It kind of makes me glad that I shifted my development focus over to Unity instead of Flash. While I like Actionscript 3.0, and have always enjoyed working in the Flash development environment, things have been trending badly over the past few years.
The biggest problem with this trend is that there STILL isn't anything to effectively replace Flash. The Unity web-player will be a fine option for running web-games, but there is still no comparable technology to the Flash player for general-purpose web animation. As far as HTML5 has come, it's still not there yet. (especially when it comes to audio playback)
This is not surprising. A little story to go along with this:
Over at the LA Film School, they started a game program in which to teach and get students a job in the industry.
I noticed something odd, they based the entire program around flash and flash game development. When I asked what they were thinking, the program director said "flash is the future of games". I wanted to smack him across the face and say "are you crazy mon". I had to explain that flash for games was phad, a mere plaything which will be dropped as soon as other technologies evolve. He called me crazy.
Well now he's fired and a large number of students who payed $40-50k for an education have nothing to show for it. Last I heard they still have the same curriculum and not one of their graduates has a job in the industry...unless you count 1 or 2 game testers.
The moral of this story is that its not a surprise flash is being dropped.
I wanted to smack him across the face and say "are you crazy mon". I had to explain that flash for games was phad, a mere plaything which will be dropped as soon as other technologies evolve. He called me crazy.
For being a fad, Flash gaming has been longer around than some consoles But you're right - if you expect your platform, and the skills needed for that platform, will be around forever you're pretty foolish. Teach game development as "making games for platform X" is just the same idiocy as teaching game art as "using DCC tool XY". It's about foundations, theory and skills you can apply regardless of platform. Once you have those you should have all the knowledge to learn most apps on your own by just reading the manual and following the bundled tutorials....when will educators get this?
Similarly, I never understood why UT3 had to have Flash-based Scaleform for its simple menu interfaces. Even a Team Arena-like script system would've been good enough for that. (and TA's menus are horribly unintuitive to produce from scratch, but at least it's not Flash)
How did that come about? Adobe throwing money at everything?
UDK DID have its own script system for menus in the canvas classes and a tool called UIscene, iirc. General consensus was that it was limited in what it could do and was clunky to use..though most indies liked it well enough. Triple A devs couldn't get the results they wanted, I guess, and many veteran UI developers were already pretty familiar with scaleform from other games (non unreal) as Scaleform had been growing into a standard slowly since '05 or '06 or so.
So, I guess blame non-epic companies for not wanting to make their own HUD systems for their engines and thus turning scaleform into a standard of sorts that Epic then adopted?
I originally learned how to code using Flash (but I was working in web dev, not game dev). Actionscript isn't too bad a language to learn from. It's like a clean Javascript (well Actionscript 3 at least).
I always liked Flash since it was cross-platform/browser compatible.
I'm using it now, and it seems like a decent way to do things. I guess they could have come up with some system of their own that would have basically done the same thing. But then the Flash standard already exists. So why not just use it?
I had to explain that flash for games was phad, a mere plaything which will be dropped as soon as other technologies evolve. He called me crazy.
Flash is the biggest games platform in the world, it has been for over a decade.
It is not going to disappear anytime soon, and those kids got a good education in how to make game regardless of the platform, hopefully.
Unity are right to do this, Adobe is comfortable but stagnated.
We used flash to output animations to canvas / html5 so it does have a future right there. Also, like something out of Ripleys Believe it or Not; Adobes entire suite of applications from CS5 have used flash for the OS UI. Right down to the toolbars and dropdown boxes. (instead of using cocoa or win8 tech.)
Flash is the biggest games platform in the world, it has been for over a decade.
Just because it has been used by a lot of people at one point or another, many of which are hobbyist playing around on the internet, doesnt make it good or better than any alternative.
It is not going to disappear anytime soon, and those kids got a good education in how to make game regardless of the platform, hopefully.
I disagree, and its not just unity that is dropping flash... but adobe themselves. They never expected Flash to be used the way it has, but the ride is over.
As for the school, so far as I know, none of their graduates are working in the industry outside of 1 or 2 kids who got a game tester job.
There are much better things to teach students than flash and actionscript for a career in games.
But thats not really the focus of this discussion. My point is that Flash was a fun little element that popped up for games, it lasted awhile but it was just a bubble and its starting to pop. Make no mistake, it helped create a market, a niche for certain types of content but it certainly has no long term place in the industry.
