Kongregate will now accept unity games

[MikeMD]

well, whether it makes sense to choose flash as technology at all when one doesn´t use any of its visual workflow tools is yet a whole other discussion, so yeah, if you want to open that can of worms, fine, but without me

There is no can of worms. It's extremely simple. One example: I made a couple of games for a web site that was just starting out last spring and those two games put it on the map. They took it from an unknown site with no visitors to a site that got 20 000 visits right after one of those was released, then of course it dropped off after a while and settled at around 6000-7000. Second game a couple of months later took it to I believe 25 000+ visits and since then it's been holding at around 12 000 - 15 000 visitors per day even months after those were released. Each game at its peak also made almost $100 a day from mochi ads ( for a couple of days ), even after a drop off I think they still bring in $25 - $30 each day.

Unity simply cannot do that, and that is what it's all about. That seems to be the point you just don't get.

[alillm]

This whole debate is pretty meaningless. Unity is still finding its feet and therefore if you want to ignore it and keep using flash that's fine, I don't see flash going anywhere in the next few years. However unity is indeed making undeniable progress and to say it isn't is to just blatantly disregard the facts, so if you want to make games in unity I would be the last person to discourage you.

It comes down to a choice of software which is partially based on what you want to do, and partially based on personal preference. It's like windows or mac, PS3 or xbox 360, you can debate all day which is better but that isn't going to make one or the other go away, or stop one from making progress.

I just cringe every time I see Mike and TomS diving into battle which is never going to have an outcome that favours one or the other. Nobody is being proved right or wrong no matter how many times you bring up the debate.

Ali

[Squize]

Was it really a year ago I was disagreeing with you about this Mike ?
( I know not as often as you and Tom go for it, but my boredom threshold is lower ).

I've got to admit, I agree with you now. Unity as a browser based technology for the most part has failed to lift off.
Unity is just stunning, I'd work full time on it tomorrow if I could. Being able to have one code base and release to web / pc / mac and iPhone is insane ( With 360 and PS3 to come ), it's just so good.

I'd like to see Kong finally having Unity support kickstart it's web presence, but I still can't see it for a long time yet.

iPhone Unity has done so well because you can make money from it. Web Unity has done so badly 'cause you can't.
( The iPhone market is so much more mature than the Flash one already, and that's purely due to earning potential.
http://www.openfeint.com/developers
Why isn't there anything as cool as that in Flash after it being around forever ? And openfeint is far from being the only system like that ).

As far as I'm aware, what Kong is offering is basically ad revenue share ( Which is excellent on there ) and mtx.
mtx are a really hard sell in Flash games, where for the target demographic penetration is a 100%, never mind in Unity. If you're using Kong Kreds in your Unity game to monetize it, then it's tied to that one site, it's not like mochi-coins / gamerSafe that can be on any of the 30,000+ portals out there.
So you've got that one outlet for your game ( Or roll your own mtx solution for Unity, but in real life you're not going to bother ), that makes it really high risk.

Are you going to spend longer doing a Unity web game which is a high risk to start with, with the added risk of needing people to like it enough to actually pay for it ( A couple of dollars at a time ), or are you going to target the iPhone with your Unity game, where you have a much greater chance of making a profit ?

Aside from Blurst, is there anyone else doing anything good or successful with pure web based Unity ? There are a handful of really nice adver-games, but the budgets for those are much greater than any indie can afford.

If tomorrow Mochi came out with full Unity support, then yes this time next year these arguments would be over.
But mochi aren't going to do that tomorrow. As much as I dislike the thought of one company having so much control, mochi is the missing killer app for Unity web.

Unity's time as the killer browser gaming app will come, but not for a while yet.

Squize.

[Pazil]

Kids can make flash games for free, with the flash SDK and flash develop

Pretty much what I did...though I wouldn't say that it's for kids, since no visual interface takes some getting use to.


I think that we have a Mac vs. PC type situation here...Both platforms are good and acceptable, and as tomsamson said, it's a matter of what exactly you're planning to do with it.
The same way that a lot of Flash content is made by teenagers, because of Unity's free version a lot it's gaming content might start to appear from teenagers, and therefore gain exposure. Especially because of the Kong platform...

But seriously, MikeMD. Can't you be happy when something makes an achievement, and not immediately put it down?

@ TOdorous: I also see that sort of problem coming up. I'd say that 99% of people really do judge a book by it's cover.

[Incrue]

If you're using Kong Kreds in your Unity game to monetize it, then it's tied to that one site, it's not like mochi-coins / gamerSafe that can be on any of the 30,000+ portals out there.

97% of those portals are crap.They could vanish from the face of earth and noone would notice.
Besides, the only games with mtx that do well are those with a very big portal behind, like nitrome
Off course unity will never be flash, but its definately giving good steps, and theres no reason to belive it would stop now

[Squize]

There are a lot of really high performing portals out there which aren't on our radar, there's more beside the big 6/7 that everyone can rattle off, but yeah a lot of sites could disappear and it wouldn't affect anyone's traffic.

