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Flash was absolutely atrocious from a technical standpoint. It had to go. We had to adapt to better things. It's not that webgl isn't capable. It's that the m

Flash was absolutely atrocious from a technical standpoint. It had to go. We had to adapt to better things. It's not that webgl isn't capable. It's that the market for in browser flash like games has diminished when you can now play AAA games in the browser. The market has changed. And sadly that doesn't mean every single person doesn't want them anymore. Just that the majority don't.

devwastaken 6y ago
It was atrocious but there was much better tooling behind it that made it all make sense. I just wish flash would have been stripped down into a web only version that was safe and only for things like flash games.
Octopodes 6y ago
>It had to go. We had to adapt to better things. I'm sorry, I don't understand why. If someone develops a fun little game in Flash, and then I play it on Kongregate, what harm has been done?
- somethingwitty1 6y ago
  Because flash was a plugin, not locked to that one little game. Once you install it, every website could use it. A lot was done, by browsers, over the years to try and give more control to the end-user, but Adobe didn't have too much interest. They were the dominate player, what other option was there!? Countless security vulnerabilities (https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/p...), siphoning personal data back to Adobe, etc. Looking today at what some companies are doing to harvest data, one could say they were just ahead of their time...
andybak 6y ago
> Flash was absolutely atrocious from a technical standpoint. Flash the runtime? Flash the browser plugin? Flash the authoring environment? Actionscript the language? Not all of this stuff needed to be dumped. And not all of it has been replaced by something that can measure up to what was lost. Some of
- Izkata 6y ago
  Your train of thought seems to have fallen into a black hole.
  - dang 6y ago
    Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN, regardless of someone else's train of thought. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
    - Izkata 6y ago
      Wait, what? There's no attack there, it was just a funny way of mentioning they seemed to hit post before finishing a sentence - there's even a space after it like they planned on typing more words: > Some of
      - dang 6y ago
        Ok, I see now. It read like an insult but I see your point. Sorry!
  - mtrower 6y ago
    Judging by the downvotes, I'd guess a lot of people misunderstood you. Well, you made my day, at least =)
ckocagil 6y ago
What was atrocious about Flash? AS3 was a decent language. Better, more open tools were coming along. Insecurity and privacy concerns were addressed by properly sandboxing it. The biggest downside of Flash is that it wasn't an open web technology, but the answer to that shouldn't have been to remove it before an open alternative was established. All in all I don't see what all that fuss was about. If WebGL and Flash competed on an equal footing the WebGL tools (including Flash-like, newbie-friendly frameworks) would be forced to get better than Flash.
- virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
  I'm relieved I'm not the only one who thought AS3 was decent. It had the structure of Java without the absurdities of Java (first-class functions always come to mind immediately).
- nemothekid 6y ago
  >but the answer to that shouldn't have been to remove it before an open alternative was established An open alternative was available - HTML5 games were possible before Chrome started disabling Flash by default. Smartphones and social media really killed the market for online browser games - you really don't seem them anymore other than .io games. For anyone developing games, the return is far greater in the app store vs. online. Ad Revenue, if your name isn't Google/Facebook is a joke. I can't imagine why anyone would develop a browser game today when the App Store exists.
  - jack1243star 6y ago
    For artistic expression? I know plenty of Flash games that are not for-profit at all. Small interactive toys hosted on personal homepages.
    - nemothekid 6y ago
      Sure, but that ignores the reason why sites like Newgrounds had the massive library they did, you could get paid to put your content on newgrounds because you got a slice of the ad revenue. Massive games libraries like Newgrounds didn’t exist for solely for artistic expression
mustacheemperor 6y ago
I think the prospects for an 11 year old hacker creating their first game with art, programmed behaviors etc, were much higher on Flash in 2006 than on WebGL in 2020.
- david-s 6y ago
  you should probably be comparing Flash to the wide variety of engines and tools that can release to HTML5 rather than to raw WebGL
- hoistbypetard 6y ago
  I disagree. Godot, Unity and Construct are all examples of tools that are both easier to learn and less costly in 2020 than Flash authoring tools were in 2006. They export HTML5/WebGL games that can be hosted for free in a few clicks on itch.io. I think the prospects for an 11 year old hacker creating their first game with unity or godot are much higher than they were in 2006 with flash. Look at the submissions for any itch.io 48 hour game jam and see how many of them are playable on the web, and created by people with very little experience. These prospects have moved to places where they're more accessible, not disappeared. Here's an example where 1158 web entries were created in a weekend. https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/entries https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/entries For a jam with no prizes.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    Thank you, I feel like Itch.io should be featured on the main thread on HN. I didn't know about its existence.
  - dicytea 6y ago
    Yep, there hasn't been a better and easier time to make your own homemade games than today. People who deeply laments for the Flash era are simply not looking at the right places.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    >Godot, Unity and Construct are all examples of tools that are both easier to learn and less costly in 2020 than Flash authoring tools were in 2006. I don't think this is true at all. Making something in Flash and publishing it even back then was easier to me than to use Unity or Godot today. The latter two tools are much more powerful, but way more complex. Also, you linked a game maker's toolkit gamejam. Of course they're going to be playable in the browser. I would consider that to he easier to use (or at least on par) than Flash.

devwastaken 6y ago

It was atrocious but there was much better tooling behind it that made it all make sense. I just wish flash would have been stripped down into a web only version that was safe and only for things like flash games.

