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At the moment there are a lot of devices and becoming harder to do a consequent experience. But because browser web technologies lack too many features I think Flash is still a great creative choice for advanced multimedia on the web.
But it has been little bit quiet for a time. What happen to games or 3D at the moment? Are there any great communities or developers to follow?
/Tomas
i don't see flash dieing anytime soon. flash is able to creating animations, a game, a website, a utility or even a program of some kind. so when it can do all of that, no matter how hard they work with technology and expanding things like html. flash in my opinion offers more freedom. and you can just do so much with it.
the only real let down flash has, is that it takes more work for it to get the same results with seo that html gets. thats the one real advantage html has over flash. but yeah in terms of developers. i have a few people i look out for but its mostly for learning purposes. usually when theres a hot new game or animation out, i'll see it or hear about it in a portal like newgrounds or deviantart.
keeping an eye on people who win competitions with there animations might be a good idea. i also like the developer who did tarboy. that was a cool animation that...
Flash and other plugin content is still huge for web games to be played on desktop machines or notebooks in the next 1-3 years.
For websites it is already not a good idea to use it for any new content unless it is about something that absolutely can´t be done with html/js/css and doesn´t have to be used on mobile device browsers.
Apple not having any plugin support on iOS devices.
Adobe ceasing further development of the mobile browser flash player.
Windows RT not having proper flash support and even Windows 8 not running plugin content by default via the IE browser version which is the default one launched from the Metro start menu.
These are clear signs and big pushes against flash´s future.
With movements like that going on, the longtime future as browser plugin content is already signed off to be cut off.
The thing is, especially for more in depth interactive content like more involved complex 2D and 3D games there´s no good full replacement for the plugins yet.
HTML (no matter which version) adoption and standardization on desktop and notebook browsers is still shaky and for various important aspects like the sound side, 3d content handling etc there´s nothing good cross browser even just on the horizon yet when done in non plugin using way.
So in the long term until the non plugin based web technologies become mature enough that will lead to more things for mobile devices being done in app store app deploy way, more things on the for desktop devices/notebooks web be done in html/js/css way where possible and also as download app where not possible.
Right now flash and other browser plugin using technologies are still huge and on the desktop/notebook web they will have their space for another few years.
Again, various things some of the plugin technologies allow just can´t be done cross browser without plugins running inside the browser yet.
But more and more over time there will only be a place for technologies which don´t require a plugin to run on a website since there´s such a push from Apple, Adobe and Microsoft to kill off plugins.
Flash could have a future for deploying games as "native" app to mobile devices via their packager manners etc if they could considerably improve the downsides and it could stay relevant for web deploy for the long term, too if Adobe would get it to deploy the content running in the browser without needing a plugin.
But yeah, the deploy to the browser as plugin content days are numbered and i´d say its less than 3 years until it becomes a total niche usage for that side, even for creating games.
I think the approach ones like unity are taking makes sense where they deploy to thier own plugin and the flash player one, too for today´s web, also push things like running plugin free in the browser with things like google native client support and then also offer deploy as native app to the app stores etc on top, good to keep alternative options open =)
Tomsamson: It's sounds like you talking against yourself a little bit.
There is no plugin that have created so much entertainment on internet as Flash. Because we have more different devices, the problem is not only Flash it's web technologies in general.
Desktop browsers are still an interesting market for me creating viral games. Not supporting Flash in a desktop browser would be quite stupid. It feels like it's only Apple that want to kill plugins to gain interest to their Appstore (even if it affects other), Android support Flash. Personally it feels quite boring to go back and develop for one platform again.
Though I hope Adobe doesn't give up Flash.
Yeah, maybe it sounds a bit as if i contradicted myself since i tried to show both sides of the argument a bit =)
I don't see flash going away anytime soon... although there are tons of mobile devices, there are also tons of online games. mobile devices are limited due to the size and playing capability. I wrote a quick article about this http://www.atksolutions.com/articles...oing_away.html.
Some of the games developed by me play well on chrome, and firefox browsers. But they are getting messed up in internal explorer 9.