Flash is dead. However, it is difficult to overestimate the impact that flash games have had on the gaming world. For many developers, they made their way into the gaming industry, and also served as a springboard for experiments…
A breath of freedom: how flash games have affected the gaming industry
Flash is dead. However, it is difficult to overestimate the impact that flash games have had on the gaming world.
For many developers, they made their way into the gaming industry, and also served as a springboard for experiments in search of bright and exciting ideas. The end of Flash support in December 2020 marks the end of one of the most creative periods in gaming history.
From the translator: we remembered Flash by accident when we studied the dynamics of web development and games events registered on our site.
In general, it is intended for our internal use, but out of curiosity, we noticed that, despite the pandemic, the number of events is growing noticeably. It also shows that the organizers of web development events started using our site only in 2018, while gamers were active a couple of years earlier. At the intersection of these topics, there are just flash games, which at the beginning of the 2000s often encroached on our working time (yes, there was a sin). Well, a short googling of this topic led us to the idea of publishing this nostalgic translation.
It all started in 1996 when the first Flash player was released. It was originally intended for web graphics and animation, but when it got its own programming language in 2000, developers started using it to create games.
In the same year, the popularity of the first flash game website, Newgrounds, skyrocketed. Any developer could upload their games to it, and they immediately got into the catalog.
Progenitor of endless runners
This flash game is called Canabalt. A businessman jumps out of a window and runs to escape the collapsing city. Canabalt started the entire endless runner genre, which is now one of the most popular on mobile devices. The game is included in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art along with Pac-Man and Tetris.
There were many other flash games as well. Millions. They have been played billions of times on thousands of different gaming sites. It was creative chaos.
Anything
Flash Workflow
The Flash workflow was designer-centric, combining art, animation, and coding. People who otherwise would never write code began to gradually turn their animations into games. A great example is Xiao Xiao, which started out as a simple stick figure animation and turned into a fighting game. The release of Xiao Xiao No.4 on Newgrounds was played 10 million times.
Developers didn't even have to worry about the technical details of cross-platform support. A game written in Flash 20 years ago can still be played today, while games written for iOS or Android require regular updates to run correctly on newer phones.
Someone could play flush games, just by clicking on the link. Today, playing and share games is still not so simple as 20 years ago.
Decentralization
The game Fancy Pants Adventures on Newgrounds played more than four million times, but on all sites where it was placed or copied, in the amount of more than 300 million times in the amount of it!
Most popular flash games posted immediately on thousands of different websites. If the game did not find contact with the audience of one site, it could gain popularity on other sites. At that time, the Internet was a more decentralized place. Nowadays, games like McDonalds, where you are corrupting politicians and destroy the rainforests to cook fast food, will most likely be prohibited in the App Store, which will deprive them to access a large number of players.
Short iterations
The Flash Game culture contributed to the promotion of original ideas and forgot the failures. Most games were created in few months, and some in general in a few days. If something has not happened, you could just make another game. Therefore, the design of the games developed a rapid pace.
Start of the end of Flash.
In 2010, two years after the release of the iPhone, Steve Jobs wrote an open letter, which explained why Flash was not allowed on Apple mobile platforms. Flash had security problems, it quickly cleaned the battery and was designed for desktop computers, and not for mobile sensory interface.
Mass outcome
By 2012, the number of players on websites with Flash games declined, less and fewer games were created on Flash. Many developers left the "sinking ship" to create mobile or console games, and the former flash games animators opened the channels on YouTube.
But the cause of Flash decline was not only the growth of the popularity of the iPhone. Ultimately, the Internet has become another place that should support a large number of different devices.
Each technology sooner or later comes end. For Flash, he will come on December 31, 2020, when Adobe officially stop its support and removes the corresponding section from his site.
Memories of developers
Jonathan Gay (Jonathan Gay), Creator Flash:
"It was great to be the creator and Flash manager as a platform. I felt that we would invent a kind of pencil, because it was the Creator Community that answered the development of Flash as a creative instrument. Our job was to predict the needs, listen and ensure that all this worked.
The idea of an available platform for creating an interactive media system operating on various devices is still relevant. Just as pencil and paper are relevant. I hope I can still participate in the development of something like that.
Many years ago I had an idea of the Flash Forever project – how should we treat what was created in Flash? How to valuable information, how to book? Unfortunately, the need to stimulate business growth by adding functions and capabilities has tightened the need to preserve the past.It's great that Flash still lives in the skills and experience of the community of people who studied and grew up with him. "
Charlie Jackson, one of the founders of FutureWave Software (Flash Developer):
"Over the past years, my companies have created several software tools, but Flash turned out to be the most significant. The most pleasant was that Flash Animators thanked me for making my career. Not just a tool, but a career. But the person who really should thank, is Jonathan Gay, the providers, who was standing for Flash from the first day and until Adobe acquired him. Jonathan is an amazing person, and I was lucky to work with him when he was 17 and he studied in high school. "
Tom Fulp (Tom Fulp), founder of Newgrounds:
"Flash was the first program that united art and the code in the way I always dreamed about. In addition, all you created can be instantly played on any computer via the Internet.