Octopodes 6y ago

>It had to go. We had to adapt to better things. I'm sorry, I don't understand why. If someone develops a fun little game in Flash, and then I play it on Kongregate, what harm has been done?

somethingwitty1 6y ago
Because flash was a plugin, not locked to that one little game. Once you install it, every website could use it. A lot was done, by browsers, over the years to try and give more control to the end-user, but Adobe didn't have too much interest. They were the dominate player, what other option was there!? Countless security vulnerabilities (https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/p...), siphoning personal data back to Adobe, etc. Looking today at what some companies are doing to harvest data, one could say they were just ahead of their time...

andybak 6y ago

> Flash was absolutely atrocious from a technical standpoint. Flash the runtime? Flash the browser plugin? Flash the authoring environment? Actionscript the language? Not all of this stuff needed to be dumped. And not all of it has been replaced by something that can measure up to what was lost. Some of

Izkata 6y ago
Your train of thought seems to have fallen into a black hole.
- dang 6y ago
  Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN, regardless of someone else's train of thought. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
  - Izkata 6y ago
    Wait, what? There's no attack there, it was just a funny way of mentioning they seemed to hit post before finishing a sentence - there's even a space after it like they planned on typing more words: > Some of
    - dang 6y ago
      Ok, I see now. It read like an insult but I see your point. Sorry!
- mtrower 6y ago
  Judging by the downvotes, I'd guess a lot of people misunderstood you. Well, you made my day, at least =)

ckocagil 6y ago

What was atrocious about Flash? AS3 was a decent language. Better, more open tools were coming along. Insecurity and privacy concerns were addressed by properly sandboxing it. The biggest downside of Flash is that it wasn't an open web technology, but the answer to that shouldn't have been to remove it before an open alternative was established. All in all I don't see what all that fuss was about. If WebGL and Flash competed on an equal footing the WebGL tools (including Flash-like, newbie-friendly frameworks) would be forced to get better than Flash.

virgil_disgr4ce 6y ago
I'm relieved I'm not the only one who thought AS3 was decent. It had the structure of Java without the absurdities of Java (first-class functions always come to mind immediately).
nemothekid 6y ago
>but the answer to that shouldn't have been to remove it before an open alternative was established An open alternative was available - HTML5 games were possible before Chrome started disabling Flash by default. Smartphones and social media really killed the market for online browser games - you really don't seem them anymore other than .io games. For anyone developing games, the return is far greater in the app store vs. online. Ad Revenue, if your name isn't Google/Facebook is a joke. I can't imagine why anyone would develop a browser game today when the App Store exists.
- jack1243star 6y ago
  For artistic expression? I know plenty of Flash games that are not for-profit at all. Small interactive toys hosted on personal homepages.
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    Sure, but that ignores the reason why sites like Newgrounds had the massive library they did, you could get paid to put your content on newgrounds because you got a slice of the ad revenue. Massive games libraries like Newgrounds didn’t exist for solely for artistic expression

mustacheemperor 6y ago

I think the prospects for an 11 year old hacker creating their first game with art, programmed behaviors etc, were much higher on Flash in 2006 than on WebGL in 2020.

david-s 6y ago
you should probably be comparing Flash to the wide variety of engines and tools that can release to HTML5 rather than to raw WebGL
hoistbypetard 6y ago
I disagree. Godot, Unity and Construct are all examples of tools that are both easier to learn and less costly in 2020 than Flash authoring tools were in 2006. They export HTML5/WebGL games that can be hosted for free in a few clicks on itch.io. I think the prospects for an 11 year old hacker creating their first game with unity or godot are much higher than they were in 2006 with flash. Look at the submissions for any itch.io 48 hour game jam and see how many of them are playable on the web, and created by people with very little experience. These prospects have moved to places where they're more accessible, not disappeared. Here's an example where 1158 web entries were created in a weekend. https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/entries https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/entries For a jam with no prizes.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Thank you, I feel like Itch.io should be featured on the main thread on HN. I didn't know about its existence.
- dicytea 6y ago
  Yep, there hasn't been a better and easier time to make your own homemade games than today. People who deeply laments for the Flash era are simply not looking at the right places.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  >Godot, Unity and Construct are all examples of tools that are both easier to learn and less costly in 2020 than Flash authoring tools were in 2006. I don't think this is true at all. Making something in Flash and publishing it even back then was easier to me than to use Unity or Godot today. The latter two tools are much more powerful, but way more complex. Also, you linked a game maker's toolkit gamejam. Of course they're going to be playable in the browser. I would consider that to he easier to use (or at least on par) than Flash.