gif is not necessary since png is supported i think. or do you mean because of the animation support? i don't think gif animation is easier to handle than putting the frames next to each other. rather the opposite.

you can't just create cartoonish games with gamestudio but for small developers it makes a lot more sense to keep the graphics simple no matter what engine they use. take a look at the most successful indie games like for example the ones in the recent humble indie bundle #2.

about gamestudio dying:
http://tinyurl.com/2fah7h7


i don't think it is dying though. but since marco and doug left, jcl is the only engine developer and he said that he only works on it part time. ok, george works on new templates and every few weeks wlad seems to spend a few hours on wed. compare this to that: http://unity3d.com/company/people/team

this still wouldn't be that bad. gamestudio gets advertised as "lightweight authoring system". i like lightweight stuff. but i think with such a small team they should concentrate on being even more lightweight. do less but do it right instead of halfheartedly. i would prefer if they got rid of some of the old ballast. an opengl ES renderer would be really important too since there are so many more interesting platforms now than windows.