

HeyZap (YC W09) Launches "Xbox Live for Flash Games" - dwynings
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/heyzap-flash-achievement/

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sgrove
Very big congratulations to HeyZap - I had a chance to meet the team a bit
ago, and they're all very sharp. Seems like they're exploiting a space that's
wide open and waiting for innovation. I'm pretty excited to see where they go
in the near future.

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scotth
<http://www.kongregate.com/> already has a system like this in place.

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pxlpshr
Why do people act so dismissive about what others achieve by comparing it (in
a shallow manner I might add) to what other's have already done? Guess what,
I've never used Kongregate and I've been addicted to games since I can
remember. When it comes to potential addressable market, teh great internet is
f---ing massive and users are not that loyal if a better solution comes along
so who gives a damn. <Cue Facebook entrance>

In my humblest opinion a dismissive, thoughtless, knee-jerk comment more often
than not suggests a reaction from a wantraprenuer. Exhibit B: TechCrunch
comments. Whether it's fear, lack of confidence, or something else, they
certainly don't realize - muchless value - execution, focus, and persistence.

Keep on truckin' HeyZap.

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judegomila
So true and to make things worst, people that are busy building things don't
get time to comment. Markets, incentives, life - go forth and conquer my lord
(free forever). Last sentence was a joke.......

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reitzensteinm
Haha, that example game seems familiar.

<http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/games/robokill/>

:)

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Splines
Kudos for the work, but personally I hate the recent crop of games with the
social networking ties. I've tried out a few Zynga apps and every time it asks
me to post something to my wall about their game, I feel like giving the app a
big middle finger because I know what it's trying to do.

I don't mind achievements that award me for doing unique things in-game, but
coercing me to tell other people about your game really drives me mad.

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JohnnyBrown
On the topic of games moving to the cloud:

perhaps the next generation of game machines will be lightweight clients with
games run on the server. I'm picturing XBOX designed for MMORPG's and similar.

Agree/disagree?

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fgimenez
OnLive (<http://www.onlive.com/>) is doing exactly that. My brother was
looking into doing cloud gaming, but this company was so far ahead of him that
he moved onto different ideas.

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snprbob86
How do you enforce the integrity/security of achievements?

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foobar2k
We've got integrity checking on all calls back to our server (eg. when
unlocking achievements and buying items).

We can also ping a game developer provided secure callback URL to let them
know when we have seen a purchase or an achievement.

It _is_ possible to hack the flash content while it is running to unlock the
achievements etc on the client, but the vast majority of players (99.9%) don't
do this, because: a) it defeats the purpose of playing the game b) it is hard

So in reality it isn't a problem for game developers or for us :)

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snprbob86
Although I don't work directly with the Xbox LIVE security folks, I've got a
friend or two over there. They work extremely hard to do the impossible:
preserve the perceived value of achievements and leaderboard rankings in the
face of an untrusted client. Being the talented folks that they are, they are
surprisingly successful.

Let me tell you: if your service garners any success (and I wish you the best
of luck!) you will encounter widespread cheating. For friends-only
leaderboards or achievement lists, this may be an acceptable victim-less
crime, but global leaderboards or stranger achievement comparisons will be a
problem.

Xbox addresses this with "secure" hardware, but still faces significant
cheating. Constant patrol is needed to fix the broken windows. Do not
underestimate then desire of some individuals to ruin the fun for everyone.
Just because you don't see why you would want to do it doesn't mean people
won't.

Good luck :-)

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chipsy
So....now they're on par with GamerSafe, except they don't have the placement
advantage of being operated by the FGL people.

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jbellis
how is this different from what mochi media does?

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immad
What aspect of Mochi Media are you comparing Heyzap to? They don't have
achievements or dual currency.

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michaelnovati
cool

