Mass outcome of browser games

Back in 2007. At this time, games like Halo 3 , Bioshock , Portal , Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Super Mario Galaxy appeared and received good reviews from critics. In the same year many other outstanding projects came out, so it is considered the best year in the history of video games. But not for everyone. Some games required powerful and expensive computers, and recently released consoles were sold at prices ranging from 249.99 (Nintendo Wii) to $ 599.99 (PlayStation 3). For many players, the opportunity to play modern games was too expensive.

However, at that time, the video game market did not end with home consoles and powerful computers: since the birth of the Internet, online browser games began to appear on the scene. Such games could be played on any computer with an Internet connection, and most of them were free. In the same year 2007, well-known browser games such as The Last Stand , The Impossible Quiz , Newgrounds Rumble , Pandemic and Trials 2 appeared and gained popularity. Unfortunately, the software maker needed to run these games has completed its support. Because of this, now we can not play hundreds and thousands of games, it has destroyed many years of game development and game content. Browser games have left a deep mark in the history of video games, but due to the completion of Flash support in 2020, we will lose this story and the means necessary to save it.

What made browser games unique and vivid

Many browser games originated from Flash technology, while it was a low-cost but powerful tool for displaying multimedia content in web browsers. Flash consisted of two parts: Flash is a program in which Flash files could be created using drawing and scripting tools that allow you to create your own animations and games, and Flash player is a free plug-in that runs creations created in Flash files. Flash files included a wide range of games that could be played everywhere and always: from a home computer or in the school library. The most attractive in these games were their simplicity and straightforward game design. In some games, the most simplified basic game mechanics and graphics were used. Other Flash games were more polished and extravagant. Anyway, the main goal of such games was to create an exciting gameplay that allowed to play them again and again.


Bowman game menu screen
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A simple example is the Bowman game, in which two archers try to get into each other by shooting arrows from their bows. The one who first will be able to inflict enough damage to the enemy, wins. The game was attended by natural obstacles and a battle mode against a computer or person. The main thing in the game is not its appearance, but the basic game mechanics, creating an exciting and understandable gameplay.


The gameplay of the game Endeavor, in which the player controls the dwarf, jumping and climbing the mountain.

On the other side of the spectrum is the Endeavor game, a jump-and-climb platformer, coupled with role-playing elements. The player controls a dwarf trying to uncover an ancient secret: he explores the world and pumps it. The game has several endings, non-player characters with whom you can interact, quests, and so on. It’s hard to imagine that a Flash game of this magnitude can be played at once.

"... we discovered the Holy Grail of game development. It was a tool in which it was easy to write scripts, it was easy to draw, projects that could be released right away, which had a huge audience that looked forward to new content, and it was available to everyone.
- John Clooney, "The Flash Games Postmortem"

Flash games veteran John Clooney is one of the many game creators who used Flash to post their ideas on the Internet. Thanks to Flash, the avant-garde independent game developers have emerged. Flash started commercially successful games like Alien Hominid , N + , Super Meat Boy , VVVVVV . These games either had an elaborate game design, or had excellent graphics, so they went further than online platforms and became full-scale projects or franchises. And all this became possible thanks to Flash. Browser games provided an endless stream of interesting and exciting gameplay, and at the same time they gave rise to a spark of creativity in indie developers. Unfortunately, the peak of glory browser games, like all good, had its end.


Adobe, something is wrong with me ...

Decay flash

CEO and co-founder of Apple Inc. Stephen Jobs, before his death in 2010, wrote an open letter to Adobe, explaining why Flash is not supported on Apple’s mobile devices — the iPhone, iPad and iPod. In short, the following was written there: the future has come, and you have become obsolete.

Flash was created in the PC era, it is designed for PC and mouse control. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we understand why the company seeks to extend it beyond the PC. But the era of mobile is the time for low-power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards. In all these areas, Flash does not live up to expectations.

- Steven Jobs, “Thoughts on Flash”

Moreover, the Flash player earned notoriety for its inhibition and error susceptibility, worsening the majority of web pages. Some consider the death of Flash a blessing, because Internet users have gained a faster and more reliable worldwide network. Even websites such as Newgrounds , Addicting Games , Kongregate and Miniclip , which have used Flash in all their content for a long time, have started a gradual departure from it because of all its flaws. However, the fading of Flash, according to the founder of Newgrounds, a prominent figure of the era of Flash-games, should not be taken as a holiday:

I get very upset when people rejoice in the death of Flash. I fully understand that it’s time to move on, but you shouldn’t praise the death of the technology that enabled such a large number of people and carried a lot of entertainment to the web for more than 20 years.

- Tom Fulp, "Flash 2020 and the Future"

The end of the era of Flash will still be a time of mourning, especially for those games that are impossible to save. Flash has affected the video game industry, and losing its forgotten content will mean losing some of the history of the early video games.

The story of the appearance and disappearance

It is believed that the first video game created exclusively for entertainment was the 1958 Tennis for Two . Almost four decades later, the 1997 Club a Seal became the first browser game. Although these games are very different in genre, they are both milestones that have become the first of its kind. However, it is not known if they were really the first. Many early games were piece goods, they were created, but not published, or disassembled for parts after release. Like film, the history of this media should not fade and perish.

In the process of archiving console video games, one has to deal with closed project documentation, legal aspects of extracting content from source media, for example, from cartridges using special equipment. To enrich the gameplay in consoles, special controllers or non-digital objects were used. This makes it harder to save console video games.

- “Keeping the Game Alive: Evaluating Strategies for the Conservation of Console Video Games”

This applies not only to physical copies of video games, but also to their digital editions. Given that some digital games have disappeared from digital stores and are now impossible to play (this applies to games such as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game , After Burner Climax and PT ), we understand that in the digital age nothing lasts forever if you don't take archiving seriously. The fate of these missing games or the early lost video games will repeat and we will continue to lose valuable fragments of history. Flash-content created over the years of creativity and innovation of the first experimenters will begin to disappear. Flash life ends, so you need to make efforts to preserve it.


Flashpoint interface

Devotion to preserving digital history

Ben Latimor, a member of the Archive Team of Jason Scott, known for archiving digital history, is concerned about the state of Flash content on the Internet. Seeing that no one was making efforts to save these crumbling relics of the Flash era, he took on this responsibility. BlueMaxima Flashpoint is a program that is a “comprehensive archival project, a museum and a playable collection of Flash games”: anyone can play Flash games again without installing software.

“Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash) is one of the largest treasuries of game history not saved today. For twenty years, tens of thousands of games have been created, the library of Flash games in depth and width has survived any game console on the market. And all this may disappear in two years ... If no one does anything, then we can lose forever a huge chunk of history. These games deserve more. Much more. ”

- Ben Latimore, "Thousands upon Thousands of Titles - And My Efforts To Save It"

Archiving flash games means saving game history. Volunteers and project participants are carrying out unprecedented joint work on the conservation of Flash-games until their gradual disappearance.

Flash days are slowly coming to an end, but their interestingness, creativity and the impact they have had on the Internet will never fade. The same thing I can say about my flashback flash games I played with my friends in the school library. Authors and ideas arising from this software will continue to live in the archives, which will remain as a noticeable milestone in the history of video games.