The Tragic Death of Flash Games

[@nationsquid]

Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring this video! One Purchased = One Donated, so head to bombas.com/nationsquid and use code NATIONSQUID at checkout for 20% off your first purchase. Twitter: twitter.com/NationSquidYT Instagram: instagram.com/nationsquid/ UPDATE: Like others have mentioned, the Flashpoint Archive is also a great resource for preserving flash, and I want to make sure that gets an honorable mention as well!!

[@One_Unity666]

ima go to their site

[@Sonic_the_hedgedog]

*Best sponsorhip ad*

[@AidenOcelot]

You should've mentioned flashpoint

[@C.A._Old]

*1990s - 2000s kids never will forget these.*

[@I.____.....__...__]

There are others as well. A lot of games sites still have the SWFs, and there are some other smaller archives going.

[@mackongo]

With the death of flash, the Internet just feels so less child friendly. I had my own space by playing little games as a kid, and now it feels like everyone's lumped together

[@petitedemonteen3982]

Yeah it’s sad I wish there was a new equivalent for kids

[@fluffsquirrel]

We could bring back obscenity laws

[@butterfly22432]

exactly.. no proper kids sites (hard to count roblox as it’s been overrun by adults) and no gaming sites for kids to have fun on. even though sites like coolmath are backed up the kids are no longer interested in it

[@LittenV]

There's very few children's sites left, but a lot of the old ones like coolmathgames are still there. It's almost like there's no NEW sites coming out made for children. But the old ones are still there sort of.

[@butterfly22432]

@@LittenV many of the ones left are overrun with adults like roblox :/ there really needs to be a new wave of kids sites and virtual worlds but everything is so app and micro transaction focused nowadays. there'd need to be some shift to laptop/pcs

[@EnriqueMaganaCruz]

Old Flash developer here! Great video, just wanted to give my 2 cents. Flash fixed the most serious security hazards, added mobile inputs (not only touch, but accelerometer, soft keys and more), improved the mobile performance (even the original Angry Birds was running on Flash technology), and added support for H264 videos. Adobe also offered free tools for Flash development and there were open source alternatives. There were also alternatives for the web player. Nothing of that mattered, because of the iPhone. Steve Jobs had a long-running feud with Adobe, and many believe that was the real reason he wrote that letter. Now that he's gone we will never know if it was due to ignorance or his personal vendetta, but there's no doubt that closing the door to Safari mobile sealed Flash's fate. I became an HTML5 dev after the Chrome's announcement, and I found the performance on mobile browsers was worse than Flash's. The Internet didn't become safer with Flash's demise either, as ill intended devs found their way to harm using this new tool, as they always do. Maybe it was for the best, but I miss it. Aside from social media and platforms for user generated content, the internet has become very boring. Don't you agree?

[@SpaceInvader01]

I agree with you Enrique, the internet became very boring these days, even people. How do you became a Flash developer and then a HTML5?

[@xamanto]

Flash was killed because it allowed devs to implement in-app purchases that appstore providers couldn't get a cut on.

[@EnriqueMaganaCruz]

​@@SpaceInvader01 I learnt Flash in college and used it for many of my first websites (Nothing fancy). Later I got a job as art director for a small mobile game company. While we waited for the developers to figure out how to code games for this new device called the iPhone, I taught myself to code a game with ActionScript 1.1, and we even published it as the studio's first game for Symbian phones. Then I discovered Flash Game License, the auction house for Flash games, and I went all in on the technology. When Flash died, I realized that JavaScript was pretty similar to ActionScript 3, so I gave it a try and stayed as an HTML5 game developer for a few extra years. However, it never became even half as lucrative as being a Flash developer during its golden era.

[@birarakisarap]

old actionscript developer, here: We are still unable to create what we could do in Flash. Nothing even come close to it bot programmatically or visually.

[@sinbient]

Agreed internet is not as fun. You don't "surf the web" anymore for fun websites because everybody seems to only use the same few big websites now.

[@vibri_]

It's sad how so much of the soul of the old internet has been sacrificed to make the internet smartphone friendly.

[@bananawitchcraft]

Tell me about it. I'm a millennial who hates using apps and browsing the internet on my phone. I have a site on Neocities that's totally decked out with wallpapers and little GIF animations, I didn't even try to make it mobile-friendly. What even is the internet now, I just wish I had my MySpace page back. Neocities is pretty cool though.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

While I agree, a lot of that "soul" was pure nostalgia blindless and not that much more beyond that. The thing you and many others call the "soul" of the old internet was also an eye sore. The best of both worlds would be to combine the two things and mix them together with somewhat same proportions, like 50/50 - Some minimalism and cleanliness to focus on getting the information across, but also getting people's attention with something cool, rather than bland, samey-feeling websites 95% of the time.

