Flash vs. HTML 5

Don't know how much has been posted lately on this topic, but I just remember some fears a while back on HTML 5 and what it means for Flash, and how Flash will only remain for game devs.

http://www.uza.lt/2010/04/29/my-take-html5-vs-flash/

Some things he might either be exaggerating or just making Flash look good, but all in all I think it's a pretty accurate comparison, and how Flash will still continue to be widely used even for just video playback. (Especially with the upcoming 3d API's!)

Anyways, thought it might interest some of the guys here!

P.

As long as html5 has no real way to develop games/apps/anything -- flash will always been No.1 for any interactive content on the net.

The Adobe flash dev software - and all the free flash dev enviroments are what makes it so easy to use -- you can draw, code is highlighted,easy effects - like glow,shadows etc.

Right now - html5 is all coding, no easy to use enviroment to develop stuff. No vector drawing environment, etc.

Doesnt matter how advanced the upcoming 3d apis are ;) As long as it is easier for developers to use flash, html5 will stay in the background.

(Plus - how many sites have you seen with javascript errors - html5 depends on the website having the right javascript libraries, and any other files, etc installed in the right place -- all flash needs is a browser plugin, already installed on 99% of all pcs. Flash is going nowhere whoowhoo ;) )

Are you guys serious?

Html5 is big. It's got some huge momentum. With that much support it will become a standard, the easy or hard way. So the whole argument on compatibility is seeing an alpha of something is on based on something still in development.

Html5 is interesting as it is a standard, so it will be used for standardized things like a image gallery or video display. Like the article mentioned; Flash has a lot of libraries and frameworks. Really? So java hasn't? Html5 will be used for basic functionality. With the introduction of multimedia and Flash, Silverlight etc, the definition of basic functionality has changed and users and clients are more demanding. If you can churn out that functionality at a faster rate because it has been standerdized, that means a reduction in costs.

Now you can do more with Flash, but hey, you need to invest more time as well. Flash has it's place on the net as it can provide more high-end functionality. So what do you want, basic or high end?

To just take a fraction of webapplications (games) and say Flash is better suited for it, isn't really much to base an opinion on concerning html5 vs Flash. Really, how does one exclude the other?

Now while I don't agree with TOdorus on some points, I also certainly don't agree with itsallgood.

I didn't mean to push Flash above the rest as numero uno, and something that wipes away it's competition. I have become increasingly cynical towards Flash in terms of what Adobe promises, and the stuff they actually deliver. The 3D Molehill API may be the ONE thing that will regain some of my respect.

I meant to show with that post that some people's worries about Flash becoming totally useless because of HTML 5 are unjustified. I think that Flash will very much have a fine place to fit in (note, I really do mean fine) for the next few years even, before a) HTML 5 really grows into something considerable to support an easy implementation of video embedding etc., or b) until people switch from Flash to other solutions.

By the way, I really don't get when itsallgood said that HTML 5 relies on Javascript. Like TOdorus said, HTML5 is more for laying out the web page, and sure, Javascript can use the new elements. But the main point of HTML5 is to provide a back bone for other scripts to use.

Now what TOdorus said about being standardized, the only thing that will really get HTML 5 "standardized" is everyone updating their browsers to the newest versions, and also even then there will be a difference in results from HTML 5 depending on the OS and browser for the more complex things, such as video.
What sets Flash apart in this respect is that updating the Flash Player seems like much less of a hassle than updating the whole browser. In a way, Flash Player is "standardized" across systems simply because it is using the same VM, and so one can expect identical results.

All in all, I agree with TOdorus in the sense that HTML5 and Flash are quite different things, and that HTML5 is meant to be very basic, but I was just addressing previous fears of some that HTML5 spells doom for Flash in terms of video and image galleries. While one could probably make a simple video display/image gallery through javascript and html5, Flash is a lot faster and easier when you want to give extra functionality and animation functions, something that these days is a big thing (not really calling back on sources on this one, just something I've noticed).

P.

Freakin slow internet connection made me double post...

