Daikon Forge GUI Library

Thanks for the answer. It's a shame to see this go as DFGUI was the best GUI solution I've seen in Unity, but your reasons are perfectly understandable.

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

 

Yes, was a great product and I learned a thing or two from reading your code. Sorry to see you go...

 

Still doesn't justify how you handled it anyways...

 

Thanks for this official answer. As more and more indie developers have to work with a regular job in order to keep working nights and weekends on their products, I will say that a lot of people share your situation. Maybe you can help your community by advices and wrapper to make easier the transition to the new Unity GUI.

I wish you and our community the best and will announce that my game is 'suspended'.

 

Hi Takuan,
thank for this words we waited the last days for. This make things clear and I thin most of us can understand this.
thank you for DFGUI..I will work with it as long it will work in Unity
Good luck

 

Would you consider releasing it under a LGPL license, or similar, so that it can be continued to be cooperatively developed with peer review. It is quite simpy too good to lose.

 

I'd like to first say that I'm no longer officially with DaikonForge, but I help out when I can.
I've discussed open-sourcing it with Takuan. He has considered just throwing DFGUI up on Github, but is conflicted as it could be unfair to those who have purchased the plugin.

 

Thanks for this Takuan, actually I was seriously wondering whether DFGUI was financially viable... a lot of things make a lot more sense now.
It's a shame, I really like DFGUI and, apart some mobile performance issues, it was the best raster GUI asset for Unity in my opinion. It clearly deserves another chance, whether it's open-sourcing or selling it to some other company (who knows).

@PhobicGunner While it could seem unfair, the real investment is not the money but the time one spent learning and making things with DFGUI. I think only a fraction of customers would complain about it going open-source, as late customers might also get a refund (within two weeks).

What about the other Daikon Forge assets : DFVoice and DFTween ? Do we have to worry about their future too ?

 

As a purchaser of DaikonForge GUI I have to say if given the choice between

a) have no way to download the asset and no hope of any future updates whatsoever
b) be able to download the package from Github with the possibility of future community provided bug fixes/enhancements and the possibility of a permissive open source license

I'll take option b. In this instance I could care less if other people are getting for free what I paid for as long as I can actually get what I paid for

 

Customers can still download the package from the official Daikon Forge Forums, under "Customer Resources" : http://www.daikonforge.com/forums/resources/daikon-forge-user-interface-library.9/

Of course you need to be a verified customer to download it, by registering your invoice number or asking an admin to give you access.

 

Sweet that's good to know. Of course my support of the open sourcing of the plugin still stands

 

I can understand that. It's sad that a top selling UI asset in Assetstore is not enough to sustain its development. However, I think there are many alternative solutions. You could have asked the community if there are willing to support its development, with a different v2 product. We cannot have free updates forever, even Unity expects us to renew every two years.

I'm sure there are ways to complement uGUI. DF is already so far ahead in features. This message should be sent before you decided to take it down, it's about treating your customers with respect.

 

Don't you HAVE a regular job? DF products were being developed in your OFF work time? @PhobicGunner lead into that, when he posted that you would reply after you "got off work"... So your whole post is actually non-sense, if this is the case. If your "job" is actually DF products, please tell me how pulling future sells, increases your income?

 

I think Takuan had to get a job (that is not DFGUI btw) because Asset Store revenue was simply not enough to make a living.

I can imagine that a product like this can be initially developped by one guy on his free time.
BUT how can anyone think two or three guys can decently work on updates for v1, develop DFGUI v2, do customer support in their off work time, and still have a life ?

I believe that's the whole point behind the lack of updates and feedback from the devs these last couple of months.

 

Funny, I work a job, where I put in 120 Hours a week, and I STILL have a personal life. Its all about motivation, and ethics really..

 

lol, do you sleep?

 

Yes..... LOL

 

None of this still explains, how pulling an asset, that your customers were expecting to be viable for more than a year, helps his financial situation? Even if your only developing in your OFF work time, what has he lost? How is it better?

 

I think the point here is that whatever DFGUI is making just isn't enough. Financially it would be wiser to focus efforts on other things in the spare time he has, things other than providing support for a product which is not going to support DaikonForge.
Takuan has told me that he doesn't feel it right to continue asking for money for something which is not going to be supported. Therefore, it was pulled. That said, we're still discussing putting it up on Github under MIT or some similar license.