[@bananawitchcraft]

@@ChocoRainbowCorn Putting "soul" in quotation marks while also claiming it was an eyesore as if that's an incontrovertible fact. OK. I understand things needing to be functional, but some people prefer the aesthetics of minimalism more than others, and the aesthetic part is all just a matter of personal opinion. I think some of those old websites were ugly, and some were cool looking, but I wouldn't make a blanket statement judging the aesthetic value of the old web in general. And I disagree that the perception of the internet having lost its soul is entirely based on nostalgia. Most websites now are controlled and designed by giant corporations. Back then, most of them were run by people doing it out of passion.

[@CoreyWysong]

When’s the last time you had a virus? 🙃

[@ChessFad1]

@@ChocoRainbowCornits hardly nostalgia we truly used to spend our days as little kids playing these games and loved to do so too, I know that kids now just download other games or have consoles... It was amazing as a little kid, not just nostalgia

[@Wherrimy]

Probably should mention Flashpoint, which archives a good deal of flash games and movies

[@elfhuo]

Cant believe he didnt menion it

[@tallalmk6]

@@elfhuo For real lol

[@Remake5182]

They are still missing a few million games );

[@MikeL100]

Adobe put a timebomb on Flash Player so it would stomp working years back. But you can remove the timebomb and get the contents to work.

[@kootunesscrewy]

Don't forget Ruffle and the Archive.

[@izzatsufian2796]

Flash Players were golden era for gaming and web browsing in 2000s and 2010s

[@andrewong2956]

Except that I can't install Flash on smartphones.

[@malegirlboss]

@@andrewong2956 yeah bro because you play that with a computer on a large, bulky, white/off white monitor. not on smartphones.

[@Colin12475]

RIP flash. We miss you.

[@edoslacker]

I agree, I have so many good memories of that era, there was a huge library of good and free flash games and animations. If flash games were a thing today, you would have to pay to play them, flash player would probably have a monthly subscription fee just like everything else on the internet.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

A lot of it is nostalgia blindness, though. Not actual quality, even though that is one highly subjective thing.

[@therockyeet]

Flash games on the school computers were actully peak gaming

[@odinpeanut]

When I was in school there was an website that had a lot of edutainment in it. We used it a lot and we liked it. When Flash shut down it was unusable. Luckily in about a year or so they fixed it. Now the website is still up and running as a HTML website.

[@KitsuneYojimbo]

​@@odinpeanutOur school was actually surprisingly lax with the Flash games. So long as you weren't caught playing Flash games during lesson time, you were good.

[@banishedepsilon1802]

I wouldn't say that Flash is peak gaming, but it is pretty good and most definitely better than mobile gaming

[@C.A._Old]

yeah and also *1990s - 2000s kids never will forget these.*

[@SamSimmonds-xd1tl]

My school had to kick the computers down when it came to flash games. I had to search for websites with flash games that didn't have "games" as a key term or search term.

[@FoxWolfWorld]

The irony of Steve Jobs complaining about a product being proprietary and controlled completely by one company

[@d24]

I think the difference is how they handle it. Adobe knew it was proprietary and they own it but it was buggy and security issuesade it doom to failure

[@Jetway-Yefan]

@@d24no, it was because Steve wanted it to be FOSS so he could “borrow” it

[@fluffsquirrel]

@@Jetway-YefanExactly. FOSS is like candy to big greedy companies. They can't resist using it for their own personal profit!

[@ClusterShart]

People forget that he also wanted iMessage and FaceTime to be open before he died.

[@agranero6]

What he meant was: it was not under Apple control. The ad for XOOM the first Android tablet from Motorola was that it supported Flash (in the add a guy press a button an two girls appear on a clear innuendo for Apple porn ban on their devices).

[@PicardRiker08]

I remember a version of The X-Files website from the 90s, that was never saved on the Wayback Machine, pre-flash... The entire site was like a mystery game, having photos of Mulder's desk or different environments from the show, and clicking on certain parts of the photos would take you to hidden sections. During certain points of loading the next page, a dark faded image would briefly flash on the screen saying "You're being watched...". It was an early ARG-style site that's completely lost to time, and I feel like I'm the only one that even remembers it. Such is the tragedy of lost media.

[@Compwnter]

That sounds sick. Shame it's lost..

[@shay1117]

maybe a miracle will happen and someone will upload it somewhere somehow

[@fluffsquirrel]

Maybe the person who made it might port the source code over to HTML5 someday. They did that with lineriders I believe.

[@ashextraordinaire]

You just unlocked a long-shut door in my memory. You're NOT the only one who played that game!

[@lowspeclabs]

I remember this!

[@Sidewinder1996]

Was literally reminiscing about flash games with my nephew who was making a some type of mini game using some programming nurturing app on his tablet. I kinda hate how social media and the internet has evolved. A level of personalization and expression was robbed from us by malicious actors. Art suffering from bad actors and greed isn't new but still hurts. I remember when youtube channels were on par with MySpace personalization

[@paulstelian97]

The thing is _some_ of Flash history was preserved via Flashpoint. There's some junk and also some hidden gems both in there. And one of my favourite games, Submachine, was pretty much originally a Flash game (and before Submachine Legacy dropped relatively recently, the offline purchased downloads were still Flash games pretty much, just packaged as .exe)

[@Rayvn7]

...Which is BAD because every internet user would like to be able to actually see your stuff without 27 years of "exploring" to be mandatory first when it is literally nothing but a KZbin channel. If you want to completely move the interface around and have weird shit all around outside of the posts/videos themselves, then that can be done on ANOTHER WEBSITE. Not the assholes who do that shi tto their profiles/pages on a site that al rready has a known interface, such as MySpace or a wiki or somethingawful.

