What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
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What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
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Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#2I think the last time I was this angry about a software pricing scheme it was when movable type started charging — that really pushed a generation of folks into the wordpress camp for good. my bet is that we could be watching the decline of adobe. and not for nothing for you folks looking to start a business the entire adobe product line is waiting to be disrupted — the time may be right for a Photoshop or an InDesign killer. The entire CS line is bloatware at this point...
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#3IE 10 touch and iOS won't work with Flash anyway, so I would hope social game developers are at least looking at HTML5 for their next projects.
I sometimes wonder why their isn't a cross platform "game browser"? It seems one of the cross platform game engines could do a much better job than flash. Adoption is a problem, but people seem to be able to download a lot of apps these days.
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#4How would that even work? How would they charge a share of revenue for the use of the runtime? From both technical and legal sides?
I actually think it would be a huge hassle for development; it would cost more than those 9%: increased cost of development, less skilled developers, disasters when the complicated scheme doesn't work, sales ping-pong expensive in both time and money.
I think would especially hurt overseas developers (think Asia).
Over the net, any process that requires approval from both sides (a contract perhaps) goes hundred times slower than process that doesn't (the current distribution of flash player and tooling doesn't). Increasing the distance, in form of borders, cultural difference and raw miles, slows it down even more. And certainly Adobe would hurt their potential partners by understanding their business poorly and trying to apply the same set of expectations worldwide.
It seriously would not fly. Bye bye flash.
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#5How would that even work? How would they charge a share of revenue for the use of the runtime? From both technical and legal sides? I actually think it would be a huge hassle for development; it would cost more than those 9%: increased cost of development, less skilled developers, disasters when the complicated scheme doesn't work, sales ping-pong expensive in both time and money. I think would especially hurt overse…
Also it seriously would not work:
Take google street view. It obviously does want the advanced 3D rendering. But what do they have to pay Adobe?
Street view itself displays no ads (does it?) but it boosts the Maps which do generate revenue, but they also boost Search which generates a lot of money. What would that 9% be calculated from? Would there be a long ping pong session between Adobe sales and the customer? How long before the customer (google in this case) decides SCREW YOU GUYS, I'M GOING HOME?
Now, imagine it's not google but some local player (think DAUM) Adobe would naturally react to their queries as if they were some indigenous people calling. They would for no second care what's they up to. They'll cite some entirely unrealistic demands and then lose their mail; it would not end up good.
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#6How would that even work? How would they charge a share of revenue for the use of the runtime? From both technical and legal sides? I actually think it would be a huge hassle for development; it would cost more than those 9%: increased cost of development, less skilled developers, disasters when the complicated scheme doesn't work, sales ping-pong expensive in both time and money. I think would especially hurt overse…
Also it seriously would not work: Take google street view. It obviously does want the advanced 3D rendering. But what do they have to pay Adobe? Street view itself displays no ads (does it?) but it boosts the Maps which do generate revenue, but they also boost Search which generates a lot of money. What would that 9% be calculated from? Would there be a long ping pong session between Adobe sales and the customer? How…
No, they would only have to pay if they used 3D rendering AND "domainMemory". I don't even think domainMemory is available for access in regular AS3 unless Adobe recently opened that up (I know Alchemy C++ and Haxe can use it). For something like Street View using domainMemory would likely give no appreciable performance gain, since StreetView would use just a few unchanging textures and vertices which would already be handled efficiently by stage3D.
The fact that they are charging only if 3D is used in conjunction with domainMemory really limits the kinds of apps that would be subject to this revenue sharing--although it's true that memory intensive games would likely want both of these features.
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#7IE 10 touch and iOS won't work with Flash anyway, so I would hope social game developers are at least looking at HTML5 for their next projects. I sometimes wonder why their isn't a cross platform "game browser"? It seems one of the cross platform game engines could do a much better job than flash. Adoption is a problem, but people seem to be able to download a lot of apps these days.
A big reason that Flash still wins for game development is that audio support sucks in HTML5 and silent games are no fun. An example - Mobile Safari only lets you play sound on one channel.
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also it seriously would not work: Take google street view. It obviously does want the advanced 3D rendering. But what do they have to pay Adobe? Street view itself displays no ads (does it?) but it boosts the Maps which do generate revenue, but they also boost Search which generates a lot of money. What would that 9% be calculated from? Would there be a long ping pong session between Adobe sales and the customer? How…
No, they would only have to pay if they used 3D rendering AND "domainMemory". I don't even think domainMemory is available for access in regular AS3 unless Adobe recently opened that up (I know Alchemy C++ and Haxe can use it). For something like Street View using domainMemory would likely give no appreciable performance gain, since StreetView would use just a few unchanging textures and vertices which would already…
Thanks for clarification; I've missed "both".
I'm not sure 3D graphics is a key for social games. And more serious games like MMORPG usually have no trouble making players install a dedicated client program.
It's just me or they are targetting a pretty narrow market here?
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#9As far as I know there's no way for anything written in ActionScript to use ApplicationDomain.domainMemory, so this really does only apply to C/C++/Unity games targeting the Flash runtime (something that's not even possible yet). It wouldn't affect any game currently on Kongregate as far as I know.
Still not a good sign though. If you've got great developer tools, then charge for the tools!
Re: What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers
#10Before we start another huge chain of people saying this is the death of Flash because all the developers will leave the platform due to revenue sharing, please read what the requirements actually are. This will only apply to very specific apps and developers. Unless you are planning to use Unity or UnrealEngine in Flash, this will most likely not apply to you.