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YoYo Games has announced a new licence for its popular GameMaker Studio 2 engine. The 2D game creator will now have a ‘Creator Edition’, which will be available to purchase via YoYo Games’ website.
The new package will offer developers the chance to hone their skills at developing titles using the platform before committing to a higher cost package for potential releases. The Creator Edition will allow developers to publish their games for both Windows and Mac OS platforms.
It features all of the tools of the all current versions and gives users full access to the Marketplace in order to get assets. Developers can use the lower cost licence to perfect the use of the engine and move to a higher cost package if they wish to release their projects on other platforms including the Desktop Edition, which allows games to be released on non-console devices, such as iOS and Android. The Creator Edition licence will run for 12 months and will cost $39. If users do want to upgrade to the Desktop version then they will also receive a 30 per cent discount off the $99 permanent price.
"Our mission at YoYo Games has been simple – build a premier games development engine and toolset for the masses where anyone can unleash their creativity to build awesome games," said YoYo Games’ general manager, James Cox. "The Creator Edition delivers this to developers, enabling them to build sophisticated PC and Mac games, and launch them on digital marketplaces such as Steam.
“With the Creator edition, we’ve listened to community feedback and introduced the low cost 12-month licence model, which gives budding developers the opportunity to progress beyond our ‘first game’ tutorial, and use all our game design features. And, if they get bitten by the game making bug then they can take the next set up to a high perforamce Desktop license, saving 30 per cent on the upgrade cost."
GameMaker Studio 2 currently has a number of price plans for its licences, including the offer of a limited free trial. Alongside this new licence and the aforementioned Desktop licence, there is a premium licence to allow for development on console and mobile projects along with educational licences. Support was also recently added for development on Amazon Fire tablets and the Xbox Creators program, along with a native Mac OS version of the engine itself.
We recently spoke with YoYo Games about the educational legacy behind the GameMaker Studio engines, which you can read here.
