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This is the third holiday season in a row I've seen blog posts about the future of games on the web on HN that effectively ignore flash. Each year, flash porta

by xiaoma 14y ago

This is the third holiday season in a row I've seen blog posts about the future of games on the web on HN that effectively ignore flash. Each year, flash portals such as Kongregate.com have grown into even larger juggernauts, even growing on a percentage basis on Alexa (http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/touchgallery#/contrejour http://www.beautyoftheweb.com/touchgallery#/contrejour). And each year, I've seen various examples of "incredible" html5 games put forward that would have difficulties even getting 3.5 stars out of 5 on kong or newgrounds. This is beginning to feel like a ritual HN ceremony! That isn't to say, JS-based games aren't progressing. They are for sure. Most notably on a platform the article didn't mention-- facebook.

kevingadd 14y ago
We recently launched a HTML5 port of a console/pc game (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/606067 http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/606067) on Newgrounds and it was interesting to compare/contrast with the experiences my friends have had launching their Flash games. There's a huge amount of inertia to overcome - lots of people with old browsers unwilling to upgrade, old computers that simply can't run games, and incredibly broken configurations (whether due to bad browsers, bad plugins or bad drivers) where simple HTML5 audio/rendering can crash the browser or reboot the machine. When we first put it up we got lots of complaints and our average review was closer to 3 stars, despite doing tons of testing up-front; eventually by sorting through the issues one by one we got it to the 4 stars you see now. Despite this, Flash games of comparable quality get higher scores, more views, and more revenue (nobody is willing to pay to show ads in HTML5 games; for Flash games there are entire ad networks). So I guess what I'm saying is that you're mostly right. On the other hand, a few people I know who make a living off flash games have said that sponsorships are fewer and further between now, and that ad revenue is decreasing. I don't know whether this represents an overall decrease in the value of in-game ads, or whether Flash's reach is diminishing.
- xiaoma 14y ago
  The big money is definitely in in-game consumables and virtual goods now. I'd say add revenue has probably been declining every year since at least 2007, but a top 100 game earns far more now than in the past. This talk was pretty enlightening: http://youtu.be/Ekz466sDprg http://youtu.be/Ekz466sDprg
melling 14y ago
Flash lost when Adobe gave up on mobile. There are going to be a billion tablets within a few years. What's more important is how rapidly these tablets are advancing. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-analyzed-powervr-sgx-554mp4-under-the-hood http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-an... Also, consider Firefox and Chrome get updated every 6 weeks; that's around 500-700 million users getting fresh updates. Sure, "HTML5", that catch-all buzzword, needs a bit more work before it can match the current Flash, but it's pretty clear where people should be placing their bets.
- xiaoma 14y ago
  There are a ton of flash games on the app store. If anything, Adobe has a stronger presence in mobile with CS6 than it did before! You probably just don't realize it because flash compiles to "native" apps.

by xiaoma 14y ago

kevingadd 14y ago

We recently launched a HTML5 port of a console/pc game (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/606067 http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/606067) on Newgrounds and it was interesting to compare/contrast with the experiences my friends have had launching their Flash games. There's a huge amount of inertia to overcome - lots of people with old browsers unwilling to upgrade, old computers that simply can't run games, and incredibly broken configurations (whether due to bad browsers, bad plugins or bad drivers) where simple HTML5 audio/rendering can crash the browser or reboot the machine. When we first put it up we got lots of complaints and our average review was closer to 3 stars, despite doing tons of testing up-front; eventually by sorting through the issues one by one we got it to the 4 stars you see now. Despite this, Flash games of comparable quality get higher scores, more views, and more revenue (nobody is willing to pay to show ads in HTML5 games; for Flash games there are entire ad networks). So I guess what I'm saying is that you're mostly right. On the other hand, a few people I know who make a living off flash games have said that sponsorships are fewer and further between now, and that ad revenue is decreasing. I don't know whether this represents an overall decrease in the value of in-game ads, or whether Flash's reach is diminishing.

xiaoma 14y ago
The big money is definitely in in-game consumables and virtual goods now. I'd say add revenue has probably been declining every year since at least 2007, but a top 100 game earns far more now than in the past. This talk was pretty enlightening: http://youtu.be/Ekz466sDprg http://youtu.be/Ekz466sDprg

melling 14y ago

Flash lost when Adobe gave up on mobile. There are going to be a billion tablets within a few years. What's more important is how rapidly these tablets are advancing. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-analyzed-powervr-sgx-554mp4-under-the-hood http://www.anandtech.com/show/6426/ipad-4-gpu-performance-an... Also, consider Firefox and Chrome get updated every 6 weeks; that's around 500-700 million users getting fresh updates. Sure, "HTML5", that catch-all buzzword, needs a bit more work before it can match the current Flash, but it's pretty clear where people should be placing their bets.

xiaoma 14y ago
There are a ton of flash games on the app store. If anything, Adobe has a stronger presence in mobile with CS6 than it did before! You probably just don't realize it because flash compiles to "native" apps.