The Flash Games Postmortem

In this 2017 GDC talk, Kongregate's John Cooney attempts to encapsulate the immense history of Flash games and how it has shaped the current game industry by giving game developers their first chance to build and publish their games quickly to the web.
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[@RobertMilesAI]

I love that games are an industry where a guy who looks like he's just graduated can give a talk about his experiences in a historic 'retro' period. Both because games move fast and because devs start young

[@VayMatt]

Robert Miles omg i love your ai videos. i didnt expect to see you here

[@PieterDeStickere]

Yeah, it's hard to realize being 25 and having witnessed 7 out of 8 console generations. It's merely a beginning.

[@numgun]

Wow look at this prejudiced ageist piece of shit. Fuck you.

[@PieterDeStickere]

oh look a wild troll appeared.

[@DeathBringer769]

+Pieter De Stickere I think you're counting too many generations in there for your age. Seeing Pong systems (gen 1) and Atari systems (gen 2) long after they already came out (they came out way before you were born) isn't you "witnessing" that generation, as in living through it. It's just you seeing the past, even if it was in 1995 looking back. I was born in 1988. I'm 29 now. I played Atari 2600 as a kid, but I didn't live through that generation. It was already a relic of the past when I was playing it in 1991 at age 3. Same with NES. It was already out for years by the time I could start developing lasting memories. I got to see the end of that generation though, just before SNES came out. Somehow though, you're 4 years younger than me and say you've seen more console generations in their time, even though I've been gaming longer lol. Reel it back in a little son. There's nothing wrong with a little honest humility instead of exaggeration. Unless you were alive and old enough to form lasting memories from the time a console first game out till the very end of the generation, then you didn't "witness" that generation fully. You lived through 5 full generations, max. Playing Atari 2600 back in '95 (or whenever you first played it) is no different than playing it today. You're still playing a relic of that past, not "witnessing that generation" fully while it was still the current thing.

[@DeathBringer769]

My friend in college (Dan Fleming) made Kitten Cannon in a day or two as a joke. He later sold the rights off for $50,000. Not too shabby.

[@etepeteseat7424]

Oh, man, when I first started watching this, I didn't realize that the man behind some of the most innovative and enjoyable games I've ever played would be giving the talk. I still go on Newgrounds occasionally, and I hope they manage to preserve Flash going forward into the future!

[@qeshi]

I uploaded a Flash game last week.

[@Lanen1917]

Check out BlueMaxima's Flashpoint. There Is a huge project that is saving thousands and thousands of flash games

[@orsomethinlykethat]

hey you're not gonna believe this

[@Alzter0]

"I have a constant fear that we'll lose millions of games because browser support will end" About that...

[@AlanRedgown]

The moment I saw "jmtb02" appear on that PowerPoint, I was filled with nerdy joy and nostalgia. Didn't even realize that's who I was listening to for the first 2+ minutes. Makes me want to go revisit Ball Revamped! 8)

[@danatronics9039]

I loved his elephant games!

[@waytoobiased]

Ball revamped 1-4 work on Newgrounds without Flash. If it isn't working, add ?emulate=flash to the end of the URL.

[@tehf00n]

I started with Flash 4 and now work as a game developer using c++ and unreal engine. If it wasn't for Flash, I would never have had the belief in myself that I could program a game. As a gateway tool, it was perfect. The only downside to flash was that it was used maliciously, via spam and bandwidth hogging. When people tell me they hate flash because its bad, I say no, there are only bad developers. Flash was magnificent once it hit as3.0

[@nerdy_crawfish]

Any program designed to be used on the internet must be built under the assumption that malicious developers will attempt to exploit it and prevent them from doing so. Flash has had many exploits that allow for arbitrary code execution (which can be used to take control over the host machine in some cases) and the Flash developers have proven incapable of making it secure. Google "flash cve" and the first result should be a list of known vulnerabilities. No program is perfect but the shear number of vulnerabilities that allow for code execution is inexcusable. That's why flash is bad and you should remove it from your system asap or at the very least make it require your explicit permission to run.

