Well, let me try explaining how it works, because they honestly do a pretty bad job of it.
So SmileBASIC 4 itself costs 25 USD (40 AUD).
A server ticket costs 5 USD (9 AUD). Despite the name, these tickets never expire or get used up. How these work is as follows:
- If you have 0 tickets, you can only download once every 8 hours, and you can't upload anything.
- If you have n tickets, where n > 0, then you have unlimited downloads, and can upload 10*n projects at once. (Note that you can take down old projects to make room for new ones.)
Personally speaking, unless you really need to upload a lot of projects at once (and 10 slots goes further than you might think), you really only need one ticket.
The reason this server ticket system exists is because SmileBoom is a pretty small company (their site lists 8.2 million yen in capital, about 76,000 USD or 120,000 AUD), and this helps offset server costs.
In any case, if you still find this system distasteful, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to do it the old way, manually typing in programs by hand. That said, I don't think it's so unreasonable to ask for a few bucks for server access, especially as a one-time fee.
(Note also that originally the plan was for SmileBASIC 4 to only be sold as a bundle with one ticket. The standalone version was added because there were issues with it showing up in the eShop properly otherwise.)
EDIT: One more note: this is a project limit, but you can have multiple files in a project, and the maximum project upload size is 20 MB. As you probably know, text doesn't take up much space, so you can cram a LOT of small programs into one project if you need to.
Server: 50,- $ per Month
Server for HA: 50,- $ per Month
Keeping it up to date (like 1-3h per month): 300,- $ per Month
Setup & Backup: 10h? 1000$ initial cost
On-Call: Probably not affordable for a small company.
I do get it, it sounds like a super small amount they need to pay to keep this afloat but still, you don't know how much development they put in before and how much maintenance they have after.
Assuming that keeping Servers up-running should not cost any money, is a weird assumption.
Yes i also find it very bewildering that people pay for XBox, PS4 and Nintendo but thats because i'm a generation where it was not typical at all to pay monthly for infrastructure. But i originally had unlimited gmail space, so...
Servers do cost money, but storing large amounts of data for upload and download, and keeping them backed up does not cost anywhere near that, unless you have extremely vast quantities of data.
Something I run streams ~200GB/day from a ~1.5TB (and growing) data collection that is highly replicated by the data store. It costs me less than 10USD/month.
It is also all automated - I don't need to touch it unless something goes wrong, which might be once every six months.
Thats what you pay in a private setting when you do it by yourself.
I can do from bare metal to frontend everything. That still doesn't mean that if i need to pay someone doing that, its 10$/month.
When you grow from 'i do that in my time with my ressources and i'm not paying myself anything' to 'i now have an employee and that person actually needs real money every month' you pay more then 10$/month.
Effectively, each server ticket increases your upload limit by 200 MB, permanently. I'd imagine things could add up with custom graphics and things like that, but I have no idea exactly how big the userbase is in Japan. It's definitely bigger than in the West, but I don't know by how much.
30€ for game + 10 reusable upload slots (but seperatef for all kinds of nitty bitty details).
This covers most users needs.
But the game will mostly be a niche product reducing profitability. So selling more reusable upload slots to the ones which are fine with afforting it seems a good idea especially given that probably anyone can live with 10 slots.
Also giving unlimited upload space would be a liability for the company.
Be aware that I made that judgment based on this being a game.
If you look at it as a programming development environment it indeed seems very dogy.
But given the context you should see it as a game which also teaches you programming not as a programming environment.
>But given the context you should see it as a game which also teaches you programming
Yeah and they're already teaching kids to accept the need to pay some third party company permission to make their code available on a locked down heavily controlled piece of hardware, just like in real life.
When connecting to my WiFi this was a huge blessing - because even the toy WiFi for the Switch has a decent password, and again when uploading SMM2 levels. It's a little bit painful to watch really great creators like Barb or PangeaPanga uses a pad to write names & descriptions.
"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with", but the Youtube video has to cut there because Barb will proceed to take about a minute to painstakingly enter the text. It's not a big deal, but it jumps out because that's the only part I find easier. (I suck at Mario, but it's fun anyway).
So SmileBASIC 4 itself costs 25 USD (40 AUD).
A server ticket costs 5 USD (9 AUD). Despite the name, these tickets never expire or get used up. How these work is as follows:
- If you have 0 tickets, you can only download once every 8 hours, and you can't upload anything.
- If you have n tickets, where n > 0, then you have unlimited downloads, and can upload 10*n projects at once. (Note that you can take down old projects to make room for new ones.)
Personally speaking, unless you really need to upload a lot of projects at once (and 10 slots goes further than you might think), you really only need one ticket.
The reason this server ticket system exists is because SmileBoom is a pretty small company (their site lists 8.2 million yen in capital, about 76,000 USD or 120,000 AUD), and this helps offset server costs.
In any case, if you still find this system distasteful, there's nothing stopping you from continuing to do it the old way, manually typing in programs by hand. That said, I don't think it's so unreasonable to ask for a few bucks for server access, especially as a one-time fee.
(Note also that originally the plan was for SmileBASIC 4 to only be sold as a bundle with one ticket. The standalone version was added because there were issues with it showing up in the eShop properly otherwise.)
EDIT: One more note: this is a project limit, but you can have multiple files in a project, and the maximum project upload size is 20 MB. As you probably know, text doesn't take up much space, so you can cram a LOT of small programs into one project if you need to.