[user2459]

"It's not clear to me how requiring programmers to pay to use something that was previously free will spark innovation."

Steve doesn't understand his own article. The whole point is that they're changing for completely new functionality. These aren't improvements of the existing flash player, they're completely new additions. And beyond that the vast majority of devs will never even have to think about it. You have to make over $50k with your flash product and you have to use the premium features.

Weather you like flash or not, these new features are great for online and ios game developers and cost Adobe a lot of time and money. Also weather you think about it or not, many of the mobile games you play are written in actionscript and running in Adobe air and air apps are specifically exempt from the fees.

So all in all, this is interesting news, but it's in no way as dramatic or devastating as some people would like to believe.

[kj12345]

It's not completely new functionality. Adobe Alchemy, for example, has been free since 2008 and is used by a number of popular Flash apps and games. Of course they can charge for it if they want, but they're now competing with Unity, NaCL, UDK, and HTML5, so it is going to be a hard sell.

[talmand]

Don't forget you have to use Alchemy and Stage3D in the same project. I think too many are glossing over that fact.

Plus UDK has a similar deal.