If you´re mostly doing games, then you can totally stick with flash or learn some other language or middleware focussed on game creation rather than jumping into html 5, at least for a while.
If you´re mainly doing websites for earning your income, well, there are still a lot of things that can be done with flash which can´t be done in html5 but more and more things can be done with html 5, too and doing things without requiring a plugin is the en vogue thing there so then you´d better get into it asap.

HTML5 is BullS%#$t. It;s useless crap and almost every single blog, reviews or examples site touting its greatness is simply a paid advertisement. Like you say it has some big names behind it and they pay marketing firms to pollute blogs, reviews and forums with fake reviews. It's been done since 1995 with many products ( from nVidia - ATI wars, AMD - intel and so on ) and is being done all the time. They all do it, even flash review sites or front pages of big portals are often paid placements.

Take it from somebody who told you 3 years ago that Unity will never amount to anything in the browser gaming arena and of course I was right. Same with html5. It's crap that is completely insignificant right now and will remain so for at least the next 2-3 years.

Don't believe the hype. It's nothing more than paid advertising. Worry about your next game design and let the HTML5 hypesters choke on their own $hit.

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If you can churn out that functionality at a faster rate because it has been standerdized, that means a reduction in costs.

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Flash is more standardized than HTML5 and far easier to pull of just about anything with flash than jump through hoops to get even a fraction of what flash can do. It will change some day, but right now HTML5 is a mess unless you are doing very basic stuff and this being flashkit I assume we are not into basics like displaying an image gallery or some equally trivial nonsense ( even that is probably still better done with flash and more standardzied )

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Originally Posted by MikeMD

Take it from somebody who told you 3 years ago that Unity will never amount to anything in the browser gaming arena and of course I was right. Same with html5. It's crap that is completely insignificant right now and will remain so for at least the next 2-3 years.

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Haha, and with that snarky sidejab attempt you totally invalidated the rest of your commnent. Unless someone has missed the memo on unity made browser games by conpanies like Disney, EA and Lego being played by millions these days.

Regarding your points on html 5, well, Flash is a brand controlled closed proprietary system whereas html 5 is in comparison an open standard, totally despite the point which has more downsides/ upsides.

So while i agree that for game dev html 5 is no propper choice on most ends right now, your points make me wonder as usual =)

Btw i also disagree with your assumption that using html 5 for things like games would remain insignificant for at least 2-3 more years.
There are already first solutions for creating games emerging and i can see how there will be pretty usable ones in less than 2 years.
Then with html 5 one has the advantage that there is no plugin required so once some of the currently common downsides are addressed that has some potential and will get wider reaching adoption.
The main reason why i think your assumption that it would be insignificant for at least 2-3 more years are the emerging devices though.
It is already the case now that the growing markets in computing devices are smartphones and tablets and among those the adoption of html 5/ modern browsers is going on way faster than with classical desktop machines.
To me it is a nobrainer that average joe who is more consumer than creator when using a computing device would in a few years much rather use a device focussed on those needs like a smartphone or tablet and as those get renewed every 1-3 years (where 3 is the upper maximum usually)..
My iPhone already supports html 5 way better than my windows pc with IE on it for example =)


Besides that i don´t think one solution for game dev and publishing will dominate others to the degree of making them not used anymore, at least for a few more years.
The contrary, there will be more options to get content out there in more ways than ever before, for a few more years at least.
One can go to deploy to browser using a plugin based technology. Or go native client or html 5 or similar, so that it runs in the browser without any plugin required.
One can create native apps in various solutions.
One can use streaming services like onLive, gaikai etc to run on the thinnest clients/ even on weakest machines.
Many many options.

So yeah, again, if one is only doing websites and there doing things which could already now be done with html 5, well, it would be a good idea to get into learning html 5.
But when it is about doing more involved things like games, there are more options at hand, not less or being forced to using a particular one.

Basically one can look at how and for which platforms one wants to get content out there and based on that choose among various options.

