Improve sponsoring chance and distribution of MochiAds version-controlled games
"Thanks for considering us for sponsorship! Did you mean for the game to be published only in Flash 10? At this point, we are only looking for games in Flash 9 or below because there is just not enough penetration yet of Flash 10." - Email from a sponsor, after looking at a MochiAds Version Controlled game on FlashGameLicense, for which FGL says 'Required Flash Player version: FP10'.While the current mechanism of the MochiAds Version Control feature is very convenient for the developer to use, the fact that the wrapper's swf version is set to version 10 by MochiAds may cause that sponsors may turn away from the game, or some portals do not pick up the wrapped game - all because Flash Player 10 penetration is not devastating yet. This could lead to missed sponsorships and suboptimal distribution performance and revenue.
However, it is possible to set the wrapped game's version to version 9, effectively solving this issue.
Short overview of the MochiAds wrapper (skip if familiar)
The reasons of a flash game developer for using MochiAds are the ad-based revenue stream and the ability to fix bugs and push updates in wild version of the game remotely and instantly. The latter is achieved with the Version Control feature, which is essentially a wrapper around the swf file containing the game. This wrapper is then distributed on the internet, and whenever the wrapper loads, it checks if any patches are available to the game (the patches are stored at MochiAds), and downloads and applies them automatically. Whenever a bug emerges, the developer just uploads a new version of the game to MochiAds, and it automatically creates and handles the patching of wild versions.
The wrapped game is provided for download by MochiAds, and has its swf version set to version 10, even if your game is published for version 9 (note: I don't consider swf content with version <9)
Pros and cons of the wrapper being version 10 automatically
Pro by Matthew / MochiAds: If a developer initially creates a Flash 9 game and later wants to update it to use Flash 10 functionality, we can only support that functionality if the wrapper is already Flash 10. (The wrapper doesn't get patched, only the content, and you can't load a Flash 10 SWF into a Flash 9 SWF.)
Con by Chris / FlashGameLicense: The trouble is that your game DOES require Flash player 10 for any website that auto-detects the value. Yes, the big sponsors can fix this by manually setting it. The smaller site software auto-detects the version from the header just as we do. (That's why we do it -- to show you what it will look like in the wild, where you don't have any control over the file because it's copied and pasted without your knowledge.) [...] I am hesitant to offer a work around for the same reason that we don't let developers override the width and height. The values in the header get used by portal sites, and they need to be correct.
While the MochiAds wrapper is totally compatible with Flash Player 9 - which means that once FP9 loads the swf it will play it even to the contrary of the version 10 signature -, sites that auto-detect flash player version will see versino 10, and may decide not to include the game on the portal. Similarly, a sponsor may choose not to sponsor a game which seems to require FP10, even though that game may be able to run on FP9 too.
The simple solution
If you do not plan to include Flash Player 10 features later in your game, you can safely edit the wrapped game provided by MochiAds and set its swf version to 9. To do this, edit the swf file with your favorite hex-editor, and change the 4th byte to 9 from the current 10 (or 0x0A in hexadecimal). Do not forget to do this before you send the wrapped game to a sponsor, or push it to distribution. (Note: this is considered legit by MochiAds).Have fun tweaking!
Comments
Comment by Tobias, () (URL) on 09.11.12. 18:28
Nice to know how to change the targeted FP. I will not use Mochis Version Controll for futur projects, but the tip is still nice