 

So his morals, said, lets not take any more money, but lets not tell ANYONE, whats going on? Contradiction?

I'm out. Good Luck man. I hope you can get ANY customers after the twice pulled assets, with no real warning.

 

Or it could be some people don't want to work 17(ish) hours a day and would like more than 7(ish) hours a day to do everything from sleeping, eating, bathing, seeing family/friends etc etc

 

Thank you. Proved my point.

 

These products are feature-complete, and do not have a very big support burden. So they are safe.

By the way, I should mention about the "twice pulled" comment, the second time it was pulled was entirely out of Takuan's control. Unity put the asset back up, and now appears to have pulled the asset again, neither case at his request.

EDIT:

I'd also like to mention on the 120 hours a week...
For you, that might work perfectly fine. You're getting paid for the 120 hours, I assume. Even though that only leaves around 7 hours of freetime a day (and 6 hours of sleep is the low end of the amount of sleep an adult human needs, which would leave a grand total of 1 hour of free time), it might be perfectly worth it for you.

If, however, you have zero co-workers, you're earning only $2k a month at most, and you're fulfilling the role of every department at once, I imagine you would see things differently.

 

How long did it take you to analyze the situation carefully that it was not commercially viable?

How did this factor in to what you at the time thought the effect on your customer base would be work wise?

You should have known by common logic that DFGUI would not feature monthly on the Asset Store Sale. You even say it yourself. This explanation is you meandering around a different thought that you wish not to reveal. To yourself, thinking about the above quote, do you not see the difference between the logic involved in realizing that your product would no longer be commercially viable and the logic involved in realizing that DFGUI would not feature monthly on the Asset Store sale?

The differences in what is needed to understand your decision making pattern for each of these situations is simple and clear, to me anyway. Let me know if you want me to elaborate?

Thanks, but no thanks.

 

From what he's said here alone it took me about 3 seconds. 20% of what he could get by putting the same work into a standard job? I'd flip that in a heartbeat.

That's not really relevant. He was at no time under any obligations to continue selling the product. That's not a guarantee made anywhere. Unfortunately the Asset Store doesn't (in general - DFGUI is apparently a one-off thing) support allowing stuff for download that's not also available for sale - he had no control over that, but was hosting the download himself for anyone who verified their purchase.

I totally agree that it could have been handled better by both DF and Unity, but there's really no benefit to be had from dwelling on that.

I personally echo the those posters who are wishing Takuan the best for his future endeavors.

 

As a DFGUI customer, I would much prefer the open-sourced/github option than keeping it from everyone - I'd wager that most customers would prefer that as well.

The situation is certainly disappointing, there are probably a few core bad decisions that contributed to it, but what's done is done. One thing which should be noted though - there is no "support burden" on any Asset Store product - if you read the Asset Store seller agreement, no-where does it say you must provide support for an asset to be able to sell it.

 

I do not speak English.

I used google translator to my thinking.

I use EZGUI => NGUI => DFGUI .

There are advantages and disadvantages to each.
I am creating a mobile baseball game, companies to DFGUI current

I Think...

Not even the management
You can sell DFGUI.
it is possible to determine by looking at the last update date buyer.
However, this behavior may be wrong.
But doing so is EZGUI.
Almost two years without an update, selling for $ 200.

I do not want to sell you a great sense of responsibility.
Just occasionally, I hope a bug fix, want me for this little update.
Absolute does not interfere with your daily life and work

I hope you understand the meaning of the article I wrote.
Thank you.

 

As a DFGUI customer myself I can only agree with TheValar. The things we purchase always get cheaper at some point, and DFGUI didn't burn a hole that large into my pocket to actually be upset about seeing it going free. It was worth its price when I paid for it and I got my money's value from it.

 

I personally would like update 1.0.17 see daylight, it should be a much needed performance improvement! Open-sourcing can come after that (if any).

In theory... but the truth is: poor support is usually a killer for asset rating and I'd rather pull my asset off the store than get a bunch of 1 star ratings, along with aggressive reviews from pissed off customers.

 

Also, regardless of what it may have cost in the past, going forward it will be worth more as an open source product than it will as an EOL'd product.

As an EOL product people have a choice between maintaining it themselves or moving on to something else. As an open source one it might be able to continue on as a maintained product in its own right.

