The Games Creators - number of active users

Some people have often wondered how many people use Blitz products - I mean there are 10,000 who have created accounts on this site but many are not ongoing users (or are re-registrations) - there may only be a fraction left who use the products.

This gives an insight into how big their programming community is as opposed to their forum community. It would be interesting to know how many people have downloaded Blitz updates.


Dark Basic:

I've not been able to extract commercial stats. However.
v1.13 Trial version - 25th February 2002 - 169,477 downloads.


Dark Basic Professional:

v6.2 Trial version - 31st July 2006 - 88,609 downloads
Upgrade 6.0 - 30th April 2006 - 6,938 downloads
Upgrade 6.1 - 22nd May 2006 - 3,792 downloads
Upgrade 6.2b - 4th July 2006 - 9,028 downloads
Upgrade 6.2 Extras - same day - 4,766 downloads
Upgrade 6.2c - 28th September 2006 - 2,316 downloads
Upgrade 6.3 - 1st November 2006 - 5,610 downloads
Upgrade 6.4 - 31st January 2007 - 175
Obviously, the current upgrade cannot be judged.


Dark Basic Pro Editor (the IDE):

IDE 1.0.9.2 - 29th October 2002 - 18,800 downloads
IDE 1.0.9 - same day - 13,257 downloads


Dark GDK/GDK NET:

Example programs - 1st December 2004 - 12,422 downloads


The 3D Gamemaker:

Additions pack - 22nd December 2001 - 20,976 downloads


The 3D Gamemaker Lite:

Additions pack - 7th January 2002 - 7,798 downloads


FPS Creator:

Unfortunatley, FPS Creator uses a separate site and I cannot see the downloads.


All the dates I have stated are the release dates of that particular version and the downloads are from that date until the present day.

I'm lost as to the importance of the numbers? Blitz is a way better product - that's enough for anybody in the know...and BR seem to be solvent and not at all interested in grabbing more and more money by over-reaching themselves. It's nice to know there are people out there who don't put the mighty dollar first and foremost in their lives. I wouldn't care if I was the only person with a copy - it's ideal for me...and anyhow small is beautiful :)

I was just bored and decided to collate them.

Actually I find it rather interesting. For one thing, if the numbers are accurate, despite everyone claiming TGCs superiority in marketing - they don't immediately seem to have more customers - which means that, TGCs marketing strategy is failing miserably.

Well it still looks like the surface to me because they have an awful lot of other stuff they sell too. I think they have made a lot more money than BR from their marketing tactics and general presentation. Looking at some of the texture and model packs - these things cost next to nothing to make (compared to software) and then simply sit there paying the bills for years to come. If DB products sell at all it has to be from the marketing to newbies they've done - I was appalled by all their tosh when I was sniffing around years ago after burning my fingers on 3drad.

The thing is the forums over at TGC do seem to be more active than over here, there is much more information on upcoming products and other stuff which also generates more interest in thier products.

Blitz research could do the same by releasing information on what they are doing with thier systems