My stance on cocos2d « cocos2d for iPhone

My stance on cocos2d

(80 posts) (55 voices)

Started 1 year ago by riq
Latest reply from Streamtree

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riq
Key Master

Hey,

Due to some recent events that will probably cause me a direct economical damage I find it deem to make clear my personal stance regarding cocos2d:

Background:

I started cocos2d for iPhone 2 years ago. cocos2d for iPhone is based on cocos2d-phython, of which I'm also one of the co-authors.
I ported cocos2d-python to iPhone and I thus used cocos2d for iPhone to develop a few games for 3rd parties, and also to develop my own games.
After a few months of developing games I decided to work full time on cocos2d.

It was as that point that the community started to exist, mainly through the contributions of many developers which kindly invested their time and knowledge in further developing cocos2d. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that, though I am the lead developer, cocos2d as you know it wouldn't have been possible without all these contributions.

This said, in order to make a living I was and I still am selling the source code of my games: Sapus Tongue and LevelSVG.
~85% of my income is from the proceeds of these sales, ~15% from donations.
I'm not getting rich doing this, far from it. In fact I would earn more money working for a big company.
BTW, may be you think this doesn't concern you, but just to stress how much dependent I am on this income I want to let you know that I'm married, and this is at present the only income that my wife and I have.

I spend ~75% of my time developing cocos2d, and ~25% developing LevelSVG and Sapus Tongue. I spend between 8 and 12 hours per day working on this.

During the 1st year we used an email list to discuss cocos2d stuff. I used my company blog (Sapus Media) to publish cocos2d articles.
1 year ago I registered the cocos2d-iphone.org domain where the forum, blog and wiki are hosted.
At the same time I stopped publishing cocos2d articles on my company blog, and I started to use the cocos2d blog and wiki so as to foster the further development of the community.

Working in cocos2d:

Maintaining an developing cocos2d is very demanding. These are some of the daily tasks that I do:

Developing:
- Check/update roadmap: Which features are needed ? Prioritize them
- Develop features planned for the release according to the roadmap
- Read the newly created issues & categorize them, browse older issues to see if it is related to a previous issue.
- Test the issues. Create Test cases. Try to reproduce the error.
- Sometimes the issues contains patches and/or test cases, sometimes not. If not, I need to create them.
- Fixing an issue: sometimes the bug is fixed in 10 minutes, sometimes it take more than a week. The complexity varies from bug to bug.
- Ditto for new features: Sometimes they are really easy to implement, sometimes they take 2 weeks of work.
- Depending of the newly added feature/patch it is also needed to run the performance tests.
- Performance Test should run as fast as previous version, else the patch/feature should be re-evaluated.
- SDK: When a new SDK is released I try to make sure that cocos2d compiles and works. iPad support was added almost immediately.
- SDK: Every time a new SDK is released, I check if a new feature appeared. If so and if it is applicable, I try to add it in cocos2d.
- New Devices: I have at least 1 device of each generation where I test cocos2d (no iPad yet).
- Editors: I keep cocos2d updated to support the latest versions of the editors: Tiled, ParticleDesigner, Zwoptex...

Releasing:
- For every release all the test cases are executed on a device.
- All the performance tests are run on a 2nd gen device. The performance test is updated in the wiki
- Before releasing v0.99.3 I compiled and tested almost all the test cases in SDK 3.1, SDK 3.2 and SDK 4.0b3.
- Write the Release Notes: I document the important changes
- Package the source code (.tar.gz), Upload it, Download it and test if "build all" actually builds all. If so, announce it on the blog,forum,twitter.

