Phaser - Premium Content Survey

[rich]

First of all: don't get scared by the topic: Phaser is free and will remain free for ever

 

Development so far has been entirely funded by the company I run. The contract game development work we do allows us to spend time building it, refining it, paying for design work, hosting, tutorials and all the other aspects that go into running an open source project.

 

Time spent on the forum, answering emails, replying to github issues, testing things and basically doing community management is increasing at dramatic rate. It's to be expected due to the growing popularity of the framework, but it's still daunting. I don't want to be in the position where the community, the framework or my livelihood suffers because I'm spending too long elsewhere.

 

In short: Phaser needs to start paying its way.

 

There are many different ways to achieve this. But I need your feedback to understand which you'd like the most. When it comes to software I'm a bit too old fashioned; I still like printed books, ring-bound manuals, etc But that's probably just my generation. I fully expect younger developers to be far more versatile in how they expect to be able to consume content.

 

So I've created an online survey and I will be eternally grateful if you can spend a few minutes filling out as much (or as little) of it as you can

 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1onm8yq85RXm76uRJ7LutUXJkrDwHuL3wUuYt8SrTdbU/viewform?usp=send_form

 

You're welcome to leave your comments about all this here too.

[codevinsky]

If there were an Asset Store, like unity's, I'd spend so much money.

[Lonan]

I'd happily pay a monthly fee for an online resource that is updated regularly with in-depth tutorials and courses. The ideal for me would be something like cgcookie.com, but for HTML5 gaming (Phaser, WebGL, pure javascript, art, maybe even other frameworks and so on). Once-off tutorials regularly and massive in-depth courses every once in a while. All for a reasonable monthly subscription. They also cover a wide variety of subjects and skillsets.

 

For plugins, I'm not sure. I'd rather learn how to make them. Also, if you provide plugins for free you will increase the power of Phaser and draw more potential customers to a paid learning resource.

 

That's just my chain of thought, but I'd also support a book or a once-off course to help contribute to Phaser.

[george]

I can second the asset store idea maybe with the possibility to contribute. I guess there are many developers who have no personal designer at hand nor the necessary skills to create appealing assets. I would also think about premium support- maybe not at a too small scale (single questions) as this should be handled finde by the forum. I'm thinking about profiling/performance support, support with physics (think about all the collision questions) and maybe even a prototyping service to give a developer a foundation to build on.

[rich]

That's a good point, we're already working on premium support packages but I should have included it anyway. I guess I didn't because I know for a fact we're offering them, so I wasn't curious if it was a 'good idea' or not, because we've had enough expressed interest to do it anyway

[jpdev]

I can see me getting the book / a magazine, mainly to support phaser and also to have something tangible

 

A monthly subscription for premium content (or maybe even early access to features that later become part of the free phaser) would be something interesting.

Since this is purely a hobby for me I guess it would have to be around 10$/month max and no more then 3 month payment period.

(But I can also see, that this will probably not be enough, since this isn't a mass market - just stating what I as a hobby coder would be willing to spend.) 

[plicatibu]

I'd like to see a complete series of tutorials, explaining not only how to use Phaser, but how to design the games themselves. IMHO Learning the design part is the hardest one.

 

There are many (very good) tutorials about using Phaser, but it's more important explain how a game mechanics will work (and why it will work that way), then explain how it will be implemented and last but not least, implement it in Phaser so beginners (me included) can develop the full understanding of game creation process.

 

For instance, a tutorial explaining the inner and outs of a tower defense (not only the bare bones tutorials we see in the internet). Also a tutorial about multiplayer turn based games and another one about multiplayer real time games.

[ram64]

I also would vote for a premium assets store. I for one pass out on many games just because I can't really get their design right and this would be most helpful for me. I mostly do this as a hobby so subscriptions won't be my first choice. Maybe some kind of magazine, as specified in the survey, something with high quality news and developments in the field of HTML5 games. I would buy these on a regular basis just to keep informed, although I'd like printed versions I believe they won't be available everywhere so I would still be interested in digital versions. Other ways would be to volunteer helping out with support, tracking down bugs or contributing with premium content.

[Mike]

Premium stuff is all good! 

 

I personally could be on both sides either creating premium content and also buying some stuff mostly high level things which may take me a lot more time and could be buggy.

 

But hey the idea of monthly magazine is also cool although news comes way faster... but if there is such magazine than I can rely on it for information and not bother so much.

 

And the book and in depth game tutorials are always something good to spent some bucks.

[rsadwick]

Filled out the survey, good stuff.  I enjoy reading up on performance which would be a great candidate for premium.

 

I like the ideas for an asset store and an actual book (I cannot get used to ebooks as reference guides. )

[titmael]

Filled out the survey too, so many good ideas even if I'm not interested in any type of magazine. I prefer online tutorials.

