In May, the creators of the Corona engine will close due to losses. Their product will move to the open engine stage.
As Corona Labs reported on its official website, it will cease its activities on May 1. The decision to close the company was made by its owner, the Appodeal monetization service. The reason is operating expenses that exceeded revenue.
The Corona engine will still be available to game developers, and all projects created on it will continue to work. The project itself will turn into open source software and will be distributed under a new, simplified license. It assumes, among other things, unlimited distribution of applications and games created on Corona.
In addition:
- the open source code of all third-party plugins that extend the functionality of the engine will become available. All of them will be available on GitHub;
- Users can download already purchased plugins before the sales close on May 1. After that, plugin developers will distribute the update packages themselves, without the help of Corona Labs. In addition, three days ago, the company closed the acceptance of applications for the placement of plugins in its marketplace;
- Corona Simulator software to demonstrate changes in the code will turn into an offline tool for all supported platforms;
- the components of the Native and Simulator assemblies will no longer require a license;
- Also, Splash Screen restrictions will not apply to games and applications on the engine.
Note that some Corona Labs employees will continue working on the project. The engine will be finalized if they manage to raise funding on their own through Patreon or Github Sponsor. However, part of the funds in the project infrastructure will be invested by Appodeal to support its own plugin.
Corona is a cross—platform 2D framework for creating mobile and desktop software. Its developer Corona Labs was founded in 2008. In 2017, the company acquired Appodeal and made the engine completely free.
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