Once you have verified your education account and been granted an Education Licence, you will need to log in to your YoYo Account.
Once you have logged in you will be taken to your account Dashboard where you can download GameMaker Studio 2 from the GameMaker > Downloads section:
For information on the installation of the software for Windows & Mac and setup guides for all export targets, please read our Help Article Setting up for Education Use.
Managing Seats
Your account will also have two new sections labelled Seats and Seat Managers. To start with, in the Seats section, you can assign the "seats" for the users within your institution that will be using the program - a "seat" is simply the username and login information for a machine that will be using GameMaker Studio 2, and which will later be assigned to one of the Licenses you have on your account.
Note that being the holder of the Education Licence does not permit you to download and log in to GameMaker Studio 2 using this licence, it only permits you to assign seats and buy further product licences. This means that when you set things up you will need to assign a seat for yourself too.
Initially there are no seats assigned to your account:
If you only wish to use the GameMaker Studio 2 Trial version, then you can go ahead and start adding seats to your account (skip down to the section on Assigning Seats To A Licence), but if you wish to lift the limits of the trial licence or create executables for a target platform, you will need to buy one or more of the available GameMaker Studio 2 licences and assign seat IDs to them. You can purchase further licences from the GameMaker > Products section of your dashboard:
Before continuing to purchase any GameMaker Studio licenses you should make sure that the systems which are going to be using the program meet the minimum specifications listed here:
Please make sure the Trial version works first before purchasing further licences.
Please note there is a minimum required purchase of 5 seats per licence type.
Upgrading From GameMaker: Studio 1.4
If you have previously purchased GameMaker: Studio 1.4 Licences but have not linked them to your YoYo Account, please go to the Redeem page while logged in and enter your licence keys here (via the GameMaker: Studio 1.4 tab). If you no longer have access to the email that contains your licence key then please get in touch with the Helpdesk at help.yoyogames.com.
This upgrade offer only applies to Professional, Android, iOS, HTML5, UWP and Master GMS 1.4 licences.
Once you have linked any previously purchased GameMaker: Studio 1.4 modules to your YoYo Account, then you will be eligible for a 50% discount on the regular upgrade price (as shown in the image above for the Desktop GameMaker Studio 2 Licence). When you go to purchase an upgrade you will be given the choice of which licence to use, or no licence (purchase full price):
Once you have selected the payment option you require you can continue to add further licences or you can view your Basket.
Note that when upgrading from GameMaker: Studio 1.4 the options available will be limited as follows:
- GM:S 1.4 Pro Licence - GMS2 Desktop
- GM:S 1.4 Android or iOS Licence - GMS2 Mobile
- GM:S 1.4 HTML5 Licence - GMS2 Web
- GM:S 1.4 UWP / Windows Phone Licence - GMS2 UWP
Those users with a GM:S 1.4 Master Collection licence will have upgrade paths available for all GMS2 licences.
Please note that this upgrade discount is a one-time discount per licence type.
Buying Additional Licenses
When you buy or upgrade a Licence, it is for 12 months only, and after this time you will need to re-purchase to continue using it. You also need to specify the number of "seats" that will be using it, with a minimum purchase of 5 seats per licence (but it can be more):
Before continuing, please make sure the purchase details - shown on the right of the image above - are correct, and make any changes required from your Settings > Profile section of the YoYo Account dashboard. If everything is correct then you can click one of the payment option buttons (credit card, bank transfer or PayPal), or you can click the Continue Shopping button to add further licences.
Once the purchase has been confirmed you will be returned to the YoYo Account page and shown a receipt of the purchase, and an email will be sent to the account holder address with a full receipt too.
If you return to your Licences page for the account, you should see that the new GameMaker Studio 2 licence(s) will be shown, along with any previous GameMaker: Studio 1.4 licences:
Assigning Seat IDs To A Licence
If you haven't created any seat IDs yet, then you should go ahead and create seat ID accounts for each computer that will be using the licensed product.
To create a new seat ID, you need to be on the Seats section for your YoYo Account and then simply click the Create a new seat button. This will take you to the following page where you need to give some basic information about the user that will be assigned to the seat:
Here you give a username and password combination which will be required to log in to GameMaker Studio 2 later. If you have not purchased any further GameMaker Studio licences, then the Access to... field will show the Trial Licence that was automatically granted you when you made the education account. You can create and assign as many seat IDs as you wish to use with the Trial version of GameMaker Studio 2, but if you wish to export projects as executables, or lift the limits from the Trial version, then you will need to buy a different licence, as explained above.
Once you have purchased any of the available licences you will have a new Access to... option with the licence(s) you have bought being shown. If you do not select any of the shown options, then the seat ID will automatically be assigned to the Trial Licence.
Once you have created and assigned seats they will be shown on the Seats page for the account:
Note that all usernames created for seats will be appended with a randomly-generated seed value. The resulting combination of username and value will be required to log into the GameMaker Studio 2 IDE, as shown here:
Important! Once a seat ID has been used to log in to GameMaker Studio 2, both the seat ID and the computer running the GMS2 IDE will be linked, and you cannot use the seat ID to log in to GMS2 on any other machine.
Note that if you wish to change the licence that a seat ID has been assigned to, then you will have to remove the seat from the Education account and re-create it, as individual seats cannot be changed once created.
Removing Seats
You can remove a seat ID from any paid/upgraded licence at any time, and this will "free up" the seat for you to add a new license to. To remove a seat, simply click the Delete button to the side of the seat. This will show a prompt in the browser asking if you are sure:
Clicking "Okay" will remove the seat ID and free up the seat for the licence if it was a paid licence, meaning that the seat can be reassigned to another seat ID (so, seats can be re-used, but seat ID's can't).
Seat Managers
It may be that you want to permit another user to assign seats to a group of people, but you don't want them to have Master access to administrate your YoYo Account. In these cases you can add them as a Seat Manager from the section of the same name:
Here you should click on the button "New Seat Manager" and then go on to fill in the email address of the person you wish grant the permission, as well as the number of licences that they will be able to assign:
IMPORTANT! The email that is given here must also be associated with a YoYo Account, so the Seat Manager will need to have made an individual account before assigning their email here.
Once you have assigned one or more Seat Managers, they will show up on the main Seat Manager screen:
The Seat Managers themselves will now have a new option from their YoYo Account dashboard for Seats, and if they click on it, they will be shown a simpler version of the Master account seat administration page:
The manager can now assign seats or remove them, as explained in the sections above.
Summary
The general flow for getting, installing and using GameMaker Studio 2 looks like this:
- Create a YoYo Account to administrate the Education Licence.
- Contact YoYo Games to verify the account.
- Download GameMaker Studio 2 and install on all the machines that will be using it.
- Purchase (or upgrade) any additional licences as required.
- Create seat IDs for the users (don't forget to make one for the Master Account administrator), and assign them to the correct licence;
or,
Create a Seat Manager and then have them create and assign seats. - Run GameMaker Studio 2 and when prompted to log in, use the seat ID username and password.
If you have any issues with this process, please contact the YoYo Games Helpdesk.