[@kc821guam]

I remember installing flash on my PC 19282 times and still getting error screens saying I don’t have flash installed.

[@andrewong2956]

You can install extensions for flash games. Try Ruffle Flash Emulator or Flash Player 2024.

[@hamedsafari8534]

Me too 😅

[@charliebrownn6622]

For me was the Java virtual machine

[@teracraged320]

its a trap

[@frankieslounge]

14:00 It is so hilarious that Apple's owner complained basically about a monopoly

[@axethepenguin]

Steve wasn’t completely wrong - Adobe did have a monopoly but yeah very ironic

[@frankieslounge]

@axethepenguin He was right about security and mobile compatibility, indeed.

[@michaelsanchez1361]

But Apple didn't monopolize the internet platform. I prefer internet today because it just works. no need to install plugins like flash, java, and silverlight.

[@friedcatfood]

How so? Apple isn’t a monopoly in any market

[@frankieslounge]

@@friedcatfood But they tried hard to impose one.

[@advait_]

That sponsorship segment was so good I hated it

[@AndrewPCs]

Brought back memories from when I was around 4.

[@ambostralian]

Losing flash effectively overnight is like if stone tablets were all destroyed the moment paper was invented.

[@MrBelles104]

But we had years of notice it was going to be killed in 2020.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@MrBelles104 Doesn't really change that much, because what occurred in the end is still a lot like what ambostralian has described.

[@KairuHakubi]

@@MrBelles104 oh cool I'll just make backup copies of all my stone tablets, and i'm sure it'll run exactly the same on paper, even the textures and bevels..

[@IulianYT]

@@ChocoRainbowCorn Well, it depends. Around that time I was playing more or less some browser games, one of which was almost completely on flash, and other has flash as a core part of the game. I don't mean thousands of mini-games on flash, but multiplayer browser games. So, one game, "astroflux" pretty much died out together with flash, either devs didn't care or didn't have enough resources. Other game, which was a mix of html and flash, with an daily online of less than 20k by that time, but still live today - survived. But, they started porting the game engine on html5, bit by bit, step by step. Of course the appearance changed, some functional was intentionally left out, some new features were added. And at first they introduced it as an option on user level, so people could chose individually to have game displayed in flash or html5 *before* the flash EOL. And there was resistance, even from me, as it looked like completely new game, some buttons for some reason were moved (although over time they did get it close enough to old design). But now, when I see old videos on youtube from the game - I see that now it is much better. So, they preserved the game, by migrating or rather pretty much reimplementing it on new framework. And it was not something they did ten years in advance, they started rolling out changes when already everyone knew about incoming EOL and game community started asking on forum what will happen. And after flash EOL, the html5 implementation was still buggy, and even the game itself had some functional lost, well, mostly "Easter eggs" and mini-games unrelated to multiplayer gameplay. But the game survived, because it has developers looking over. From the user perspective - yes, it is like stone tablets being destroyed, but some projects did "copy" it on paper before the night stone tables were destroyed.

[@Qce-i6d]

​@@KairuHakubi😂😂

[@ziggybaker3446]

Man I miss Flash-era interent. It was such an innocent time. Social Media has ruined such a good thing!

[@michaelsanchez1361]

However flash platform was full security holes to exploit by hackers. I prefer the internet platform today because no need to install required plugins in order to access web content. anything just works

[@AlfinoFr]

well, facebook hosted countless flash games back then...

[@corvuscorax3880]

Someone who buys apple products must be crazy. Why pay for the same electronics 600-800% more with very limited capabilities? Such "users" may be called disabled.

[@kylosun]

Your opening statement is cognitively and actually disassociated from its conclusion. Flash as a technology has nothing to do with social media and both overlapped for a considerable period of time anyway.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@AlfinoFr Yeah. I find it just kinda sad and boring how people complain about social media so much. Social media ain't no saint for sure, but it's far from being the purest evil of the world and it still serves plenty of purpose as well. Social media by itself isn't what "ruined" anything - It is bad parenting and generally the world kids are growing up in nowadays.

[@fairydraws]

Im shocked you didnt mention the flashpoint archive, it doesn't have everything but it has a lot. Alsoooo i run a twitter account dedicated to virtual world history and most of the virtual worlds i talk about on there are flash games so its always nice to see someone talk about this stuff. We're lucky poptropica and webkinz were able to survive flash shutting down, but most games weren't as lucky and thats why its important to talk about them. im glad fans try to revive them through private servers, everything from club penguin to disney's cars online can be played through a private server these days.

