For over 20 years, Adobe Flash has offered creators the ability to share artwork and independent games freely online, sometimes in the best forms that they could be made available. So, it’s a real blow to the online creative community that Adobe will be shutting the media player down just before stepping into 2021, with manyFlash games getting backed upto try saving two decades of internet history.
In response to this removal former Flash game dev Jonas Richner conducted short interviews with more than 20 different content creators who had either gotten their start or continue using Adobe’s media player. Additionally, Richner has created a Twitter thread to share small segments of the responses from theseindie developersand content creators.
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Some of the creators Richner interviewed includedThe Fancy Pants Adventurecreator Brad Borne,Bowmanand FreeWorldGroup.com creator Frank Valzano, as well asNo Time To Explaincreator andtinyBuildco-founder Tom Brien. Many of them commented mostly on the community and what it was like to be able to share both games and animations in such pure forms through Flash Player’s uncompressed playback. This is actually a major reason why so many animators from this era of the internet specifically never moved onto other platforms like YouTube to better share and monetize their content, because Flash played animation files directly instead of compressing into videos.
Of these creators, Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp might be the one that most viewers may recognize, as this website had risen as one of the most popular platforms for Flash content during its heyday. Many of thebest indie games available todayeither began on Newgrounds or many of their major developers had initially honed their craft through the popular website. The lives of each of these creators that Richner interviewed have somewhat been shaped by their time working with Flash, and countless more developers have had similar stories.
For both fans and content creators, Adobe’s decision to shut down Flash came as quite the shock when it was announced back in 2017 that the media player would be removed. Considering the impact that some of that early content has had on the modernindie development community, it can feel like the end of an era for fans who may have fond memories with this type of material. However, as even pointed out on Richner’s website, content creators haven’t really been working with Flash for the last few years, turning to other programs like Unity, meaning that this definitely won’t be the end of development on sites like Armor Games or Newgrounds.