[@SteelSkin667]

Flash is bad because browser plugins are bad, but Flash as an editing tool still shines. It's a de facto standard in the animation industry.

[@raynoldregan3669]

tehf00n Flash was something grandpas used tho, young devs these days start with unity.

[@tehf00n]

well im 41 and have 4 kids, but not a grandpa yet :)

[@ernestgu6800]

I'm barely 20 and I started with Flash. I definitely don't consider myself a grandpa yet.

[@SAMACSTUDIOS]

These games were my childhood. I was never really allowed to play *real* video games, so my video games life was devoted to flash games. From the bottom of my heart, I say thank you - to all of the developers that worked so hard to make these wonderful games.

[@dennisklomp2361]

SAMAC Studios same dude, I really think I played at least half of the great flash games there are; except for platformers, they dont work for me. Anyways, all time favorite: mud and blood 2 goddamn amazig little game. If I ever pursue software it is to kick that game back to life.

[@kalkazar13]

Same here. And some of the best things I ever played were from Kongregate

[@AmunRa1]

On a somewhat related note, it blew my mind when I figured out that the people who made the short flash game "Don't shit your pants" ended up making one of my favorite games on Steam, "Rogue Legacy".

[@officialurl]

As a young internet user, I wasn't able to experience this side of Flash. Since I can remember, Flash was already started to being seen as something obsolete, and I couldn't understand why. And now I'm sad that I never got to meet its golden age.

[@adsilcott]

Man I didn't realize it until now, but as much as I enjoyed the Indie Game Movie, I always felt like something was missing from it... and this is it. It came in after the story had already started. The movie got a sequel, but what it really needs is a prequel... Great talk about a very important time in game dev history!

[@cragnog]

Thanks for notifying me that there's a sequel though! I'm now excited to watch that

[@kaua0f0m]

wait igdb had a sequel? i literally cant find it online...

[@MrSensitiveNipples]

I've never even thought about how much Flash has shaped my childhood until watching this video.

[@cynicshminic]

The Flash gaming market is far more innovative and creative than the modern mobile gaming market ever was, and it's incredible that many of us grew up playing these games completely for free. I loved many of John Cooney's game too. I hope these great games get archived and remain playable and demonstrable to new generations.

[@zeikjt]

Flash was my way into making games and programming in general. The fact that it was so quick to go from writing some code to seeing something happen on screen was a positive feedback loop that kept me trying new stuff. Long live the legacy of Flash.

[@PaddyMcMe]

I love GDC videos. Eye opening.

[@gabrielarpio]

I spent my adolescence with dial-up internet and playing flash games. This vid gave me a good nostalgia feeling. The world has changed so much and I feel so old now

[@drifter402]

It's unacceptalbe how Flash games have been so ignored by the "games industry" (AKA a single social circle full of ex goons that everybody must get approval from for publicity) Fuck me I forgot about Line Rider.

[@elektra81516]

Sometimes when I get a bit upset about the industry and ask myself why I waste my time making things I never finish, I look back on why I started... Flash Games. Miniclip, Kongregate, Armor Games, Crazy Monkey, Newgrounds, the list goes on. Those sites were my childhood and I'll never forget them. Shame to see the "free to play" scene, especially on mobile, is now mostly all about earning money rather than making good games.

[@4ickyy]

This is so sad. I remember Flash games and the ease of which I played them. Load a site, within seconds your playing a full mini game. It was so easy and there was no barrier to entry. There is no real replacement to Flash. HTML5 does not come close.

[@TheDXPower]

Did anyone else love the Line Rider on the thumbnail??

[@prfo5554]

Someone now needs to make a postmortem for the Java web plugin.

[@ExEBoss]

The difference is that there is almost no content for the Java web plugin in comparison to Flash, and (almost) any Java web plugin content can be run on a modern JVM the same as any other Java desktop application. I say almost because near the end of the Java web plugin’s life cycle, it got the ability to communicate with the web page’s JavaScript.

