Flash gaming took a hit this morning from a development engine that’s becoming increasing important in gaming.

Unity Technologies, makers of the Unity 3D graphics engine, revealed today that it is ending its support of Adobe’s Flash platform, reports GamesIndustry International. It will no longer sell the license that enables Unity to deploy on that Internet multimedia standard.

Developers could previously use Unity to create 3D games that run on Flash in web browsers. Unity is shifting its support to its own Unity Web Player for developers looking for an alternative.

“When we started working on a Flash deployment add-on some 18 months ago, we had high hopes for the future of Flash as a gaming platform,” Unity chief executive officer David Helgason wrote on the company’s blog. “The performance of early builds was promising, and Adobe seemed dedicated to making it a success. Since then much has changed.”

Helgason listed many reasons that it is dropping Flash, which include Adobe focusing its efforts on non-Flash products and losing developer trust by recently abandoning a revenue-sharing model.

“We know that some of you have, like us, invested heavily in targeting Flash,” wrote Helgason. “We will do all we can to support you. We will keep the current Flash deployment feature set functioning throughout the Unity 4.x cycle and will include bug fixes made in upcoming Unity 4.x iterations. We do not plan, however, to make further significant investments in deployment to the platform.

This does not mean the end of Unity on the web, although it’s another bad sign for Adobe’s Flash.

Unity promises to double its efforts on the Unity Web Player that is popular with Facebook titles. The company also teased a new Unity “web-publishing initiative” that the company will announce soon.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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It’s a no-brainer that mobile games are the hottest platform for indie developers. A survey from Flash game services firm Mochi Media reveals that 86 percent of Flash game developers are expanding to mobile platforms.

But 63 percent say that they still develop games for the web to gauge market response and readiness before developing for mobile platforms. (One reason is that it is easier to update web-based games while updates on mobile platforms often require approval from a platform owner.)

The survey, now in its fifth year, is the closest thing to measuring the zeitgeist of the game development industry, particularly the smaller developers who create games for the web with Adobe’s Flash creative tools. Flash is a great enabler of the industry because it lowers the barriers to entry in the business.

When it comes to targeting platforms, developers are spreading their bets equally across iOS and Android (81 percent target iOS, 78 percent target Android). About 76 percent believe they need to make games for as many platforms as possible, including online and mobile.

The developers say that Adobe Air is the most popular method of taking their games to mobile markets. The next most popular means are native coding, or creating an app to run on a particular mobile device, and the Unity 3D export tool.

Developers seem to be having the most pains with marketing. In the survey, 83 percent said they release the game and “hope for the best.” Over time, Mochi says that the phrases “Flash game developer” and “mobile game developer” will go away, to be replaced by “game developer.”

Mochi Media said that about 95 percent of Flash developers said they will continue making games for web browsers. The expansion to mobile has been possible because of better monetization and known best practices across the mobile platforms. App sales and in-game ads continue to mature, and consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices as a primary game platform.

Game development is also increasingly international. The U.S., United Kingdom, and Canada account for 32 percent of developers. A year ago, the figure was 37 percent, and three years ago it was 58 percent. Sizable developer populations are in Russia (6 percent), China (6 percent), Ukraine (4 percent), India (3 percent), and Brazil (3 percent).

Only 21 percent of the Flash developers said they make games for consoles.

Mochi Media said the next Flash Game Summit — FGS 5: Evolve Your Game — will take place March 24, 2013, at the Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco. The fourth annual survey is based on 1,359 responses from Flash game developers. Mochi Media created the survey with Adobe and FlashGameLicense.com. Here’s a link to last year’s survey story.

Mochi Media has more than 150 million monthly active users and 90,000 games on its browser-based games network. Its development products and services are used on more than 60,000 publisher websites. The San Francisco company is a subsidiary of Shanda Interactive. Here’s an infographic on the survey below:

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Adobe is announcing today a set of cloud-based tools for game developers.