[@Brandontanked]

do you know abt stardoll?

[@fairydraws]

@eezequiel13 ive heard of it but i always get it mixed up with starfall😭

[@LangkeeLongkee]

Have you ever looked into Secret Builders? I LOVED that one as a preteen

[@ShiningStarAhsokaTanofan]

Animal Jam survived as well.

[@fairydraws]

@ShiningStarAhsokaTanofan barely, the main game isn't doing to well/never gets updated and they're mostly focused on their app now. But its better than nothing!

[@chrisdigitalartist]

Ironically, all these "flashy" things for the internet were at a time that a lot of people still had slower internet access and PCs, and now we have more than enough speed and yet websites are just plain.

[@potatopotato8360]

Everything is extremely bland, corporate, and risk averse now. It's so lame. The early-mid 2000s were such an exciting time I wish I lived back then :(.

[@michaelsanchez1361]

But those flashy things are full of security holes which be exploited by hackers. That's why flash platform was abandon because of those security flaws. I prefer websites today because it just works, no need to worry about plugins to install

[@TitaniumTurbine]

@@michaelsanchez1361 If being an American has taught me anything recently, it’s that a majority of people don’t really care about risk, bad behavior, or basic security.

[@chrisdigitalartist]

@@michaelsanchez1361 Good point. Also, a lot of creative things can be done with HTML 5 and CSS now.

[@theX24968Z]

because people call making a website anything other than plain "tacky" and "childish" and "immature"

[@JohnDoe-tx8lq]

I was a Flash developer and loved it! ActionScript 1, 2 and 3 for interactive web sites, rather than straight games. (Started learning animation & code with Director, when everything was on CDs!)

[@andrewong2956]

Yep! The coding is almost identical to JavaScript!

[@R.B.]

​@@andrewong2956 Flash ActionScript 3 _was_ ECMAScript 3, so it was more pronounced than that even. Earlier versions of Flash were Flash's own language which had similarities to JavaScript, but not a 1:1 match.

[@imaperson1060]

I literally *just* wrote a research paper on the impact of Flash for my English 101 course. Seeing the notification for this video made my day! Not to mention this channel has the best sponsor segments that I actually watch through :)

[@steveafulton]

Thanks for this video about Flash. I used to be a Flash game developer, before the industry was crushed by the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. I badly miss those days, but I'm happy to see the kids who loved the games from that era are starting to take action.

[@whatgamesweplay]

I miss Flash, but was relieved when it was gone. I used to work for a cheap web design company where we used a program called Swish, which was intended to help Flash creators to access resources if they lost their original files, to "hack" existing flash sites and resell them with new content. the death of Flash buried so many of those sins

[@immyownperson1375]

🤔

[@hydreg]

13:40 Apple complaining about proprietary solutions is peak of hypocrisy.

[@I.____.....__...__]

But also not surprising in the least; Jobs was always a sleazy used car salesman. 😒

[@MrBelles104]

The clear advantages of Open Source I wish would translate to operating systems as a whole.

[@MrGeocidal]

I came here to make this comment but I knew in my heart that it had already been made.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@MrBelles104 Also called the Linux fanboy copium.

[@zachw566]

Apple is generally very supportive of open standards, much more so than Adobe. Both are bad, but adobe is far worse in terms of their lack of open standards, see PDF or PSD

[@mirrorportal1587]

I have a different memory of Flash. I remember a lot of sites prompting me to ”update flash”, even though it was installed, which was a low-level attempt at spreading adware

[@xgui4-studios]

these ads still exists (probably i use a adblocked so i no longer see ads lol)

[@TitaniumTurbine]

@@xgui4-studios So they “still exists” but you use an adblocker, so you don’t really know if they do? What the actual fuck?

[@m0nbebe]

@@TitaniumTurbinenot all blockers work the same

[@DezsikeDevil1]

Back then it was enough to disable Flash Player and only enable when needed. It got rid the wast majority of the ads and those remained were simple and not annoying at all. We didn't needed adblockers. Now the Internet cannot be used without one.

[@MrBelles104]

@@m0nbebe That's irrelevant, because even if their adblock didn't work, he'd know for sure that they do exist when he sees the ads.

[@bradwynpaulse]

Crazy how the founder of the most renowned closed garden ecosystem criticised flash for not being open to everyone

[@thedude15-sm2zu]

They’re both equally bad.

[@LordVarkson]

In 2010, I went to college and studied to be a Flash developer. I got a few years out of that skillset before the world moved on, but it was surreal to see my platform actively be killed while I was studying it.

[@BNWilliamGaming]

Ok, that is possibly the best sponsor I’ve ever seen on KZbin!

[@MirandaTheInkling34]

Flash Games made the childhoods of many of the kids of 2000's and 2010's..I miss all the classic flash games that I'd play on my mom's computer such as Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters..

[@xgui4-studios]

it made my childhood

[@melaniemartinezfan7862]

Yes!! I remember also playing girlsgogames (I think that’s the name) and would play so many fashion games! I miss it so much :(

[@brodriguez11000]

Games, and creative websites that were smooth for the time.

