Thoughts and Decisions Regarding the Future of the Yami Editor

[yami]

Hello everyone,

It has been a long time since I last posted an update, and I believe it’s time to provide a reasonable explanation.

First, I want to thank all the supporters who have already purchased the application. I’m deeply grateful to every kind member of the community for your help and understanding. A special thanks goes to “Mr. Von Grimmsy” for his selfless contributions to the community, and I do feel somewhat guilty towards him.

As everyone knows, AI development has been accelerating rapidly over the past two years. Tools like ChatGPT and DeepSeek can now help us write script code, significantly lowering the learning barrier for engines like Unity, Godot, and others. Last year, I used ChatGPT to learn Unity and quickly closed the gap between myself and developers with years of experience. It’s clear that, with the continued progress of AI, writing scripts will become even easier, and the learning curve for professional engines will continue to shrink.

This shift has led me to feel pessimistic about the future of the Yami editor, and I even think that continuing with small updates won’t make much of a difference. So, the question is: should I now focus my time on other endeavors?

Since the release of the engine, I’ve built a Chinese-speaking community, met many new friends, and received a lot of feature requests. There are frequent questions in the community, and answering one often leads to even more questions. I’m not great at doing “customer support.” Sometimes, the more a product sells, the more questions there are, the more people need help, and it gradually becomes a “teaching” role. Although, with the help of enthusiastic members, we’ve created some basic tutorials, many people still prefer to ask questions instead of reading the tutorials, and they especially like coming to me directly for quick and accurate answers.

A friend once asked me why I don’t promote the engine, or even update the store page. I think it’s fine this way—if it doesn’t sell well, there will be fewer questions and fewer hassles. Because I like focusing on one thing and don’t want to deal with too many miscellaneous tasks.

Over time, my interest in continuing engine development has waned, and I’ve shifted focus to game development, which has brought me back some joy. I suppose no one’s asking me how to play the game now, right? Also, the cost of developing an engine and the returns rarely balance out. Even Unity, the industry standard, has struggled with its financial reports, and last year it was heavily criticized for its pricing changes. Many users are unhappy about paying Unity a 2.5% revenue share, yet they happily pay Steam 30%. This phenomenon makes me pessimistic about the engine market’s size; after all, there’s no need for so many engines.

AI’s capabilities in script writing and generating art are constantly lowering the barrier to game development, which means more developers will enter the market, making competition more intense. Statistics show that the number of new games released on Steam is growing rapidly, and this has led to many games not selling well. Even though some people have occasionally expressed interest in my editor and asked whether I would continue updates, I tell them directly not to buy it because I can’t guarantee they’ll make money with the games they create.

There are some very dedicated individuals who have made their own games using the editor, like “Yahzj,” who put in thousands of hours and created an excellent game called "Border Pioneer":
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2346410/
There are others, though I can’t list everyone, and I’m truly grateful for your support. You’ve never doubted the feasibility of the tool, which brings me great comfort.

Of course, there are also people who just enjoy the process of development and don’t care whether the game sells or whether the engine used is powerful. However, many eventually give up and don’t finish their games. I began to feel frustrated with my work, fearing that I had made a tool that misled people’s dreams. It seems like it’s common in game development to go from getting started to giving up.

I’m a pessimist and find it hard to understand what optimists are thinking. Honestly, I’d recommend everyone use AI to learn more powerful engines.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been in a reclusive state, avoiding all responsibilities and not paying attention to the community feedback. Some of my promises weren’t fulfilled, which may have disappointed many of you, and I apologize deeply for that. Recently, I spent three weeks fixing most of the reported bugs and adding new features to reduce repetitive work. In the coming days, I’ll release an update and announce the end of the editor project. Moving forward, I’ll mainly focus on bug fixes and reduce the frequency of updates.

I once considered offering the editor for free, but I felt this might bring more trouble and upset existing paying users. I also thought about taking it down, but ultimately, I decided to lower the price, especially for users outside of China, where language barriers prevent the establishment of a community. I apologize for that.

I’m not good at switching between game and engine development, and it’s left me distracted, unable to stay focused. From now on, I will focus on game development. I understand that users want the engine they use to continue being updated and maintained for peace of mind, but the revenue model of game engines is not ideal, and I just don’t have enough interest to continue pouring myself into it.

I’m sorry, but I also want to make the dream game I’ve always wanted to make while I’m still young.

Thank you all for your continued support and understanding, and I wish you all the best in your future development journeys.

[Mr. Von Grimmsy]

pssh, I translated the other thread before I saw this one. Smart move on my part.

I'll echo the same sentiment here then - best of luck on your future endeavors, Yami!

[ZenArtemis]

Originally posted by yami:

I understand that users want the engine they use to continue being updated and maintained for peace of mind, but honestly, the revenue model of game engines is not ideal, and I just don’t have enough interest to continue pouring myself into it.

