Mochi media shutting down!

Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Mochi media shutting down!

SLotman(Posted 2014) [#1]
If you have an account there, rush to their site and request a "final payment", otherwise if you're under $100 (like I am, never reached the minimum to get paid there) you're loosing your money.

More info here: http://mochiland.com/articles/mochi-media-winding-down-services-end-date-of-3-31-2014

Flash must be really in the end of its days for Mochi to shut down... :/


AdamRedwoods(Posted 2014) [#2]
from the site:
Today, there has never been a better time to be an indie game developer in terms of the platforms and audiences one can reach: Flash, iOS, Android, XBLA, PSN, Steam, HTML5, and the list goes on. If Mochi had a more meaningful position today beyond Flash, then there may have been a different path for the company going forward.


it definitely seems that Flash is gradually declining. too bad, i always enjoyed working with Flash.


Goodlookinguy(Posted 2014) [#3]
Flash must be really in the end of its days for Mochi to shut down... :/

I don't know much about Mochi, but this statement is just wrong. Flash is not near the end of its days by far. My nephews and nieces (primary school) and their friends play games on flash sites and even the public schools encourage use of these sites that have flash games. Sometimes educational, sometimes not.

I've been hearing the end of flash talk since the HTML5 canvas was introduced. It's yet to happen and I don't predict it to happen anytime soon. Flash is still widely used (youtube, facebook) and still getting active updates which is keeping it relevant. What I will agree with is that maybe Flash games are a dying market for older audiences because of the mobile era, which is probably the problem Mochi is facing.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#4]
I think your wrong Goodlookingguy, I'v seen this coming for well over a year, possibly longer and have talked about it a lot with friends, well argued about it with friends, so far things are happening just as I predicted, Flash has such a wide reach or had such a wide reach its not something that will simply turn off and vanish over night, but its growth will decline and ultimately start falling at a pace, I predicted it would happen like a house of cards in one blog post, where one or two Key Flash supporters would fold under and that act would then trigger additional withdrawals, this has been moving in this direction for a while now and I believe it's only going to get worse.

Once players like Youtube started to move to html5 , once the fight with apple failed the writing was on the wall.

I give flash another 3 or 4 years, after which I would be surprised if it was used for anything other than the odd webapp.


smilertoo(Posted 2014) [#5]
Flash is dying mainly because it doesn't run on any mobile devices, they even cancelled it on android.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#6]
@Goodlookinguy: I'm not advocating the end of flash - but without Mochi Media, you can expect *a lot* of flash games to just vanish into thin air... (A lot of those games were distributed/hosted by Mochi, so without their system, you can expect a boat load of broken links everywhere!)

I don't even know what I'm going to do with the flash games on my site :P

Do any of you guys know an alternative to Mochi?


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#7]
How is HTML5 canvas any better for mobile while they do actually run they are either running at 2 FPS or don't have touch screen controls so either way if you ask me for mobile html5 is nearly just as bad as un-useable flash. And on apple decises there's no sound. I have not found since the inititial release of html5 a single fully-playable game for mobile, one that was near interesting, and the fact almost none of them are set to have mobile full screen support, why even bother?

I try playing something and if I accidentally tap and drag outside the canvas area and the webpage scrolls, with all these issues I'm certain a lot of people can agree why flash isn't dying all that quickly. The death of flash will require a boatload of Html5 games that aren't shit and that can be reasonably played on a mobile device, and that's IF it even happens.

There are a lot of great flash games that took years to make. Html5 barely made it out of its egg shell if you ask me. Things like this take time for adjustment.


Goodlookinguy(Posted 2014) [#8]
Paul - Taiphoz
I've seen this coming for well over a year

I've been hearing all about flash dying since the mid 2000s. It's not and it won't anytime soon. Maybe you're mistaking Flash games as Flash as a whole. I would like to keep in mind that academic institutes are still teaching how to use flash as an animation tool. Sometimes interactively using ActionScript. I know this because when I was in my last year of schooling I took a flash class that taught animation and interactivity with ActionScript.

