Excrutia

Great! Then we agree. Have a happy new year.

I have to take issue with that statement.

What statement are you taking issue with?

Because, it sure looks like you're taking issue with the statement I made, which supports your position that the GMC is, and should be a resource for all things GameMaker.

I have to take issue with that statement. Simply being ignored for "just" two weeks over the holidays might have been tolerable. My nephew (13 years old) gave up trying to upgrade on his own months ago (after doing his own digging around on the site and submitting a request for help), telling me that the company had made some changes and doesn't allow owners of 8.0 (of which he was for two years) to upgrade at all since they changed their registration system. As the original purchase was a gift from me, I was annoyed with this, and looked for the solution myself. I found no information whatsoever on the site (except posting from others facing the same issue), so as a last resort I wrote to the help desk. That was on December 9 (so, four weeks, not two). I still haven't received a reply, and won't be surprised if I never do.

As zanzindorf said, I don't think I would have managed to upgrade at all without this forum (or at least without zanzindorf ).

Why you would defend business practices like this, I can't understand. If the help desk can't respond within a month - even during the holidays (there were only two actual days off in there, you know) - then they obviously need to hire more help desk personnel. (I suspect money is going toward more important things, like marketing to new customers.) Anyhoo, I'm done here, and as long as 8.1 has automatic updates, I don't plan to be back.

Cripes, YYGs shuts down for two weeks over Christmas, suggesting that people who have just purchased it do nothing instead of exploring other viable support resources is silly.

Hey, thanks very much for posting this. I also upgraded without issue today (after reading this). I've still heard nothing from Yoyo Games ... good thing there's a developer community here!

Stick with 8.0 Pro. Your not missing anything but extra mouse controls and silly monthly updates. If it isn't broke, don't fix it.

I think as of Saturday, the gift codes work again in the store, so the method described in the faqs to upgrade to GM 8.1 now works again, though you still have to enter credit card information to sign up with Google checkout, but it won't actually charge you anything if you use your old license key as a gift code.

I think it was well worth the wait, this thing is frickin awesome! The room editor is much improved and I like the new script editor. That horrible glitch that crashes GM every other time you open sprite properties is gone thank goodness.

I'm glad I got this resolved, but the lack of communication between me and the company was extremely frustrating. I still haven't heard back from the help desk, but hey, its right after new years. I'll probably get a message from them this week. With the automatic updates, hopefully I never have to do that again.

Good point ... I also see that I'm left with no way to download the software I purchased. The product download link in my GameMaker purchase confirmation email now leads to "The page you were looking for doesn't exist". So I can't upgrade to the new version OR download the old version.

Obviously the business is focused on getting new customers here. Once you've paid, you're just dead weight.

not sure what u are missing but i got the game maker 8.1 standard... it missing some of the function like step toward and step avoid... so... ya i think the 8.1 might be a water down version of game maker 8. think they left some of the function for html5 or something.

I think you're right. Screw the the new version.

GameMaker 7 and older versions (From Faqs page)

Unfortunately we no longer support older versions of GameMaker in light of constant improvements to current version and future development work on these. We apologise that we can no longer supply links to download these but we are confident that you will find GameMaker 8.1 a superior product in its place. (Hmm...)

Does this apply to 8.0, because I can't find the download link to 8.0 anywhere on the site. A Google search shows I could possibly get it from Brothersoft and Softsonic, but those sites look really sketchy. Anyone know where I can get Game Maker 8.0?

After waiting almost two weeks for a reply on how to upgrade, I now finally received this answer:

"Our office is closed for the Christmas holidays, the coupon upgrade is not a priority as it has been available all year. It will be operational as soon as possible."

Seriously? So ... my fault for being too slow? I'm starting to wonder if we will ever be able to upgrade at all. We were promised free lifetime upgrades; I think we should take action to either get the upgrades or get our money back.