Site:
- I check 2 or 3 times per day messages filtered as spam. Some of them are not spam.
- I try to read all the posts. if the post is on the incorrect forum, I move it to the correct forum. Most of the time I move it "silently", the rest of the time I add a "moved to …."
- Incorrect or missing tags: I try re-tag or add possible useful tags for the post.
- If the post is unanswered, and if I know the answer I try to answer immediately.
- I also try to answer when a question is answered with a suboptimal cocos2d solution.
- Someone posted a new tool ? Either he is invited to write an article on the blog, or I mention it on the blog.
- Check if a new version of the used web-tools were released: wordpress, docuwiki, bbpress, plugins. A new plugin is needed ? Test it, use it.
- Check the logs for possible attacks.
- Check Google Analytics (every week): Which page is being read more ? Does it need to be improved ?
- Make backups (every 2 weeks)

Bills:
- I also pay the site hosting / domain names / cocoslive. There were months that I had to pay more than $400 which I did gladly because I believed in the importance of developing this community.

cocos2d eco-system:

Not only don't I have issues with members of the community developing commercial products, but I even encourage them.

- Editors: Particle Designer is commercial editor.
- Books
- Conferences / Talks:
- Blogs/articles
- Jobs
- Friendly commercial License (cocos2d recently migrated to MIT license)

It is good for cocos2d that these sites/tools/conferences/open jobs exist.
And I'm very happy to have been able to humbly contribute to others peoples making a living/getting a revenue from these kind of products.

Also I would like to mention that the cocos2d site doesn't contain any ad or affiliate link.
I try to keep it as "neutral" as possible. I neither receive nor ask for money to either include, mention or promote the above mentioned products.
What is more, I don't use the cocos2d site to promote neither myself nor my company. The only place you'll find info about Sapus Media is the "store" tab of the site.

So what's the point of all this explanation ?

The point is that I love doing cocos2d, and I'll do everything I can to keep doing it.

I'm not asking for charity, nor am I begging money. If fact, I'm not asking anything from you. I just want to make my stance very clear so that there are no misunderstandings in the future.

For all the above said:

- If you want to get a revenue developing a cocos2d game, writing cocos2d books, developing cocos2d editors, getting hired as a cocos2d developer or give a talk about cocos2d I'll be happy to promote your site/editor/talk on the cocos2d site.
- But I won't/can't let you promote in any way whatsoever any product that competes directly with my sole source of income: The sales of Sapus Tongue and LevelSVG source code.

Thank you for your understanding.

Posted 1 year ago #
Karl
Member

Good on you, Riq.

Everyone needs a source of income, and I salute you for finding a way to support your family while maintaining such an important part of the iPhone games ecosystem.

Though I would suggest perhaps building up a core of trusted individuals who could take on some of the responsibilities. That's an awful lot for one person.

Posted 1 year ago #
patrickC
Member

Thanks riq for taking the time to explain your position and situation, I'm sure everyone can relate and really appreciate all the effort and hard work you're putting into cocos2d.

I quit my regular job over a year ago and I've been doing some freelance stuff but mostly just game development for the iphone/ipad with 3 shipped titles to date. (oops, a bit lazy there...)
That's just to say that I've actually been able to survive, I'm still living in a house (not under a bridge) and my latest game was actually somewhat successful, and if any of this actually happened I owe a great deal of it to you riq, and your continuing support and work on cocos2d (and, of course, all the other contributors and community members).

As I can finally show my appreciation by making a donation, I'm hereby pledging to donate *at least* 10% net profit of any current and future cocos2d projects that I release on to the App Store.

Also, as Karl says, I'm sure loads of us would be more than happy to help with whatever chores possible.

Once again, very big thanks for making all of this possible, don't want to be poetic here but cocos2d will probably go on to influence my life in unimaginable ways (stuck in an office all day working for someone else, or being my own boss on the road, hmmm?)

Thanks!

Posted 1 year ago #
crmagicxxx
Member

First, I want to thank you for all the great work and time you invested in this project. I always thought what kind of financial background you have when you can afford to work so much on cocos2d. To be honest, I never ever thought you live and support your family through donations or source code selling.

I don't know how large the cocos2d community is, and how much you can get from donations, but I am sure it's far bellow what you deserve. I suppose most of the donations are small, as majority of developers never earn enough to cover their investments. I just hope that few of lucky ones that earned really lot of money on app store, are grateful enough to return "something" to you. And when I say "something" I really mean some serious money.

