Last I checked, Defold/King require that you let them collect analytics from players' devices in order to ship games with their engine (i.e., your game becomes a trojan horse for their data harvesting regime). It was buried in the terms and a nasty surprise when I found that out (luckily, still in the early stages of experimentation). Permanently destroyed any trust I might put in their offerings.
There's not a shred of truth in the above statement. We offered an OPT-IN analytics services that provided you, the developer, with install and retention numbers for your game. No one at King or in the Defold team ever looked at any data. King has hundred of millions of monthly active players of their own games. That's enough data. No need to try and steal data from anyone else...
The optional analytics service along with the optional project hosting was shut down four months ago.
We do use Google Analytics for www.defold.com and the editor. This is clearly stated in the terms and conditions. And it's pretty standard stuff in the industry to keep track of product usage like that.
Um, okay. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say to that. I remember this clearly from when I trialed Defold immediately after the public launch. I'm glad if things have changed, but the analytics were not opt-in back then.
I've been with the Defold team since before the public launch, but I'm not going to debate you over this :-)
As you say, things have changed and we have worked hard since the launch three years ago to show our community of developers that we are serious about Defold as a professional choice for game developers and that we do not have any hidden agenda with giving Defold away for free.
Am intrigued, as I was an early Defold user and the analytics requirements were quite explicit at the time (as was the requirement to put code through their VCS) throughout the dashboard and general information pages. When were you using it?
I believe both of those are now no longer required though.
