YoYoGames is changing its pricing structure for Game Maker Studio 2

[Q-Nova]

At this rate, MFGG should start recommending other game making programs. It won't be long until old versions of Game Maker won't be accessible without going to shady websites.

I agree. My copy of Game Maker 8.1 has to connect to the Internet or otherwise it goes back to the lite version after some time (I think it's about a month?). I wonder how long will it be until YoYoGames shuts down that service and then only the lite version can be used. If I remember correctly, I think you can get the upgraded version of Game Maker 8.1 permanently, as in, you don't need to connect to the Internet to keep it. Is that right? Not sure if it would really help, though, since you probably can't get that kind of license anymore, at least not legally.

I know Gate, a few times, has shared a link to a website with older versions of Game Maker, but they're all free versions. From what I've heard, though, you can do a lot with just the free version of some of those old iterations of Game Maker. I want to say that Firestyle's games (like Super Mario Pearls of Wisdom) were actually made in a free version. I thought the author actually said that in a comment at the old YoYoGames Sandbox site. Those games are huge!

I haven't tried out ENIGMA (the site seems to be having issues, but hopefully that's temporary) yet, but from what I've seen, it seems to be like Game Maker but it's free and open-source. It also seems faster and even supports C++. LateralGM seems like a nice free, open-source IDE that can edit Game Maker files and also works with ENIGMA, although I'm not sure if the interfaces for LateralGM and ENIGMA have any differences.

Those who don't mind using something different than Game Maker could find a whole lot of other game-making tools! A lot of MFGG members have at least once used a Clickteam product, especially before Game Maker got popular. Surprisingly, they're still working on their product, which seems to still use the pay-once method rather than the subscription direction, although it's a bit hefty ($99.99!). They host free versions of some of their older software, but I don't know how much you could do with them. I know you can get the pro version of The Games Factory from them through this handy guide. It's pretty old, however, and it may not work well on Windows 10 and other modern computers. It's also known to be buggy, along with most (if not all) of the games made with it. However, while you may not be able to make the next Super Mario 64 with The Games Factory, I've played some fun games made with that program. Didn't Thunder Dragon actually use that to make Toad Strikes Back and Psycho Waluigi and only used a newer Clickteam product for finishing touches? I wonder how much those finishing touches were. It would be fun to see another modern fangame made with The Games Factory, like Wick the Hot Foot.

I know there are many game making programs that are free and open-source, with Godot Engine appearing to be the most popular one of all. It's probably the best one to go with, although I haven't figured out how it works yet. It's been a while since I tried using it, though. I kind of wish it wouldn't take so long to start up. I wonder how big its games are in file size. One thing I like about the old Clickteam and Game Maker games is that they don't take up too much space and can be downloaded within seconds.

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