It was the magical time of experiments, so we lean from working with friends found on the Internet. The moment turned out to be particularly successful for beginners and people from related areas, which could now enter the industry at the expense of the low threshold and the lack of centralized control. Newgrounds tries to support the spirit of that time to this day: the resource remains a place where people without experience can study, create and share wonderful things. "
Frank Valzano, creator of the game Bowman and Freeworldgroup.com:
"Flash forced the industry online games to go uphill, grow out, and then literally explode. We have played a small role in this process, but there was a huge part of my life. I saw about three billion times played to our games, and some, including Bowman, played hundreds of millions of times. With a big sadness, I watch Flash dies. Flash games made me and my business, they changed my life. They allowed me to connect with the world and feel less lonely. "
Sarah Northway, Creator Rebuild:
"As a developer, I owe my success Flash. My series of games Rebuild and Fantastic Contraption of my husband began as flash games, in which millions of people played in their browsers.
The simplicity of their distribution was revolutionary: the world moved from the purchase of games in the shopping center to a simple crossing on the link! Flash instantly gave the audience to all these little experimental games. And also marked the beginning of indie projects, including my own game. "
Eli Piilonen, Creator The Company of MySelf:
"The world of Flash was an incredible place to explore Gamedeva: It was a living and fun community, where access to the content was free, but the developers could still receive money for almost any project through sponsorship (honestly, madness), which ultimately became for Us distribution and marketing. All this turned into a flurry of strange and unrestrained experiments in all directions. I did not realize this until everything ended.In essence, it was a technical bubble for mass creativity! "
Paolo Pedercini, the creator of The McDonald's Videoogame:
"I am engaged in visual art and design, so Flash for me was the ideal means of creating games. He allowed to start with simple animations and gradually, release per release, add more complex gaming mechanics.
I still lack it based on timeline logic, its IDE and clear vector rendering. Flashing workflows and a huge Flash ecosystem meant that I could, embody the next idea, create a game in a matter of days and immediately make it available for a multi-million audience. The tools are constantly changing, but some types of flash games are almost impossible to create with the help of other technologies, and the stormy, fast and dirty world of online games were only partially replaced by such platforms as ITCH.io.
Daniel Benmergui, Creator I Wish I Were The Moon:
"Flash as a platform gave anyone who wants an affordable tool to create games, but it was not the most important aspect. The most important was wide coverage.
The combination "Work in the browser + access to the community of players" attracted the attention of a novice, an unknown South American developer, and allowed me to make a career in the development of games. It was sad that Flash was in the hands of Adobe, who did not know what to do with him, and allowed him to dry. HTML5 still does not replace Flash, because there is not enough tools. When Flash will die, it will be trouble. "
Jameson HSU, one of the founders of Mochi Media:
"We started making flash games in early 2001. It was also fun to create them as to play. However, we all knew that the dark side of flash games is that their pirated copies will definitely appear on a variety of sites. And we were convinced of this when in 2005 we developed the concepts of MochiBot and Mochiads (Monitoring and advertising for flash games – approx. editor). So, by the way, the company Mochi Media was born.
Close cooperation with the Flash Game community gave us inspiration. We saw how these games can change the life of people around the world. I built friendly relations in the community for life, and I lack that spirit of the partnership on the forums. "
Chris Antoni (Kris Antoni), the creator of infectonator:
"In 2010, many new indonesia appeared throughout Indonesia. The main driving factor was flash games and their sponsorship business model. They opened before the Indonesians doors to make money on web games.
At that time, in Indonesia, there were neither large studios nor schools with game development courses, even now access to knowledge in the field of game development is still very limited. And that's worse, the games are still considered a "bad" career in the eyes of parents, teachers and government officials.
The most remarkable in the development of flash games was that you did not need a big starting capital, and on them could be nice to work out.
A better flash game could bring 20 thousand dollars.
In that era, Indonesian developers released many famous games and hits, such as the Epic War Series from ArtLogic Games, the Infectonator series and the Necronator series from Toge Productions, Valthirian Arc from Agate and many others. Millions of people around the world played these games, and their success contributed to the growth of the Indonesian Gaming Industry. "
Jakrin Juangbanch (JAKRIN JUANGBHANICH), Creator Sonny:
"I got to Flash after looked at the Newgrounds a few poorly animated parody cartoons on Counter Strike. It was so fascinating, but at the same time so treasurely that inspired me to download the program and experiment with it. Since then, it has turned into a cycle: ranging from searching for inspiration on the portal, working on its own materials, plenty of help on the forums and sending my own work on the portal.
All this had a huge impact on my career. In fact, I learned to program and create works of digital art. In the past few years, I stopped working on games. Some time was engaged in research in the field of visual machine learning, and now I am a programmer engineer in AWS, but still rushing the development of games. This is a very fun job, bringing satisfaction. "
Ben Latimore (Ben Latimore), Creator FlashPoint (Project for Saving Web Games):
"We can save the memory of games, animations and those efforts that were invested in creating content on the basis of this technology. I work on this more than two years. But how to be with a microcosm active creativity, easily accessible by, notable, but not devastating restrictions, almost universal compatibility in the entire technological space of its time, widespread due to the promotion of free consumption in the era, when the "viral distribution" actually meant . This we can never recreate, but we will remember. Moreover, all this was managed by a group of guys who were sitting in their bedrooms and played too much in Xiao Xiao. Flash was not just a large-scale platform for games, this is a miniature model of our industry – talent, drive, creativity. And I am very glad that I witnessed this. There will never be anything like anything more. "
The games mentioned in this article are only a small part of the Flash era, which has formed a whole generation of developers. Flash gave people the opportunity to communicate with the whole world. If you are one of those who create technology and today's platforms, please do not forget the lessons that Flash gave us.