It'd also have a significant advantage in license accessibility compared to its competition, and maybe there'd be a way that can be turned to the author's advantage in the future? Making smaller, paid add-ons, perhaps? Just throwing ideas out there.

 

Plus, some people might just feel bad about not supporting people who pay for their work, and it's potentially bad for your reputation.

 

I agree. I was also expecting (a lot) a new version for the performance improvement need, but we have to think that the new Unity GUI, which is supposed to use native code, will have (far) better performance. If, when I will have access to the 4.6 release, I realize that DFGUI is still far better from a functional point of view and that the performance difference is not so huge, I will be part of those who want this asset to continue to live in a way or another. But if the 4.6 appears to be a good product with better performance, I will definitely understand that DF-GUI has no future (what I suspect based on Takuan feedback, even if alerts have been posted on this subject a couple of months ago on DF-GUI forum with optimistic answers from DF team).

If Unity has done its job regarding UI, we may need only GUI asset in top of uGUI, not in place of it.

My two cents.

 

I've posted an official announcement on the situation with DFGUI, and the possibility of open-source.

http://www.daikonforge.com/forums/threads/dfgui-open-source.2248/#post-10725

The gist is this: we'd like to hear from verified customers on whether we should open-source DFGUI.

If we do open source it, we're working on a list of things the open source community could start with to improve performance and other features.

 

I vote for open source. For me, you propose the perfect "compromise" : some "last" improvements (and sleepless nights !) for the honour and to thanks your customers (like me) who have believed in your asset, and then a gift to the community...and holidays ;-)

 

Sorry to see this news. I bought DFGui for full price some months back. Even still, I would vote for open source. The reality is that despite best intentions businesses go under and products fail. It's just a fact of life. At least with open source DFGui would have a better potential future than just bitrotting into nothing.

 

I'm a purchaser of DaikonForge GUI and i'm fine with a Github release. Go for it.

 

I'm a customer and I'm fine with it going open-source.

 

I would, but Apparently, comments you make on this forums, get your banned on that foums. Didn't see that in the forum rules... Real F'N childish man..

 

Why don't you just go ahead and send me my refund then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

At this point, I don't think DaikonForge will be giving out any refunds (not by direct choice, anyway). It's the nature of things that a product eventually stops being sold and supported, and that is not a case, in my opinion, that deserves a refund.

 

Ignore the previous post huh? Am I to guess then, it was you?

Please enlighten me, what forum rule I broke on your site?

 

The ban has been lifted.
For future reference, the appropriate avenue for requesting refunds is to contact the sales department at Unity via email.

 

The simple solution would have been to keep it on offer but for some crazy high sum, like many hundreds. High enough to only have to deal with 2 or 3 new customers a month while paying the bills. Would have reduced the support burden drastically and the much-fewer customers' requests could actually be handled knowing they did in fact put back in some substantial contribution themselves.

Screw this "gamedev democratization" aka race-to-the-bottom abyss seen it time and again for more than a decade, highly talented and idealistic developers wanting to pleasure the world with their AAA quality at less-than-indie pricing for giggles and karma. Then UT sits back counting their 30% cut while you (essentially) improve their sketchy engine until reality sets in and ... oh hey there's another highly talented and idealistic dev coming along just out of high-school!

 

Ah, appealing to nature. Should have written on the website:

• It's the nature of things : DF-GUI's support can stop at any moment, with no prior announcement whatsoever. Any claims to refunds will be disputed, and you may not always have access to the product when we take it down.

rather than the promise that DF was sold with:

• Active Development : DF-GUI is under active development, and new features are being developed at all times. With free updates, you will always have access to the latest features and bug fixes without any additional charge.

Look, it's fine that overhyped promises do not always have a solid basis in reality. But it's just that kind of rhetoric that pisses me off.

 

It wasn't an overhyped promise - just an underfunded one.
Software stops getting supported all the time. That doesn't entail a refund.

 

I'm a paid customer and I support open-sourcing DFGUI.

For what it's worth, I thought you guys did an outstanding job creating and supporting DFGUI. Fully understand that it just didn't turn out to be economically viable to continue.

 

I can't post on the official forum from the iPad, so I too support open-sourcing DFGUI.

 

This

and this.

 

I own a license and fully support the decision of open-sourcing it.