

What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers - brianr
http://brianrue.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/what-adobes-new-pricing-for-flash-means-for-social-game-developers/

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GavinB
We recently started using the Unity3D plugin in addition to Flash. We
considered packaging Unity in Flash, but there are some missing features so we
went straight for the plugin.

Our site is for 8-12 year old kids, so it's not the most technical audience.
The Unity plugin installs in a few seconds without requiring admin rights--
even most computers under corporate lockdown can install it. We've had a total
of one customer service complaint, which was resolved with a little
explanation.

In conclusion, just for 3D content just forget flash and go straight to the
Unity plugin.

~~~
dhimes
"The Unity Web Player is not currently compatible with the operating system
that you appear to be using."

Linux (Mint 12 / Ubuntu 11.10)

~~~
moonchrome
Frankly, even if the plugin is available, IMO the GPU drivers are so
unreliable that it would be a hell to support and work around all the
different bugs for such a limited audience, and I'm writing that on OpenSUSE
12.1 developing in gVim and experiencing random Gnome Shell crashes every
30-60 minutes (shell just shows background image then comes up in 2-3 secs) on
ATI drivers. Opensource drivers are stable but have terrible performance with
3D. So even if it runs I don't expect it to be usable on my PC.

~~~
simcop2387
That's been my experience with the ATI drivers myself. Nvidia is far far
better, but you can't exactly change a laptop graphics chip. I'm using the
open source ones just so that I've got a usable system.

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jim-greer
As 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!

~~~
ChrisLTD
The funny thing is that Adobe does charge for the tools. Flash Professional
retails for $700!

~~~
novalis
<https://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html> <\- free. All the other tools can
be found for free too, specific swf packaging, etc. But now it is down to
sprite sheets so...

~~~
ChrisLTD
Very true. The SDK is free, but it's not like you're getting XCode or Visual
Studio with that download. Their IDE (based on Eclipse, right?) is $500.

~~~
p4lindromica
The flex IDE is based on Eclipse and it's awful to use

~~~
novalis
FlashDevelop and Flex work out fine for some people. Let us not allow one IDE
to spoil all the fun out of something.

------
michaelpinto
I 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...

~~~
majorlazer
Why do we need a Photoshop or InDesign killer? I have never heard any
designers complain about Photoshop, or any of the top Adobe products
(Illustrator, InDesign, Fireworks) for that matter. Flash is definitely on
it's way out, but Adobe isn't going anywhere.

~~~
ChrisLTD
As a graphic designer with many designer colleagues & friends, I can tell you
that we complain bitterly about Adobe software.

Since they purchased Macromedia, their tools have stagnated in features and
yet somehow managed to get slower. That, plus their high price is reason
enough to hope for a viable competitor.

------
guard-of-terra
How 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.

~~~
guard-of-terra
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.

~~~
shock-value
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.

~~~
guard-of-terra
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?

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protomyth
IE 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.

~~~
dugmartin
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.

~~~
seanalltogether
Flash is also anywhere from 2 to 3 times faster then html5+javascript for high
performance games.

~~~
protomyth
I'll take that as a given, but that isn't the whole story anymore. A PS/3 has
better performance than Flash, but it is harder to program for, harder to
distribute on, and has a much smaller market share. Flash has been losing
market share for a while, and now the cost of distribution is going to be an
issue. The likely successor is HTML5 (at least for browser market share). It
is not as performant and the tools are not as good, but its what we got unless
someone does something interesting and radical.

~~~
benologist
Flash isn't harder to program for or distribute on. It's so easy to build in
kids make games, and it's so easy to distribute since they're a single self-
contained file that those kids can make games that get country-sized volumes
of traffic playing them.

~~~
protomyth
I said programming & distribution on the PS/3 are harder than Flash.

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pippy
I'm an Adobe Flash fanboy, but even I'm starting to become pro HTML5 for rich
media. I can't understand why Adobe is making these decisions when they're
competing with an upcoming technology that has a such large & growing fanbase.

This 9% completely changes the distribution model. Previously when you made a
swf, it's yours to keep and do as you want. You paid for the tools to make it,
in the same way you pay for a hammer. Now you're being charged for running the
swf in certain ways, which will make policing it hard, scare off new
developers and cause pointless lawsuits.

~~~
Zirro
"I can't understand why Adobe is making these decisions when they're competing
with an upcoming technology that has a such large & growing fanbase."

I think Adobe is currently a divided company. Part of it want to remain with
Flash and view HTML5 as a competitior, while the other part is into HTML5 and
see it as the future. Adobe makes their money from development tools, after
all. The technology used to present the content is less important as long as
people use their tools, even if Flash player gave them a sort-of monopoly on
it's creation.

~~~
radley
I don't see a division between Flash & HTML. I see it as a division between
their legacy as a creative platform vs. their focus on enterprise SaaS.

~~~
marshray
I see it as a bunch of MBAs hearing of Facebook's user base, Zynga's Flash
games, and Apple's app store revenue and being driven mad with jealousy and
using the term "uncaptured revenue" to convince themselves that this course of
action is right.

Of course that's silly and I'm revealing my biases here a little, but
sometimes this degree of cynicism turns out to be right.

