On one hand Flash is far more accessible then Unity web player . I even went though the trouble of testing Native Google client with my sisters laptop( a computer which has no Unity Webplayer installed ) I got a nasty message saying that Native Client is not allowed .
With flash I can publish an app online and just about anyone will be able to use it withOUT installing Unity Web Player- when your talking about causal users this is a very big deal , but it does stupid flash stuff . Like I’m i working with NGUI and I actually had to write my own code for some of the built in button functionality that breaks in flash . Pretty annoying, and keyboard input to my knowledge still doesn’t work in flash .
Now I’m stuck in between a rock and a hard place, flash creates alot of issues that just don’t exist in Unity Web Player, yet I don’t want to make an app for a website and tell everyone who visits the site that they need to download and install Unity Web Player to use the app .
A 3rd route, which I do not want to take , would be to rewrite my entire app in HTML5/JS , I’m not doing anything too complicated and I don’t need a full on game engine for this . Yet, since I’ve already created this thing in Unity( plus invested 95$ in NGUI ) I really , REALLY don’t want to do this .
The solution that I am considering is to make a teaser version of the game in Flash. Then I will detect to see if the player has the Unity Web Player. If not, it will load the teaser game in Flash. The Flash game’s main purpose will be to convince player’s to download the Unity Player so they can play the (still free) multiplayer, better graphics, more content version of the game. Another advantage to this is that I can also distribute my Flash game to the various web portals and distribution services (like Mochi).
The Flash game will need to be full enough so it doesn’t anger players and portals…
Whats the submission process like for getting an app on the Chrome store . I only want to distribute this app on one site , I don’t really want to submit it to the chrome store and all that .
The installed base for Unity is now something like 80 million, isn’t it? And it downloads and installs quickly and automatically, so there probably isn’t much of an issue even for casual users.
The problem is that if someone goes to a website not expecting to need to install a plugin and boom I tell them they have to, theirs a good chance their going to click away .
I’m going to work on user agent detection to re-direct folks to the version of the app on the andrioid Google Play store , as well .
My memory, but it’s now far higher according to an official Unity press release last April, which includes the following statement:
“Mirroring the growth of the Unity development platform is the Unity Web Player which had reached an impressive 125 million installs. The install rate of the Web Player also continues to grow and now reaches over 5 million new computers each month with all indication that this rate will continue to rise.” (see: http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/unity-reaches-one-million-registered-developers-1641486.htm )
That was five months ago, so 5 million x 5 = 25 million more, hence perhaps 150 million now.
In addition, one of Unity’s team members said (two years ago) that even when someone doesn’t have Unity already installed when they come across an online game or other app, the vast majority of them were clearly installing it since statistics showed that online Unity apps have an access rate of 70-80% - meaning up to 80% of the people who come across the app’s webpage also end up accessing the app itself after installing Unity if necessary. See: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/39362-Web-player-adoption
There is some special steps that Unity talks about…