Licensing Premium Features

Posted on August 16, 2012 by dgebala | Comments (0)

Adobe Premium Features for Flash Player give publishers and game developers the ability to deliver stunning, web-based games across browsers to over a billion computers — dramatically expanding the market for a new class of social gaming experiences. Now publishers and developers can create new revenue opportunities by targeting Flash Player for distribution of games developed using C/C++ and third-party tools and game engines, such as Unity.

As we announced earlier this year, the use of Premium Features will require a license from Adobe. Today, we’re announcing the Premium Features licensing website, available from adobe.com/go/fpl. The initial tier of Premium Features includes the cross compilation (XC) APIs, which enable the combined use of domain memory with Stage3D GPU acceleration. This allows publishers and developers to use technologies like the new Adobe Flash Runtime C++ Compiler (flascc), previously codenamed Project “Alchemy,” to publish and run advanced C/C++ game engines in Flash Player across browsers with GPU acceleration.

The XC APIs allow existing C/C++ codebases to run efficiently sandboxed across all major browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. C/C++ developers, and developers using other third-party languages and middleware/engines, can now join ActionScript developers in benefiting from the ubiquity of Flash Player on desktop computers. And ActionScript developers can choose to leverage millions of lines of existing optimized C/C++ code in their ActionScript projects.

If you are using Premium Features in your content, activating them from the licensing website is easy:

  1. Tell us the name of your game and the domain(s) where it’s hosted.
  2. Download the verification file and upload it to the root directory of the domain(s) that serve(s) your SWF files.
  3. Once the domain is verified, Flash Player will enable Premium Features for your content.

Learn more about how Premium Features can help bring your existing games to the largest audience in gaming. And if you’re a C/C++ developer, learn more about the Flash Runtime C++ Compiler. We’re excited to help you bring a whole new level of gaming to the web.

Dave Gebala and Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Managers, Gaming

Background Updates are here for Flash Player 11.4 Beta!! Yes, for Beta!!

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

We’re very excited to announce on Saturday August 4th we delivered our first Flash Player 11.4 Beta update using the Flash Player background update system that was introduced in Flash Player 11.2. Background updates seamlessly bring new features, bug fixes, and security updates without a single mouse click needed from our beta users.

How is this going to help you as a user? You don’t have to worry if you have the latest Beta version of the Flash Player- you will automatically receive the latest and greatest updates and features within the first 24 hours of release.

Flash Player 11.4 introduces key features like ActionScript Workers and the new Stage3D constrained mode to run games hardware accelerated on more configurations. For more details, check Adobe Labs.

Background updates will only be delivered to users with the Flash Player 11.4 Beta currently installed, who selected “Allow Adobe to install updates” when installing the beta version of Flash Player.  Users who opt-out of having Flash Player background updates will have to manually get the latest Beta version from Adobe Labs.

You can also change your Flash Player global settings to allow background updates as highlighted here.

We look forward to get your feedback and comments.

Update: Premium Features for Flash Player

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Tom Nguyen | Comments (0)

Update – August 16, 2012: The premium features licensing website is now available.
Learn more about the premium XC APIs.

We previously communicated that beginning August 1, new content using the Premium Features for Flash Player would require a commercial license from Adobe, and that we would share more details on how to obtain a license. We will be extending this deadline to give publishers more time to prepare and obtain a license. These Premium Features are designed primarily to enable publishers and commercial game developers to target the Flash Player with games developed using C/C++ (via the Project “Alchemy” compiler) and/or 3rd party tools such as Unity.

We expect to make available a website where you can obtain a license by the end of August, which will be available at adobe.com/go/fpl. And we are extending the free use of the Premium Features for new content publicly released prior to the availability of the licensing website. To obtain a license for grandfathered content that is released prior to the availability of the licensing website, please contact us directly at fpl@adobe.com.

To provide publishers with enough time to obtain a license to take advantage of Premium Features, Flash Player will not begin enforcing the license requirements for Premium Features until at least 8 weeks after the availability of the licensing website. Once Flash Player begins enforcing the Premium Features license requirement, unlicensed content requesting use of the Premium Features will continue to run, and will automatically use software rendering (for more information, please review the release notes for the beta release of Flash Player 11.4).

An Update on Flash Player and Android

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

We announced last November that we are focusing our work with Flash on PC browsing and mobile apps packaged with Adobe AIR, and will be discontinuing our development of the Flash Player for mobile browsers.  This post provides an update on what this means for ongoing access to the Flash Player browser plugin for Android in the Google Play Store.