Apple dropping flash support should have been one of the bigger cues that flash is out.
Flash is out and its about time, I am happy it existed and had some impact but it times for it to go.
But thats not really the focus of this discussion. My point is that Flash was a fun little element that popped up for games, it lasted awhile but it was just a bubble and its starting to pop. Make no mistake, it helped create a market, a niche for certain types of content but it certainly has no long term place in the industry.
Apple dropping flash support should have been one of the bigger cues that flash is out.
Flash is out and its about time, I am happy it existed and had some impact but it times for it to go.
I agree that Flash won't be around much longer. But I think you're looking at it the wrong way.
Apple dropping flash support wasn't a sign that flash was on the way out, it was the trigger that started pushing flash out. Before that unfortunate event flash was doing just fine. The popularity of the iOS and the iPad is what is forcing flash out of the picture. The iOS and iPads have become so popular for general internet browsing that major companies are refusing to back any technology that won't run on them. And since Apple refused to allow the flash player on their portable OS, that took a huge hunk out of corporately-funded flash development.
Flash isn't dying because its time is past. It has been actively and aggressively muscled out of the picture by a company that was jealous of what flash had managed to achieve.
The truth is that no other technology has managed to achieve what the flash player has for web multimedia. HTML5 is a good decade from achieving parity with the current flash player. It's just too scattered and disjointed to replicate flash's feature set. Thanks to Apple's insistence on having its own way, web multimedia applications are getting their technology dialed back a good six or seven years. Learn to love javascript, and get used to the idea of developing web games without sound.
Flash isn't dying because its time is past. It has been actively and aggressively muscled out of the picture by a company that was jealous of what flash had managed to achieve.
The truth is that no other technology has managed to achieve what the flash player has for web multimedia.
Your post kinda comes off as biased. Lets face the other reflection of flash. So many features were added in later editions that it had ended up bloated. The problem is that on these portable devices, that sucks too much power. Even the android version of flash is a power hog.
I agree that Flash won't be around much longer. But I think you're looking at it the wrong way.
Perhaps, but if I am not mistaken the signs were there in 2009. Steve Jobs attacked Flash in 2010 if memory serves me right. It seemed Adobe wasnt interested in fixing the issues with flash or developing it into something to fit the need of its growing uses.
I'm using it now, and it seems like a decent way to do things. I guess they could have come up with some system of their own that would have basically done the same thing. But then the Flash standard already exists. So why not just use it?
To the best of my knowledge, Scaleform should be unaffected by this. The Scaleform plugin for Unity allows Flash assets to be used in Unity and played back using the Scaleform runtime engine on PCs and mobiles. So it provides a an (and some say better) alternative to UI and 2D graphics than Unity provides.
As for Flash itself, many have been predicting its death for a while now, but its still with us, and I don't think it will be going anywhere just yet. However, with the way in which someone like Unity have come out with this news, this could be the start of people gradually starting to turn away and migrate.
Perhaps, but if I am not mistaken the signs were there in 2009. Steve Jobs attacked Flash in 2010 if memory serves me right. It seemed Adobe wasnt interested in fixing the issues with flash or developing it into something to fit the need of its growing uses.
Okay yes, I can definitely agree with that. Flash would have stood a better chance of sticking around if Adobe had done a better job of maintaining it. They focused far too much at adding new features in the later days, and not enough on making it leaner and more efficient. (which could have helped its adoption on thinner clients like tablets and smartphones) Adobe definitely deserves some of the blame for Flash's fall from prominence.
Also, I am still worried by anyone who claims that there is no longer any need for Flash. I'm a web developer, and I can tell you first hand that HTML5 is simply not capable of replacing the flash player outright. No matter how "bloated" the flash player may have gotten, it was lean and mean compared to the jumbled, uncertain mess that is HTML5. HTML5 is currently a roiling sea of chaos, and trying to develop for multiple browsers with it is like tap dancing on rotten ice.
Flash might be on the way out, but for the time being, web development is going to be hurting for a comparable solution.
> They focused far too much at adding new features in the later days, and not enough on making it leaner and more efficient. (which could have helped its adoption on thinner clients like tablets and smartphones)
they actually did a good job at adapting flash applications for iOs - Jobs blamed flash for majority of mac related freezes and crashes, and that was quite true (still is in some cases);
browser flash elements are not permitted on ios gadgets, but apps are there http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html
As the article says, Adobe is beginning to focus on other things as well, namely Edge. One thing that bothers me about the New Media world is that you have to completely re-learn (not update, re-learn) your primary coding language every 3-4 years just to stay current. It gets easier every time but it's still a pain.