[@ProsyStrangers]

I think of all the lost media subjects this is the one that makes me the most sad. Flash really made such a huge difference in the turn of the millennium internet space. Also, I almost always fast forward through ads but this one had me entranced 😆

[@Babby6010]

NGL. The ad break was so well done and equally unhinged. Please make more like this. Wouldn’t skip a single one. “Is it me?! Am I the joke?!”

[@zamoscow]

flash games are essentially nostalgia we would like to relive every once in a while

[@SergeantExtreme]

One thing I liked about Adobe Flash was that it "scaled" (I think that's the word I'm looking for) infinitely. You can download a Flash game from 2004, and run it full screen on a modern 1900x1080 computer screen; and it won't look janky or pixelated in any way. That's a feature I haven't seen in any other platform currently in existence.

[@itsthatsebguy93]

When I was a kid I was obsessed with cartoon network flash games. It's sad to think some of them might be lost forever.

[@swagmode29]

i think most if not all of them are on flashpoint! they have my favorite game Cartoon Cartoon Resort which i think is pretty obscure

[@itsthatsebguy93]

@swagmode29 Ha. I played tf out of that game back in the day. I don't think I ever played it to the end.

[@lxfenix]

I laughed harder at an ad than i have at anything else in a long time. Absolute masterpiece!

[@MCisAwesome95]

A moment of silence for the old Garfield website. Personally one of the most tragic losses

[@AshleyDubblestein]

The effort put into the sponsorship ALWAYS makes me watch it completely through

[@Konic_and_Snuckles]

Adobe should have just released the source code to Flash Player when they discontinued it in 2020. It's not like anyone can make money off it at this point, not even them. It makes no sense taking it to the grave. At least if Adobe hosted the code on github or whatever, Ruffle and others could better emulate, and indeed preserve, SWF media.

[@axethepenguin]

It’s Adobe - the same company that charges cancellation fees when cancelling a subscription

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@axethepenguin Well yes, but the comment is still right, so, you know.

[@ProjectionProjects2.7182]

Yeah its terrible how they never did that.

[@brodriguez11000]

Open source managed to build players.

[@kingnick6260]

Well it was originally Macromedia Flash. Maybe if it was still Macromedia then they would’ve cared

[@FightingTable]

I used to love playing flash games as a kid, my favourite was Raze 2 and Strike Force Heroes 2 as well as henry stickmin games

[@MirandaTheInkling34]

Mine were Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters

[@EvanMMD3939]

Mine were the run trilogy on coolmathsgames

[@wasd____]

Steve Jobs: "I don't like it because it's proprietary! We want to be able to have our say!" Also Steve Jobs: _Creates a closed, proprietary, completely walled-garden MacOS/iOS ecosystem_ Gotta love corporate feudalism. This is why I won't buy Apple anything, ever.

[@dunebasher1971]

I guess you never read Jobs' open letter about Flash? He directly addresses and acknowledges the point about proprietary systems. He also says "...the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards - all areas where Flash falls short...", which was absolutely true. That's before you factor in Flash's major issues with security. Flash was a short-term proprietary solution to an issue that was properly addressed by the open HTML5.

[@wasd____]

@@dunebasher1971 I read it but I don't believe for a single second that Jobs actually cared about any of that. There's no actual reason he would. He was never in it to make a "good computer" in terms of what's best for consumers or for power efficiency or whatever, he was in it to make devices that _sell_ and he'd say or do anything to sell them. Everything he cites in there is all surface-level "concern" serving as nothing but rationalization to cover for the actual motivation of Jobs simply wanting his monopoly to be the hypocritical beneficiary of open standards and permissively licensed software while not planning to ever offer the same in return to the rest of the world.

[@wasd____]

@@dunebasher1971 Yeah that sounds like stuff I'd say too if I wanted to protect my monopoly so I could keep everyone else of my own walled garden but thought it sounded better if I pretended to be "concerned" about "low power and open standards" so that consumers who don't know better might think I have their best interests instead of my billions of dollars of stock options in mind.

[@george.vasilev.reyner1916]

Why are we still listening to Steve Jobs? Not like he's gonna do anything about it if we don't.

[@SN57ONE]

Can't believe you're taking it out on a dead person. You're pathetic.

[@TheRedCometKid]

The best Uses of Flash were Homestar runner, and Coolmath games, hands down. Edit: I meant online

[@TheRedCometKid]

Also I was never able to experience Club Penguin in it's heyday

[@Crudely-Drawn-Cupcake]

Homestar Runner is built with Ruffle, last time I checked. (It even works on Meta Quest)

[@TheRedCometKid]

@Crudely-Drawn-Cupcake The Ruffle project is a flash emulator, converting it to HTML5. The base of it is still flash, but it is output to safer structuring. (Edit: nice profile picture)

[@MarionStevensJr]

​@@Crudely-Drawn-Cupcakenow I'm going to have to go check that out. I absolutely loved Strong Bad. Is it still hosted on the original site, or has it been moved? God, I can't wait to show this to my kids.

