Sad day..... TGF2/MMF2 lost the battle.

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    Some of you may know I do work at a high school and I've been trying to get them to use TGF2/MMF2 for the ICT lessons. The idea of game making has caught on and now some pilot lessons have started. That's the good news......

    The sad news is that TGF2/MMF2 will not be used in the pilot programme. Game Maker was choosen for 2 reasons.

    #1 The light version is free for use and doesn't have a 30 day limit and the other limits TGF2/MMF2 demo has, they didn't want to spent any money in the pilot programme. The light version is more then enough for the lessons at the moment.
    #2 It has a complete free (dutch) curriculum for kids to be used in schools. The recommended curriculums for use with MMF/TGF are (english) books that have to paid for.

    Game maker has found it's way into the school now, due to the huge advantages and when the final purchase decision will be made, TGF2/MMF2 are lacking way behind now. The other teachers using Game Maker & the course are very excited about it. I've started to check out game maker also, personally I still prefer MMF and I always have.

    I do find it a shame, but the advantages of game maker over TGF/MMF are just too much for a school to pass on.

    I do hope a light version will be considered for TGF/MMF one day also, it would sure help schools to get into Clickteam's applications.

    Personally I'll use MMF and keep on doing so, but at school I'm now forced to learn Game Maker and teach, I'd rather have it otherwise. But for now the hurdles are to high to jump over.

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    Too bad, game maker is indeed a dutch product and more known then tgf/mmf.
    I remember game maker on my highschool, nobody heard of cnc/mmf back then :).

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    One school. Also, it seems like they didn't want to pay for anything anyway. MMF has so many benefits over GM (and now there is Mac, Mobile, and we can look forward to Android and XBLA support). You can still tell the kids about MMF and why they should use it personally over GM. ;)

    especially with the whole mobile gaming coming up.
    Although it does require mm2dev I have been able to play my mmf games with ease on several phones.
    And mobile games are very cool these days, right kids? ;)

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    It's not that they're not willing to pay, they just don't have set a budget yet and since GM light is free to use they started the pilot programme already. For next school year they will decide the budget, but since they're already excited about GM and the curriculum, it's hard to pursuade them to go TGF/MMF.

    I know MMF has many advantages, I just wished something like TGF light would have existed, that would sure give TGF the edge over GM light.

    By the way... it's not one school. Game maker is finding it's way into many schools. Schools do have a tight budget. Game Maker fits all of the curriculum requirments, just as TGF/MMF do. The teacher who introduced game maker got from a different school. Game Maker is very popular in the Netherlands. The pressure on teachers is tremedous here in my country. While most of them do read English well enough, they simply do lack time to translate, so they're looking for ready to implement items. Game Maker sure has filled that gap.

    It's a simple calculation..... the school I do work at has 4 locations. At least 30 licenses per location (that's too little most likely), that's roughly 3000 euros. Then there's the lack of curriculum, so you would need to pay a teacher extra hours for translating and preparing the lesson material for a whole year and various age groups. That would roughly take 3-5 weeks to do, estimated costs over 3000 euros. They're looking at over 6000 euros to get this ict programme going and now they do have it for free. I can understand why they choose Game Maker. Game Maker free.... Two over 200 page well written curriculums for free.... no extra time needed to get the programme running, excepot for getting used to GM.

    As for the mobile gaming, that is very cool indeed, but most of these kids will not be willing/able to pay for MMF2Dev.

    I guess I've said enough about this. They're very impressed with my MMF work, but time and costs are an issue, so sadly TGF/MMF lost the battle.

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    The biggest problem is that game maker is more popular than MMF.

    I'm in an ICT - based school, and every computer has game maker on it. It even used to be a part of the programming course, but now it has been changed to Python.

    I agree on MMF being a lot better tool than Gamemaker, I've suggested it, too. But since everyone is so used to GM already it's very difficult to get people's mind to change. Especially the "We-know-it-all" type IT teachers.

    Having compared the products, it would suffice to say that MM2/TG2 are far more advanced and modern and the value is definitely there compared to the cost of other software.

    Visually and logically, we can see a definite advantage in education from Clickteam software. It is far more developed and constantly improving.

    So, maybe it is not about this versus that? I would say, if they like GM now, then they would definitely find MMF2/TG2 a welcome evolution and a great boon to education. The basic concepts are there, so it is not a difficult move to make at all.

    benjamin, do you think schools get free copies of software like Microsoft Office of the Adobe Suite? No, they pay a lot of money for these licenses, and they cost way more than even MMF Dev.

    All of the schools over here have computer labs full of stations decked out with thousands of dollars worth of software license, this is even the case for small community colleges.

    Advocate the benefits of MMF and money shouldn't be a problem.

    The we "know it all" type teachers do suck. D;

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    Advocate the benefits of MMF and money shouldn't be a problem.

    You haven't been to a European school.... money is a problem in schools in the Netherlands. It may not be a problem in a US school (although I do doubt that), but overhere it is.