The tools take advantage of the new cloud-computing trend, where web-connected data centers host subscription-based software. Hosted in the Adobe Creative Cloud service, the tools enable developers to access a centrally located suite of tools for making their titles. The aim is to streamline the game-development process from creation to final deployment.

Adobe says that developers who use its tools can access an audience of 1.3 billion worldwide on PCs and more than 500 million on smartphones and tablets, 20 times the reach of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console.

Among the new tools is Adobe Scout (pictured below), a tool for profiling that “uncovers granular internal information in ActionScript-based mobile and browser content to unlock significant performance optimization opportunities.” In other words, it helps games run faster. Adobe Scout will be available for free to members of the Adobe Creative Cloud, a subscription service. Other tools include the Adobe Gaming SDK, Adobe Flash C++ Compiler, and trial versions of Flash Professional CS6 and Flash Builder 4.7 Premium.

A year ago, Adobe acknowledged that it would give up on a Web version of Flash for mobile devices. But Adobe allows developers to create native versions of their releases for those devices instead. More than 25,000 mobile versions of Adobe Air apps exist, and the majority are games.

In the past nine months, Adobe launched version 11 of its Flash Player, making the leap from 2D games to hardware-accelerated 3D games and its Stage 3D applications programming interface.

Diana Helander, group product marketing manager for Gaming Solutions at Adobe, said that 600 million people have chosen to opt in to a feature that updates Flash in the background. That means a game developer can issue an update for a title and get it to 600 million people within 48 hours.

“With these new tools, we’ve got a single work flow for game developers,” Helander said in an interview with GamesBeat. “The costs of developing games and acquiring new users are rising. We’re helping developers to deal with that.”

The Adobe Gaming SDK lets studios create and monetize both 2D and 3D ActionScript games on Web browsers and mobile devices.

The Adobe Flash C++ Compiler is a new tool that lets developers take a native game and recompile it for the Web. That is, it takes offerings coded for game engines on the PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iOS and then converts them to run directly online across browsers using the Adobe Flash Player.

Meanwhile, Adobe Flash Professional CS6 is an authoring tool to create animations and games, and it includes support for delivering animated assets ready for use with the open-source framework Starling. Adobe Flash Builder 4.7 Premium adds support for the new ASC 2.0 compiler and the ability to test and debug apps directly on Apple iOS devices.

Those who pay for Creative Cloud memberships can use full versions of Flash Professional and Flash Builder, and they can use future versions of Scout following the introductory promotion.

Adobe argues that using Flash makes developers more productive when it comes to cross-platform experiences. Helander said that Flash has powered popular games on Facebook including SongPop, FarmVille 2, and Diamond Dash. Some of the top Flash implementors include Zynga, Wooga, Kixeye, Ubisoft, Northway, and Damp Gnat. Rivals (and occasional partners) include Unity Technologies, Epic Games, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and a variety of other game-development platforms.

Helander said some cool new users of Starling and Stage 3D include Incredipede and Smart Aliens. She said that Zynga used Adobe Flash and Air for its mobile version of Ruby Blast, and Rovio used Flash for the Facebook version of Angry Birds. Square Enix also released Crystal Conquest using Flash. Helander said Adobe is doing a series of game jams in different cities to support game developers.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Adobe has had a tough fourth quarter, with its decision to kill Flash software on mobile platforms and the company laying off 750 full-time employees in early November. But despite those challenges, the company did well in its digital media and digital marketing businesses, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

The company posted revenue of $1.152 billion, which is up 14 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Non-GAAP profits amounted to 67 cents a share. Adobe beat the estimates of analysts surveyed by FactSet Research, who predicted Adobe would earn $1.09 billion in revenues, or 60 cents a share.

For the first quarter of 2012, Adobe forecasts earnings of 37 cents to 43 cents a share, on revenue between $1.025 billion to $1.075 billion.