[@TuxerTuxar]

Newgrounds?

[@OneFordyBoi]

Everyone talks about Flash Player but nobody seems to talk about Macromedia Shockwave when it comes to games. :(

[@anthsil]

Funnily enough I’m running a game server that uses shockwave still and early flash assets on the webpage.

[@SingularCherubim]

Oddly enough, they're kind of the same thing! Flash was originally "Shockwave Flash", a lighter-weight version of the full-featured Shockwave. That's why the file extension is ".swf"

[@paulstelian97]

Flashpoint. It's got some old Shockwave games as well. Plus a few other technologies (Flash is the most "populated" one)

[@fvzw.]

As a developer who has worked a heavy amount with HTML5 (it's like, 70% of my academic github) and web development, stories of old softwares like this always tickles my brain. Flash Player is something that always had me intrigued by it, how it had the whole internet on a leash was fascinating and the exploits were always so fun to study for me. great video as always man, good one :)

[@ViciousViscount]

I'll forever hold a special place for Flash in my heart. That's how my journey with programming started. Actionscript 3.0 was the bomb.

[@QualityCandor]

I am so glad the Brothers Chaps and sites like Newgrounds worked on getting alternatives integrated on their Flash content. Losing sites like Homestar Runner and all the insane games and animations made on Newgrounds would be a massive loss.

[@xtiann442]

Homestarrunner whoa long time no hear

[@raz0229]

Brings back memories. I remember downloading literally any flash game I came across, and had thousands of SWF files on my PC to just click and play offline when stable internet connection was still an issue

[@DawnCoffee0]

NationSquid really just dropped lore in the format Bluey's Clues in the ad

[@Sagadali523]

Living the internet with the Adobe Flash being discontinued has got to be the worst feeling ever happened in life.

[@michaelsanchez1361]

Flash was full of security holes in the first place. If still exists today, malwares, data breaches, and hacks will increase ten times

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@michaelsanchez1361 At the very least the tech that is made to replace it and help it back out from the olden times keeps security in mind this time around.

[@xgui4-studios]

steve job saying being proprietary is bad while doing it is ridiculous

[@neilugaddan]

The death of flash + minimalism = boring sites

[@TheMimic12]

Blue's Clues was my very first special interest as a child and your extended homage brings me great joy

[@vojtechadame5860]

Flash games are really nostalgic for me. I played them my entire childhood through the 2010s. I really enjoy to look back in time and sometimes play these games. Thankfully, Flashpoint has a lot of them, which really saves a day.

[@Jazm-nj2de]

how dare KZbin hide this for 56 mins

[@MiaBeePlayz]

I remember I used to play games on CoolMathGames all the time back in elementary-high school. But when I saw that message saying the game is no longer supported because Flash is dead, I felt really sad. Of course there is some games on that website still on there today but now they have a bunch of ads you are forced to watch now to continue playing and its just not the same anymore. Take me back to 2010 please x.x

[@ZonamaPrime]

Internet is dead now.

[@MrBelles104]

@@ZonamaPrime The Internet is dead, and I ate the modem wires.

[@devinjanosov]

Without Flash, all those tasteless games after 9/11 wouldn’t have been possible.

[@yeahreally9185]

Hey Squid, subscriber and lightbulb head here with a friendly suggestion for your backdrop. I appreciate the soft white (yellow) hue of your lamps giving that old-school incandescent feel. I'd recommend picking up some mid-90s (or older if you can find them) GE Reveal bulbs for that warm, authentic, pinkish-orangey-yellow incandescent glow that even the best LEDs just can't seem to replicate. Not sure if you can still import incandescents to Cali but there are plenty of unscrupulous eBay sellers (and myself) who would ship without a care for regulations. I only mention this because you seem to have an eye for detail that helps contribute to your overall retro aesthetic. Even if you decide not to use them on your set, I've found that they're just swell for overall mental health. Like a pleasant scent in the air.

[@venabre]

Neopets is a site that was built around flash that somehow managed to remain afloat despite the end of flash. But it was hard for them. And even to this day the functionality isn't what once was, and some areas of the site are still broken.

[@ArtakaWorksStudio]

Honestly the limitations of Flash forced creators to really innovate on what could be done with the medium. I remember being absolultely mesmerised by the Mata Nui Online Game (which has thankfully been preserved as a downloadable application). At first glance its a simple point and click adventure, but the presentation is just pure art imo

[@Mario-bl8ly]

I was hoping someone would mention MNOG in the comments! :) Still one of my favourite games ever.

[@Dave5400]

The fact that Adobe decided not to create an emulator to support old Flash programmes and games is criminal. It still amazes me that they preferred to just forget about everything before HTML5, and hope nobody would notice. Fortunately, we have people like Rumble who honourably stepped up to the mark, but its irritating that so much still doesn't (and probably never will) work.

[@Thecherrybro07]

I remember the day Flash shutdown...it was actually one of the saddest days for me...I miss Flash.

