[MENTION=16253]blurymind[/MENTION] thanks for your comments. To pick up on one of your points (which others have said too) which is essentially "release something ASAP, fix/build it up later" - I'd ask you to consider this:
The majority of our users (customers) are single purchase customers, solely buying the base package (I include those who purchased in a bundle or sale at massively reduced price in this category). Most do not buy the more expensive Developer version and the majority do not buy an exporter or add-on. Of those who buy exporters, most buy just one. From my investigations, it appears we actually have significantly more pirate users than users who buy anything other than standard Fusion (and most pirates download illegal cracked versions with exporters included).
So, our current userbase (with of course exceptions) does not equate to a captive market who actively make secondary purchases or buy upgrades. This means that whilst Fusion 3 will hopefully have an initial success amongst our most faithful users, this will likely just be an initial bubble and not support the strong and sustained sales we need to cover the high development costs of Fusion 3.
To be blunt, we are a small company and we don't have tonnes of money for advertising (it is very expensive to make any great headway with ads). We have had some success with guerilla campaigns but our strongest opportunity for success with F3 is for our product and company to get picked up by magazines, tech shows, blogs, YouTubers, Twitchers and so on. If we were to release a version of F3 with only the basic or even a middling feature set - well basically you only get one chance to male a good impression! Releasing with a rich feature set and supporting materials and extensions, we stand an excellent opportunity of the aforementioned media channels giving us rave reviews and exposing F3 to their wide audiences/userbases. Fusion 3 really is an amazing concept and more powerful and ingenious than all of our competitors' products, but stripped back to a "just about working" state just for the sake of getting it out there will not let it shine and grab the attention of decision makers in the media. Considering the scenario further, there's a real risk that a half-baked release of F3 could even gain us very negative reviews and permanently damage its reputation/make potential customers look to our competitors' products.
So, as I hope I've managed to illustrate, it is super important for Clickteam and for F3 that we take the extra time to polish it, that we don't push it out there too early and that we don't blow our opportunity to gain positive media attention and to push Clickteam to the next level. Along with this need to hold back on the release comes the need to keep our cards close to our chest. If we give too many details out we seriously risk competitors copying our ideas. They might then release quick turnaround versions of our techniques and concepts, probably far less cool and useful than our own, but nonetheless they will have gotten there first and this would chip away at F3's edge and that all important first impression and wow factor.
A lot of users are calling for updates and news and information. Some of you even get really quite angry and unpleasant about it at times (there's a reason we started a fresh new thread and have very firm rules for it). The truth is that we've been here before. Due to increasing pressure to comment and communicate, we released a fair bit of information (in the forum thread, in live streams and via the F3 blog). I answered a lot of questions myself, often doing so despite having been told not to by colleagues. In my and colleagues' opinion here at Clickteam we released too much information, far too early. In my experience here, as soon as we release any information, it immediately becomes insufficient in volume and leads to demands by users for more and more and more. When you consider this scenario alongside our need to keep our cards held close, I hope it is clear the difficult situation it leaves us with.
So whilst I would agree we can and should do better with communication, I would ask each user who comes here to complain or tell us how we're doing it wrong (and I'm not singling any one user out by saying this) to consider everything I've said here, to consider the difficult position we're in but perhaps most importantly, to consider the effect of posting very negative statements or comments (especially as we then get yelled at for moderating or removing them, even though they may breach the clearly marked thread rules).
We will get there and when we can safely release more, we will do so. We're very aware that marketing F3 via positive media exposure isn't going to just be about a quick week of frenzied mailing media outlets etc. it will require building relationships, product teasers, previews, demo games and on and on, in a period leading up to the release. Is that period going to start immediately - no. In the next few months, quite possibly not - but please remember that we ARE working hard to get a polished product to both give you all the groundbreaking experience you have waited for all this time, but also to give F3 and Clickteam the best chance at going forward.
I know we keep saying it, but Fusion 2.5 really is a very capable and mature product and is still under active development all the time. We still have some tricks up our sleeve regarding F2.5 and you can look forward to some new paid-for enhancements in the coming months (more about that in the new year).
You can all really help CT by recommending it to other people, to friends, colleagues, to your school/university - anywhere you see a chance, evangelise for us! The more we sell, the more developer time we can fund to get F3 to a point of completion. Don't hold off on new projects and please don't advise people to wait and not buy F2.5. Do you know someone using our software as a pirate? Are you a pirate? Buying a copy/encouraging them to buy would really help us out a lot. It might seem like a strange thing to ask but if you're going to buy, a purchase from our own stores at Please login to see this link. rather than other places like Steam means that we get 100% of the sale price (where Steam would take over ⅓ of the total). If you're publishing a game/app - please follow the licence agreement for MMF2/Fusion 2.5 Standard and include a "made with Fusion" splash screen (we don't currently enforce this, but it would really help us get the word out there).
So to summarise: yes, we have hit another Christmas/end of year without Fusion 3 being released. Yes we do realise this is frustrating for many of you (we feel it too!) but we are working our socks off to bring you a F3 which lives up to the hype and will take the product line and company forward to the next level.
I'd like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a prosperous 2019 to come. Ho ho ho!
