Ever since Opera purchased GameMaker developer YoyoGames earlier this year, there have been several changes leading to today’s announcement of GXC. Earlier in the year they announced a new free tier of GameMaker followed shortly thereafter by changes to the pricing structure and a move to subscription based pricing. Today they announced the launch of GXC.gg a new Opera GX hosted portal for Indie developers to publish their games, including 1-click GameMaker publishing support, for all versions, including the free version.
Details of the new Opera GXC:
GXC is the next step for Opera Gaming
Opera established Opera Gaming to build synergies between the world’s first browser for gamers, Opera GX, and the GameMaker Studio 2 game development engine, as well as to work on new ventures in the gaming space. Currently launched in beta, GXC will be the first instance of this synergy, connecting indie game developers with the fast growing Opera GX audience of more than 10 million gamers. The platform will enter a beta stage in the coming weeks and will then become open to a wider audience.
Along side the new portal, Opera/GameMaker also announced the Community Showcase Competition:
We’d like to invite you to enter the Community Showcase Contest, featuring a big $45K USD prize pool. What better way is there to show our appreciation to all the wonderful game creators in our community?
The Community Showcase Competition
In order to submit a game, open GameMaker Studio 2 and choose your favorite project. Then, select the “Opera GX” target and start the upload process with the click of a button. Finally, access the GXC DevCloud where the competition will be hosted to add a description of your game and pick relevant genres.
You can submit your free games to one of nine categories: Best Action, Best Arcade, Best Platformer, Best Puzzle, Best Multiplayer, Best Art Direction, Best Soundtrack, Best Level Design, and Most Engaging. You can keep tweaking your games through the duration of the competition and are welcome to submit more than one game.
A jury that includes the Head of GameMaker, Russel Kay, the Head of Opera GX, Maciej Kocemba, and their teams, will select the five winning games in each category. Each winner will scoop up a cash award of $1000 USD.
The competition opens today (September 30), and will remain open to submissions until October 11. The winners will be announced on October 30th.
Be sure to check the terms and conditions before entering, as the devil is as always, in the details. If you wish to learn more about Opera GX, you can check out our review available here. You can learn more about Opera GXC in the video below.