But, I'd rather have the chance to have my game on all those portals, than just one.

As to only the sites with fanboys making money with mtx, I think that's a different issue ( But yeah a valid one ).

Squize.

[tomsamson]

Here´s a cool Gamasutra article listing the top 5 game companies of 2009:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=26243

See their part on listing unity3d:
"
Unity

From an academic project to an engine contender -- Unity has become a major player in the market as of 2009, and there's more to come. Like Epic, Unity moved to launch a free version of its toolset, which is more flexible than Epic's implementation -- the free version of Unity can be used commercially. In the wake of that, the company reached 33,500 registered developers in November.

Important, too, was Unity's announcement that it's moving into the Xbox 360 market. XBLA, as we said above, is a tremendous market for developers to tap into, and while Unity might be considered lightweight for a full-fledged Xbox game, its tech fits into the downloadable space well.

Of course, that's proved by its success on the iPhone -- where Unity is one of the leading engine solutions. And while there was a brief, serious hiccup for Unity on the platform this year, it was quickly fixed by the Unity team.

And the company opened up a new UK office under the stewardship of former Criterion man Graham Dunnett -- expanding its capabilities beyond its San Francisco and Copenhagen locations. 2009 has been a majorly up year for Unity, and as the web and iPhone continue to rise in importance, and as Unity's support for Wii and Xbox 360 help bolster it, the engine becomes a more and more major player in the market.
"

[MikeMD]

PS3 development is far more powerful than anything you can do with Unity. So since we are now completely off topic, why not get into that?

[tomsamson]

man, seriously, what are you even talking about?
You´re comparing development for a console with a game engine? What does that even mean?
I posted the gamasutra piece because you constantly tried to talk about unity not doing well.
Obviously that´s wrong.

In case you want to constantly stay in your isle of constantly arguing against me for the heck of it, keep doing that, but don´t try to tell me its offtopic in a game dev forum when one talks about game engines and which game creation tools have positive or negative trends going on there.


On that note i also found this interesting:
http://kotaku.com/5432148/unreal-eng...-an-ipod-touch
Epic working on Unreal engine running on the iDevices and other mobile devices.
Now currently that is way less useful than unity running on the iPhone etc, because first of all it not available yet and second it only runs on the never devices because it uses open gl es 2.0.
Still, pretty epic indeed to see such movements going on on the mobile devices and good to keep it in the back of the mind when Adobe next time tells one one has to optimize AS3 code more to get basic 2d stuff running halfway acceptable on the same devices.
Maybe i should then just each time link to such videos instead of replying

[MikeMD]

man, seriously, what are you even talking about?
You´re comparing development for a console with a game engine? What does that even mean?

You brought up an article which describes Unity's big achievements as Wii and XBox support, so why not bring in PS3. It has as much to do with flash and is as relevant to flashkit forums as anything else you posted about Unity, meaning it's irrelevant.

[tomsamson]

first of all unity has ps3 support in the works, too as can be seen when looking at their site some.
Next up we already talked about the point that you see flash= browser only
and then obviously this board (therefore?) should also be only to discuss things about related to flash and then related to flash browser games?
Well, that´s your stance, fine.

[Incrue]

Flash is not browser only, this was said many times here before, webgeek makes pc games with flash since when? 2004? 2002?Whatever

In the wake of that, the company reached 33,500 registered developers in November.

In other words, unity will never die.

[Squize]

I love the way a board about Flash games is more pro-Unity than Flash.

Although to be fair, a modern game engine with no backward compatibility issues and a fairly niche market being a better game engine that something that was never designed to be a game engine, is quite valid.

Squize.

[tomsamson]

I love the way a board about Flash games is more pro-Unity than Flash.

Yeah, weird, is it funny or saddening?
Also: does that tell more about the members of the board or about the technologies?
Its rhetorical questions, i just wondered

Even if it may sound different sometimes, i´m not blindly pro unity and contra flash of course, i endorse all kinds of technologies and nice technical evolutions, like a few posts ago i talked about unreal engine being ported to iPhone

Its just with flash i see way less positive and way more negative changes in the last few years and i feel like Adobe without a propper loud reminder isn´t into changing things propperly so when then people jump in and always argue against positive developments going on with other technologies it turns back to that discussion again.

Although to be fair, a modern game engine with no backward compatibility issues and a fairly niche market being a better game engine that something that was never designed to be a game engine, is quite valid.

Squize.

fair point, then again with that logic one couldn´t ever talk about any other technology and compare flash to anything else because it wasn´t made with most things in mind its used for now
When Adobe tries to sell it as the tool ideally suited to deploy apps and games to all sorts of devices i think its fair game to then also compare it to other technologies allowing something similar or talking about other technologies allowing the same in general.