Public Beta Coming Soon!

Hello and thanks for tuning in for the next blog related to the development of the Skyline Game Engine.

Its been a while since the last one and a few things are changing and about to happen. Firstly we thank each member who has stuck with us through the developement cycle.
We are not a large corporation or company and are more of a "Commercial Passion Project" which is why we always develop the engine but there is no roadmaps or confirmed dates for things.

Over the last 10 years, the game industry has seen countless changes to the technology and the licenses which drive them. We are here to announce the new business model for skyline and what this means for you.

Firstly, we are removing the multiple versions of skyline and going in favour of one commercial version for all, that is free, no royalty payments and no gotcha's once you earn over a cap. 
So this is the official statement of "Skyline is 100% free and commercial with no hidden earn caps or royalties". The older versions due to there licensing at the time, remain with their licenses.
This is for all new v2.0 + versions of skyline for the forseeable future.
Disclaimer: All terms and conditions are subject to change in the future, but this is our current model.

With this singular version, all users will be on the same software, have access to auto updates(after public release) and our change in ideology is to allow the user as much freedom and choice to 
expand their version of skyline as much as possible. This will be done through the use of custom plugins for the engine which are already availble and with the LUA SDK you have access to most core parts of the engine and whatever is not exposed can be.
Other ways users will be able to expand their engine is through downloading extra packages from the store which could be model packs, new features or something completely unique. Its the people's engine, and you choose what to do with it as long as there is no direct competition to the Skyline Game Engine

The main reason for removing all versions is too simplify what we need to do in order to get the engine out to you and to remove the time and effort spent on maintaining multiple versions.

We want to stress though that we have not forgotten about those who have spent money or been awarded for their copy of skyline. Our goal is that whatever we create as addons and plugins, these will be available to current "Studio Pro" holders for free also for the forseeable future.
As for "Pro" version users, your features you paid for will be available once there counterpart has been generated as a product on the store. Which leads me to the next point, how are we going to handle licensing with the serial activation.

Well, for the upcoming Public Beta, licensing has been removed completely as there is no end game exporter for the public beta, this is still being worked on and will be released in the beta's to come.
Once we go Public Main Release though, we will be bringing in a new sign in feature to the engine. This sign in feature will give access to the store built into the engine and also for generating the license.
There will be no more serial numbers per say that you as the consumer have to deal with, but the sign in will create a license file on your machine for use when your not online and will also contain more information than they did before.
This information being the products and features you own from the store so you will be able to use skyline online or offline still, but will only be able to get the downloads from being signed in on the store either in the engine or from your main internet browser.
The store itself will also be changing as the serials wont be shown anymore and the download for the engine will not need to be got through the checkout procedure. It will be a straight download from the main site.
Again all these are changes to come or are already being worked on :)

Due to making the engine completely free, this means we will no longer be directly making money of the engine which has been developed over 12+ years now, but moreso of the new features and expansions that can be made and sold on the store
for users to choose which bits they need and build there own version of skyline. This means that we can no longer directly give "one to one" tech support for each user as it eats to much time and resources. We will be around on forums and will respond to enquiries about the engine still, but if its not the engine for you, then there are a plethora of fantastic choices out there.

We want to focus on what we can do for you and for our future and direction, which is why we are also moving back to a game development company than just a game engine company and are now going to begin work on our own IP that we have planned since the very start of skyline as the engine and technology is now there to make it happen and as we go along making our games, any features or fixes we need get directly given back to you as the user.
This is the advantage of a company driven software over an open source piece of software, we are two people with a vision for the engine that we have followed since the start and will continue to follow for as long as we can see as this is our passion, our motivation and our dreams.

So to sum up what have we waffled on about here: (TLDR)

• Only one version of Skyline that all use, even us developers. 
• Studio Pro users essentially move to a lifetime license where all new bits that we make and sell on the store for free.
• Pro version users will get all the features they paid for, but will be as extras from the store.
• Focus is for user expansion and user control over the software so you can make it what you want with a solid fixed core foundation of an engine that will always be worked on.
• Public Beta coming soon - It should be released by end of Q1 but we are aiming for mid Q1 and if it comes sooner then great.
• No more tech support as it was since the engine is now completely free
• Change to business model - free engine model, paid addons, no royalties, no earn caps, we will be focusing on our games too.
• Website changes to also happen so there may be maintenance days.
• Basically simplfying in all areas we can so we have less to maintain and more room to develop.

So thanks for reading and we hope you are all staying safe and stay tuned for the release of the public beta of the Skyline Game Engine

Your Dev Team :D