~~~
novalis
A lot of times.

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seanp2k2
Adobe just figured out a new scheme to make themselves even less appealing.
Bravo.

~~~
marshray
I wonder how long Oracle is going to be able to hold themselves back from
doing the same to Java?

~~~
shabble
Get your first 10 JPanel()'s free!

------
andrewfelix
The author does point this out, but it might not be clear to everyone...

 _"Games and applications using either hardware accelerated Stage3D or domain
memory individually do NOT require a premium features license."_

So if you're just using Stage3D you're fine.

Also...

 _"Net revenue is calculated as revenue after taxes, payment processing fees,
and social network platform fees are subtracted."_

Personally I don't think taking a percentage of sales is a bad thing
considering the R&D that Adobe have continued to invest in Flash. Having said
that I think 9% is a ridiculously high percentage.

------
atjoslin
Flash is getting less and less useful for web-browser development. Javascript
+ HTML5 is so much better.

~~~
novalis
I think that was always the natural order for it. Only some special
commercial/marketing projects called for Flash. You ended up with menus made
in Flash at some point for no other reason than an actionscript coder got the
job... it happens. Web-browsing and rich content got mixed back there... let's
not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

------
talmand
Before 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.

~~~
bryne
Right now it applies to very specific apps and developers. Tomorrow, if this
model shakes out favorably to Adobe, it may not. The frog boils slowly.

~~~
chc
This is not particularly enlightening. Any number of things are possible. It
was possible for Adobe to institute unreasonable pricing terms before this
announcement too.

EDIT: Uh-oh, somebody downvoted this. Quite worrisome, because right now it
only applies to my comment, but tomorrow, it may not. Right? Because
apparently one data point constitutes a trend.

~~~
gcb
well, now there's less doubt about it for one thing.

~~~
zonoob
Exactly. They could ask for all tech to be covered, not just the two in
question.

~~~
chc
They could have done it five years ago too. And you could shoot your
grandmother tomorrow. We can play the "So-and-so could potentially do X" game
forever. There is an almost infinite range of possibilities in the universe.
Pointing out mere possibility is uninteresting at best and deceptive at worst.

------
vacri
while this move by Adobe looks bizarre, I'm worried about the random numbers
thrown up in the paragraph about revenue. He's claiming it takes $2.50 to
acquire a user, leaving $0.50 for everything else (development, support,
hosting, etc).

Am I missing something, or does he really spend 5/6ths of his income on
marketing his product?

~~~
marshray
How else could a software developer like Zynga with record revenue (up 59% to
$311M) take a loss?

<http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/14/zynga-earnings/>

Reading statements like this

 _"And average daily bookings per average DAU increased from $0.055 in the
fourth quarter of 2010 to $0.061 in the fourth quarter of 2011, up 11%_

makes the new 9% of net demanded by Adobe sound absolutely outrageous.

~~~
vacri
Your link says the loss includes "$510 million of stock-based compensation
expense for restricted stock units issued to employees" - that's not
marketing.

~~~
marshray
Good point, that must be it. It seemed consistent with something I remember
reading last year where they had made some implausibly small profit. For
example, the article says:

 _Non-GAAP EPS was $0.05 for the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to $0.09 for
the fourth quarter of 2010._

I think what this really proves is that I don't understand GAAP or SEC
accounting and things look especially mysterious to me around the time of an
IPO.

Thanks for pointing that out.

~~~
vacri
As I don't speak much in the way of financespeak, that was about all I could
understand from the link anyway :) "Non-GAAP EPS" doesn't ring any bells to
me... it just reminds me of whatever acronym-of-the-year my last company would
use to 'prove' we weren't making a loss.

------
fogol
From what I understand at this point, Adobe’s decision seems to want to nail
Unity by confusing its developers when it comes to the new licensing scheme.
It is very important for Unity to (over)explain the terms.

The cases where the new terms will apply seem to apply primarily to paid
flash-based games. The problem is: who does pay for flash games? These games
are not on mobile devices and on my browser I have never felt the need to
purchase a Flash-based game.

So, to me, it looks more like a scare tactic aimed at Unity’s developers. This
will protect the development tools that Adobe is selling. Let’s be frank: you
either provide the tools for free and charge for the distribution (the Apple
way)or you charge for the tools and provide the runtime/distribution for free
(the Adobe way). It might be a generalization, but the gist is there. Is Adobe
planning to give the tools for free? I am sure as hell they’re not. So, we
should start complaiing that Adobe is not open and that they are imposing
unfair controls on developers. (Does it ring a bell? – Adobe vs Apple)

~~~
Jare
People using the likes of Unity or UDK to create Flash games would not need
the Flash tools. Adobe's Flash division simply does not sell tools to create
the kind of content that requires 'advanced 3D' features. It therefore makes
sense to expand their business model to include their most successful product
(the Flash runtime).

I think it's absolutely fine for them to try that, but going for royalties
rather than a fixed fee may just blow up in their face.