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Then with html 5 one has the advantage that there is no plugin required so once

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No, but you have to update your browser, while some plugins can even self update themselves
Besides, every designer i know still cares for older browsers

Yeah, sure, i worked at a web agency for several years, so i know what it is like to have to optimize for old netscape/ mozilla browsers and old IE 6 etc despite there being way way newer versions out there.
It also is still the case today largely, still as i said, there is a big shift going on right now and for the next few years where it is changing on what type of device the majority of users experience games, apps ands web content. And those emerging device types do have way faster upgrade cycles, so yeah, in not too distant a future people will optimize more for such devices than for the 5+ years old windows desktop box.

Btw "funny" coincident: My old pc crapped out yesterday night, so time to get a new one there finally, too =) The only 5+ years old device i had left sitting around here.


And again, my comments where not to praise html5 adoption (which is at this point still weak even if it is accelerating faster and faster now) nor to praise or blame flash, as i said there are more and more platforms and design/development technology options and deploy options shaping up, not less of them, so yeah, just pick what suits your needs and wishes.

Haha, you said "Netscape".

Has anyone here tried making games with HTML 5?

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Originally Posted by ImprisonedPride

Haha, you said "Netscape".

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Yeah, it seems so long ago now that that is gone, no? =)

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Originally Posted by tomsamson

Yeah, it seems so long ago now that that is gone, no? =)

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You speak the truth. Seems too long ago Netscape blew me away... and downloading an mp3 in ten minutes was "blazing". :crazy:

Haha, yeah, i still get reminded of the old early public internet access days most times when it is about downloading big files, too.

For example my old pc crapped out end of last week so i got a new one and of course then the rest of my day was spent setting everything up to get a useful work environment on it, which meant downloading and installing tons of things.
And yeah, that each time the download took way shorter than installing the app, even when it was about things several hundred Mb big reminded me again about the days when i had my first dial up modem, it would take way long to load a website with a few gifs on it and i really had to watch out not to stay online more than absolutely needed because the phone bill got sky high.

"good old days" :)


Also reminds me of a discussion on internet connections speeds and where things are evolving the other day.
There i represented the stance that LTE/ 4G rollout is starting out in several regions this year and many others next year so that mobile connections can soon surpass the fastest landline connection speeds we have today, while at the same time for landline connections fiber rollout closer and closer to the end consumer is progressing in many places, too.
Hence i was advocating that digital distribution is totally the future and we likely won´t see optical disc distribution around as mainstream distribution form for more than a few years.

A guy from Indonesia argued against that saying they are still on expesnive slow dial in modem connections and digital delivery would therefore likely take 15-20 years till it becomes mainstream there and therefore retail box delivery of optical discs like bluray would still be mainstream in 15-20 years.


Well, that then also reminded me again: Sure its unfortunate that things aren´t evolving positively as much as possible around the world at the same time and sure, where feasible one should also cater to an as large audience as possible.

But then on the other side, as content creator i feel like at some point in between when one wants to do some more advanced stuff, well, it is then in that case maybe not a good idea to target the lowest common denominator anymore, because nowadays there is a gigantic difference between what the majority of the population has access to in some areas and what´s the state in other areas.

If one wants to optimize games just regarding bandwidth throughput for the slowest connection speeds out there, well, games shouldn´t load in more than 100 kb still, whereas in other parts of the world one could easily have a game that has streaming data of several hundred Mb without the user ever having to experience a lengthy noticeable load time.

Likewise the gap between lowest end machine regarding technical specs still sold somewhere today and the specs of a machine sold in other large parts of the world might vastly vary, some projects might be doable just fine for the lowest specs possible, while, well, if one always focusses on that, one maybe never can´t do some kind of content because it would only fly on higher spec machines.

Heck, the new pc i bought is regarding machines sold here a totally average machine and it is in pretty much every regard so much more powerful than my crapped out five year old box was, that it is hardly even comparable.

Makes one wonder what one wants to target as max/ min spec in between =)

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Originally Posted by tomsamson

so i got a new one and of course then the rest of my day was spent setting everything up

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That's why I banned Microcrap from my life.