The Flash Player browser plugin integrates tightly with a device’s browser and multimedia subsystems (in ways that typical apps do not), and this necessitates integration by our device ecosystem partners.  To ensure that  the Flash Player provides the best possible experience for users, our partner program requires certification of each Flash Player implementation.  Certification includes extensive testing to ensure web content works as expected, and that the Flash Player provides a good user experience. Certified devices typically include the Flash Player pre-loaded at the factory or as part of a system update.

Devices that don’t have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, meaning the manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. However, with Android 4.1 this is no longer going to be the case, as we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for this new version of Android and its available browser options.  There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1.

Beginning August 15th we will use the configuration settings in the Google Play Store to limit continued access to Flash Player updates to only those devices that have Flash Player already installed. Devices that do not have Flash Player already installed are increasingly likely to be incompatible with Flash Player and will no longer be able to install it from the Google Play Store after August 15th.

The easiest way to ensure ongoing access to Flash Player on Android 4.0 or earlier devices is to use certified devices and ensure that the Flash Player is either pre-installed by the manufacturer or installed from Google Play Store before August 15th. If a device is upgraded from Android 4.0 to Android 4.1, the current version of Flash Player may exhibit unpredictable behavior, as it is not certified for use with Android 4.1.  Future updates to Flash Player will not work.  We recommend uninstalling Flash Player on devices which have been upgraded to Android 4.1.

For developers who need ongoing access to released versions of Flash Player for Android, those will remain available in the archive of released Flash Player versions.  Installations made from the archive will not receive updates through the Google Play Store.

As always this and other Flash runtime roadmap updates can be found in the Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes white paper.

If you are using the mobile browser with Flash for video playback, please see our blog post here about various options available to help with this change.

 

Compatibility Guidelines for Web Sites with content created using Adobe Flash Technologies on Microsoft Windows 8 are now Available

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

As we previously announced, Adobe and Microsoft are working together to bring Flash Player support to Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 for both desktop and Metro experiences. We have just posted more information on how developers can ensure that their content provides the best experience for users viewing the content on Internet Explorer 10 in the Metro experience.

Developer guidance for websites with content for Flash Player in Windows 8.

This document covers usability guidelines for Metro content, specific Flash apis and functionality that should be avoided, as well as details of what the user experience will be for users viewing Flash content in IE 10 in Metro.

Please feel free to post your questions or feedback on Flash Player forums.

Flash Player 11.3 and Mozilla Firefox – Update

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

We have just released a Flash Player 11.3 update to resolve an issue affecting Firefox users.

Several users have reported issues when using Flash Player 11.3 with Mozilla Firefox 13, both of which were released within a few days of one another earlier this month. We’ve been working closely with Mozilla to diagnose and resolve these issues, which had different causes.

Mozilla last week blocklisted the RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin, to resolve problems it was causing with the interaction between Firefox and Flash Player.  Mozilla has also released Firefox 13.0.1 to address a second issue.

We continue to work closely with Mozilla to further improve pre-release testing to more reliably catch issues like these. Please report any other issues you may experience together with reproducible steps here.

Thank you.

 

Update on Flash Player 11.3 and Mozilla Firefox issue

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

Many of you have experienced problem using Firefox and Adobe Flash Player 11.3.  We are aware of the problem and working closely with Mozilla to narrow down the issue and get it resolved as soon as possible. A technote has been written highlighting some of the workarounds that may solve the issue you are encountering.  Please feel free to report your issue or reproducible steps here and we will alert you once a fix has been put in place. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your continued support.

Introducing AIR 3.3 and Flash Player 11.3

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Tareq Aljaber | Comments (0)

We are very excited to bring you Flash Player 11.3 and AIR 3.3.  With the AIR 3.3 SDK, Flash developers can now create expressive mobile apps and native extensions that target iOS5.1. In addition, this new version of the AIR runtime includes packaging support for iOS5.1 on Windows as well as iPad3 retina display capabilities.

AIR 3.3 brings easier application deployment on devices, improvements like texture streaming support for Stage3D and stylus support for Android 4.0. It also throttles resource usage when games or applications are running in background.

In addition to the enhancements in AIR 3.3, we are introducing new features in Flash Player 11.3 to enable more immersive experiences, especially for gaming. Developers can now build games allowing users complete keyboard input while remaining in full screen mode, preserving full throttled immersion in games.