On the positive news, Adobe’s stock on the Nasdaq exchange is trading up about 4 percent over its closing price. At time of writing, the stock sits at $27.69 after closing at $26.46.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Motorola’s latest entry into the tablet wars won’t have Adobe Flash for the first few weeks after it is released, according to Verizon’s landing page for the device.

The announcement was basically buried at the bottom of a banner ad for the device that indicates Flash will arrive “Spring 2011.” That means Motorola’s Xoom tablet, which is powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, will ship without a feature that is widely seen as a differentiating factor between the iPad and Android-powered tablets.

Flash has been a bit of a sore point between Apple and Google throughout the tablet wars. Google has supported Flash applications on its Android operating system, while Apple has publicly decried the software as inefficient and a battery hog — something that’s not welcome on its mobile devices. So it’s a little strange to see Motorola making this move when Flash seems to be a selling point for some Android-powered devices.

Motorola is waiting for the next version of Flash for mobile devices, version 10.2, before it enables Flash on its tablet computers, according to Engadget. That version is set to ship in a few weeks and is supposed to be more energy-efficient because it uses fewer processor cycles to run Flash-based content. So it could be a quality-check for Motorola’s tablet, which the company hopes will be able to go toe-to-toe with the iPad.

The company recently announced that a wi-fi version of its Xoom tablet computer would cost around $600 and launch on February 24 — making it comparable with the iPad’s pricing.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen (pictured left) reportedly met in secret for more than an hour to discuss possible partnerships to compete with Apple, which has become one of the dominant forces in the mobile phone market, the New York Times said, based on reports from employees from both companies.

The deal, which could be worth around $15 billion based on Adobe’s current market cap, would make phones running the Windows Phone 7 operating system direct rivals to the iPhone if they heavily incorporate Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple has long resisted the idea of bringing Flash to the iPhone and its other devices running on the iPhone operating system.

Microsoft is already looking to take on Apple and the other smartphone giants with the release of Windows Phone 7, which has an interface designed specifically for everyday consumers. Windows Phone 7 runs primarily on Microsoft’s Silverlight architecture, a competitor for Adobe’s Flash technology.

Investors immediately jumped on board the rumor bandwagon, sending Adobe’s shares up 11.5 percent to $28.69 by the time regular trading ended. Microsoft’s shares edged up slightly, up 0.4 percent to $24.53.

Spil Games

HTML5 is under development as the next major revision of lingua franca of the Web, HTML or hypertext markup language. Spil Games is hoping to sway developers to the HTML5 cause — and away from rival platforms such as Adobe Flash — by holding a contest that will award $50,000 to the winning developers. The contest will run for six months, and the winners will have their games posted on Spil Games’ sites. Spil Games is also launching mobile game web sites where the content will be available to gamers. Spil Games host hit online games such as Uphill Rush 2 and Ludo Deluxe.

Peter Driessen (pictured), chief executive of Netherlands-based Spil Games, believes that HTML5 is the future of mobile gaming and wants to ensure that mobile games use technology based on open standards, rather than “walled garden” technologies that tie a developer’s content to a specific platform. Developers wind up having to spend too much money developing different versions of games for different platforms. With HTML5, developers can develop a game once and have it run on all devices with HTML5-compliant browsers on PCs, iPads, the iPhone, and Google Android phones.

HTML5 competes with other platform technologies such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight and Google Gears. HTML5 has been under development since 2004.

That in turn removes the barriers that mobile users face when they try to access certain games and can’t because of compatibility problems. Spil Games is one of the first online game companies to champion HTML5, but it’s unclear what other large players will do. Driessen contends that HTML5 will be the standard for mobile games within three years.

Spil Games was founded in 2000 by Driessen and Bennie Eeftink. It has more than 250 employees and operates 41 different game web sites. Rivals include other online game companies such as Big Fish Games, Real Networks, Miniclip and Oberon. The company rolled out social features on its portals in March. Traffic is up 60 percent from a year ago.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. We’ll cover the topic intensely at DiscoveryBeat 2010, our upcoming conference at the Mission Bay conference center in San Francisco on October 18.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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