[@fredfuchs285]

Funny how Flash Games died partly thanks to the rise of ad-blockers which many people started using because ads used poorly optimised Flash elements themself. Which is also why Flash got such a poor reputation. So in a way Flash kinda killed itself.

[@JohnSmith-ox3gy]

fredfuchs285 Old tech from the early 2000's in a rapidly evolvin industry could never keep up.

[@Felsmukk]

I liked flash games. Sure 99% was crap, but the 1% was really great. EBF, Mardek, Creeper World, Mosnters Den.

[@tomoakley760]

Schoolkids in the 90s spent so many hours playing flash games at school that they should count as educational materials.

[@landslug393]

I miss the old flash game era, simple and fun.

[@alex.thedeadite]

This makes me remember the time in High School for my General Computer course when we did flash and we were told to make a simple flash game. I decided to recreate the first level of 1942, it was pretty fun and simple.

[@RealCoachMustafa]

I met this guy when I was given a tour at Kongergate in 2013. He probably doesn't remember me though. Nice to see his GDC talk.

[@whiteydiamond]

Nightmare House, Ricochet Kills, Exmortis 1 & 2, My Buddy, Madness, Last Stand 1 & 2, Ski Jump, even the Gorillaz driving game

[@Dukefazon]

Exmortis was really creepy, I loved it! Have you tried The Stone of Anamara?

[@jasonjasonjasonjasonjason]

newgrounds still has the best system for user content and ratings. Imagine if Steam had Blams. What an amazing world we would live in. Shoutout to the guy with the awesome question about political commentary in flash games. That was THE era. Loved those videos/games made in flash making fun of Bush

[@zoggere4226]

MyGameplaying tbh if steam had blams hipsters would try to get popular games blammed just to spite people.

[@pinkguy8205]

I don't know how good the system handles abusive reports, or how well it scales to massive user bases. I have a feeling that it would be abused more on a mainstream service like Steam.

[@dennisklomp2361]

Pink Guy the nice thing about blams is that 90 % of users tend to not be trolls or sponsored game 'reviewers' so the masses would cancel out the cancers

[@pinkguy8205]

Dennis Klomp. Remember voting power? People could literally blam/save submission on their own as long as they had enough voting power. You don't think that people would be willing to pay someone (or a group of people) with a lot of voting power to save their game? And that it would create a market for farming vote power and selling votes?

[@jorionedwards]

Maybe if voting power was removed. My vote (on relatively new account) is worth around 3 votes, but it can get to a ridiculous 16 votes.

[@garash2000]

>There wasn't a complete tool-parody with Flash, ... I laughed so hard at this mistake!!! Parity's the word you wanted to use ;)

[@tobymdev]

Only a month left for the funeral, friends. It has been quite a run, sincere thanks to all ye developers of flash games...

[@MagicalSamurai2]

Great talk, really hit on a lot of content in an hour. Flash was amazing for how easy it was to pick up and work in, how many tutorials popped up, and how easy it was to run. Pretty cool technology. The audience member that created new games every two weeks is really a testament to that.

[@JoshRafail]

Archiving would be a good thing to find out about. There will definitely be a time when it will not be possible to play flash games without some sort of GOG like system in place.

[@VulpesHilarianus]

I'm nine years too late, but I will say that a lot of these flash games were what inspired me to go into game development. If I had the skills I do now back in 2006 I would've been helping and creating games with everyone I could work with. I missed the golden age, but maybe we can make a new golden age for web-based games.

[@Spore-Productions]

Hmmmm... Why doesn't Adobe launch their OWN web browser with Flash built in?

[@AzuriteCoast]

Does anyone remember Sonny and Sonny 2? Those were classics.

[@dennisklomp2361]

Ian C. Beatifull. Gonna play them again tonight

[@MrPicklecopter]

You can get Sonny on the Google Play Store.

[@amywyvern3924]

Flash is dead for web browsers mostly because of all the security issues, annoying adverts, and exploits. But, Flash is still used for full-featured video games on PC and consoles, like Guitar Hero.