Paul - Taiphoz
I give flash another 3 or 4 years, after which I would be surprised if it was used for anything other than the odd webapp.

Way underestimating the death rate. It's like saying VB6 will be dead in 3 to 4 years. We all know that's wrong. Something this widely used won't go away that quickly.

SLotman
I'm not advocating the end of flash

I didn't say you were. I just stated that I personally disagree with your assertion that Flash is dying.

SLotman
...but without Mochi Media, you can expect *a lot* of flash games to just vanish into thin air... (A lot of those games were distributed/hosted by Mochi, so without their system, you can expect a boat load of broken links everywhere!)

I'd only heard of Mochi once before. So I don't think they're that widespread.

smilertoo
Flash is dying mainly because it doesn't run on any mobile devices, they even cancelled it on android.

I don't own a "smart" phone. To me reading comments like this says that you don't know that there's still a number of people who aren't interested in everything mobile. A lot of acquaintances I know would rather use Laptops than Tablets and these aren't tech savvy nor tech ignorant people. Also, what TKG said. HTML5 runs at about 2 FPS on mobile devices. That's absolutely true for the PS Vita at least and it's supposed to be a gaming system.

----
Aside from the points I made before, ActionScript is also a way to obfuscate code from being reverse engineered easily. With JavaScript you can pack it...but the unpacker side is everywhere on the net. Trying to obfuscate JavaScript is horribly difficult. This is also a negative for HTML5 as a viable platform. People will get edgy about people being able to steal their code and resources too easily. I genuinely never saw HTML5 as a strong commercial platform. I'm assuming others here strongly disagree with me, but we'll see right? All in time we'll see who was predicting it correctly because as far as I'm concerned we'll all disagreeing about currently unprovable hypothesize.


smilertoo(Posted 2014) [#9]
It's not just phones, it's tablets. Both are now a massive market for casual games which is where the flash games were targeted. I've seen a couple of HTML5 engines that did full scrolling etc on my smartphone. Flash isn't helped by continuous warnings about severe bugs that can let hackers into your pc.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#10]
Maybe you're mistaking Flash games as Flash as a whole. I would like to keep in mind that academic institutes are still teaching how to use flash as an animation tool.

Yeah - my point is valid for Flash games - I know nothing about Flash anywhere else. That being sad, Pascal is still taught at several places, that doesn't mean it's "alive and well" =/

You may not have heard of Mochi Media before, but if you have played *any* flash game with an Ad - you bet that was Mochi. There are thousands of "flash game portals" that relied sorely on their games, and once they stop hosting them, those portals will have nothing. I'd say Mochi is to Flash the same as Admob is for mobile games.

Also, they organized a well known event called "Flash Gaming Summit" - which will happen no more now

My assertion that flash (gaming) is dying comes exactly from that - take the time to read their post, and you'll see what I'm talking about, specially this:
Today, there has never been a better time to be an indie game developer in terms of the platforms and audiences one can reach: Flash, iOS, Android, XBLA, PSN, Steam, HTML5, and the list goes on. If Mochi had a more meaningful position today beyond Flash, then there may have been a different path for the company going forward.


If that isn't an statement that Flash (again, *games*) is going from bad to worse, I don't know what it is.

And now, without a well known, widespread and easy to use monetization solution, several developers will have no other option than to "jump ship" to another platform. HTML5 isn't yet capable of half of what Flash could achieve - not to mention it is limited as hell on mobile (specially in the sound department), and that there isn't a good monetization solution for it either doesn't help at all.


Goodlookinguy(Posted 2014) [#11]
Now you're being specific and I will agree. I just read that Flash as a whole was dying and disagreed. A sector of its market dying is inevitable as new markets arise from the digital age. However, even with that said, while Flash games may be taking a hit, I don't think it'll just up and die with the loss of one advertiser/publisher. Then again, who knows. It hasn't actually happened yet. I'm awaiting several flash portal sites to suddenly take leave since they will apparently no longer have any games.

You may not have heard of Mochi Media before, but if you have played *any* flash game with an Ad - you bet that was Mochi.

