Since the open beta release of PushButton Engine, we have promised a component store where libraries and other resources would be available for making Flash games. As of July 1st, the ribbon has been cut, the “coming soon” label has now been removed, and the component store is open for business!
The PushButton Engine component store is a place where developers are able to buy and sell resources related to the development of Flash games. Through the purchase of these libraries, content packs, and more, game creators can easily get the parts necessary to compile a professional and unique product. The goal of the store is to facilitate a channel through which technology and game developers can buy and sell components for functionality that they wish to provide to others and/or include in their game. By selling components on the PushButton Engine component store, developers are able to open a revenue stream, making available products to the vast market of Flash developers. Through the purchase and use of components, game makers are able to easily obtain functionality they wish to introduce into their product. (In its current form, the component store is not yet accepting community submitted products, but soon, once terms have been established, this ability will exist for all developers.)
The first premium component to released in the PushButton Engine component store is the PushButton Networking Component. PBNetworking is the result of applying years of experience in high-end first person shooter networking to multiplayer Flash games. It’s a great way of getting a networked game up and running in Flash with high quality and low pain. Run the same ActionScript 3 code on client and server, and quickly develop an optimized network protocol to maximize your network resources. Check out the official feature list to learn more about how PushButton Networking is designed to help you build great multiplayer games.
With the launch of the store, we have also provided a number of components for free under the MIT license. Among these is the
Google Spreadsheet Tweaker that PushButton Labs, are currently using in the development of Grunts: Skirmish. Also launching with the store are the Box2d, Rendering2d, and
State Machine and Health components, all available for free under the MIT License.
As far as licensing goes, components on the store may contain a number of licenses. Each product may be licensed as a free component, under the LGPL, Zlib, or MIT licenses. For premium components, (those with a dollar amount attached to them,) both Indie and Commercial licenses are possible. Selection of license variations is completely at the hands of the creators of components. In the words of Ben Garney, “Price it high or low and let the market decide what it’s worth. We think that many components will be free, but some will be pay… and well worth the money.”
To make the process of buying components as simple as possible, we have partnered up with Amazon.com for our payment system. Through this association, you are able to use your Amazon.com account to make purchases. No hassle of having to enter your credit card to yet one more site! We know you already have an account with Amazon for buying all those handy Flash development books; now you can use that same account seamlessly to hook up with awesome resources from the PushButton Engine component store.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Matthew (you know who you are!) for being our first customer to make a purchase from the store! For those members of the community who have made purchases so far, we will be getting in touch so that we can send you one of our awesome PushButton Labs t-shirts! It’s great to have such a vibrant community working with our tools and so interested in the trail we’re blazing in the Flash game development community. Now get out there, visit the component store, download the engine, and share what you’re working on in our community forums!
