GameMaker, for creating 2D platform games and now part of the Opera family, has made a change to its prices and terms and it is good news. GameMaker is now free for non-commercial purposes on all non-console platforms.

And for individual and indie developers who want to sell the games they create, rather than pay a monthly or annual subscription there's a one-time fee of $99 that purchases a commercial licence.

For developers targeting consoles nothing has changed, GameMaker's Enterprise subscription remains the same - $79.99 per month or $799.99 per annum.

GameMaker was originally developed using Delphi by Dutch computer scientist and teacher of game programming, Mark Overmars. When it was released in 1999 under the name of Animo it was just a graphics tool with limited visual scripting capabilities. Since 2007 it has been developed by YoYo Games, headquartered in Scotland and acquired by Plattech in 2015.

We covered the release of Game Studio 2 in 2017 and its most recent release is GameMaker v2023.8.2, the Studio part of the name having been dropped in April 2022. Meanwhile Playtech sold YoYo Games to Opera Software and the GameMaker development team remains the same.  

Making the announcement of the price changes on the GameMaker blog, Russell Kay, Head of GameMaker, asked the rhetorical question:

WHY THIS CHANGE?

To say 'Thank You'! Since we joined the Opera family, GameMaker has seen a three-fold increase in its active users! Lots of young people came to try GameMaker, over 6,000 games were published on gx.games, and as a result of the product evolution, GameMaker is now better than ever.

He also noted, referring to Unity and Unreal Engine both of which made unpopular changes to their pricing:

We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms, so we thought, what if we did the opposite, something that could actually be good for developers? Our success is measured by the number of people making games!

More Information

GameMaker

November 2023 Pricing/Terms Changes FAQ

YoYo Games on Wikipedia

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Unity Introducing Per-Install Fees Leaves Devs Reeling 

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