To see what people are already building with AIR and Flash Player today, make sure to go to gaming.adobe.com/showcase. Don’t forget to check out Starling, the 2D GPU framework for game development on Stage3D. We recently announced the roadmap showcasing the latest games produced with Starling.

Interested in hearing more about developing mobile apps or games? Have some questions? Join us for a series of live webinars starting June 21, 2012 that teach you how to create Flash apps for iOS. Register here, and start bringing your Flash games and apps to life!

Game on: The new Adobe AIR 3.2 + Flash Player 11.2

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Tom Nguyen | Comments (13)

Launching AIR 3.2, Flash Player 11.2, and
Premium Features for Gaming

Wonderputt

Wonderputt, Independent Games Festival 2012 Finalist / Flash Player

Exactly 60 years ago, the first graphical digital video game — tic-tac-toe — was played on one of the world’s earliest computers, the EDSAC. It was a breakthrough, but it wasn’t played: only a handful of people could play because there was only one box like EDSAC in the entire world.

Today, Flash Player powers popular social and casual games on the web that are each played by hundreds of millions of people and generate billions in revenue each year. It powers 9 in 10 of the top games on Facebook, many of the most popular web games in China and Japan, and inspired and acclaimed indie games. Flash Player is the game console for the web — the only technology that ensures a beautiful game can run consistently — without friction or fragmentation — on over a billion boxes around the world.

Gaming has come a long way. And today we’re taking two leaps forward:

Lume, Independent Games Festival 2012 Finalist / AIR

First, we’re launching Adobe AIR 3.2 with Stage3D hardware accelerated rendering for iOS and Android platforms, which allows you craft cinematic, stunning games for 500 million mobile devices and over 1 billion computers with one codebase that lets you leverage native capabilities and blazing fast, native GPU performance.

Second, we’re launching Flash Player 11.2 with premium features for gaming. These allow AAA game developers to publish premiere console-quality, next-generation games with frictionless reach to the most people – an audience 11 times larger than that of the best-selling hardware game console. These capabilities also allow us to support a broad ecosystem of popular game middleware and development tools.

Plays well. Plays everywhere. AIR 3.2

Mobile games are fun — and they make up over half of the most popular apps in app stores for iOS, Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire, and Nook tablet. But developing them hasn’t been. It’s meant fighting fragmented mobile platforms, settling for lowest-common denominator experiences, and choosing between missing out on the growth of mobile apps or missing out on the growth of web games because nothing does both well. That game is over.

Spaced Away for iPad / AIR 3.2 + Stage3D

Adobe AIR 3.2 is a milestone release that brings the most advanced Flash technology to iPhone/iPad (iOS) and Android phones and tablets. AIR 3.2 introduces Stage3D graphics technology for iOS and Android, enabling efficient, 1000x faster native GPU rendering performance in your pocket.

Use the same code and Stage3D APIs as you can use to build desktop browser games with Flash Player. Create tailored, optimized experiences with native support for mobile capabilities like multitouch, camera/mic, and accelerometers. Add support for anything from NFC to in-app payments to iOS Game Center with native extensions.

Build a Flash-based game that runs beautifully across iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac faster than you could build one Android application that might work on different versions of Android. Enjoy the best of all worlds with AIR 3.2, so you can spend your time and energy on crafting even better game worlds.

State-of-the-art is the state of the web: Flash Player 11.2

Angry Birds: One of the fastest growing games on Facebook is built with Stage3D

Angry Birds on Facebook, Rovio / Flash Player 11 + Stage3D

Six months ago, Flash Player 11 introduced Stage3D on the desktop. It now brings breathtaking, cinematic 2D and 3D graphics to more people than any other web technology whether they’re using Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari.

Today, Flash Player 11 is installed on over 80% of connected computers, and Stage3D powers wildly popular games like Angry Birds for Facebook. It’s played by nearly 20 million active users after just six weeks, one of the fastest growing games on the web.

Flash Player 11.2, released today, adds key core features for gaming, including mouse lock, relative coordinates, and right and middle -click support. Combined with Stage3D, you can now build fully immersive games in the browser, whether a first-person shooter or a real-time strategy game using infinite map scrolling. It also extends hardware driver support back to 2008, enabling full hardware acceleration on more computers than ever.

To make life on the web easier and safer, Flash Player 11.2 adds automatic background updates for Windows, so that hundreds of millions of people can benefit from having most advanced capabilities and security updates in new versions of Flash Player, hassle free. And we’ll continue to provide update notifications for major new releases to highlight advanced new capabilities. Finally, this release includes a new multithreaded video decoding architecture, enabling even more seamless, smooth playback of full HD video.