Ubuntu 4 Lyfe.

Downloads: Instantaneous.
Installs: Instantaneous.
Performance: 100x better than Microcrap with the same crappy Gateway MT-6705 laptop w/1GB DDR2 ram.

Hm, i don't get the part of installs going that much better.

Besides that, well, i dabbled with all sorts of OS over the last few years, meanwhile i'm at the stance that i think none of them is perfect by any means but each of the major ones is quite useful for something so i like to have one or several machines around with different OS on so i can run all the apps etc which are only available on a particular one. Right now i have a mac and a pc, next year i'll maybe buy a new macbook pro and install mac OS, windows and linux on it =)

I've been seeing Ubuntu exclusively for over a month now and I've yet to find something Windoze did for me that Ubuntu doesn't do for free and do with twice the performance. There are a few things it did for me that I wished Windoze could do but never did.

Programming for free, that sounds like a great way to live

@ImprisonedPride: Well, that´s cool, as i said, i´m looking forward to having all 3 major OS on a single machine early next year, too =)
Right now i´m mostly using windows for apps not available on the mac like 3D Max and others running way better than on mac (like most of the Adobe ones).
Then i´m equally using the mac for the apps available only for mac OS or running way nicer than in windows version. And yeah, also using it for all iOS stuff since that´s good to do with a mac so one can use all the xcode tools and the whole device interaction works better.
Well, we´ll have even way more different OS types and versions around soon what with now Chrome OS devices coming out, next year also playbook OS and various other ones =)
Its funny, to me these times feel a lot like in the early video game and computer days, tons of new devices, OSs many distribution ways and other avenues for indies popping up each day. Not sure how long expansion in diversification will go on like that, but it is interesting to experience =)

@Incrue: I guess Imprisoned was talking about him using free apps for his work rather than him working for free =)

I know, its not about IP but what i dont get is that usually some guys on this open source religion thinks that everything should be free.Its something like, if you use their free stuff you are in some kind of moral debt.Like, if you get it for free you should also give back for free.Those guys are also the ones who think they have the right to decompile our games.
I hate all of this crap.When i want something, i pay.I don't like to ask for favors, nor i think that everything belongs to everyone.

Besides, is there Unity for linux already?

No, there isn't. Linux isn't a target platform for many of the big software companies since the linux penetration figures in the desktop consumer market are tiny.
Interestingly enough Linux, besides for servers, is most widely used in quite changed and expanded upon OS versions like android OS. And yeah, with unity one can deploy to android devices.
Regarding actually running in the browser on usual linux desktop distributions, well, i think that is most likely to happen when google chrome with native client support rolls out, so sometime next year.

I also almost missed your earlier reply. Yeah, that is a long going on discussion, some seem to see it as ideal to have all accessible for free while others see a sense and requirement for people actually making money with the content they create. I don't think it is an attitude specific to a single OS user but more specific to a group with certain world views. ( coincidentally many in a particular group may lean towards certain OS of course ;) ). While i for example understand why some kind of people might lean towards Linux i find it weird, ironic and totally marketing driven when it is about leaning towards other OS due to its "openness". Some thinking about Android being so much more open than the iPhone for example, while Apple was the one who opened the mobile app distribution up to indies way more than many other companies before and many of the android consortium members and devices are not open at all, partially don't even open their app stores to all developers for example.
Anyway..

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Originally Posted by Incrue

Programming for free, that sounds like a great way to live

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Programming for free? That's just crazy-talk. No, as tom said, I was referring to having free software at my disposal, the work I do is paid for. :) Besides, you can't expect budding indie developers to shell out hundreds of dollars when they hardly have their foot in the door of the industry. It might take you a long time to just break even from purchasing the licenses...

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Originally Posted by ImprisonedPride

No, as tom said, I was referring to having free software at my disposal, the work I do is paid for.

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But the linux guys do it for free, and they want you to follow their religion and do the same.Untill some day everyone will be brothers, we will hug a tree and sing kunbaya

I never felt pressured into Linux, nor that I should "pay it forward" through redistributing help to the Linux community. It seems that neither does the other 99% of the market share.