I felt like I had to quote this to mention that I don't play these kinds of games. In fact, I barely play games at all. People around me find it kind of strange that I enjoy making games but am not huge on playing them.

HTML5 isn't yet capable of half of what Flash could achieve.

Uh huh. Live streaming is the next thing HTML needs. Twitch TV for instance couldn't just live on HTML5 video. Then standards on what type of music files the browsers can use (they've been at war on this one). Etc, etc, etc. The committee/organization behind the web standards is notoriously slow. They like to get input from Apple, Mozilla, Google, and Microsoft, who all generally have vastly different ideas on what should go next. For an idea on what I mean, lookup the Dart language and then those company's response to it. This is what you get when large egos clash.

Pascal is still taught at several places, that doesn't mean it's "alive and well" =/

Coincidentally Pascal was removed as a class from the local school in 2012 for being outdated. With regards to Flash as a whole, it's being used to animate all sorts of indie cartoons on the net. It's not dead as an animation tool. Although that is another market that could be corned by something else that's better in time. When that happens then the only thing Flash will have left is live streaming, music, videos. In short: media. Flash will just be a tool for media on web browsers since W3C can't get their stuff together.

And now I'm going to sleep as I feel my writing is drifting off-topic a bit too much even for me.


Paul - Taiphoz(Posted 2014) [#12]
I assumed that we were talking games and not all of flash, now that's cleared up I can see where your coming from Goodlookingguy, flash as a whole will live on much longer than my predicted 3 or 4 years, for the reasons pointed out already it's still a driving force behind animation and because of how easy it is to use and learn where animation is concerned it will remain a solid educational tool for a long time to come or until something else comes along that does the job better.


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#13]
idk both my iPodTouch and decent sized Android tablet run about the same 2 FPS for most Html5 games...


smilertoo(Posted 2014) [#14]
try this, runs quite smooth even on my phone. http://www.goodboydigital.com/project/run-pixie-run/


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#15]
The more formats with unclear futures, the better Monkey looks...


skid(Posted 2014) [#16]
It didn't help when Ninja Kiwi (bloons, sas etc) abandoned Mochi Coins leaving Mochi with so little income they couldn't even pay the rent.

As others have said, compared to flash HTML5 is dead on arrival and for some demographics (boy children) flash is alive and well.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#17]
@smilertoo: On Firefox that "Run Pixei Run" gave me a bunch of "ERROR : Failed to load audio/xyz.m4a" errors - isnt m4a a ios/mac sound format only? Why are you using that instead of mp3/ogg?!

Hmmm... now I have a question! How did you manage to play music and sounds on mobile? Just ran the game on my iPad2, and I could hear music and sounds on it!

Since Apple blocked music/sound on mobile without user interaction - aka, clicking on a button - how did you do it? (Looking at the source my bet would be Cocoon.js?)


time-killer-games(Posted 2014) [#18]
Wow! I didn't think something with HD graphics like that could actually run so flawlessly. Perhaps the wany it was coded was better than the other games I tried? Okay, now I see things differently, Html5 has a lot more potential than I thought! It's very impressive! :D


smilertoo(Posted 2014) [#19]
Slotman: It's not mine but it runs fine on my WP8 lumia 920.


SLotman(Posted 2014) [#20]
@smilertoo: no problem, I figured it out - the game is using "webaudio" when possible (and iOS7 allows this - so maybe there is hope for html5 gaming on mobile yet!)


Bypass Games(Posted 2014) [#21]
You can monetize your games using http://bypassgames.com/ We are a new site and don't have true revenue sharing yet but we allow unrestricted access to your pages' html code meaning that you can add your own advertisements using chitika or other popular ad providers the only restrictions on ads are no ads with audio and no Google ads do their limit of 3 ads per page. We accept all types and formats of games as long as they comply with the Google adsense content guidelines. For some advertisement providers you can get around 3$ per thousand page views. If you don't know how to use html to add your game and include advertisements we can do it for you. You can contact me at executor@...