[@KairuHakubi]

but that was also the day Stinkoman level 10 finally came out ... you know you can still use Flash, right. just keep your scriptblocker on so you have to enable each video you WANT to play.

[@leezhieng]

I remember we were still learning Flash in college and by the time we graduate Flash just got shut down. Fuuuuu

[@МаксатРсымбетов-з9о]

The sponsorship referencing Blue's Clues show was a great deal of "memory unlocked" moment for me. The only sponsorship I won't skip and remember.

[@haikalmiftah2529]

Indeed, remind me to my childhood in the early-mid 2000's.

[@purifiedchaos0404]

I don't know if I just missed it or not, but you could also point people to the Flashpoint Archive as a safer way for them to relive their old games and memories. They have a great amount of flash games and webpages there as well. Including a list of flash games/media being searched for

[@KairuHakubi]

don't forget swfchan (or is that what he said, i didn't catch it)

[@MatthewChristianMurray]

As a college student in the mid-aughts, I loved to play Flash games on the school desktops between classes. I was living at home, attending classes locally, and generally quite bored. These games were a refuge for me. Bubble Trouble was one I enjoyed. I also liked the two Carnyville games by Mark Arenz and his site, Ridiculopathy. I actually have the better part of a short story written based on them and he gave me permission to publish as long as he’s credited. Eventually I’ll get around to finishing it but I just haven’t quite worked out the ending.

[@Zwomqiie]

used to play a website called horrorscarygames and it died with flash, so many games little me was thrilled by just gone.💔😣

[@NNinja1255]

There is a huge archive of flash games with a program called Flashpoint. You can either have them all downloaded in one go (archive focused) or on-demand (storage space focused). I was able to relive so many childhood memories with Flashpoint alone.

[@CjDcoy]

Dofus was the most advanced flash game, still running on flash with hundreads of thousands of players. This december they will release their dofus 3 game running on unity as flash isn't supported anymore and got too many constrains. Pretty insane what they could build with flash tho

[@TheScrowlingFender7]

There's Flashpoint, Ruffell (Flash emulator) and some titles were saved on the Internet Archive + Wayback Machine.

[@odinpeanut]

Last year I found a folder from a KZbin video via link, which actually has a working real version of Adobe Flash! It came with a flash file of BFDIA 5b, and it was actually playable!

[@V_Blocky]

I played BFDIA 5b, it was a great game by Cary Huang. Glad to play the first BFDI game

[@jacobwhite1360]

7:23 first time viewer here.. kinda lost me here.

[@stevenjames3455]

"We just got a leettterr" 🤣Nah this video was incredible, thank you. Aligned so much with things I think about almost every day and which no-one else seems to see or talk about. I feel similarly towards what's happening with railway stock in the UK. So many iconic trains from the British Rail era are being scrapped with no preservation, and replaced with ones which don't even do the job properly. No attention to their history, no learning from it. Pieces of people's childhoods just thrown in the bin - and they'd have such good uses. So grateful for your attention to relics of technology! My inner child thanks you :)

[@VertexIMG]

fortunately there was a flash game library successfully archived 700 ish SWFs and fully playable on windows XP VM. its name is Flash Games 1.01

[@JuhoLaiti]

And Flashpoint is massive, it has about 1.4 terabytes of flash games archived!

[@jgordon7719]

First of all as a software engineer let me correct a couple of things. 1) flash went by other terms initially, started by macromedia and shockwave. 2) HTML5 does replace a lot of the web elements but flash and HTML5 are inherently completely different things. Flash in itself was never a browser it was a means to load a player on a page. 3) The reason why flash was deprecated is in part due to the phone market and lack of support on phone devices. 4) flash was a performance hog which is the main reason for its fall but now JavaScript has advanced enough to the point to where it could probably emulate flash pretty easily. That coupled with web assembly. The story of flash is not over and there will be ways to play our old flash media very soon if not already happening.

[@Livi_Noelle]

The irony of Steve Jobs whining about proprietary software is rich.

[@pomgrenade9865]

Your channel and your narration is like no other. Amazing, nostalgic, reconforting, instructive and interesting content is always on the menu!

[@erossutrisno]

6:46 I heard, "We Just Got a Ladder"

[@mpa-vr]

"WE JUST GOT A LADDER!" *starts climbing it forever*

[@real-csc]

New NationSquid video, i got a bag of sour cream and onion chips, bro i'm living the life

[@mopeioanimations8318]

great video!

[@acuracsx]

Are we not gonna talk about the folder named "Plans for World Domination"? Asides that, I used to love playing flash games, especially the Papa's series e.g. Papa's Pizzeria, etc.

[@fishhy4]

the sponsor bits are getting crazier by the second

[@linkthastink]

I took two years of game design classes in high school and one of those years were dedicated to learning flash. I had so many cool games and animations.

[@Carrot.Canvas]

Fun fact blue clues dosent use actully letters now it’s FUCKING EMAILS 😭😭

[@KairuHakubi]

even emails are kind of passé for kids now, aren't they?

