GameMaker began as something else. In the summer of 1999 Mark Overmars, a computer scientist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, started writing a program called Animo: “my first idea was to make a simple system for creating 2-d animations”. By the time he released it that November it had a built-in programming language and could run simple games, and it had a new name, Game Maker. Hardly anyone noticed. In December 1999 it was downloaded 366 times.
Three years later it was being downloaded about 2,000 times a day. Overmars kept it free, and his website promised that users could make games “without the need to write a single line of code”, by dragging and dropping actions, then move on to the built-in language when they wanted more. Children made their first games with it, and the program itself grew into the engine behind Spelunky, Hotline Miami and Undertale.
Fast facts
- Creator: Mark Overmars, Utrecht University.
- First release: version 1.1, 15 November 1999, for Windows PCs; YoYo Games’ later versions export games to other platforms.
- Written in: Delphi; the editor alone was “slightly over 25.000 lines of code” by 2002.
- How it works: drag-and-drop actions for beginners, and a built-in scripting language, the Game Maker Language (GML), for more.
- Price: free from Overmars; later sold by YoYo Games, and since November 2023 free for non-commercial use.
- Owners: Overmars until 2007; YoYo Games from 2007, now based in Dundee; YoYo was bought by Playtech in 2015 and by Opera in 2021.
- Known games: Spelunky (2008), Hotline Miami (2012), Undertale, Hyper Light Drifter.
Overmars’s program
Overmars kept a public diary of the program’s growth on his website. The first version played games inside its own window: it “did not use DirectX and it did not have a separate runner nor could it create executables.” Version 1.4 in early 2000 drew more attention, and version 2.0 followed around September. Downloads that year came to about 40,000.
Version 3.0, in 2001, was the first to draw its graphics through DirectX. Then Overmars started again. “In Jan 2001 I decided that I had to redo Game Maker,” he wrote. “I rewrote it completely from scratch, using all that I learned over the years.” Version 4.0, released in July 2001 with a red icon to mark the break, could not load the old version’s files. Version 4.1 added multiplayer games in December. Downloads for 2001 came to about 270,000, and by the end of 2002 the site was counting some 2,000 a day.
The idea stayed the same through every version. Beginners built a game by dragging ready-made actions into place instead of typing code, with a collection of free images, sounds and example games to start from; when the actions ran out, the built-in language gave “full flexibility”. By 2004 Overmars’s site listed scrolling shooters, platform games, puzzle games and isometric games among what users had made, and in October 2004, with version 6.0 just released, it added a tutorial for a first-person shooter. Overmars made the case for the approach in education, in an April 2004 article in the IEEE journal Computer titled “Teaching Computer Science through Game Design”, and in 2006 he and Jacob Habgood published a book of tutorial projects, The Game Maker’s Apprentice.
YoYo Games
In 2007 Overmars’s site announced that “Game Maker and all its related files are from now on distributed by YoYo Games”. YoYo was a new company, founded that year by a group of games and entertainment executives including Sandy Duncan, its chief executive. In the founders’ own words it was set up by “a group of games industry friends” and “never had any external investors aside from our own funds”, so GameMaker’s sales paid for its growth. In 2010 YoYo opened an office in Dundee, Scotland, where the company is now based, and veterans of the city’s games industry worked on the program: Mike Dailly, one of DMA Design’s first staff, was lead developer of GameMaker: Studio from 2010 to 2018, and by 2021 Russell Kay was its technical lead.
GameMaker: Studio, released in 2012, could build the same game for several platforms, and GameMaker Studio 2 followed in 2017. By then it had a reputation. “In the years since YoYo Games’ GameMaker first emerged in 1999, it’s gained a reputation as a low-cost and easy-to-use platform for making 2D games,” Wireframe wrote in 2019, listing “such indie darlings as Hotline Miami, Undertale, Downwell, and Spelunky”. In 2019 and 2020 the magazine also interviewed two developers who had started with it as children: Nick Walton, whose “early experiments with GameMaker as a 10-year-old led to a lasting interest in development”, and AJ Norman, who at nine “would spend hours tinkering with GameMaker and trying to make his own Zelda homage”.
Owners and prices
The gambling software company Playtech bought YoYo Games in 2015, when YoYo had 30 staff. “We’ve relied heavily on generating revenue, mainly from GameMaker sales,” the founders told users, and said Playtech was “the first investor who didn’t want to alter our vision”. In January 2021 the Norwegian browser maker Opera bought YoYo for $10 million to start a gaming division. VentureBeat reported that YoYo had gained more than 400,000 new registered users in 2020 and that GameMaker had been downloaded more than 10 million times since 2012.
In November 2023 GameMaker became free for non-commercial use, with a one-time licence for commercial releases replacing its subscriptions. Russell Kay, by then head of GameMaker, said the team had seen “other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms” and had decided to go the other way.
Sources
- Mark Overmars, “History of Game Maker”, Game Maker Pages, c. 2002 (web, creator’s own account), archived February 2003 at https://web.archive.org/web/20030222050142/http://www.gamemaker.nl/history.html: Animo, the first release on 15 November 1999, the first versions’ limits, download figures for 1999–2002, Delphi and 25,000 lines, versions 1.4 to 4.3, the 2001 rewrite.
- Mark Overmars, Game Maker Pages home page, 2004 (web, archived; also served from Utrecht University’s computer science site): “without the need to write a single line of code”, drag-and-drop actions, the built-in language and its “full flexibility”, free use, the bundled resources, the kinds of games made, version 6.0 and the shooter tutorial (October 2004), Windows 98 SE to XP; and the 2007 notice that YoYo Games would distribute Game Maker. https://web.archive.org/web/20071010103739/http://www.gamemaker.nl/
- Mark Overmars, “Teaching Computer Science through Game Design”, Computer vol. 37 no. 4, April 2004, pp. 81–83 (IEEE). doi:10.1109/MC.2004.1297314
- Jacob Habgood and Mark Overmars, The Game Maker’s Apprentice (Apress, 2006).
- Wireframe issue 7, February 2019, p. 24 (Nick Walton and GameMaker at ten); issue 20, August 2019, p. 24 (Revita; “first emerged in 1999”; “Hotline Miami, Undertale, Downwell, and Spelunky”); issue 21, August 2019, p. 25 (Hotline Miami, Spelunky and Katana Zero made in GameMaker); issue 33, February 2020, p. 10 (AJ Norman).
- YoYo Games, “YoYo Games is Acquired by Playtech plc”, 2015 (web, archived March 2015): the founders’ note and Playtech’s note. https://web.archive.org/web/20150326191637/http://www.yoyogames.com/playtech
- Dean Takahashi, “Opera acquires YoYo Games for $10 million and launches Opera Gaming division”, VentureBeat, 20 January 2021 (web, secondary): price, Dundee, registered users and downloads, Russell Kay, Risk of Rain, Undertale and Hyper Light Drifter.
- “GameMaker goes free for non-commercial use”, Destructoid, 21 November 2023 (web, secondary): the 2023 pricing change and Russell Kay’s comment. https://www.destructoid.com/gamemaker-pricing-fees-update-game-engine-news/
- “GameMaker”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): release dates of GameMaker: Studio (May 2012) and GameMaker Studio 2 (March 2017). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameMaker
- “YoYo Games”, Wikipedia (web, secondary): founders including Sandy Duncan, chief executive, in 2007; the Dundee office from 2010; Playtech’s ownership from February 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YoYo_Games