It's difficult to find good assets (hight quality sounds, draws, spritesheets ...) and particulary interested in animated spritesheets for objects and characters.

 

I can second the asset store idea maybe with the possibility to contribute. I guess there are many developers who have no personal designer at hand nor the necessary skills to create appealing assets.

 

 +1. A bit like http://graphicriver.net

[blackgames]

Filled out

 

I think a book is a must have.

A magazine is a great idea. it is modern and has more new information - the only trouble what I think is the shipping to Germany :-).  

 

With the plugins I'm not so sure, but the store would be good.

[Telash]

I would certainly buy a book and I like the idea of an asset store. The idea of a subscription model however turns me off a bit, I would prefer a buy as you need setup.

[Biggerplay]

I did the survey, but something I didn't see in there, and it's something which has tripped me up is testing. If you offered a testing service, with solutions to any issues that crop up, that's something I might well be interested in.

[plicatibu]

I second that.

 

I did the survey, but something I didn't see in there, and it's something which has tripped me up is testing. If you offered a testing service, with solutions to any issues that crop up, that's something I might well be interested in.

[ragnarok]

Not so keen on the subscription thing, but would pay for assets and service.

 

What about a donation-button for the things that stay free?

[Cless]

I'll pay for basically anything that's of value. A book is the most important thing, but quality screencasts and quality tutorials would be really valuable ("how to use Tiled maps in Phaser", "how to structure a large game"). The docs can be quite difficult to navigate and it wastes a lot of time. Having some organized, solution-oriented information is one of the things Phaser needs most right now.

 

Relying on donations likely won't work in the long run. In practice, even large projects rarely make anything of note by using donations.

[rosancoderian]

an IDE for phaser wil be good

[Telash]

an IDE for phaser wil be good

 

That's a whole new project unto itself surely Perhaps a new style configuration / syntax highlighting for existing IDE's such as notepad++, netBeans, Sublime etc... ? Although I am unsure how that would be able to gain much in the way of revenue.

[rosancoderian]

i mean like state editor, map editor, game object editor etc

[Luis Felipe]

Great idea Rich!

 

Here are some thoughts:

 

I second what @Lonan said about a similar system to CGCookie's "Citizen" model. 

 

As for asset stores, I think Envato's "Theme Forest" is a very successful model since it also gives content creators a chance to have 'a piece of the pie'. Also, as seen through Threadless's success, having the community create, vote, consume, contribute to the content really fuels and strengthens the community around it. The same can be true for Phaser

 

Something like this, IMHO, could really begin to solidify the HTML5 Game Dev community and propel it even further. I know I'm a little late to the party, but glad to be here now

 

I also believe tutorials drive communities. There are two excellent "narrators" (if you can call them that) who stand out because they teach naturally challenging subjects in a way that is much more fun and understandable through their voice, attitude and methods. These are Andrew Kramer ( http://www.videocopilot.net/ ) and Andrew Price (http://www.blenderguru.com).

 

Countless video tutorials are made by people who assume their audience knows things that might be key, or they simply don't talk or don't really explain their reasoning. Here's where I think the most potential consumer is; beginners.

I can say this when thinking about how I learned photoshop. Once you feel comfortable, and agile, you only really go looking for tutorials if there's a specific thing you might want to learn or a problem you don't know how to solve, or looking for a shortcut key to make your work faster. At that stage, video tutorials spanning over 20 mins isn't going to cut it, intermediate users to advanced might prefer a quick static tutorial explaining exactly what they want.

 

The first HTML5 game I made was really all thanks to the Getting Started Tutorial and Lessmilk's Flappy Bird tutorial. They both made it seem so simple, explaining every little detail. I never felt discouraged, it motivated me to go even further. Then joining this community and seeing people motivated to make HTML5 games. For me, as a beginner developer, that's crucial! (Thank you by the way!)

 

Sorry for the long post

[Martiny]

Things like a level editor would be great. I think Impact.js has one, but I never got into it because I never bought it.

 

I'd pay a lot for tutorials (specially video tutorials, like tuts+). If there was a tutorial about the best way to handle text in HTML5/Phaser, that would be great. I can't find a good way to do neat a text-heavy game and I think of nothing better than video tutorials to teach me.

[ivanix]

Phaser coffee mug

[ivanix]

Post ransom or bounties for new features,   http://freecode.com/articles/ransom-software-for-fun-and-profit

 

Like say $10K for adding an isometric engine and tmx loading.

Once contributions reach the goal, the code is released as part of the main phaser code base.

Contributors get early access to the alpha, betas of the code.

[Dream Of Sleeping]

I hope you make money from this. You definitely deserve it. I doubt I would subsribe to anything though. Although I know you won't do this, and it would probably be very unpopular if you did now you have stated you will never charge, but I would rather just pay £10 or £20 for phaser. It seems to me that most software is either way over priced or completely free. A nice reasonbly priced framework would be fine by me.