HTML5 can not be compete right now with Flash. For several reasons:

- First of all no browser supports HTML5 100%. Even the HTML5 specs are not ready 100%. Most of the modern browsers supports some HTML5 features, but this is not enough if you want to write an application. Applications should run on existing browsers and this discourage developers to use HTML5.
- Not all HTML5 competes with Flash. HTML5 is more complex and only one of its features is intended to be a flash killer: Canvas. Here are 3 things that will make flash better in the short run: Flash can be run on almost any browser, even on old browsers, Flash has lots of extra features, is faster and there are lots for libraries and code for flash.
- Beside some visual aspects like round borders existing and implemented HTML5 features are not really used for the simple reasons that they are not supported by old browsers. In the rare cases when they are used existing options are present and if HTML5 is detected it is used(for example the html5 video player is used if detected otherwise flash is used).

On the long run HTML5 will be supported by most of the browsers, including mobiles. When HTML5 will have a big developers base it can replace flash, of course is flash don't find another niche. However, flash will dominate the scene at least for a couple of years, despite the fact that big actors like Google and Apple are pushing for HTML5.

Flash will never die
But it sux to know that if you make a game, every idiot on earth will be able to steal and decompile it.

I know, as opposed to clicking View -> Page Source for HTML 5 games... :D

We've played a good bit with porting parts of our kick butt isometric rendering engine (1920x1200 full-screen 50 FPS scrolling) over to HTML 5 and the results have been very disappointing. The HTML 5 canvas tag was quite a bit slower at blitting than Flash. So much so as to kill performance. Additionally, contrary to what Apple wants you to think, HTML 5 on the iPad/iPhone is far slower than Flash :) We tested that a good bit and were consistently surprised.

In short, HTML 5 could replace Flash for games but it's good a lot of performance and API hurdles to get past first.

-Mike

Man, i wonder that you were surprised about the html 5 performance (or lack thereof).
Flash´s performance is in various areas better than the one of html 5 right now, i thought that was pretty commonly known by now. Flash´s performance "just" sucks compared to various other plugin technologies and of course even a lot more compared to what can be done in native apps when creating them with other solutions.
And yeah, flash´s performance also sucks in general when one thinks of a possible future where either the full app would be cloud based and just the image streamed to the user or be a native client sort a app, no matter if launched from the browser or not; in both cases not needing any plugin.
I have a mac and a pc sitting here and well, on the pc usually flash only takes browser performance down noticably when there are several flash movies on one page, on the mac it happens already with a single flash movie and yeah, pretty much all browser crashes i get on the mac are due to the flash plugin. Would the performance of the browsers and websites be better if all that is done using the flash plugin now would be done with html5 instead? Not at all, at least right now it would likely be quite worse.
But would the performance be better if some of it would be done with better performaing plugin technologies or as native app/ native client solution: yeah, totally.

Right now the only upside of html 5 to me is that it runs on various platforms where there´s no plugin support.
Next to that, no matter if one likes that or not (i personally don´t), for the advertising banner industry it is benefitial when people can´t block advertising on websites as easily anymore (if all ad content on the web was made in html 5 instead of largely in flash that would mean basically not being able to use the sites themselves a lot anymore either in many cases when blocking the html 5 content for the site in general to get rid of the ads, it would be way more cumbersome to have something working like a flash ad blocker for html 5 content).


I think for a chunk of the content publisher industry flash is seen as something negative because most of the motion media/ interactive free to consume content on the web is flash content ;
for platform holders anything that reduces the stability and performance of their browsers is seen as negative
and regarding consumers, well, a lot of those are not technically knowledgable enough to know whether html 5 would perform better, cloud based app video streaming would perform better or native client stuff would perform better or content done using a different plugin would perform better,
a lot of those consumers just see: well, there´s some of this plugin content and it seems to slow down my browser or even make it crash in between.

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Man, i wonder that you were surprised about the html 5 performance (or lack thereof).
Flash´s performance is in various areas better than the one of html 5 right now, i thought that was pretty commonly known by now.