Your modesty and dedication is amazing. Even there are many devs that contribute to coco2d through the patches and enhancements, or helping on forums, the major part of this project is still on you. I know you don't want to sell add space on this site, but man please, at least use it to promote Sapus Tongue and LevelSVG intensively. I am sure many newcomers don't even know you sell source code and that they will not only help themselves by buying it, but also support the whole project. I can't imagine anyone here would have anything against that promotion or against the idea that you actually earn decent money for your engagement.

I wish you and cocos2d community all the best

Posted 1 year ago #
pagex
Member

It's unbelievable the work you've done. And in order to support your efforts I've also purchased the Sapus Tongue and LevelSVG source code and would gladly purchase any package you release in the future!

So thank you from Boise Idaho!

Posted 1 year ago #
albolocura
Member

I hope this awesome project can get soon the retribution it deserves.

Thanks riq for all your hard work!!!

Posted 1 year ago #
Karl
Member

@albolocura: I think you mean "recognition".

Posted 1 year ago #
aerostat
Member

Riq - like the others I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate all the work you have done / are doing / will do in the future! I've actually wondered to myself why you never spoke up about LevelSVG on any of the several threads where it's come up (many times brought up by me) I figured it was something like this.

I've been trying to make a go of doing iPhone/iPad dev full time too, and so I know where you are coming from, though I don't have a wife to support! I would definitely offer up my help with supporting the project in some way - if and when you decide to do that.

Here are my opinions regarding some of your points:

- I think you SHOULD sell ad space on the site. It might help defray the costs of running the site and (hopefully) make you some extra money as well. Ads are not so intrusive as long as content is not blocked while waiting for ads to display, and all of us regulars will understand what's going on - AND maybe there might even be interesting things to find out about from the ads, who knows!

- You definitely, 100%, ABSOLUTELY SHOULD __FEATURE__ your products prominently on the cocos2d iPhone site and point it's existence out to people in the forums when appropriate. I only have experience with LevelSVG (not Sapus Tongue) but it was really a time-saver for me (one that I only happened to find out about by accident at just the right moment in time) and would be for a lot more people too ... but they have to know about it!

- I fully support you removing mention of competing products and projects!

- You (and we as a group) should try to find other ways that this site can generate some income. I want you to be successful so that you can keep doing what you're doing. Here are some ideas (just a brainstorm - so I ack that most probably suck):

- paid advertise for games produced with cocos2d
- charge dev to announce their games on the site, no longer in the forums, but a dedicated section where the dev writes the copy and provides the images/links and you/we edit/format the copy, post it, put in iTunes affiliate links to the apps, etc. (iTunes affiliate links could be a big deal for you!). It would become a nice thing to link to and even derive some search traffic to/from and would also serve as a nice catalog of all the cool things that cocos2d has been used for. And it would reduce clutter from the forums! Win/Win all around!
- have a for-pay pre-release testing service that devs could pay a fixed amount for a fixed amount of test time by anyone interested. feedback to be provided after the test time ends
- instead of devs posting promo codes, have devs provide you with promo codes, which are then sold to others (ok - this one seems silly ... but it's brainstorming)
- sell a "membership" in the site, perhaps a monthly or yearly subscription that gives a member access to the forums and access to promo codes (rather than previous idea of paying for promo codes). If you are a member, ads could be disabled, game announcements are free rather than for-pay, etc. Non-members can read the forums, but not post, perhaps, or maybe forums should be open to all ... I dunno. members could get 'feature' articles written about them (or written by themselves) and posted to the blog ... a great way to get noticed and get your name 'out there'

I will keep thinking of more over time. As long as you are up front somewhere on the site that these (or other types of) for-pay things are going on, it won't be as if you are trying to 'trick' people ... so we'd all understand!

