Don't Forget To Do The Godot Community Poll

[00:00:00]The 2026 Godot community poll is here.

[00:00:02]Takes about 10 minutes to complete and it's one of the more direct ways to influence where things head and we want to hear from you. Now, it is important, I think, as a user of Godot, to make sure that you do this um every year when it comes around because like one of the best things about Godot is that it doesn't have telemetry, which the other engines like Unreal and Unity do. And so, Godot can't really tell what you're doing, which is great. You want that.

[00:00:30]That's like an excellent feature of the engine, but at the same time, they need to know occasionally so that they can decide on the direction of the engine and what's what features are best add, what people are looking for. And so, that's why the community poll exists um and obviously way better than telemetry because it's a voluntary. So, if you don't want to submit it, you don't, but you should um and if you're not comfortable stuff, I guess you just like can choose not to submit it. Let's read what Emmy said had to say. We want to learn more about the Godot community, understand who the users of the engine are, and find out who how we can better support you. They say, "Yes, to achieve that, we have short set of questions and hope you will take a few minutes to fill them out. The results will help guide our current future items in our priority list." Um so, they have a list of things that they want to add to the engine. The poll is anonymous and they share the results publicly once submissions are closed. It will remain open for a month and only takes 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Okay. So, I thought I'd go through it mine now. So, age group, I'm old as heck, guys. I'm in the Look, I Oh man, this feels really bad. Like, you know, it's like when you start getting older and you used to be in this age group and now you're in then you're in this age group and then you're in this and now I'm on the I'm on the like far end, right? Like, I'm on the the back end of this little table here. I used to be in the front, but now I'm in the back and I'm just on the bad side, guys.

[00:01:51]>> [laughter] >> Oh goodness.

[00:01:54]I am male. RPG Maker was my first engine.

[00:01:58]That That's what I used to use when I was a kid. When did you first hear about Godot? I'm an OG, so I get to choose that one. I might be old, but at least I knew about Godot a long time ago. In what capacity do you use Godot? Um technically, I am self-employed like from a legal standpoint, um but yeah, hobbyists.

[00:02:15]I'm both, I guess. I'm I'm a hobbyist, but um for tax purposes, I'm self-employed.

[00:02:20]Which is better, Godot or Unity? Easily Godot. I'm biased, obviously. I use it for everything, but like I don't know why you would need to use Unity. I can't really think of a good use case for it now. Like maybe because of the asset store, I guess. I don't know. VFX? Uh I'm I'm actually no skill.

[00:02:37]Music and audio, I call myself intermediate.

[00:02:39]Um writing, no skill. QA, no skill.

[00:02:44]Production, no skill. Business, business. I'm businessman.

[00:02:50]That was a That was a long time ago.

[00:02:51]Marketing, uh I guess I'm okay.

[00:02:54]I'm okay at marketing. But yeah, business, obviously. I am an accountant.

[00:02:58]You want some business advice? I'll give you business advice.

[00:03:01]I'm professionally trained to be able to give you business advice.

[00:03:06]>> [laughter] >> What are your main revenue methods? My main revenue is actually education, because I actually was doing my tax return um yesterday, and like by by and large, the Udemy course is the biggest income earner for the channel. Uh publish on the following platforms.

[00:03:22]Uh I like itch, I like Steam. I don't know much about Epic Games Store.

[00:03:27]Basically, anywhere I can without significant um struggle. Because like I can push to itch, Steam, Epic, and Google without any help. Right? So, those are the ones that I like the most in terms of like which ones I'm going to choose. And pro- probably the web. I can sell it directly on my website, right?

[00:03:44]But when it comes to like Apple, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, those um require me to pay somebody else to do it for me, right? Even Apple, like technically I could buy a MacBook to like compile the game for for the Apple games for the Apple for Steam, right? But like I'm just not unless the game's like mega successful, it's just not something that's on the cards, right?

[00:04:10]So like yeah, if you sell a bunch of units and you make like $100,000, yeah, maybe you buy like a a MacBook so that you can build one for the apps Apple App Store.

[00:04:22]But like until then, why would you? And then same with these, like unless you will like have proven success on Steam, there's no point. Which development platforms do you primarily work on? I use Windows and Linux. So obviously when I stream, I use Windows because streaming on Linux is a bit like problematic, I guess to say the least.

[00:04:43]But when I'm not streaming, I'm usually working in Linux. The only times I'm not using Linux directly for game development, obviously when I'm on stream, and the other thing is for music because music on Linux is a little bit um it's tricky, right? Like I use Reaper as my main digital audio workstation, um but the thing is the VSTs are very often not available, and getting them working is a bit hit and miss. You can do it, but like it's just not like great, you know what I mean? So I just use Windows.

[00:05:14]It's just easier. What type of hardware do you mainly use to run the good though editor?

[00:05:20]Fami Tracker is good? Yeah, Fami Tracker is pretty good. I I'm like the thing is I do have that downloaded, and I just don't like as I don't feel like I get as much customizability. Like I've been using this plugin called Soraboy um for for all this music, so it's all Soraboy, right? And and you can just like define all this stuff really easily.

[00:05:43]Um and then play the tracks. How do you think AI is affecting my work? Well, it's not affecting my work my work at all because I don't use it.

[00:05:52]But like yeah, sure. People are going to like integrate AI into their workflow and that's fine. I'm not going to because I like to code for fun. It's what I do for fun. This is not my job. This is like something I just do because I like to do it.

