Some unfortunate news...

Hey everyone. This is a post I've been sort of avoiding to make this week, because it's not really good news. I'm still trying to process in my head how to negotiate through it, and whether or not I can even continue Megatoxic. It's been about 20 years since I've been making independent games under this name, and I always felt like at some point I would quietly stop making new games for Megatoxic. I just never thought it would have to be anytime too soon. 

I actually have 3 game projects in the works right now that I've been steadily trying to develop. It's just taking me a long time to announce them or show off any gameplay trailers, merely due to the fact that I have a full-time job (that's not particularly enjoyable I might add), a long-distance relationship with the best person in the world, and an entire life outside of my job that I'm trying to tend to. So I simply never get the time, energy or motivation to work on my games for Megatoxic.

But even with all the "life" stuff I mentioned above, that's actually not what's making me feel like I may need to end Megatoxic. Here's what's going on:

• Ballzerk is going to be removed from the iOS App Store on August 13, 2021. Yeah, you read that correctly, so if you haven't played the game and want to try it-- better download it today (it's totally free). The reason it's about to be taken down is because Apple enforces developers to release frequent updates, and to put it bluntly, updating the iOS version of Ballzerk is a pain. If you're developing a game (or any app) for iOS, this is what the process looks like:
  
  
1. You must pay a subscription fee of $100 per year. For some of you that may sound pretty reasonable. But how much money does Ballzerk make on iPhone per year? $0. How much money does Megatoxic make? $0. So you can see how eventually that can catch up with us. Even when I first released the iPhone version of Ballzerk, I was fully aware of this subscription fee, and anticipating having to take it down in the future. 
2. To make an app for iPhone, you're required to own a Mac. The way I got around this without spending too much money was by buying an old 2012 MacBook on eBay and making substantial software and hardware upgrades to it, which all cost around $300. Keep in mind, this was about a 2-3 week project, and it was specifically for the iPhone version of Ballzerk.
3. To adequately test any iPhone app you develop, you need to own an iPhone. Apple supplies you with an emulator to test your app on, but an old MacBook that was several years out of date already cannot emulate a modern-day iPhone at full-speed. So I had to spend about $400 on a used iPhone X, specifically for the purpose of testing Ballzerk.
4. In order to release an app or update an existing app on the iOS App Store, you have to go through a manual review process. You submit the app file to Apple, and it takes them about 2 to 3 days to review the app and either decline it or approve it. When I released the iPhone version, Ballzerk actually got rejected the first time, because it wasn't unique enough to their store. I had to write a 4-page appeal letter to Apple before they finally approved the app. I feel that any updates I might make to Ballzerk on iPhone wouldn't be substantial enough for Apple's approval, and the effort would just go to waste.
   
   Just for the record, the Android version of Ballzerk will continue to stay available-- this ONLY affects the iPhone version. Google only has you pay a single fee of $20 to initially register as a developer for Android, and after that you can release and update as many apps as you want at no charge.
   
   So when you factor all of the above, plus the fact that Android actually dominates with over 70% of the world's smartphone market share, it honestly doesn't make sense to continue developing games on the iPhone-- unless I became a full-fledged game studio with a team of people, getting an actual income from it and doing it as my full-time job.
   
   
• To make matters worse, Game Maker Studio is becoming a subscription-based software. For those of you who might not be aware, I actually develop all my games on Game Maker Studio 2.3, which is a game development environment I've been utilizing for literally the past 20 years. Over the last 10 years or so I've probably spent about $1000 or more on Game Maker Studio, but now the company that develops that software is switching it over to a subscription-based payment model.
  
  This means I pretty much need to pay them $100 per year to keep the full version of Game Maker Studio, and I may end up having to set time limits for my projects' development cycles. It also means it would cost $200 per year to release or maintain any game software for the iPhone, which is why I decided to just pull out of iPhone development for good. Again-- as a single person working on these games and spending money out of my own pocket, there's only so much money I will allow myself to spend here.
  
  Hearing about this over the week was really gut-wrenching, since I have 3 projects currently in the works-- all of which I'm doing in Game Maker Studio, and ALL of which I've actually worked with other individuals on.
  
  

So to conclude, this is where we are at right now. There probably isn't going to be a lot of activity on the Megatoxic website, at least for a while anyway, and I'm still trying to process the whole situation with the Game Maker Studio software. I'm going to re-read the fine print on what exactly their subscription service offers for the software, and see if there's any way I can work with it with the budget I have available. I really hope it's something I can work around, because two of the three projects are actually really far along in development, and I had yet to announce and make trailers for both of them.

I think I will just end the misery here for now... I will keep you guys posted. 😐

- Tom