Make it open source, who paid for it won't be upset as they will still have what they paid for and be able to fix future bugs and incompatibilities. There's no point in saying that it will be supported less and less going forward. Just free the code, the engine will self sustain itself.

[yami]

Originally posted by ZenArtemis:

Originally posted by yami:

I understand that users want the engine they use to continue being updated and maintained for peace of mind, but honestly, the revenue model of game engines is not ideal, and I just don’t have enough interest to continue pouring myself into it.

Make it open source, who paid for it won't be upset as they will still have what they paid for and be able to fix future bugs and incompatibilities. There's no point in saying that it will be supported less and less going forward. Just free the code, the engine will self sustain itself.

Good idea, here is the open-source repository. The code is still somewhat outdated, and I will publish an announcement to address this.
https://github.com/yami-pro/yami-rpg-editor
It may take another month to refactor the code into TypeScript. When I first started learning JavaScript, I didn’t know that TypeScript was a better option.

[Barbilou]

Originally posted by yami:

Originally posted by ZenArtemis:

Make it open source, who paid for it won't be upset as they will still have what they paid for and be able to fix future bugs and incompatibilities. There's no point in saying that it will be supported less and less going forward. Just free the code, the engine will self sustain itself.

Good idea, here is the open-source repository. The code is still somewhat outdated, and I will publish an announcement to address this.
https://github.com/yami-pro/yami-rpg-editor
It may take another month to refactor the code into TypeScript. When I first started learning JavaScript, I didn’t know that TypeScript was a better option.

OMG This is such a great decision! I hope people can help sustain the engine :'0

I sadly don't know neither JavaScript nor TypeScript but I'll try to help however I can spreading the word around

Just know that you did a great job with the editor, Yami! While I haven't used this engine in a whiiiiile, I never encountered any errors in my experience; it was mostly just me asking questions because I was just starting or wishing there were specific features that not a lot of engines have in the first place.

It's a pretty solid engine by itself and knowing that it will be open source too motivates me to finish at least a small scope game in this engine ;O;

I wish you lots of success with your future projects ^^

[Karmic]

Wish someone smarter explained how to actually do it.
I tried downloading the package and running it with "npm start", but it doesn't work. There's definitely something I don't understand there.

[ZenArtemis]

Originally posted by Karmic:

Wish someone smarter explained how to actually do it.
I tried downloading the package and running it with "npm start", but it doesn't work. There's definitely something I don't understand there.

I haven’t tried yet but usually you’ll need to install npm packages first with ‘npm install’.

[Karmic]

Originally posted by ZenArtemis:

Originally posted by Karmic:

Wish someone smarter explained how to actually do it.
I tried downloading the package and running it with "npm start", but it doesn't work. There's definitely something I don't understand there.

I haven’t tried yet but usually you’ll need to install npm packages first with ‘npm install’.

I did, but when I try starting it with npm start, it opens a grey screen, but nothing else.

[yami]

Originally posted by Karmic:

Originally posted by ZenArtemis:

I haven’t tried yet but usually you’ll need to install npm packages first with ‘npm install’.

I did, but when I try starting it with npm start, it opens a grey screen, but nothing else.

I just finished the update work and will upload the latest code. I’ll also check this issue.

[yami]

Originally posted by Barbilou:

Originally posted by yami:

Good idea, here is the open-source repository. The code is still somewhat outdated, and I will publish an announcement to address this.
https://github.com/yami-pro/yami-rpg-editor
It may take another month to refactor the code into TypeScript. When I first started learning JavaScript, I didn’t know that TypeScript was a better option.

OMG This is such a great decision! I hope people can help sustain the engine :'0

I sadly don't know neither JavaScript nor TypeScript but I'll try to help however I can spreading the word around :tobdog:

Just know that you did a great job with the editor, Yami! While I haven't used this engine in a whiiiiile, I never encountered any errors in my experience; it was mostly just me asking questions because I was just starting or wishing there were specific features that not a lot of engines have in the first place.

It's a pretty solid engine by itself and knowing that it will be open source too motivates me to finish at least a small scope game in this engine ;O;

I wish you lots of success with your future projects ^^

I’m really sorry for the late reply, I often miss key information when dealing with English. Thank you so much for your support and encouragement for this project.

I’m glad to see that you’re willing to try something outside your comfort zone and even spread the word—that’s really an amazing gesture! I believe that your passion and persistence in game development will lead you to create an incredible project in the future.

Thank you again for your support, and I wish you great success in your future projects!:tobdog:

[TheRPGunit]

I tried to package it as well, not working. When running, it looks for "Templates/project" but can't find it when creating new project. Directory isn't there.

[yami]

Originally posted by TheRPGunit:

I tried to package it as well, not working. When running, it looks for "Templates/project" but can't find it when creating new project. Directory isn't there.

I see what happened. These files were excluded to avoid uploading a large amount of content. I’ll remove the unused files and upload again.