Adobe Gaming
Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Adobe Gaming
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| http://gaming.adobe.com/getstarted/ http://gaming.adobe.com/technologies/flascc/ http://www.unrealengine.com/flash/ http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/stage3d.html It would be useful to have a Stage3d flavor of the Flash target. Then the 2d games have hardware acceleration! Edit: Or not. STUPID Adobe: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/premium-features.html |
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| That was clever of them, add Stage3D to flash, get unreal engine (and unity?) supporting it, then start charging 9% royalties??? Scum! |
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| <Shrug> I don't have any real issues with this. The licence terms seem extremely indie-friendly, and as far as I can see tool-makers are exempt. So if this option gets added to Monkey then, if I understand matters correctly, you can use it or not as you choose, and if you use it but net less than $50K *per application* you'll pay Adobe nothing. Maybe there are some catches I don't see, but this seems like a good deal for indies. And if using Flash is key to a successful application, I don't see why I should grudge Adobe their cut either. |
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| The flash player release notes have better description of license requirement, not nearly as bad as I thought: The combined use of domain memory (used by some third party tools and the Project "Alchemy" C/C++ compiler) with Stage3D hardware acceleration will require a license. When using both features in combination, an informational watermark will be displayed in the Flash Player content debugger (debug player). |
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| http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/premium-features-licensing-faq.html What are the domain memory APIs? In 2009, Adobe released a preview of the project codenamed "Alchemy," a prototype of a C/C++ cross-compiler that targets Flash Player. As part of the research project, we introduced a new domain memory API to support the compiler. In September 2011, we announced plans to invest in the technology and release it as part of a paid production offering for commercial development. We are now renaming project “Alchemy,” the Flash Runtime C++ Compiler (flascc). Will there be a way to use domain memory from ActionScript 3 without flascc? We do not believe developers should have to use C/C++ to get faster performance. Exposing similar low-level domain memory from AS3 would be a temporary, inelegant approach that we do not want to rely on longer term in ActionScript. Instead, we intend to improve the general performance of ActionScript while retaining its simplicity and approachability. Developers can use third party tools, such as Unity, to leverage domain memory in addition to C/C++ with flascc. I wonder if by increase performance they mean support hardware acceleration. I can't see this encouraging developers to use Adobe's products. Flash is not at all the best tool to make iOS/Android products, and that seems to be a major target for them. Additionally, 3d games still are better played on platforms like Steam as desktop games. Adobe clearly intends to target big developers, but you know they are about making money first, and they will jump ship as soon as better opportunity comes. Adobe's tools are NOT the best tools for making 3d games. Their really only vector for monetization for this is dumb developers using it to build 2d iOS/Android apps, or Unity/Unreal developers wanting to monetize 3d products in the browser. I think it's more likely if a big developer is going to be making a lot with a browser application they are going to build their own native plugin as Unity and others have already done and encourage users to use that for best performance (or just have the browser launch native apps), leaving the Flash builds only as demos with zero monetization. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. If they offered a flat fee, or even a yearly subscription at a reasonable price I would be more willing, but as it is it screams greed, bad ideas, and room for them to exploit developers by increasing costs if enough buy into it. |
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| Adobe continues to shoot themselves in the foot. Indie developers are where the money is at, and any "intimidating" legal notes will drive them (us) away. Overall, you can use starling to get Stage3D performance, for free. http://gamua.com/starling/ I've been thinking about a Flash target for minib3d. |
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| Um... so how then is Adobe to make money from indie developers? I've not seen any intimidating legal notes. |
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| Offer one time off licenses or once a year subscription for $99 per developer if they are using it in any way commercially. Every serious developer will pay for this like they already do. Yes, even if an app doesn't make 50k, I'd still rather pay $99 a year for a dev license than the potential to pay an additional 9% to Adobe (on top of other costs), because it's never as simple as that. Their move does not help them out, it does not put developers on their side. It only hurts them. Sure you may not see any problem with their actions and it may seem reasonable to you, but it's not a strategy which will keep them around and in favor. This move is toxic and will make devs want to stay away more than anything. It's sad to see them so seemingly clueless when they are already losing the battles. Mobile devices do not want to support Flash. Sure they can support native apps made from Flash, but that still doesn't mean that those users will be using Flash on websites, and that's where Adobe's greatest leverage is at. Developers have the power to make this transition even quicker when they support HTML5 instead of Flash or even along side it. With the big migration from desktop to tablet computers the value of Flash diminishes. You don't want to use something that a huge number of your users can't possibly take advantage of. These features are attractive and useful for developers, and can give more life to Flash products, but as it is their monetization strategy just is not good, and so long term they continue to lose viability. |
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| I personally think there is room for both models. Sure, if you don't like it don't use it. And you can still even use Flash for free if you don't want the premium features. Not so different from the Unity model - which isn't even full-featured until you pay them $1500 up front - and I don't see the hate there. [Sure, Unity is much better if you do hit the $50000 range. Horses for courses, and all.] As for Flash, its future is looking better to me than it did a year ago, given the apparent paralysis of HTML5. I used to hate it for the lack of a right mouse button, but given the necessity of designing for touch interfaces, this is not so important any more. Every reasonable pricing model suits some people and hurts others. It's good that there is choice. I bet there a ton of indie developers and would-be indie developers who like this a lot better than paying $99 a year. |
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| For authoring Flash you have options also, CS6 Design & Web is US$375 or you can go with something called Creative Cloud for only US$49.99 a month. I have a feeling you need full blown CS6 for advanced authoring which is not nearly as cheap. |
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| I had a glance and I don't think those are anything more than authoring tools. In fact aren't Flash making their new features available via Unity etc.? I'm authoring Flash right now in Monkey. |
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| Before Stage3D the typical flash development house would pay professional prices for the official authoring tools for both their programmers and their artists. If the flash landscape is moving to 3D and the professional authoring apps and support is provided by third parties I can understand why they need to bring in alternative licensing model. As you have said, free tools and unlicensed publishing is still available for the rest of us, which is very cool indeed. |
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| http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplatform/whitepapers/roadmap.html#premium_features Boom! |
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| "As of January 2013, the XC APIs are no longer classified as a Premium Feature and access will no longer require a separate license from Adobe. Thus the use of Stage3D APIs in conjunction with the fast-memory opcodes via the domainMemory API will be available without requiring that content creators enter into a separate license agreement with Adobe. Developers and publishers that have published content using the XC APIs do not need to make any changes to their content to reflect the change of status for the XC APIs, nor submit royalty payments." So... no reason to not have a Flash Stage3D target. |
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| Cool! |
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| I'd like a Starling target - Adobe's 2D framework that sits upon Stadge3D. |
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| It would be possible to hack up a Starling target already without too much trouble since it's just a 3rd party (by Gamua not Adobe) framework that clones display list.. You can play around with the actionscript generated by Monkey.. A full direct Stage3D target would be faster - and 3D support would be the key reason to use it. |
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