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    All of the schools over here have computer labs full of stations decked out with thousands of dollars worth of software license, this is even the case for small community colleges.

    Let's see..... on our school computers there's Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2003, Internet Explorer and security stuff, that's it. From the internet we can access It's learning, a digital subscription site where teachers can post assignments and create tests. There are 4 special computers that do have video editing software, but that's not even from Adobe, but some cheap variant. You will not find thousands of dollars worth of software license on any of the computers in this region.

    2 years ago the school purchased new computers..... now 2 years later they finally bought new monitors..... the new computers aren't running vista or so, the school is still putting XP on it from the old licence, they can't afford a new license.

    Another example. At our school there are over 2000 students. For some lessons a digital schoolboard is a must these days. We've got 2. There must be over 100 class rooms (I never counted them may do that one day) and only 2 of them have a digiboard. You don't want to know how long it took to get a budget for these 2.

    I've got a friend at an art college. None of the computers run the software needed there. Kids do have to bring their own laptops with software they cannot afford. The school doesn't supply those licenses, they don't even have them since they can't afford them with there budget.

    I do think this gives you a good picture of what's going on here. It almost comes down to this..... my computer at home has far far more expensive software and licenses then any of the computers at school.

    Schools run a tight budget and asking for over 3000 euros worth of licenses is a no go, especially not when you can get the same functionality for free. Our art department for example is actually using free software alternatives for all the expensive stuff I do use at home. Most art teachers are jealous about what I use at home compared to what they do have to use at school. It's a shame, but that's the way it has been for years now.

    Guess what.... they're still wondering why the quality of education is getting less and less. They don't want to invest money, but expect the same quality with less budget. Cuts after cuts.

    That's the situation, unfortunally. Money is a serious problem.

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    I'm from Germany. I'm from a relatively big town with 500000 inhabitants, and I'm on one of the best schools in the whole town. There are over 800 students on this school, we don't have any "digiboards". Some classes do have a computer running Windows 2000. That's all.
    Just wanted to concur with benjamin. ;)

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    It is a shame that your school cannot use the products, but to use your terminology we win many many other battles :)

    Just to note Benjamin, when the school buys a site license (which is very cheap when compared to many other educational software), they also get the curriculum and a book(s) for free. The curriculum book can be purchased separately for around £10, so its not that expensive.

    When a school do product comparisons, in many cases the cost is not an issue, and we are pretty flexible anyway. From experience when showing the products at shows, teachers are amazed at how powerful and easy the product is in comparison to other products. In fact many have then converted from Said product to ours, because of that ease of use etc.

    As the usual analogy goes, you get what you pay for ;).

    Jason

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    Quote

    You haven't been to a European school.... money is a problem in schools in the Netherlands. It may not be a problem in a US school (although I do doubt that), but overhere it is.

    I am in the US. I can definitely say that while some schools have nice computer labs, that is not always the case. Most US schools are pretty poor quality.

    What scares me is that game maker is becoming more popular than MMF2. I agree that mmf2 is the better product by far.

    On the gaming side, So why are people picking a crappier software package over the much better mmf2? Price cant be the only thing, but I do agree mmf2 needs a serious promo boost to get it out there, like what happened with knp back in the day with europress and maxis, that was promoted brilliantly, even I found out about knp in a article inside Pc-Format with a demo version attached on the cd, I got hooked, ordered the huge box trough my local store and the rest is history. That needs to happen again for all the new folks out there:)

    School wise, I think clickteam is doing everything they can to promote it with all the conventions going on so great job there, however the license pricing is hurting them in europe. Maybe a free light version of mmf for people to get their feet wet and get themselves attached to the clickteam name, add a nice splash screen in the end on whats better in mmf 2 so they can buy it after being hooked.

    I dont know but something needs to happen quick before this game maker (dung) gains even more in size.

    Why is that "scaring you"? :)

    A limited MMF edition could be released (for example, no extensions, no HWA, 100 event limit + other limitations) for schools to catch the bait.

    Anyone who gets stuck WILL buy the full version.

    Any ideas?

    I downloaded Game Maker to see what all the fuss was about a month ago. And I must say I wasn't impressed. I didn't take a lot of time with it, but it seemed far less intuitive than MMF.

    The way I see it, there are only two things Game Maker has going for it: price and scripting (for those who would like to work with script that is).

    Promptly uninstalled GM after my curiosity was satisfied. MMF2 is way more advanced than GM could ever hope to be.

    Rikus we have been in PC Format many many times over the last few years, in fact there have been a few game making articles as well.. guess you just missed them :D.

    Also i dont know why you think the license price is apparently hurting us? Not sure where you are getting this information from? We are selling to many schools worldwide and this has been increasing over the last few years. Please PM me with information of your sources as I am happy to correct that source :D.

    As I said in my post, when selling any product and there are other products, you cannot win all sales, but we are doing very well.

    Many thanks for everyones input on this :)

    Closing.

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