[@sketchdraft]

thanks for the insight into the technology behind my hundreds of hours of fun in grade school.

[@cragnog]

Regarding the first few slides in which John gives us a kind of climate of the times, talking about dial-up and using Titanic as a way to help us orientate ourselves... he brings it up like it's surprising but even as someone who was only 8 at that time I must wonder out loud, who is watching this talk and wasn't aware that broadband wasn't really a thing back then?

[@maxresdefault_]

gawd I love JMTB02

[@analanus3131]

That fucking elephant..

[@kobalt_ren01]

This Is The Only Level and Achievement Unlocked.

[@huzaifahfarooq3745]

My jaw dropped when I realised that this was the mysterious legend who had made some of the best games that has shaped my childhood.

[@spootot]

he still looks so young too

[@adsilcott]

I think Steve Jobs was annoyed that flash was platform agnostic, which meant it could work outside of Apple's closed ecosystem. And the world just went along with that, because... anything that Apple says is religion. Google didn't help when it ended support for NPAPI that was essential for Flash. It did so for security reasons, but I still think that there was a lot of ignorance about the incredible creative industry that Flash was central to. It was mostly associated with intrusive ads, which everyone hated, as can be attested to by the rise of ad blockers around that time.

[@shukterhousejive]

adsilcott flash was killed because it was a mile-wide malware hole that Adobe couldn't or wouldn't plug. JS has its own list of issues but giving you a million ways to break the browser sandbox isn't one of them.

[@ZoidbergForPresident]

HTML 5 isn't platform agnostic? It also is better than flash as it doesn't need a plugin installed for the browser.

[@banthepope]

I don't disagree with you, but if you look at a lot of the HTML5 stuff being done in 2015-2016 it was like a half-baked version of what was happening in Flash in 1999-2000 You can't say its removal had no effect on indie

[@velinion1]

Unfortunately, Flash had mile-wide security holes that Adobe regularly ignored for long periods of time. Not minor ones either - we are talking about complete file-system access just from visiting a page when flash was enabled. Even when Adobe finally DID get around to fixing a security hole, new holes were usually found within days. I don't have any inside information about Adobe, but Adobe finally made clear moves towards abandoning Flash, and I think it was because they realized that really fixing its security issues would require a complete re-write of the entire technology, which they clearly weren't willing to do.

[@adsilcott]

I think Adobe is often made out to be the bad guy when it comes to Flash's security, and they could have handled it better at times, but I just want to point out that ANYTHING that has a 99% adoption rate and has to rely on browser APIs that were created in 1995 would have security issues. It wasn't all Adobe's fault. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing that we've moved on from Flash, it was necessary. But it really disrupted the indie scene. HTML5 was a poor substitute for a long time. Games made in early versions of flash still run, the same can't be said of HTML5. I have a theory that Flash's death was one of the things that contributed to the popularity of Unity. It was the closest thing to what Flash offered.

[@KiraSlith]

I still use Achievement Unlocked as a tool to console people who severely need some successes in their lives. It has helped me literally saved the lives of 5 people I know of who where on the edge of suicide. Thank you for making these games John.

[@xplinux22]

I'm disappointed that Mozilla's Project Shumway never went anywhere. An open source HTML5 implementation of the Flash runtime would let us preserve classic games and animations for generations to come.

[@user-zm1xc9tx2b]

The wide spread and easy access made possible by that technology were the key things that drastically changed the gamedev industry and it is what Flash should be given all the props for. Doesn't matter who you are and what your opinion is on Flash, that revolution of independent game making and publishing is a kin to that of Scott Miller's Shareware model and will go down in history just like Tetris and Commodore 64. It wasn't new to make games all by yourself, but being able to put them in front of millions of players and getting paid for it was. And that shift shaped the tools and means with time so anyone, ANYONE can make a game now all by him or her self, hit a button, and get published. That's just amazing, helps all the parties, keeps the market healthy and alive and was largely influenced by the success of Flash games. RIP Flash.

