The Game Launcher Creator software range has been the forefront of the Game Launcher, Update and Patch market since 2017. With the likes of PatchKit which is advertised primarily as a Unity Game Patcher, it comes with many developer features, but at a cost, a high cost at that.
Game Patching Systems
Every developer, serious or even semi-serious will be looking for a patching system. The only problem is, amongst most developers, getting the product complete is their biggest priority. Developers don’t really tend to think about game updates or patching until close to release and this can become a problem.
Once you start to distribute your games across a single or many, individual channels, how do you push out game updates? There is absolutely no doubt, you could have a team of 20 game BETA testers that will test the game engine out to it’s fullest potential, but no matter how much testing you do, bugs will arise, bugs will be in your source code somewhere, a certain Boolean will not change when it’s supposed to, creating a flaw in your game.
You find the bug, you fix the bug, now you need a way to distribute this update out to all your players, but how?
Game Quality Maintained with Patches
To maintain game quality control, having an efficient patching system in place is paramount. There are many patching systems out there that will advertise as a ‘game patcher’ but sometimes, there are far too many options available, especially in terms of where the data is stored.
PatchKit offers a unique way to do this and is a professional solution, however Game Launcher Creator also offers an equally professional and efficient way of patching. Game Launcher Creator V3 contains a special patching system called AOPS (Advanced Online Patching System). You can integrate this patching system directly into your own custom game launcher which in turn, will allow your players to check for a game update and patch instantly at the click of a button.
The way AOPS works is, it will store your game directory online and a list of checksums, the game launchers (clients) will then check your players current game installation against the most up to date version online. AOPS will then only patch the files it needs to, saving you a ton of money on bandwidth and will increase server performance with less hits to the server.
Cost Efficiency
With a professional software solution comes a price tag. Developers cannot develop robust, professional and efficient systems for others to use without being able to feed themselves. That’s where you have to evaluate, do you code your own game patcher or do you license an already-developed system like Game Launcher Creator or PatchKit? It’s about weighing up the pros and cons.
Firstly, developing your own patching system is lengthy, not only do you have to code it from scratch, you will have to do some rigorous testing across numerous systems to ensure it runs flawlessly. Secondly, you have to maintain this system and these two factors combined, will put back your release schedule.
PatchKit offers a patching system that is incredibly expensive and we have no qualms in pointing this out to you. A quick look at their pricing structure, reveals you can either Pay As You Go or pay a subscription every month. The problem is, this can be very costly. Let us put this into perspective for you, $449 a month, that’s $5388 per year.
Game Launcher Creator Developer Edition costs just $199.99 as a one-off fee and no monthly subscriptions, and lifetime updates. This license is per user, but even if you had 5 people needing access, this is still less than $1000, one-off, optional yearly subscription, still half the price of just one month of PatchKit service.
Ultimate Game Patching Solution
In fairness to UpSoft, we haven’t once said anything negative about their product, because it does offer a unique service, pretty similar to Game Launcher Creator’s too. So we wrote this article to allow you, the reader, the researcher, to draw your own conclusions. It’s true you get what you pay for, and this is why Game Launcher Creator isn’t free, we put a serious amount of effort, coding and support into the Game Launcher Creator and will continue to for decades to come.
We advise you to check out both products, and don’t forget to check out all the features of our software here.
If you wish to purchase Game Launcher Creator now, just click here.
