Adobe Systems announced the release of Flash Player 11.2 and Adobe AIR 3.2 with premium features for gaming.
Adobe Systems has launched Adobe
Flash 11.2 and
AIR 3.2 with premium features
for gaming.
In a March 27
blog
post, Emmy Huang, director of product management for Gaming Solutions at
Adobe, said the premium features for gaming with Flash Player 11.2 will enable
game developers to publish advanced games with console-quality experiences to
Flash Player. The Flash 11.2 and AIR 3.2 technology had been hosted on Adobe
Labs, the companys labs site up until this point.
Huang said gaming represents
a major opportunity, not only for Adobe, but for the entire industry. Huang
wrote:
Gaming is experiencing an
unprecedented period of innovation and growth, with online and mobile gaming attracting
new users, enabling innovative game play and driving new business and
distribution models. Social and casual games on the Web are fueling global
growth in gaming, with worldwide social gaming projected to grow from $4.94
billion in 2011 to $8.64 billion in 2014, according to the Casual Games
Association. With unparalleled reach to more than 1.3 billion PCs, Adobe Flash
Player is a catalyst for this growth by providing a consistent, powerful and
innovative gaming platformthe game console for the Web. Adobe is investing in
Flash technologies for gaming, allowing developers to deliver console-quality
games across browsers and devices. We are investing not only in improving game
development, but also in new features and services for game developers to help
them reach new markets and build successful gaming businesses.
In addition, Adobe announced
it is collaborating with Unity Technologies to enable Unity customers to
publish Web-based 3D games, like Madfingers Shadowgun, to Flash Player using
the premium features from directly within Unitys tools.
Were thrilled to offer the
260,000 active developers making great games and applications with Unity the
opportunity to take advantage of the unprecedented reach of Adobe Flash Player
across all major desktop browsers on more than a billion PCs, said David
Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies, in a statement. Unity developers will be
able to take advantage of the stunning performance offered by the addition of
hardware accelerated graphics rendering through Stage3D in Flash Player.
Huang noted that premium
feature APIs in Flash Player 11.2 will benefit graphically demanding games by
giving developers access to hardware accelerated graphics rendering in
combination with domain memory, which is used by C/C++ cross compilers, such as
Adobe Alchemy.
Developers can use the
premium features to publish games for Flash Player across PC browsers and as
natively packaged mobile apps using Adobe AIR for distribution through the
Apple iTunes App Store, Google Play Store, Amazon Appstore for Android and
other mobile app markets, Huang said in her post. Many great games are not
expected to require these premium features, and will rely only on the rich core
platform capabilities of Flash Player. We will continue to advance the core
platform as well as introduce new and exciting premium features and services to
provide a foundation that allows any game developer to deliver rich games and
experiences more easily to more people than any other platform.
Kabam pioneered and
continues to lead the way in the development of free-to-play, MMO-style social
strategy and RPG games for the core audience, so were very excited with the
tools Adobe is bringing to browser-based games, Kevin Chou, CEO and co-founder
of Kabam, a maker of massively multiplayer social games, said in a statement.
We rely on Flash Players enormous installed consumer base to reach legions of
core gamers, and the outstanding fidelity levels achievable with Stage 3D
acceleration means we can deliver the kind of immersive game experience our
gamers want and deserve. Thats what we live for as a company. Youll see this
technology and enhanced game quality this year in our upcoming slate of high-performance,
next-gen games.
As a multiplatform and
leading Flash developer, weve never seen a greater opportunity to produce
high-caliber gameson the Web and on Facebookthat are artistically and
technically outstanding, Steve Couture, CEO of Frima Studio, said in a
statement. With more than a billion installs, no other technology comes close
to Flashs reach and performance capabilities. We look forward to utilizing
this technology to bring gamers a level of quality and performance that they have
never seen before in browser-based games.
Huang noted:
Every day millions of users
enjoy popular online games through Flash Player, such as Rovios Angry Birds,
Zyngas Farmville and EAs Sims Social on Facebook, along with Gamegoos
Qi-Xiong Hegemony, one of Chinas top ten online games. And were already
seeing some great AIR games that use the new Stage3D capabilities of AIR 3.2
appearing in markets, such as Winter
on Whale Island, Rivers
of Olympus, Spaced Away
and ApexVJ.
Games continuously push technology boundaries, and Flash technologies allow
Adobe to deliver new capabilities faster and make innovative features instantly
accessible to more users than any other technology. Today, were also detailing how
developers can realize these benefits with the releases of Flash Player
11.2 and AIR 3.2. We expect to see games continue to push the boundaries of the
Web and mobile, and Adobe will be there to innovate and deliver technologies
and services that enable developers, publishers and our partners to create and
distribute amazing experiences to their users, regardless of genre, platform or
location.
As the leader in
competitive online strategy and combat games, KIXEYE is always on the hunt for
new tools that will allow us to continue to deliver the most fun and
mind-blowing browser-based game experiences on the planet, Will Harbin,
CEO of KIXEYE, said in a statement. Flash Player and Alchemy 2 will help us
ensure that our [high-performance], hyper-accessible games operate flawlessly
in stunning 3D. We plan to utilize the technologys full capabilities in our
lineup of next-generation RPG titles scheduled to launch this fall.
Meanwhile, Huang said with
the release of Flash Player 11.2, Adobe is making premium features available
free for content published prior to Aug. 1. Starting Aug. 1, these features
will be licensed for commercial use, and there is no charge for the first
$50,000 in application revenues. The use of premium features within Adobe AIR,
including for mobile applications for iOS and Android, will be royalty-free,
she said.
Weve designed this pricing
to encourage the kind of innovation and experimentation that often helps to
spark inspired and inventive games, Huang said. This also enables us to
invest in and support innovation in Flash technologies that will benefit the
ecosystem of popular game middleware and development tools, beyond Adobes
first-party tools. For more details about Adobes licensing program and
premium features, developers can go to
www.adobe.com/go/fpl.
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