Hello there, I got suggested to post this here.
So, while I absolutely love GDevelop for basically being a newer and way more up-to-date Clickteam Fusion that does no-code 3D in a great way (especially considering that there’s both WithThreeJS and the native 3D now so there’s even choice in how you can achieve 3D nowadays), there is one thing I absolutely despise: how gd.games is being forced down everyone’s throats.
I get why it’s appealing: a platform for all GDevelop games to be playable online is a truly great idea, the thing is: not every user wants to get the metrics of their games.
The problem with gd.games is that any project that is created will always be registered on the service. Any new project that is created has no option to just not register the game into gd.games at all. The problem is that on Windows 11, because of this requiring network access, a desktop export will always trigger on the first run a pop-up of the firewall asking if the app should be allowed to have internet access. Imagine selling your game as entirely offline, and this pops up. Makes you look instantly shady!
I do believe this could be a simple setting in the project itself, as simple as deciding how to display the GDevelop splash on bootup. It could be a good thing to make it something you set up as soon as you create a new project. It’d benefit every user making standalone desktop games without having to unregister games (that sometimes even get registered AGAIN between two sessions for some reason) manually. Even better yet: it could be a simple default user profile setting where users can choose whether or not each new project they create should be automatically registered on gd.games or not, as it could be a very flexible way to manage it.
Thanks in advance if you consider doing it!
…huh? what are you talking about?
i use the desktop version, you only ever decide if it goes on gd.games at the export process, which is…just an option you can decide not to click.
I also use the desktop version. To show what I’m talking about, I made a new project, an empty one:
And right as I create it and go to the Home tab, when I go to “Create”:
If I don’t click “Manage” then “Edit details” then “Unregister game”, if I export the game to desktop, Windows will throw out a popup to ask for permission to access network the first time the game’s executable is launched. And before figuring this out, I did try the “disable analytics metrics” action, but it still gave an export with the firewall network popup.
Knowing I aim to use GDevelop for a bigger virtual console project where GDevelop is the engine powering the games themselves, you get why having a popup going “Do you want to allow this app to access the network” when it’s being branded as offline would break the console illusion and give off suspicious vibes.
Hmmm… just to make sure, was the disable analytic metrics action the first action on the scene the game starts with? If its anywhere else (or not on an event at the top of the event sheet with the ‘at the beginning of the scene’ condition) it doesn’t get flagged before the initial call to metrics.
I can’t reproduce the issue otherwise.
As far as being linked to gd.games, Only thing I could think of is if you are using online dev builds? Those go to gd.games in a non-public method but still have to be linked to your profile so you can access them. Gdevelop.io cloud storage is already linked to gdevelop.io, because it has to be. But that doesn’t link them to gd.games.
I tested with the newest release and don’t have any online data associated with a new project that I exported locally.
Edit: To double check, do you mean that it’s associated with your gdevelop.io account? Because that’s expected, any game you create while logged in will associated with your gdevelop.io account, but until you actively publish it on gd.games (public or dev) there’s no gd.games data associated with your project. Gd.games is different than your gdevelop.io profile, and your profile analytics for your exported games from that should be disabled with what I mentioned above.
I do not use the online version, I use the desktop version and only save games on my computer, never on the cloud. I just checked and every time I reload a specific project I already unregistered, it’s re-registered the next time I open GDevelop, while it also has a disable metrics as the very first event of the first scene to play.
That definitely sounds like a bug within the project settings not getting saved or the deregistration not occuring.
I still cannot reproduce the network call with the metrics event enabled+set to no+the first event in the first scene.
Super bizarre. What version of GD5 and what OS+version are you on?
theyre on windows 11 as they mentioned earlier.
maybe they should reinstall gdevelop..?
i mean, im not sure whats more concerning, why gdevelop broke, or if it was reinstalled, is it being broken still more concerning?