Hello!
If you’ve been following along on the forum thread, you know that WarLight’s new Unity client has been making a ton of progress! The Unity client is designed to replace the Flash, iOS, and Android versions of WarLight with a shiny new client that does more, better, faster, stronger, etc.
The Unity app is a very different beast since it was introduced it on this blog back in January. The app now has almost complete feature parity with the old clients. There’s still a lot to do before it’s good enough to be officially released, but if you want to try it out or make the switch today, there’s an alpha version available now for members.
As announced previously, one of the reasons WarLight must move away from Flash is because Flash is a dying platform. Google is trying it’s darnedest to kill it off, and one way they’re doing this is by discontinuing the ability to run ads from their ad network within a Flash app. WarLight has historically shown these ads and they actually make up a pretty sizable chunk of the revenue it needs to keep the servers alive.
Since Flash ads are no longer an option, I’ve made changes to the game today to replace them with html ads. These come in two forms: a vertical banner ad that sits beside the game, and interstitial ads that play before starting a single player level. Personally, I preferred the format of the Flash ads since they were closable, but Google’s decision to kill them off is understandable.
I understand that nobody likes ads, and honestly I wish I didn’t have to put them in the game at all. In WarLight’s first five years, it never showed a single ad! But that was not sustainable, as the game lost money every year.
If you don’t like ads, think of it this way: ads are what enable WarLight to be free. If ads didn’t exist, didn’t work, or if everyone ran adblock, WarLight would have to be a paid game. It costs over $1,000 per month just to keep WarLight’s servers online, and that money has to come from somewhere. Of course, players always have the option of getting a membership to play ad-free, which also gives you full access to the new Unity client!
Regarding the Unity client, I’m working hard to try to get it released as soon as possible. There are still a few unannounced surprises, so stay tuned — exciting things are coming!