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Ha, I've not personally been keeping up with any performance tests and the like so I just based my assumption that HTML 5 would be adequate from all the hype. Clearly it's just that, hype :)

With that said, one thing we found very interesting is that our ES5 JavaScript API is MUCH faster than our AS3 version of the same API. This is particularly interesting as we have to jump through a lot of hoops to get our binary protocol working in JavaScript since it lacks the concept of a byte datatype. It's possible this is due to a performance issue with our Flash code but thus far it looks like JavaScript's execution of raw code is just very good.

-Mike

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Originally Posted by webgeek

Ha, I've not personally been keeping up with any performance tests and the like so I just based my assumption that HTML 5 would be adequate from all the hype. Clearly it's just that, hype :)

With that said, one thing we found very interesting is that our ES5 JavaScript API is MUCH faster than our AS3 version of the same API. This is particularly interesting as we have to jump through a lot of hoops to get our binary protocol working in JavaScript since it lacks the concept of a byte datatype. It's possible this is due to a performance issue with our Flash code but thus far it looks like JavaScript's execution of raw code is just very good.

-Mike

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Yeah, how much of the html5 and flash and other technologies comparisons is hype and how much factual depends on the use case and what one compares i think =)

To my experience some code only execution is a lot faster than flash code execution in many other languages/environments, flash graphics side execution seems to be still a good bit superior than html5/ js graphics execution in many cases though and then unity and native apps beat that by quite a margin again.


As i said a lot of people see plugin content on a page and notice browser performance and stability going down in many cases and just don´t consider how it would run if the same content was done using a html5 solution instead, so there´s only the negative experience with current implementation, without knowing whether html5 would do such a better job or a worse one when doing the same thing.

Besides all that many things done in flash, unity and other middleware solutions are of course not doable at all in html5 in its current form and for many of those that would be theoretically doable it would be a nightmare to do them without any kind of proper editors for it, next to other points like lack of drm and source code protection mechanisms etc.

I feel like the whole html5 aswell as full on cloud computing (a la onlive where the user only receives the final image instead of his machine doing all computations to create it), aswell as the native app delivery focused pushes going on right now all do a great job in showing the weaknesses of flash but especially the html 5 in browser option is nowhere near being a good replacement for all things one can do in flash or other plugin technologies.
Right now it basically makes sense to replace flash content with html5 stuff where it is a propper replacement, but as soon as it goes into heavier media interaction, well, html5 just isn´t there yet in many cases and in those cases where flash doesn´t perform well enough on graphics side it would usually make more sense to go for unity or other middleware solutions rather than for html5.

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Originally Posted by MikeMD

Take it from somebody who told you 3 years ago that Unity will never amount to anything in the browser gaming arena and of course I was right.

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No, you was not.Unity definately has his space on the web and that grows every day, off course it will never be as big as flash because every idiot on earth can make a flash game, wich also gives a bad reputation to those who work on that
http://www.kongregate.com/unity_game_contest

I think that if killing anything, html is a Flex-killer, it seems way less focused on flashy graphics, than it is on data interaction. The whole canvas seems there, only so you a less restricted way of presenting data.

Are there any html5 game examples, apart from the hardcore "let's see if we can make a game in [technology]" crowd? Flash also isn't geared at creating games, but at least it is at a graphical presentation, which helps out games a lot. Html5 seems more enterprise geared like Flex, where display is less of an issue.

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Originally Posted by MikeMD

Take it from somebody who told you 3 years ago that Unity will never amount to anything in the browser gaming arena and of course I was right.

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Sorry, I'm gonna say you totally missed the boat on this one. Unity is taking off something huge. Electrotank attends quite a few social game conferences (Login, Engage NYC, Engage San Jose) as well as all the US Game Developers Conferences (Austin and SF) and even Games Con in Europe. We are starting to see a lot more interest in Unity for virtual worlds and MMOs than we do for Flash. Suffice it to say that Electrotank, a Flash-only development shop since it's inception 8 years ago, is now becoming a Flash and Unity shop. Jobe Makar, author of multiple of the best-selling Flash books, is now becoming a Unity developer. A good number of our senior Flash developers (several of them I'd consider some of the best Flash developers in the world even though you've never heard of them) are all becoming skilled Unity developers.

