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What Adobe’s new pricing for Flash means for social game developers

61 points by brianr 15y ago

michaelpinto 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
  - radley 15y ago
    It'll matter in a few years when Photoshop is only available as part of the Creative Suite subscription plan.
  - ChrisLTD 15y ago
    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.
protomyth 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    Flash is also anywhere from 2 to 3 times faster then html5+javascript for high performance games.
    - protomyth 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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 15y ago
        I said programming & distribution on the PS/3 are harder than Flash.
        html5iscancer 15y ago
        It looks like you're using the PS/3 as an analogy for Flash in your post.
guard-of-terra 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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.
jim-greer 15y ago
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 15y ago
  The funny thing is that Adobe does charge for the tools. Flash Professional retails for $700!
  - novalis 15y ago
    https://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html 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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        The flex IDE is based on Eclipse and it's awful to use
        novalis 15y ago
        FlashDevelop and Flex work out fine for some people. Let us not allow one IDE to spoil all the fun out of something.
      - benologist 15y ago
        There's also FlashDevelop which is free/opensource, and then there's commercial, cheaper alternatives like FDT.
talmand 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      well, now there's less doubt about it for one thing.
      - zonoob 15y ago
        Exactly. They could ask for all tech to be covered, not just the two in question.
        chc 15y ago
        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.
pippy 15y ago
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 15y ago
  "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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        A lot of times.
GavinB 15y ago
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 15y ago
  "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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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.
    - sesqu 15y ago
      Unity does have an experimental plugin for Linux systems, running on NaCl. It's fairly functional, provided your graphics drivers play nice. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for Facebook games, but for teenaged kids it may well suffice.
fogol 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
andrewfelix 15y ago
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.
seanp2k2 15y ago
Adobe just figured out a new scheme to make themselves even less appealing. Bravo.
- marshray 15y ago
  I wonder how long Oracle is going to be able to hold themselves back from doing the same to Java?
  - shabble 15y ago
    Get your first 10 JPanel()'s free!
    - zonoob 15y ago
      Perfect!
atjoslin 15y ago
Flash is getting less and less useful for web-browser development. Javascript + HTML5 is so much better.
- novalis 15y ago
  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.
- html5iscancer 15y ago
  "So much better" in what sense? What are the technical merits of HTML5 above the Flash runtime?
vacri 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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/ 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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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.

61 points by brianr 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.
- radley 15y ago
  It'll matter in a few years when Photoshop is only available as part of the Creative Suite subscription plan.
- ChrisLTD 15y ago
  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.

protomyth 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  Flash is also anywhere from 2 to 3 times faster then html5+javascript for high performance games.
  - protomyth 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        I said programming & distribution on the PS/3 are harder than Flash.
        html5iscancer 15y ago
        It looks like you're using the PS/3 as an analogy for Flash in your post.

guard-of-terra 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.

jim-greer 15y ago

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 15y ago
The funny thing is that Adobe does charge for the tools. Flash Professional retails for $700!
- novalis 15y ago
  https://www.adobe.com/products/flex.html 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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      The flex IDE is based on Eclipse and it's awful to use
      - novalis 15y ago
        FlashDevelop and Flex work out fine for some people. Let us not allow one IDE to spoil all the fun out of something.
    - benologist 15y ago
      There's also FlashDevelop which is free/opensource, and then there's commercial, cheaper alternatives like FDT.

talmand 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    well, now there's less doubt about it for one thing.
    - zonoob 15y ago
      Exactly. They could ask for all tech to be covered, not just the two in question.
      - chc 15y ago
        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.

pippy 15y ago

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 15y ago
"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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      A lot of times.

GavinB 15y ago

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 15y ago
"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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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.
  - sesqu 15y ago
    Unity does have an experimental plugin for Linux systems, running on NaCl. It's fairly functional, provided your graphics drivers play nice. I definitely wouldn't recommend it for Facebook games, but for teenaged kids it may well suffice.

fogol 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.

andrewfelix 15y ago

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.

seanp2k2 15y ago

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

marshray 15y ago
I wonder how long Oracle is going to be able to hold themselves back from doing the same to Java?
- shabble 15y ago
  Get your first 10 JPanel()'s free!
  - zonoob 15y ago
    Perfect!

atjoslin 15y ago

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

novalis 15y ago
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.
html5iscancer 15y ago
"So much better" in what sense? What are the technical merits of HTML5 above the Flash runtime?

vacri 15y ago

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 15y ago
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/ 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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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.