I think a flash-like platform will always be around. Adobe's not going to just abandon the interactive market, there's too much money on the table. In the next year or so, we'll probably see a Flash-like program under a different name (Edge), effectively dumping Flash's branding issue.
Most people don't realize that when Apple announced the iPhone circa 2007, the canvas element (the HTML 5 element responsible for video playback and bitmap manipulation) was owned by Apple. Jobs was avidly against Flash because he was competing with it, that's all.
The irony of all this is that the issues people have with Flash wont disappear with the platform, they arose because of bad development practices. There will always be sites that take forever to load, ads that hog your cpu and crash your browser, and yet another plugin to download.
Flash will stay for a long time.
Its communities like http://www.newgrounds.com/ and newcomers in the industry
who love flash for their games and movies.
There are thousands of games and videos out there, and theyre hugely popular.
Sure most look crappy and are made from amateurs, but they are popular and there
are many "AAA" quality games, who bring innovation in gameplay, which you dont really see in the real AAA market.
Also it is something else having someone code stuff in HTML5, than having a Development platform like Adobe Flash CS6, which has been improved and extended over a decade, with built in tools, drawing and whatnot.
Flash just offers the best package for the 1-man developer. Those people do not care if it takes longer to load or takes more space, if they have a chance doing an easy project with practices they are familiar with.
Also, without Flash, how am I supposed to do an Ui without beeing a programmer ? I lold at unity Ui capabilities.
Aslong as Flash CS is used, Flash player will be used aswell, and I see no alternative around.
Replies
The biggest problem with this trend is that there STILL isn't anything to effectively replace Flash. The Unity web-player will be a fine option for running web-games, but there is still no comparable technology to the Flash player for general-purpose web animation. As far as HTML5 has come, it's still not there yet. (especially when it comes to audio playback)
Over at the LA Film School, they started a game program in which to teach and get students a job in the industry.
I noticed something odd, they based the entire program around flash and flash game development. When I asked what they were thinking, the program director said "flash is the future of games". I wanted to smack him across the face and say "are you crazy mon". I had to explain that flash for games was phad, a mere plaything which will be dropped as soon as other technologies evolve. He called me crazy.
Well now he's fired and a large number of students who payed $40-50k for an education have nothing to show for it. Last I heard they still have the same curriculum and not one of their graduates has a job in the industry...unless you count 1 or 2 game testers.
The moral of this story is that its not a surprise flash is being dropped.
back in 2001.
For being a fad, Flash gaming has been longer around than some consoles
How did that come about? Adobe throwing money at everything?
I always liked Flash since it was cross-platform/browser compatible.
I'm using it now, and it seems like a decent way to do things. I guess they could have come up with some system of their own that would have basically done the same thing. But then the Flash standard already exists. So why not just use it?
Flash is the biggest games platform in the world, it has been for over a decade.
It is not going to disappear anytime soon, and those kids got a good education in how to make game regardless of the platform, hopefully.
Unity are right to do this, Adobe is comfortable but stagnated.
We used flash to output animations to canvas / html5 so it does have a future right there. Also, like something out of Ripleys Believe it or Not; Adobes entire suite of applications from CS5 have used flash for the OS UI. Right down to the toolbars and dropdown boxes. (instead of using cocoa or win8 tech.)
Just because it has been used by a lot of people at one point or another, many of which are hobbyist playing around on the internet, doesnt make it good or better than any alternative.
I disagree, and its not just unity that is dropping flash... but adobe themselves. They never expected Flash to be used the way it has, but the ride is over.
As for the school, so far as I know, none of their graduates are working in the industry outside of 1 or 2 kids who got a game tester job.
There are much better things to teach students than flash and actionscript for a career in games.
But thats not really the focus of this discussion. My point is that Flash was a fun little element that popped up for games, it lasted awhile but it was just a bubble and its starting to pop. Make no mistake, it helped create a market, a niche for certain types of content but it certainly has no long term place in the industry.
Apple dropping flash support should have been one of the bigger cues that flash is out.
Flash is out and its about time, I am happy it existed and had some impact but it times for it to go.
I agree that Flash won't be around much longer. But I think you're looking at it the wrong way.