[@castirondude]

Another lesson learned is that people will pronounce something dead just to try and sabotage it. Just like people have been saying "the PC is dead" for more than a decade and still most people have one... although the % of time spent is shifting to mobile.

[@cwooddirector]

My favorite portal for flash games back in the day was One More Level. They'd post a new flash game every day. I don't know if they ever actually asked permission to host it, but they had a huge library.

[@coreblaster6809]

I'VE BEEN WANTING SOMETHING LIKE THIS IT'S HERE

[@oddixgames6704]

Don't you feel like Unity is trying hard to replace Flash? Both ubiquity (porting to an unprecedented amount of platforms in one click) and a community interaction (recently starting the Unity Connect) also being innovative proposing an asset-distributing platform (Asset Store). To me Unity is the Next Flash :)

[@ActionGamerAaron]

You only think that because Flash could technically make games and Unity can now port to the web. Unity is made as a game engine primarily without Flash being even considered a competitor.

[@oddixgames6704]

A very decent observation you've made :) I was always puzzled how the others know what exactly I think :)

[@analanus3131]

It can only work with IE and Safari, the fuck? Fuck Unity.

[@LpSamuelm]

It wasn't really Unity's choice to "leave" Firefox and Chrome. Those browsers dropped NPAPI support, which blocked out the Unity plugin.

[@jackmcslay]

Josh Makler Uh, C# has much more similarities with Java than it does with C++

[@here0is0me]

Rewatching this one on Dec 31, 2020. The last day of Flash. Looking back, I'm very surprised it made it this far all things considered, but in some ways I believe Flash was perfect for those early internet days and likely as fundamental as Google for shaping the internet as we know it now.

[@seinenkakumeidjuru]

I loved this talk, the end was heartbreaking. I played each and every and John game it's good too ear from him for nearly an hour. Thank you John and thank you GDC.

[@SZakiabba]

Anyone remember the name of the flash game where you have to run downwards as the ground moves up, you slide and jump over uneven land and keep dropping down running from left to right and shit. I've been trying to remember the name forever but no luck

[@ded5736]

Tower Defense originated in W3 custom maps

[@fruitbag]

I've likely played many of this man's flash games back in the day. That's so cool :)

[@balrogdahomie]

2:25 OH FUCK this is the guy that made Achievement Unlocked, Coinbox Hero, Elephant Quest, etc.? This guys my childhood!

[@makbadgam]

Memories! I still fondly remember Mochi though. Took me two years to earn $200. Success?

[@gabriel77196]

Nostalgia's hitting strong. I still play flash games sometimes.

[@sinaisinai43]

Feel for this man and the Flash games community. A big part of my childhood.

[@JimGiant]

Sucks that Kong is now flooded with idle and pay to win games.

[@ArcangelZero7]

I think we can thank their now-owner GameStop for that. :( IIRC, they require some kind of mechanics in titles that encourage players to spend their Kong-bucks or whatever it is now. It was cool back when flash games were a gold-rush of creativity and making good content. Now it's a gold-rush of using the cheapest possible products to mine microtrans money. This can only be good for GameStop, one of many actors serving to cheapen the game industry for their own shortsighted gain. :(

[@player03]

GameStop gave very little input on how Kongregate ran. The Greers were still very much in charge, and they should get the credit and/or blame for any changes in management. However, the shortage of creative new titles isn't due to any management decision. You can tell because _every single Flash portal_ is experiencing a shortage of creativity. Indie developers are moving to mobile and Steam, and only some of them choose to release a web version as well. As John said in this video, revenue from Flash games has gone down (and not due to any decisions on Kongregate's part). Larger developers, such as the teams behind MMOs, have more than enough time and know-how to make both web and mobile versions. And since MMOs and idle games (being "pay to win" games) can make good revenue off of in-game purchases, it still makes financial sense to release a Flash/HTML5 version. The upshot of all of that is that Kongregate gets a copy of most MMOs and idle games, but it misses out on a lot of creative indie titles. And there isn't a whole lot they can do about that. That's just market forces at work.

