GameMaker Is Now FREE! ...ish.

I started years and years ago making games on gamemaker.. I now have been working using Unity for 2d and unreal for 3d projects for a few years, but after the "Unity Event" I tried Godot and while it was good, I wasn't really impressed with how poor the documentation is. Especially now that they changed so much in version 4
This week going back to Gamemaker and messing around has me wanting to start a bigger project again

I basically started my "real" programming with GameMaker 4.0 and 5.1 back in 2003, then went to 6.1a and stayed there for many years. Eventually 7.0 came along, it was already starting to be a little bit different, but not that much. By the time 1.x came around after being bought by YoyoGames from Mark Overmars, it was already a completely revamped engine. I eventually had to quit it (around 2014) and not look back for the past 10 years, PRECISELY due to their really nasty licensing terms and payment plans. And after spending a fortune on 1.4, they immediately released 2.0, which again had different tiers, plans etc., so I decided to no longer be a part of this money-making scheme of theirs, so I said a huge "bye-bye", thinking it was going to be forever. But what you've shown me now is... tempting, to say the least! 😏 My only concern is that they might be doing this only for a while, to revamp their fanbase and attract new people, just to go back to weird payment plans a couple of years down the road 😑 So... I'm really wondering what their true intentions at this point are, not to fall for a sucker (again).

I am very interested in GameMaker as a 2D game engine! I am wondering if you know how it stacks up to other engines like Godot and Unity and the like in that regard? How user-friendly is it, and how diverse can you go with its tools?

Finally a good change specially if you want to participate in game jams.

I really like the one time fee version coming back. I still have my old un-supported, outdated one time purchase GameMaker Studio 2. It requires a server login and I have worried they'll drop authentication one day so I stopped working in it.

I was so excited about this, but apparently there are know issues regarding antivirus software making sure GM doesn't launch.. the FAQ wasn't helpful (the advice didn't work) and apparently they don't reply to emails. It's hard to find anything about it on Reddit or anything. Bit of a bummer! Would've been so much fun otherwise!

Game Maker it's not free, is a shaware software (if you want more, then pay), if we are talking about a real free game engine (not like Godot), Cry Engine, Unity and Unreal, are free to use at all range (multiplataform without any cost), so you can litteraly do any kind of game without to pay for some other additional stuffs (speaking about tools or exporting packages)...

One time purchase? in this day and age?! Holy yes!

Also like that sponge bob meme:
DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS FOR FAN GAMES?! FAN GAMES THAT CANNOT BE COMMERCIAL BECAUSE OF THEIR NATURE!? ITS FREE, YOU CAN MAKE UNDERTALE FAN GAMES FOR FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE (if you have the know how)

who cares godot is better and everyone knows it

commmment for the alogithm

Gane Maker user since v4. I remember when v5 came out with proper win xp looks... O M G

One of the first engine i used, would play around with this ngl

What's that game in the background? Is that yours?

I remember trying gamemaker as a kid, checking it out again sounds really nice
also 2d is kinda whack in the engine im currently working with

Huh weird, I remember it being free when I was kid. That was in the 90s though, maybe it was some demo then.

Oh well this is crazy

Enterprise is $80/month or $800/year

Oh hell yeah, time to go back to where it all started for me

Wasn't standard GMS1 free in the past? So like they went from free, then went paid for GMS2, and then went free again?

History Lesson:

There was a free, commercial use, no-royalty use version in the past from Game Maker that released around when GM2 released.
That was then taken back by revoking license keys from the accounts that held it. Gamemaker deleted all evidence.

I'm done with corporate-owned game engines. Spent 2 months moving to Godot and now I love it -- much easier than Unity. So glad Unity told me to leave.

"Sorry I was travelling."
Unacceptable, fellow Canadian. How DARE you live your life! =P

Did anyone else notice "born at an early age" in Russell's description

i am a little bit confused, does this mean we can compile our games to exe files now with the free plan ?

GameMaker is very good for prototyping games.

Gamemaker was the first engine that I really stuck with and I always loved GML (moreso than GDscript) but right now I'm kinda torn between the two. I like Gamemaker's programming/prototyping experience better than Godot but I'm more of a 3D dev so Godot is the obvious winner there. For small projects and apps I still use Gamemaker.

Great move by these dudes 🤘

Seems free for not comercial games, a good strategy, since kids and amateurs arent the ones with money.

"Born at an early age, Russel has been in the games industry for over 30 years."

I used game maker really long time ago, and did a decent job making custom stuff on that age, not sure if i payed anything, i remember using it from steam itself LOL

Didn't gamemaker used to be free anyway?

i will stay with Godot engine but this is great news.

Meh, GM burned their bridges for me years ago. Gdevelop is my gameddv mistress now.

It's definitely better but there are so many great free and open source tools that don't restrict you like this, and cost nothing

So, this is actually an excellent change. The free version allows you to make games without paying as long as you're not selling yet and test on all platforms. When you're ready you can pay the 99 bucks to get the pro version, and have all the exports except consoles. When you're ready for consoles, you can pay monthly at 79.99 a month or 799.99 for a year. Someone ready for consoles should have the money anyway. Also, it costs them a buttload of money to make the engine work for consoles, so They deserve some money for this. I bought this back in 2018, they've continued to update it and honor my license. For a 2d paid engine this is a great deal and they deserve all the new users.

We've got the free Godot and Defold for 2D game development

I had I subscription and when I saw it costed 100 dollars i was like yay! And u signed in and it said I had it and I had a heart attack I tough it charged me but but it was just free for me

Godot must be eating their lunch

I have a book for GM 8.0 😅

Can run native in Ubuntu Linux.

GM was my first entry into game development. My grandma bought me a copy back when it was $18. I learned to think like a coder with the drag and drop scripting and then later I got brave enough to learn GML. I'm interested in playing with it again just for those reasons. It was a fun and intuitive engine.

Go the Open Source way: DEFOLD game engine
It builds for PC, Mac, iOS, Android, HTML5, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 and soon XBOX.
And it's forever free.

Game Maker has a special place in my heart but...

Game maker (1-8) got me into game development around 2003 and eventually when it came out I used game maker studio 2 for a long time. A free version isn't new, it was something that was essentially taken away and now given back. It's a cool all in one piece of software (with pixel art animation/editor) but at the end of the day aseprite + godot instantly makes a much higher quality 2d game and lets you move to 3d easily (I know game maker can technically do 3d, its really not made for it and I would really not recommend doing it). I kinda was a holdout for a while (I used unity a lot until it became subscription but switched back to Game Maker) since I was just working on 2d games at the time game maker works but switching to all open source was not only freeing but just overall improved everything I work on (I switched when it became subscription only, and Aseprite immediately is 10x better than using built in game maker tools for pixel art).

I generally use the following and it does everything for me:
game engine: Godot
pixel art: Aseprite
pureref: reference images
3d: blender
video editor: Olive (I know its obscure lol I just like C++)
sound: Audacity (I still use Abelton for music even though its paid)
image editor: GIMP/Clip Studio Paint for digital art (its paid, but affordable and good for tablets)

Why would I want to use a game engine like this to make games when I can't even monetize them as commercial games?
And can you get the free gm assets & use them in other game engines?

I was also born at early age

you're sounding way healthier bro! keep up the good work and take care of yourself :)