http://mochiland.com/articles/mochi-media-...te-of-3-31-2014
Mochi Media winding down; services end date of 3-31-2014
By Josh Larson March 14, 2014
This notice may affect your rights, please read it in its entirety.
To Mochi Media partners–
It saddens me to make this announcement today–our parent company Shanda has decided to dissolve the Mochi Media business. The last day that Mochi Media services will be available is March 31, 2014.
What you need to know–
- March 31, 2014 is the last day that Mochi Media services will be available, and after that day:
- All online accounts, dashboards, reporting and forums on mochimedia.com will no longer be accessible
- Games distributed by Mochi that are hosted on publisher sites will be playable, but all of the other services including Ads, Live Updates, Scores, Achievements and Analytics will no longer function, and we can no longer extend the right for publishers to host these games
- We encourage you to visit your account today and download your desired data individually. Prior to March 31, 2014, we plan to send an email to the address associated with each account with some basic data for the games in your account. This is strictly a backup option and the data will be limited to views and revenue information by game, so be sure to get any data you might need right away. Please keep in mind that a large number of people will likely be requesting a massive amount of data from our servers over the next couple of weeks, so please be patient with the computing times
- As part of wind-down, as of today, March 14:
- We are not approving any additional games into Mochi distribution
- We are not accepting additional funds into self-serve advertiser accounts
As such, you are encouraged to do the following prior to March 31st–
Advice to Developers
- Utilize your data (among other methods) to identify top hosts for your games, and manually upload your games to those sites by working with them directly
- If you properly implemented the Mochi Media API, your games will not otherwise be affected when our services go dark
- As mentioned above, we encourage you to visit your account today and download your desired data individually
- To further minimize the revenue impact on developers, we are allowing the use of 3rd party ad networks in Mochi Media distribution
- We are making the usual monthly rev-share payments to eligible accounts with more than $100 of accrued revenue: one payment to reflect February earnings to be issued by end of March 2014, and a final payment to include March earnings to be issued by end of April 2014
- If you have any claim against Mochi Media, whether it relates to the rev-share payments and whether the accrued revenue in your account exceeds $100, you must notify Mochi Media as soon as practical and in no event later than April 14, 2014 by submitting the form with the required information which is available here (must be logged-in).
Advice to Publishers
- Download (or re-download) all of the game files for your site. If you are currently embedding or hot-linking, consider hosting the files yourself. This will minimize the impact for you and will ensure you have the latest version of the games. To clarify, Mochi can no longer extend the right for you to host these games so you will need to establish agreements with developers directly and/or other distribution services
- If you choose not to do this, you run the risk of games not functioning properly. You have until March 31, 2014 to take action. This option will not be available to you after that date
- As mentioned above, we encourage you to visit your account today and download your desired data individually
- We are making the usual monthly rev-share payments to eligible accounts with more than $100 of accrued revenue: one payment to reflect February earnings to be issued by end of March 2014, and a final payment to include March earnings to be issued by end of April 2014
- If you have any claim against Mochi Media, whether it relates to the rev-share payments and whether the accrued revenue in your account exceeds $100, you must notify Mochi Media as soon as practical and in no event later than April 14, 2014 by submitting the form with the required information which is available here (must be logged-in).
Advice to Self-Serve Advertisers
- The ability to add funds to your account is no longer available
- All placements will automatically end March 31, 2014. Please plan your budgets and bids accordingly
- Advertiser accounts will no longer be active after March 31, 2014. Please download reports and invoices you may need before this date
- Remaining Funds in accounts will be distributed back to the account holder by the end of April
Some Final Thoughts from Mochi
First off, thank you for working with us all of these years.
Mochi Media was founded in 2005 by Jameson and Bob with the mission of fueling the creativity of indie game developers. You focus on making a great game, and we’ll take care of the rest. At that time, Flash was a platform that held a lot of potential if developers could find ways to track, monetize and build better games. Together, Flash and Mochi provided an on-ramp to a career or business in game development.
In addition to furthering our services and business, Mochi assumed a role in growing the category. We organized and hosted FGS (aka Flash Gaming Summit) for five years to get this community out from behind computer screens and in person to talk game development. We supported developer meet-ups like Mochi London. And we addressed the “state of the union†with the Flash Game Market Survey. Moving forward, we expect that others will pick up the baton in advancing the indie cause.
I think I speak for everyone who has been a part of the Mochi team over the years in saying that the innovation from you developers inspired us. We take great pride in currently seeing Ninja Kiwi’s Bloons TD5, and Flipline Studios’ Papa’s Freezeria To Go among the Top Games Charts on iOS. We love that at one time we shared a desk with Casual Collective which is now known as KIXEYE.
Today, there has never been a better time to be an indie game developer in terms of the platforms and audiences one can reach: Flash, iOS, Android, XBLA, PSN, Steam, HTML5, and the list goes on. If Mochi had a more meaningful position today beyond Flash, then there may have been a different path for the company going forward.
Though we won’t (as team Mochi) be a part of your future growth, we cannot wait to see what you create next. Best of luck.
Thank you,
Josh
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