Technology should be replaced by better technology. To give you some background: I've written games for all kinds of platforms: PocketPC, Windows Mobile, (Desktop) Windows, Linux, OS X, Flash (AS3), HipTop, J2ME devices and some smaller proprietary devices.
Some of those platforms offer write once, run everywhere. On other platforms every device has it's own quirks and you have to test on every device and implement workarounds.
You might not like Flash, but it is great at running on every platform/browser with the same code base. If you test it on one platform, it runs on all others. (Adobe is also very good at keeping it backwards compatible)
Now, I ask you, what's the alternative for Flash? Does HTML5 offer write once, runs the same on every platform/browser(version!)? No it doesn't, and it never will. Even simple HTML pages are full of browser checking hacks.
Now, if you can offer a programming platform where the games I develop on, run exactly the same on every browser, on every platform, I have no problem killing Flash. But let's be honest here, only plugins can guarantee such a thing.
As to Alex Stamos, the top games on Facebook are all Flash. You know why? Because developers don't have to worry whether or not those games will run inside the users browser. Because once Flash is installed, they will run without issues. HTML5? No such guarantee.
So before you declare EOL, please have a proper alternative, where I don't have to pull my hair and cry all night because browser X on platform Y version Z seems to break the end boss of level 5 in my game because its implementation slightly differs from all the rest.
While I do understand where you are coming from - it can be more convenient to target a single implementation - the fact is that Flash has not been what you describe, for a while now. Flash officially announced it would no longer support Linux, and Flash is not usable in most mobile browsers either, for example.
Even plugins can't really get you what you want here. Yes, HTML5 has limitations, as you described, but plugins aren't the solution. HTML5 is closer, and moving in the right direction at least.
Mobile doesn't need browser plugins, because it has apps. AS3 compiles to Android and iOS, just as it should. So I agree with Adobe that mobile doesn't need to support Flash. BTW, the same AS3 codebase for Flash runs as mobile apps. Do the HTML5 games support all versions of all browsers on the most popular mobile devices? Not on mine at least :(.
One codebase, runs everywhere, Flash in the browser, apps on mobile devices. Personally never had an issue with it.
Although I must agree with you that it's sad Adobe dropped Linux support.
koonsolo is right on with all his points. Flash is better then HTML5 all around.
Though personally I can understand why Adobe dropped support for linux, the market is just too small. Even though this community probably has a higher percentage of linux user then just about anywhere.
Yeah and this community is made up by mostly developers. To turn your back on developers is shooting yourself in your own foot. However, that is not what adobe are doing. They have signalled their intention to sunset flash themselves for a long time.
Plugins allow you to more easily experiment with different distribution methods, languages, etc. Flash, Unity, the JVM, etc, all have areas that they're much better at, such as tooling support, language support, etc. Sticking everything in a monoculture is a terrible idea.
Flash isn't part of the Web. It's not vendor neutral.
If Adobe decides to deprioritise a platform that mean the users of that platform with experience less support in terms of bug fixes, performance and security. If Adobe decides not to support a platform period that means users of that platform are left without a means to access Flash content.
If you are a user this is unacceptable. More importantly these things have already happened.
I fully agree with you. But like I said, if technology is replaced, it should be replaced by better technology.
For websites, HTML5 offers enough to be considered a proper alternative. Yes, I probably dislike Flash websites as much as you do.
But for games, HTML5 just doesn't cut it compared to Flash (or yes, even Java applets as someone else mentioned ;)). And the sad truth is that by design, each browser vendor will have it's own implementation with it's own quirks.
(I seem to be getting a lot of down-votes on my original post, although I don't think I said anything incorrect)
I think the issue is with the 'better technology' bit. Flash simply isn't a better technology than HTML5. They are, as they say, a land of contrasts, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. But where HTML5 is moving forward, steadily improving, Flash is actually getting much worse with time, supporting an ever-smaller proportion of the net, and doing so with less stability and security.
The Web is better, it's vendor neutral and not depended on whims of Adobe. Sure it may not be convenient for developers but as a user it's very convenient.
> If Adobe decides to deprioritise a platform that mean the users of that platform with experience less support in terms of bug fixes, performance and security.
Case in point, OSX. Wasn't until Flash v11 that OSX had hardware-assisted playback.
Hi, while I got your point and mostly I agree with you, I just have a question.
Now when WebGL is widely adopted why you can create your games using that technology? Or even compile your C/C++ games with asm.js. I saw very nice demos in the past.
For simple 2D games (like most of the Flash games), I saw very nice Flash-friendly libraries like Phaser[0] (based on Pixi.js).
I went to that phaser.io url, and when clicking on the examples, I see a background with nothing on it. I don't know if it has to show something animated or not. I pushed the 'Run code' rocket button, but still nothing shows. How do I make it start?
This is in Firefix 39.0, Windows.
Let's try IE, I'm curious. I need to click 'Show all content' at the bottom, and after that I see the animations. I tried the 'virtual joystick dpad' example and it works. But the cutouts of the joypads seem off. You can see their rectangular cutout, got the impression transparency isn't working properly, but also possible it was designed that way. But I don't think so because the screenshot of that example doesn't have it, so I guess it is a platform issue.
One more go, my iPhone: It doesn't scale properly, way too big for my screen. Can't zoom out or scroll. But the animations seem to run in the corner of the screen that I can see. Same transparency issue as on IE.
And let's be honest here, those examples are pretty basic and simple.
Technology should be replaced by better technology. To give you some background: I've written games for all kinds of platforms: PocketPC, Windows Mobile, (Desktop) Windows, Linux, OS X, Flash (AS3), HipTop, J2ME devices and some smaller proprietary devices.
Some of those platforms offer write once, run everywhere. On other platforms every device has it's own quirks and you have to test on every device and implement workarounds.
You might not like Flash, but it is great at running on every platform/browser with the same code base. If you test it on one platform, it runs on all others. (Adobe is also very good at keeping it backwards compatible)
Now, I ask you, what's the alternative for Flash? Does HTML5 offer write once, runs the same on every platform/browser(version!)? No it doesn't, and it never will. Even simple HTML pages are full of browser checking hacks.
Now, if you can offer a programming platform where the games I develop on, run exactly the same on every browser, on every platform, I have no problem killing Flash. But let's be honest here, only plugins can guarantee such a thing.
As to Alex Stamos, the top games on Facebook are all Flash. You know why? Because developers don't have to worry whether or not those games will run inside the users browser. Because once Flash is installed, they will run without issues. HTML5? No such guarantee.
So before you declare EOL, please have a proper alternative, where I don't have to pull my hair and cry all night because browser X on platform Y version Z seems to break the end boss of level 5 in my game because its implementation slightly differs from all the rest.