[@willionaire9737]

I'm a big fan of idle games, but what gets put on Kong is garbage, besides Trimps and Swarm Sim anyways, both very simplistic-looking but deep games

[@epicluigimario]

player_03 z

[@artmaknev3738]

I remember everyone in high school was playing flash games in all the computer classes and libraries, it was crazy, there was a new game everyday, and some games were so advanced. There was one game that I could never find again, it was turn based fight / kung fu game, where you set your character arms and legs and then click start and see the outcome of your decision, the graphics were really cool, I think this game is lost forever...

[@iamaim2847]

Try Toribash. I'm not sure was it flash, but looks very like your description.

[@smash8865]

Im 4 minites in and im almost tearful thinking back to the days of rushing home to head-desk over my stupid actionscript not working or wait 5 minutes to publish a scene of animation that id overloaded with unedited wav audio files. I loved flash developing

[@MsQueenOfDance]

Achievement unlocked was one of my favorite series of games

[@fAEtusDeletus]

The game industry is making more and more graphically advanced games, but 90% of them aren't fun, unique or challenging, yet their price rates go up. I hate to pirate games and I rarely do it, but I can sometime refer to that, at least for a test and for making sure I'm not going to later buy an unfun, unplayable or outright broken product... And no, having money to buy a better computer, doesn't mean you have money to buy new games for it, especially if you've been saving up for it for a long time. And no I don't have a powerful new computer and trying to make up excuses to pirate new games. It's sad that the flash genre I grew up with is fading away, but I'm pretty sure that a good indie studio that loves creating quality content can find a good spot on Steam AND aquire a good sum of money for their work.

[@EduardoWeidmanBarijan]

Oh I remember everything from the Flash Games era. Nice piece of history there.

[@LorenzoVDH1996]

I grew up on Newgrounds and I'm glad to still see it around.

[@thohangst]

RIP flash games. Nothing was trollier, nothing more abused, but there were some genuine fine games out there as well. Where's the Cifaldi preservation society? Now's your chance to really shine. Is there anything more ephemeral in the world of video games than a flash game?

[@thohangst]

And ports won't do! Emulation is the answer.

[@tobymdev]

archive.org is making a backup!

[@professoroak1920]

I missed out on so much as a kid, I didn't have a computer with internet until the end of 2005

[@PegasuTV]

Beautiful talk, screw ppl who've been hating on Flash all these years

[@DMKleinArts]

Software preservation is so important! I hope as many games can be archived as possible. All the macromedia shockwave games and geocities homebrews lost to time.

[@hyperhedgehog7]

THAT ELEPHANT WAS MY CHILDHOOD

[@RetroPlus]

Damn, is it bad that I can name over half the flash games shown in this video?

[@derekk4659]

Ahh the countless hours playing games on mini clip, addicting games, one morr level and shit like that at lunch in a library lmao

[@MsHojat]

Flash for UI of games was a terrible idea. It looked nice, but it used so much damn CPU power. I remember playing Starcraft 2, and my system would be more stressed in the game menus than actually playing the game.

[@Freak_Gamer]

One of the best talks I have seen, thank you GDC.

[@quincycampbell7392]

As a film maker in training, one thing that heavily inspired my view on tension and mystery is the Covert Front series by Mateusz Skutnik. These flash games really changed my view on creative forms of storytelling at a very young age with its weird historical whimsy. Line rider was also the first game that allowed me to fully explore the limits of my imagination and kind of make a story for the rider. (I know I'm not the only one that did that). Long story long. These flash games heavily inspired me to create out of the box stories with a style unique to me.

[@crazyfrogracer2pro848]

dude corpiration inc is the jam

[@dennisklomp2361]

Timmy Wotsit played the everloving shit out of that game. *smack* work harder!

[@Sb129]

Good 'ol Flash

[@Rfc1394]

No one who played We Create Stuff's "Portal: The Flash Game" would ever characterize Flash games as a 'distraction' or 'lunch time waster.' What they did in creating a 2-d version of Portal, showed Flash Games could be as significant as regular full applications.

