Back in January when we announced the launch of our new branding, we also mentioned about the fact that the new look was just the first stage of a complete overhaul for GDM in 2022 and that we were underway with a full rebuild of the site.
So, read on to find out more about what you can expect…
On the chopping block…
Before delving into some of the new features and improvements that you can expect to see once the new site goes live, we wanted to let you know about a couple of aspects of the site that won’t be included.
Community Forum – Our forum has been in place on the site since we first launched and, while it has previously been a useful place for members to get answers or feedback at times, it’s increasingly become less popular with genuine posters and more popular with spam. Taking that into consideration, we feel that creating a forum on the new build would ultimately be a fruitless task, with the dev time being far better spent in other areas.
That being said, we will always want community to play a big part in GameDev Market, so will be looking at options to replace the traditional forum style community with something more suitable, most likely being a GDM Discord server.
XP System – While we’ve always had plans to make the XP system into something that provides more utility and/or rewards for members, in its current format it has always purely been a vanity metric on the site. For the new build, the XP system is another area that will not be included… for now!
We’re going to be taking a snapshot of all users XP info at the time of moving over to the new site and will be retaining all of the data so that we can look at possible options for implementing a more rewarding feature further down the line.
Time for the good stuff…
We finished off the first round of internal testing on the new site a couple of weeks back and, though there’s still a few things that need to be ironed out to get them ready for launch, the new build is already a much better overall user experience for both buyers and sellers on the store.
Here’s just a selection of the improvements/changes you can expect…
Faster site speed – we know that, at times, the current site can take a bit longer to load than normal, which is mainly down to the number of new features built on top of the original site and the sheer amount of data it processes.
The new site, however, is built in a much leaner way, meaning that all users should see a noticeable difference in performance once we go live.
New payment options – we’re switching our debit/credit card payment processing from PayPal to Stripe, which means that customers will now be able to use Apple Pay and Google Pay to make purchases.
Named zip folders – no more random hash names for downloaded asset zip folders, all customers will now download a zip folder with the asset name included, making it much easier to manage and sort through all asset files.
Immediate asset updates – building the new site has enabled us to make sure that updated asset files are immediately available to download by customers, instead of needing to have their order download permissions regenerated by us, saving time for everyone.
Free order emails – similarly to the above, the rebuild now means that we can turn off asset creator email notifications for whenever someone downloads one of their free assets, bringing an end to some creators receiving 100s of free order notifications per month!
There’s a lot more changes in store on the new build, the above just cover some of the main things that members have previously contacted us about.
When is it coming?
At the moment we’re aiming to carry out the next round of internal testing in mid June, with the view of having a full launch date at some point during Q3. We’ll also be looking at getting a small number of current members onboard for some user testing prior to launch, so will have further details on this closer to the time.
As always, if you have any comments on questions about anything included above then please feel free to get in touch!
GameDev Market is a marketplace for high quality, affordable game assets handcrafted by talented creators from all around the world.
GameDev Network Limited is registered in England & Wales (08951892). Registered office: Baltic Co-Working Space, 12 Jordan Street, Liverpool, UK. L1 0BP. ICO registered (ZA122213).
