hard to mandate.

Personally, I have purchased hundreds of dollars of assets and DLC from the TGC store, simply because I'm horrible at modelling. I would hate to be penalized for creatively using assets I paid money for (including purchasing the game and stock assets).

Now I'm aware I'm not a Wolf or oldflak, or Tarkus, and my opinion may not count for much. In the case that it doesn't, and some sort of limits get placed on games with "too many" stock assets or DLC, then would Lee and the team consider putting Add / Subtract Geometry in GG Max so we can model within the game?

When I praised having some method to prevent asset flips it had somehow ENTIRELY slipped my mind that some people simply want to make a small little something-something to hand out to friends, without needing to actually make/buy their own assets. I apologize for being stupid on that and not realizing

Maybe there'd be a way to satisfy both ends? Maybe when you purchase/install GG Max it asks you to agree to an EULA which states that "an executable marked as a 'testing' .exe may NOT be commercialized/sold", and if you have more than 50% stock media (storebought and DLC assets wouldn't count, just what's packed in since that's what most asset flippers use) it would put a "This game is for testing purposes ONLY." splash screen (don't mention GG Max in the splash, since that's what hurt Unity's reputation!), so if you're just making a quick and easy little game to give to friends/family for free it's totally fine, but if some talentless hack mashes together an asset flip, legally they couldn't charge a dime for it.

I just wish Steam would have better quality control, then we could just forget this whole mess...