[@deeliciousplum]

Wonderful talk. Brought back so many memories of pleying Flash games with friends.

[@SkelexIsHere]

Flash was amazing. I will fight under the Flash banner until I die and then I will be buried in it.

[@willionaire9737]

It blew me away when this guy said he made Achievement Unlocked. Loved that game

[@Badguy292]

Saddest thing is all the amazing hentai games will be unplayable. Zone-Archive, Meet 'n' Fuck games, Zonk punch etc.

[@SMthegamer1]

I love that Flash is still going in 2022 (Edited year, shouldn't have commented while falling asleep)

[@DIY_Miracle]

John Clooney has made almost all of the flash games I remember well. Bloody hell.

[@stumbling]

He committed the cardinal sin of presentations. Never read off your slides!

[@muzboz]

Really cool talk. Inspires me to get my games on the web where they can be played by all! :)

[@thocher]

RIP flash

[@uros.u.novakovic]

I was redirected to this after watching the interview that the Green siblings did 2 weeks ago. Damn it, right in the nostalgia. Thankfully Flashpoint is a thing that I'm using, already backed up all of my all time favorite games on it that I will forever keep backed up.

[@insertusername9755]

Came from tvtropes and hit with nostalgia

[@km5405]

flash games were the shit though ... spent countless hours on some games, they were simple but hell just as good as most stupid mobile apps nowadays.

[@marafolse8347]

Oh man I love achievement unlocked!

[@thisisfyne]

I really have fond memories of creating animations in Flash with my friends, back when the Internet was still this weird DIY novelty. Stickdeath, Newgrounds, Albinoblacksheep... man, that takes me back! Great talk! Edit: I'm really sad to know the conclusion that mobile / Apple pretty much brough the downfall of Flash... it's a shame, really.

[@Dukefazon]

Loved Flash, hell, I love to this day. I'm sad that it was mismanaged and got killed. HTML5 is not the same. I've spen a lot of time on Newgrounds, I collected and played a lot of Flash games even before Newgrounds, I started doing stuff in Flash around 2001-2002 and it was my hobby taking over playing regular video games most of the times. I have Angry Birds because they ripped off that castle destroyer game (which I actually played back then), I remember Triarchnid (which I actually played back then) it was a really moving game for me somehow, I remember that Newgrounds game where the metal-head kid turns into a demon and you have to find a way to neutralize him (at 6:14). I didn't like that QWOP game, that was stupid. But I found many game that inspired me to do my own stuff. I never really finished a full game I just liked to come up with ideas and work on them. My biggest success was a homage game to the Blood video game from Monolith (1997), people seemed to like that one. I worked on a survival-action horror game based on Silent Hill. I think I'm returning to an old project of mine soon even though Flash is pretty much dead, I need to finish it, I feel I owe this one to the Blood fan community.

[@im-essi]

I mean, HTML5 is not the same, it's a *lot* better. Issue was just that it wasn't standardized and implemented early enough to pick up the flash wave as it came crashing down.

[@treedude4246]

Christ all the iconic web browser showing up on the slide show is so nostalgic

[@Fahnder99]

Thanks a lot for the talk. I noticed it a bit late, but it answers alot of questions to me and I relly appreciate that! It really should be a preserving initiative about having old flash games playable, but whithout commercial interest, it must fail, i presume.

[@davenirline]

It started happy, then rose to peak level, then ended grim. It was a great ride Flash.

[@ifyouknowmeyoudont7524]

I've played ALL these games.

[@xYquemx]

You're my childhood!

[@adaang4104]

I grew up on flash games so watching this was nostalgic, i especially enjoyed the Sonny series of games.

[@orsomethinlykethat]

line rider mentioned, you love to see it

[@HECKproductions]

interesting to see the face behind that blue elephant

[@LordBadenRulez]

People hate flash and they don't even know why. If Adobe open-source the flash player, flash would be natively supported by browsers without a plug-in. That would also meant the end of the exploitation of the player. People would never understand what we lost with the rise of "html5". The age of innovation died with flash.