So that's us, what about everyone else? Sadly, I'm privy to confidential information I can't reveal. Suffice it to say that there are lots of new Unity shops working on larger and larger Unity games but there are also major game devs from the traditional game industry building Unity games. I know of at least two triple-A title game development studios who make games you see on the X-Box, PS3, and PC who are now building Unity web-games to push the sale of their new titles.

I think the mistake people here have made is assuming where Unity will grow. Unity is taking the traditional game development community by storm. It's not winning over tons of Flash developers yet but it's making a killing on the traditional game market. This has a direct impact on Flash devs though in that it still means more and more Unity games hitting the market and the web. Even if people are not building web games with Unity, that is one of Unity's core features and I guarantee you that you will start to see more and more Unity web games. Kongregate moving to support Unity is a huge first step. Considering that the Unity indie license is less than Flash's license certainly doesn't help Flash's case.

Take an elegant tools and asset workflow. Then combine it with an easy-to-use programming language like C#. Add some deployment ubiquity so it runs on every platform. Finally toss in very good performance at a low price point and you can see why Unity is so attractive to game developers.

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Originally Posted by TOdorus

Are there any html5 game examples, apart from the hardcore "let's see if we can make a game in [technology]" crowd?

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Yes, Travian. Hugely successful HTML-only game. There are quite a few spin offs of it as well, some use Flash like Evony but many don't. It doesn't have animation and the like, but you didn't specify that.

-Mike

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Sorry, I'm gonna say you totally missed the boat on this one.

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Yeah, I really did, after 6-7 years of Unity these days I just can't find a flash game from all those awesome Unity games cluttering up portals all over the web.

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http://www.kongregate.com/unity_game_contest

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Oh wow, looky looky here. Over a year ago when they announced it and I said it was nonsense and it in fact didn't work out Unity marketing now decides to fork up $20 000, maybe now it will work better. Yeah sure, keep dreaming.

Unity is fine for as you say traditional gaming market/development, but please it's pointless discussing it here, just as it would be pointless to go over to Unity forums and discuss flash.

Completely different markets.

Hm, your posts often make me wonder if i should even reply, if you´re even interested in hearing a different opinion than yours, well, i still try some times :)
So first of all:
1. Game portals in the form they are common now are a relict of the past, let me tell you.
They still have a ton of players, but that´s not where most of the money is made and the focus is way more on other outlets nowadays.
Player counts of other distribution channels are exponentially growing while the same can´t be said for most portals at all.
And especially on revenue side a lot of portals are not very attractive to many seasoned developers who actually earn their living with games. That brings us to:

2. A lot of game portals have deals where they pay the developer very few money up front if any and then maybe do a revenue share thing.
That´s not the case for all portals, but applicable as general rule of thumb.
That doesn´t fit very well together with doing more involved games.

So when one takes 1. and 2. together there are two example reasons for why many of the unity developers would rather try to release their game on facebook, pc download/ steam, iOS, android, wii, 360, ps3 or as retail pc game or do some well paid client work than go for trying to get a sponsorship deal going with some game portal.

Again, there are exceptions to this rule on both developer and portal sides but yeah, it isn´t the same as with the flash game market where there are tons of people handing out their games for free with some ads added into them, at least not right now.

Does that make unity more or less a good choice?
Does it mean unity is less widespread on less platforms than flash?

I mean come on, who cares if there are 10k sites with unity content on there or 100k sites.
Unity is used for many things and it is making quite big leaps on most fronts, so why are you so stuck on insisting the opposite?

Also while use cases and outlets for flash and unity aren´t completely the same, both are used for game creation and deploy to multiple platforms, so yeah it is a kinda self limiting view to always be stuck to "this no flash, different thing, close eyes, pretend its not there".