I think you should actively (or more actively :) try to get yourself out there as the expert you are! I attended the first Voices that Matter iPhone conference last year in Boston - There were a lot of great talks there, and a talk done by you would have fit right in. It's not a paying gig (I don't think), but it would be a great way to get a huge number of devs aware of the LevelVG tool, for example - or even to land a publishing deal of your own. The VtM conference is put on by a book publisher, and I bet they would jump at the chance for a book about cocos2d. And yes, I know there is at least one in the works, but there is always room for more!

In fact: add "publish a book" to my list above! Here's a (perhaps) crazy idea: What if we all get together and write a GEMS type book? (If you don't know, a GEMS book just has many small chapters that cover how to do a single thing in great detail) There are a lot of smart guys on this forum, I bet we could come up with enough gems between us to have a nice little thing going. It could be shopped to publishers and/or published as a PDF that you sell on the site. We could get a group of people together, each writing a GEM or three, edited by someone (you Riq, or me, or whoever) and all of the proceeds would go to cocos2d iphone. Additionally, all contributing authors would get a soap-box from which to talk about themselves and their company/products/services/blog, etc. so it would be a form of marketing for them, and a way to build their standing as experts in the community. If people have interest in a GEMS type book, I'll volunteer some time to try and coordinate such an effort and find a publisher!

Ok - I now wonder if my post is longer than yours :) so I'm going to stop now!

[edit: nope, not longer :)]

Posted 1 year ago #
Tone
Member

Riq,

Thank you for all of your hard work. I have tried PM'ing you about and idea but your mailbox is always full. What is the best way to reach you. I want to do what I can support the continuation of cocos2d.

Tone

Posted 1 year ago #
robodude666
Member

First of all, thank you very much for the work you put it.

I've worked with a lot of frameworks before but Cocos2D-iPhone is by far the most polished and well documented one I've used. It's very well thought out, organized and everything makes sense. Your efforts are not in vain.

riq, is there a way to get in contact with you outside of blog/forum comments? PM box is full, and no email/contact form could be found.

EDIT:

Just want to echo on a few comments aerostat made.

While I hate ads, which is why I have an AdBlocker enabled in both FireFox and Chrome, I would be more than happy to disable them if you decided to put some Google Ads on the site... as long as they're not obnoxious like crazy flashy colors, no audio, and none of that inline text highlighting crap. Ad revenue is extremely good for keeping free websites up, and definitely something to consider. Cocos2D-iPhone's website has an Alexa rank of just over 55,000 -- that's VERY good. With the number of views you get, you could easily roll in ~500+ bucks from google ad revenue alone. If you sell ad space to developers or anyone interested to promote their products you could get even more. Just don't clutter the interface with ads. One at the top/bottom and one or two on a side bar is enough. Anymore and it drives users away.

I also like the idea of a "premium" membership. A number of community forums I visit have a membership system for $20/yr and some even $5/m. Joining the premium membership gets you fun perks like increased PM inbox count, tags to say you're a premium member, private board for discussion, and even direct email access to the owner. Browsing and posting in the forums should be free, and remain free with no limitations, but users who like Cocos2D can buy a premium membership for a small amount to show their support and get a few "perks" out of it.

You could also charge for announcing games like aerostat mentions, but I would personally leave that to a last, last resort. It's good that we're able to show off what type of stuff we made using cocos2d.

Cheers,
-robodude666

Posted 1 year ago #
rolando
Moderator

riq, I think there's little to be said after what everyone here has already said, but I'll add one more thing: your work is trully inspiring.

I would love to see you having success, and I would also love to be able to contribute in whatever way I can to the cocos2d-iphone project.
The idea of ads in the site is not bad, and here are a few other ideas:

. Volunteer monthly subscription to the forums (anthing from USD5). I know I would sign up for at least $10
. paid priority tech support: something like "submit your cocos2d question, I'll try to answer it in 24h". Charge some USD$20-50 for each question. Old solved questions available for free to all who paid and volunteer subscribers
. Keeping the forums open, so if you don't want to pay, just ask the community

I also suggested you to change the license model before, but I understand your motivation and your commitment to the community by keeping cocos2d the way it is now.

rolando

Posted 1 year ago #
charlie_fulton
Member

I'm pretty new to the forums and cocos2d, just wanted to say thanks for such a great product and community you have created.