Level Up: Premium Features for Gaming

In addition to new core features in Flash Player 11.2, we announced a new tier of Flash Player premium features for gaming. These premium features will allow console developers to deliver unprecedented, AAA console quality games to over a billion computers – enabling a whole new class of social gaming experiences — and allow us to support a third party ecosystem of gaming middleware, bringing together best-in-class specialized game development tools with the unmatched reach and richness of Flash Player.

This premium features tier will allow you to publish premiere console quality titles by taking advantage of two features in combination:

  • Stage3D hardware acceleration (Stage3D.request3DContext)
  • Domain memory (ApplicationDomain.domainMemory)

Domain memory helps advanced compilers such as the upcoming new Adobe compiler code-named “Alchemy” enable high-performance, sandboxed execution of cross-compiled C/C++ code in Flash Player. If you’re an ActionScript developer, take advantage of hundreds of millions of lines of existing optimized C/C++ code libraries in your games. If you’re a C/C++ game developer, easily bring your entire native game or game engine to the Flash Platform so that a billion people can play what you’ve made directly in their favorite browser. Starting today, you can apply to join the new Alchemy prerelease program.

Flash Player Premium Features for Gaming

Using premium features – Stage3D hardware acceleration in combination with domain memory – allows AAA console-quality game engines to run across browsers with high performance in Flash Player and use specialized game tools to build games for Flash Player. For example, Unity customers will be able to license premium features to publish web-based 3D games with the reach and power of Flash Player and Stage3D.

With today’s release of Flash Player 11.2, we are making premium features available free of charge for content published prior to August 1. Starting August 1, these features will be available for published content with a license, and there will be no charge for the first $50K in application revenues. The use of premium features within Adobe AIR, including for mobile applications for iOS and Android, will be royalty free.

APEXvj for iOS and Android / AIR 3.2 + Stage3D

We’ve designed this pricing to encourage the creative experimentation that sparks great ideas and great games. This also allows us to invest in and support innovation in Flash technologies that benefit an ecosystem of game middleware and development tools, beyond Adobe’s own first party tools. You can learn more about premium features by visiting adobe.com/go/fpl.

We expect many amazing games won’t need premium features. Games and applications using either Stage3D hardware acceleration or domain memory individually do NOT require a premium features license. For example, you can independently leverage Stage3D hardware acceleration in Flash Player to bring your breathtaking, high-performance game to the most people on the web – at no charge. The rich core platform capabilities of Flash Player will continue to power remarkable games, and we’ll continue to innovate rapidly on our core platform.

You can install Flash Player 11.2 today to see the amazing content the community is creating and start your own development. You can also immediately publish apps to app stores using Adobe AIR 3.2, joining other gorgeous Stage3D –based iOS and Android apps that have already launched. We’re excited to see what you create. And we’re thrilled to help games continue to push the boundaries of imaginative, breathtaking play.

Visit gaming.adobe.com to see more of what’s possible when you can bring delightful, remarkable experiences to the most people on the planet.

Let’s play.

Tom Nguyen
Sr. Product Manager, Gaming / @tomng

Learn more about the launch of Flash Player Premium Features for Gaming and Adobe’s collaboration with Unity Technologies.

Adobe and Google Partnering for Flash Player on Linux

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Mike Chambers | Comments (3)

As discussed in the just released Adobe roadmap for the Flash runtimes, Adobe has been working closely with Google to develop a single modern API for hosting plugins within the browser (one which could replace the current Netscape plugin API being used by the Flash Player). The PPAPI, code-named “Pepper” aims to provide a layer between the plugin and browser that abstracts away differences between browser and operating system implementations.

Because of this work, Adobe has been able to partner with Google in providing a “Pepper” implementation of Flash Player for all x86/64 platforms supported by the Google Chrome browser. Google will begin distributing this new Pepper-based Flash Player as part of Chrome on all platforms, including Linux, later this year.

For Flash Player releases after 11.2, the Flash Player browser plugin for Linux will only be available via the “Pepper” API as part of the Google Chrome browser distribution and will no longer be available as a direct download from Adobe. Adobe will continue to provide security updates to non-Pepper distributions of Flash Player 11.2 on Linux for five years from its release.

Flash Player will continue to support browsers using non-”Pepper” plugin APIs on platforms other than Linux.

We will be providing a debug player implementation of the Flash Player browser plugin on Linux, and will update the whitepaper once we have more details on how it will be distributed.