PlayerIO

Shaun_Max

Hello Guys,

I just wanted to inform that I have tried playerio in one of our projects and our first impression is good. PlayerIO can be considered as a good alternative of Flox...

We were initially looking for a simple, free multiplayer server to test one of our prototypes and somebody suggested Playerio. After trying out few features we are really impressed with its functioning & quiet astonished why there are so less discussions on it in our forum....

The only unfortunate thing is that, after 2017 they have not pushed any updates for AS3, which is a bigger issue if you want to consider Playerio alone to handle the backend operations. I believe if more AS3 developers opt to use player.io, may be in future they might push updates. Currently they are only supporting Unity & Javascript....

They have an excellent Pay vault & Error logging feature, which we have decided to use in some of our older projects which we couldn't migrate to Firebase.

If possible I will share a simple demo app show casing their multiplayer feature in the coming days.

Thanks

TeotiGraphix

Shaun_Max So they still update the AS3 SDK with the others?

EDIT: I didn't notice the

A single download contains the entire Software Development Kit that you need to get started.

Shaun_Max

TeotiGraphix No, they are only updating Unity & Javascript. I think thats based on paid customers only!

TeotiGraphix

Shaun_Max Ah OK, makes sense then. I couldn't see a company keeping as3 updated without a commercial aspect to it.

Shaun_Max

But my question is why not? What's the big deal with AS3 that they have to abandon it? We must ask Harman to do something. The same thing happened with playfab.... Most of the new services have completely ignore AS3, which is a shame..

joshtynjala

Seems obvious to me. If very few developers are using an AS3 SDK, the company is wasting time and money by continuing to update it.

Shaun_Max

joshtynjala But how is that possible ? I can see Haxe & Defold in some of them's list but not AS3...

Just wanted to show an example : -

mistergreen

It’s all in the numbers and demand for their servers.

Shaun_Max

mistergreen Are you saying that there are more developers in Haxe & Defold than Air SDK ?

joshtynjala

Shaun_Max Are you saying that there are more developers in Haxe & Defold than Air SDK ?

No one will be able to answer that because we don't have access to whatever usage data PlayerIO is collecting on their servers. It's also not a question of which platform has more developers. It's a question of which platform has more developers interested in using PlayerIO, and which platform will have the most growth going forward.

I'll be blunt. AIR is not exactly the popular platform it once was. The community is now very small, and it is probably still shrinking. I am not at all surprised that services like PlayerIO think other platforms look more promising. This doesn't mean that AIR can't start growing again, but it's probably a smart business choice to wait to see if that happens.

TeotiGraphix

Shaun_Max Are you saying that there are more developers in Haxe & Defold than Air SDK ?

Pushing out multiplayer games... probably.

Haxe right now has more than one game engine so it's only natural to think this.

mistergreen

Shaun_Max For PlayerIO, probably. AIR might still be more than Haxe & Defold in other categories.

Shaun_Max

joshtynjala That's why I want Harman to do some publicity stunts. At least have a good looking website & fund developers/services to support AIR too.

Shaun_Max

@andrewfrost Is this something Harman is aware of, that most of the services are dropping AS3 from their roadmap ? Do you guys have any plans in future to promote AIR sdk ? Also can we have/know some numbers of active AIR paid developers associated with Harman currently after the take over from Adobe?

denisgladkiy

Shaun_Max
Ask this question in the discussion section
https://github.com/airsdk/Adobe-Runtime-Support/discussions

leokan23

Shaun_Max This has been a pattern for a few years now. I have been getting the same answer from a few big names like Backendless (BaaS) and later on from Appodeal(ads mediation) which I tried to keep afloat for 1-2 years on my own. Basically both told me that as they are not making enough money from air, they are pulling the plug (at least both gave their as3 sdk as opensource). I dont expect this pattern to change as the community is tiny.

Concerning Haxe, I think what harpwood means is that you can use their JS sdk with haxe and transpile it to as3 code.

mistergreen

I personally have moved on from AIR, only support maybe. It seems like Harman is only supporting AIR as well, not really developing it for advancing the framework. I consider moving to AS4 advancing.

Shaun_Max

denisgladkiy done https://github.com/airsdk/Adobe-Runtime-Support/discussions/1446

harpwood

Shaun_Max Could you use Haxe and transpile to javascript which they updating? I am mentioning haxe because is quite similar to as3.

Shaun_Max

harpwood what I didn't get you?