[@LarxieArveri]

ok i really love your ad reads lmao. i could not have predicted it was a bombas ad and i love that. also you ham things up just enough to be silly af but still enjoyable. also also, flash games were my shit growing up. its so sad that proper preserval has been so hard

[@yousefslimani99]

We all missed the original flash player, RIP! We’re stuck with unaccurate flash emulations instead 😢

[@MLWJ1993]

There's Flashpoint. Which bundles everything you need to play flash games locally (and even provides a ton of SWF files available for download from their database).

[@yousefslimani99]

@ flashpoint huh! How much big the installer file size are? It’s not like it takes gigabytes of memory to download the installer and install flashpoint with all SFW files at once

[@MLWJ1993]

@yousefslimani99 the website says up to ~3.5gb Given it depends on how many games you have installed at once. With all of the database installed it's 1.68tb though 😆

[@yousefslimani99]

@ Well 3.5GB aren’t so bad but 1.68TB? Hot Dang man!! That requires a serious SSD to install all of them at once

[@MLWJ1993]

@@yousefslimani99 It even says it's for hoarders & you should probably pick the other option if you're a normal individual 😅

[@realmynameshiro]

The whole internet looks so boring, bland and uninspiring. The old pre-2016 internet was so beautiful, it used to amaze me whenever I looked at it. Every website back then inspired me to be creative. Not a single website gives me that feeling anymore.

[@TheGaming100]

Correction: Flash Games never died, they are all still playable with maxima flashpoint and not to mention downloadable offline swfs are there for every flash game. Otherwise like always this was an amazing video!

[@TuxerTuxar]

There are still some that are lost, Like Walt's Warning, A Game made to promote Breaking Bad

[@LangkeeLongkee]

Only the popular ones would be saved not more random niche things. To believe literally every flash game is preserved and playable is extremely naive.

[@TitaniumTurbine]

Others have said it already, but yeah that is 100% factually incorrect. What even led you to believe that “all” and “every” flash game was saved? That’s crazy… and labeling this as a “correction” too. Lol I just don’t get how or why someone would make such a claim like this.

[@ChocoRainbowCorn]

@@LangkeeLongkee You do know that many niche things are also saved? Sure, more of those is lost than preserved, but you know, still. Not sure how come people are forgetting that, but then again, this is the kind of world we live in.

[@LangkeeLongkee]

@@ChocoRainbowCorn did I say niche things are never ever preserved ever or that it's naive to say every single flash material would be saved. I'll wait.

[@AEGISAOE]

man, flash would lag the browser so bad sometimes, but im so grateful for the endless flash games we had

[@izzatsufian2796]

Adobe flash was my favourite because the games are the best such as Last Stand Union City and much more❤ miss those memories

[@Atomhaz]

I don’t think you can overstate how much of the internet was lost

[@KairuHakubi]

and even before that, sometimes a flash-heavy site would go down, and... did anyone archive it? of course not. couldn't download every .swf automatically, that's not how that works. so those were gone. I still miss Pure Color Animal Park.

[@nirmalkarthikeyan7346]

OOH NEW NationSquid video. Here's my Sunday looking all up now!

[@ILoveCanada0]

The passion in this video is so amazing so incredible inspiring. Also the mail clip using blues clues man the wholesome vibes, until the sad divorce thing..

[@HealingRepublic]

Flash games were the best

[@wadmodderschalton5763]

13:17 the mobile era was essentially the final nail to Adobe Flash's coffin, as mobile devices relied on App Stores rather than browser plugins as a means of software. Adobe did try to port the Flash Player to Android in 2010, but it wasn't a commercial success and was discontinued less than a year later.

[@ImAPersonHehehehaw]

2:37 oh dear

[@theoriginalop]

Hits you right in the olds, huh? 😂

[@TonytheGr8]

😂😂😂😂

[@neddiego2570]

RIP Miniclip

[@nekipeh7373]

Hello to all my Club Penguin brothers and sisters!

[@xarin42]

The problem is that the web with flash was not an art museum, or even something close to it. It was more like a set of malls full of rental locations for shops. And so it was left up to the individual renter whether or not they would or even could afford to move their merchandise to a new more appropriate location that doesn't have asbestos in the walls.

[@spencerdokes6056]

11:55 did he say "halfhazardly "? Isnt it haphazardly??

[@realbenactually]

bone apple tea

[@-_Duckie_-]

@@realbenactuallyerm it’s bone apple teeth🤓

[@RZ302]

If you have a flash game you wanna play somewhere saved as a SWF file, or can still find it on the website it is hosted on, you can just use the offline version of flash player to play it. Only the browsr extension stopped working.

[@thegamingchannel7110]

no one finished this video at the time of writing!

[@maxdon2001]

Great video! Sad how much content was lost!

[@Marinealver]

The technology is still there, Big Tech just refuses to allow it to remain because they/them can't monetize it.

[@Keaton-l8m]

You explained the SWFs so well actually. You earned yourself a like and a sub🎉