Apple dropping flash support wasn't a sign that flash was on the way out, it was the trigger that started pushing flash out. Before that unfortunate event flash was doing just fine. The popularity of the iOS and the iPad is what is forcing flash out of the picture. The iOS and iPads have become so popular for general internet browsing that major companies are refusing to back any technology that won't run on them. And since Apple refused to allow the flash player on their portable OS, that took a huge hunk out of corporately-funded flash development.
Flash isn't dying because its time is past. It has been actively and aggressively muscled out of the picture by a company that was jealous of what flash had managed to achieve.
The truth is that no other technology has managed to achieve what the flash player has for web multimedia. HTML5 is a good decade from achieving parity with the current flash player. It's just too scattered and disjointed to replicate flash's feature set. Thanks to Apple's insistence on having its own way, web multimedia applications are getting their technology dialed back a good six or seven years. Learn to love javascript, and get used to the idea of developing web games without sound.
Your post kinda comes off as biased. Lets face the other reflection of flash. So many features were added in later editions that it had ended up bloated. The problem is that on these portable devices, that sucks too much power. Even the android version of flash is a power hog.
It didn't. It had it's own UI system based on the Java menu systems. It sucked.
Perhaps, but if I am not mistaken the signs were there in 2009. Steve Jobs attacked Flash in 2010 if memory serves me right. It seemed Adobe wasnt interested in fixing the issues with flash or developing it into something to fit the need of its growing uses.
To the best of my knowledge, Scaleform should be unaffected by this. The Scaleform plugin for Unity allows Flash assets to be used in Unity and played back using the Scaleform runtime engine on PCs and mobiles. So it provides a an (and some say better) alternative to UI and 2D graphics than Unity provides.
As for Flash itself, many have been predicting its death for a while now, but its still with us, and I don't think it will be going anywhere just yet. However, with the way in which someone like Unity have come out with this news, this could be the start of people gradually starting to turn away and migrate.
Okay yes, I can definitely agree with that. Flash would have stood a better chance of sticking around if Adobe had done a better job of maintaining it. They focused far too much at adding new features in the later days, and not enough on making it leaner and more efficient. (which could have helped its adoption on thinner clients like tablets and smartphones) Adobe definitely deserves some of the blame for Flash's fall from prominence.
Also, I am still worried by anyone who claims that there is no longer any need for Flash. I'm a web developer, and I can tell you first hand that HTML5 is simply not capable of replacing the flash player outright. No matter how "bloated" the flash player may have gotten, it was lean and mean compared to the jumbled, uncertain mess that is HTML5. HTML5 is currently a roiling sea of chaos, and trying to develop for multiple browsers with it is like tap dancing on rotten ice.
Flash might be on the way out, but for the time being, web development is going to be hurting for a comparable solution.
they actually did a good job at adapting flash applications for iOs - Jobs blamed flash for majority of mac related freezes and crashes, and that was quite true (still is in some cases);
browser flash elements are not permitted on ios gadgets, but apps are there
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/abansod_iphone.html
I think a flash-like platform will always be around. Adobe's not going to just abandon the interactive market, there's too much money on the table. In the next year or so, we'll probably see a Flash-like program under a different name (Edge), effectively dumping Flash's branding issue.
Most people don't realize that when Apple announced the iPhone circa 2007, the canvas element (the HTML 5 element responsible for video playback and bitmap manipulation) was owned by Apple. Jobs was avidly against Flash because he was competing with it, that's all.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvas_element
The irony of all this is that the issues people have with Flash wont disappear with the platform, they arose because of bad development practices. There will always be sites that take forever to load, ads that hog your cpu and crash your browser, and yet another plugin to download.
Its communities like http://www.newgrounds.com/ and newcomers in the industry
who love flash for their games and movies.
There are thousands of games and videos out there, and theyre hugely popular.
Sure most look crappy and are made from amateurs, but they are popular and there
are many "AAA" quality games, who bring innovation in gameplay, which you dont really see in the real AAA market.
Also it is something else having someone code stuff in HTML5, than having a Development platform like Adobe Flash CS6, which has been improved and extended over a decade, with built in tools, drawing and whatnot.
Flash just offers the best package for the 1-man developer. Those people do not care if it takes longer to load or takes more space, if they have a chance doing an easy project with practices they are familiar with.
Also, without Flash, how am I supposed to do an Ui without beeing a programmer ? I lold at unity Ui capabilities.
Aslong as Flash CS is used, Flash player will be used aswell, and I see no alternative around.