[00:06:09]And so, you know, I And then there's obviously a bunch of other concerns around AI. For me, it's mostly about like enjoyment. I'm never going to use it for art. Obviously, that's so stupid, but like I'm going to I'm not going to use it for coding either because I'm having fun. I used to work work code, but that's because it's work code. I Yeah, exactly. You use it for work because it's like I'm trying to get I'm going I'm trying to get my deadlines done and I need to like write a bunch of boilerplate and I don't want to have to like do that. So, I just get AI to do it. I think that's fine. And I can see like It's one of those things where it's like it's really clear to me that like obviously in like the game dev space, like in the commercial industry, like if you're running a business, it makes a lot of sense cuz you're like on the clock. Um but I'm not doing that. I'm just out of here like chilling. Your Aussie accent accent is strong. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for noticing.

[00:07:02]>> [laughter] >> I try. We have a visitor.

[00:07:09]>> [laughter] >> I don't know if that came off on camera.

[00:07:13]My Angel just came in.

[00:07:15]Like literally came within reach and then just left. Hang on a second.

[00:07:20]Angel.

[00:07:23]Come here. Come here.

[00:07:25]Up.

[00:07:28]She doesn't She's not going to do it.

[00:07:30]She doesn't like the tiles.

[00:07:33]>> [laughter] >> Hey, so are we using a dough 4.x for main project? Yes, we are. Which is your most used programming language? C# script, 100%. Do you use any plugins?

[00:07:44]Yes. I use dialogue manager. Shout out to Nathan Hood. Nathan Hood, by the way, released his game. If you use dialogue manager, then you need to like go and check out his game or at least put it on a wish list or something. Bravest Coconut, fellow Queensland dev, by the way. But, I use his plugin called dialogue manager to to to use all for all of my dialogue in the game, and he just released his game, so uh give it a wish list. I met him one time at the uh Brisbane Game Festival. He was super nice. I played his game, it was very fun. I'm going to play that, too. I'll buy it eventually. Um what art tools do I most commonly use alongside Godot?

[00:08:20]Okay, uh Blender, Pixelorama. I don't use that. I'm lying. Aseprite, basically. Those are the three. What else is there? Oh, there's tons of stuff. No Reaper. They got Audacity and FL Studio, but no Reaper. Do you use an external editor as your primary method? No. No Krita? No, I don't really use Krita. I don't like it that much. I use Aseprite. Obviously, I'm doing pixel art game, so Aseprite makes the most sense. And then, uh if I need to do like UI stuff, sometimes. If you're using AI, which tasks do you get the most assistance with? Okay, this is I'm very interested to see like how this actually pans out and what they actually end up using or like what actually comes out of the the poll to see what people choose. If they're using AI for chat or agentic code. I think these ones are the ones that most people Actually, you know what? I think this will be the biggest one. Asking AI chat help. I don't do that, though, because I don't think it gives me much help.

[00:09:17]Although, I do have a story about AI actually helping me for the first time probably ever in my life. But, I think this will be the most common one, followed by like agentic code. Uh and then, I don't think you'll see much asset generation. I don't know. I'm very interested to know if asset generation is that common within the community. And oh, maybe in game translation. Like I'm not even against using AI for that. Like we're using it for like text related things is like the one thing it's good for.

[00:09:45]So that's fine, I think. Game testing, I don't even know how you'd do that.

[00:09:50]I don't use AI and I'm against it. Oh, look, there's even a button for me.

[00:09:54]Maybe this will be the highest one. So this is the curious thing. Like this I think is like the most interesting question. Yeah, AI to regurgitate documentation is what I think like LLMs are for, you know? I mean I've said this before, but I'm very ADHD and it's very difficult for me to like read through the documentation. It's a lot of words, man. I don't I don't blame anyone for like doing that. And I think it's like a really smart thing to do. Like if you just feed it the entire documentation and just say like, I've got a question related to this, can you spit out like whatever. It's really easy for me to ask someone questions repeatedly about every aspect of the framework, exactly.

[00:10:30]Which someone which something a human would never be able to have the patience for, but an LLM would happily do. Yeah, that's a fair point.

[00:10:38]Okay, are you interested in attending Godot Con in the future? I would be, but I live so far away. Which city would you prefer future editions? Oh, yeah, bring it to Australia, mate. Okay, that's not a choice that we have. Paris, no. Spain.

[00:10:52]I'll choose like the the next best thing, which would be Spain, cuz that's pretty easy as an excuse to go there.

[00:10:57]Valencia. Where else is there that's pretty easy for me to get to? I reckon Spain would probably be my preferred destination. Anywhere in Europe is good.

[00:11:05]I can get there.

[00:11:06]Each of the following is a potential area of growth spending for the Godot Foundation. How comfortable are you with donations being spent on each of the following? Okay, what do we actually want the money to be spent on? Engine development, obviously. Attending organizing events. I mean, it's fine, but I don't think it's the most important thing. The asset store, I don't think.

[00:11:24]I mean, build it and they will come, right? And then just maintain it.

[00:11:28]Merchandise store, that's fine.

[00:11:30]Community management is fine. I don't really documentation, good. Advocacy and outreach, what does that even mean? I don't necessarily have a problem with any of these. In fact, I would say I'm not uncomfortable with any of them.

[00:11:41]Maybe maybe the asset store, I don't know. I'm a bit mixed on the asset store. I don't really know how I feel about it yet. Like what would they be spending the money on anyway? Submit. My responses have been recorded. I'll submit your responses as well. This is important part of the community. So get in there, give it a go, and let them know what you think. Anyway, should we get back to work?