Posted 1 year ago #
tof42
Member

I would like to join the others to thank you for your hard and amazing work. A lot of today's iphone games may not have been done without you, you could be very proud.

I think you are on the right way with LevelSVG and maybe you should continue to develop new graphical tools. This is also a win/win deal because with nice graphicals tools cocos2d users can gain a significant time, but the whole cocos2d sources remains free and everyone can code everything from scratch if he wants to (or have no money...)

I don't think trying to make money by selling access to the community forum would be a smart move, I know some quite promising projects that did the same thing, and they all killed themself.

Posted 1 year ago #
Jeff
Member

Have you setup a PayPal donation account or some other easy way for developers to give back financially to show appreciation for the benefits they have reaped from using cocos2d?

[EDIT] Sorry, just noticed the PayPal 'Donate' button in the Store tab for this. Should have checked first.

Posted 1 year ago #
asinesio
Member

Riq, I appreciate all the hard work you do. We are writing our first game and cocos2d was our platform of choice.

I'd have bought LevelSvg in a heartbeat if it worked in Chipmunk. Maybe we will switch to box2d so that we can use it.

Also, the idea above on a cocos book is a very good one.

Keep up the great work.

Posted 1 year ago #
AkumaStreak
Member

Riq: As always -- thanks for all you've done for this community. I have felt for a long time that cocos2d/cocos2d-iphone contains a number of unique/novel concepts that will spread going forward, largely because of how well cocos2d implementations have proven them successful. You do great work.

Posted 1 year ago #
GregK
Member

Hi Riq, I'm super new to both the mac and the iphone. This is the first framework I tried out after working on a PC for the last 20 years and I love what you have done. The code you provide allows us to get a solid start.

I think a good idea for some profit would be some sort of a ticket system, where you could provide support in case someone is stuck and needs a experts advice. I know I have been there (actually I'm there right now!), wishing I could just drop 10 bucks and have someone take their time and really explain something to me on a one to one basis. Some of us newbies shy away from asking questions because we deem them too silly and spend days upon days searching for answers to questions that are so primitive that examples are hard to find. I think a payed ticket system could be of great use to the community.

Time is money and it sucks wasting days looking for clues. Think about it.... hint hint :)

Posted 1 year ago #
steg90
Member

Hi Riq, I think Cocos2D is great, it has helped me to come a long way with the game I'm doing - I'm pretty new to Mac and iPhone having been developing on PC's / Windows for some 18 years. I've got experience with Direct3D and OpenGL and your Cocos2D wrapping around OpenGL is great.

I'm hoping to purchase your LevelSVG within the next week as I think it will help me progress a lot quicker with my game just as much as Cocos2D as.

I agree with GregK, a ticket system would be great, the obvious problem would be the turn around time in answering them.

Keep up the great work, I salute you.

Regards,
Steve

Posted 1 year ago #
TouchGameDev
Member

Hey Riq,

I think there are some great ideas posted for you as far as income goes. Bring in ads for games made with cocos why not and etc etc... @aerostat was dead on with all of this but I am left wondering what you are trying to say beyond this.

You start by saying:
"Due to some recent events that will
probably

cause me a direct economical damage

I know the post says you are not asking for money but unless I have a better idea of what you are talking about it sounds like either you are or you are giving people a heads up you need to do all the things people are suggesting. I say this because at the bottom you finally get to your point:

But I won't/can't let you promote in any way whatsoever any product that competes directly with my sole source of income: The sales of Sapus Tongue and LevelSVG source code.

This is confusing because 1.) I am not sure what happened that will probably but not necessarily cause you economical hardship and 2.) You are willing to promote other cocos2d editors.

Do you mind clarifying this a bit more? In no way do I mean any disrespect but it's hard to help if I am not really sure what you are saying thanks.

Thanks ahead of time people for not flaming me for not understanding * pre-emptive cocos2d footer *

My stance on cocos2d

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