Future of online games...

Hey there gamers,
i sometimes wonder about the prospects of online games.

I dont know...probably marketing genius's, industry bigwigs, or the flash masters in flashkit can explain us the significance of online games wether the demand for online games will increase, its going to be steady or going for a decline. This thing worries me a lot cause i am doing lots of games for internet purpose. I just want to know wether if i can make money out of just online games.

Also need to know about the new emerging technologies for creating games for the internet.

HOPE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>HOPE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>HOP E>>>>>>>>>

Most of us flashers spend a lot of time looking at flash sites, admiring the cool interfaces or trendy designs.

But we are different to the average internet user. Most internet users arent overly concerned with design, they are after one thing - CONTENT!

Flash games are 'fast loading', entertaining and often 'addictive' content.

So I would guess that flash games have a pretty healthy future. Users want entertainment and businesses want people to visit their web sites. So its a perfect match. A game can include plenty of branding or advertising within it - and its a million times more effective than banner ads.

Furthermore, flash is moving onto a lot of new devices, such as webtv, pocketpcs, digital tv etc. All of these are areas where games can thrive.

The future looks bright :)

I agree completely. I really think the future of the internet is entertainment and recreation. Whilst Flash games are still fairly simplistic devices the speed at which they have grown is fantastic. I truely belive it'll only be months, let alone years, before someone produces a commercially accpptable flash game.

Macromedia themselves are quite serious about future gaming needs in relationship to flash...the new Star Wats game for the playstation 2 used a prototype flash technology for it's interface - (i posted a link on here a while back) - and it's rumoured that Flash 6 could have an output option for ps2 format.

I think there is gonna be a big demand for online games in the future...just wait till broadband hit's the mainstream...

Quote:

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Originally posted by Gambini
- and it's rumoured that Flash 6 could have an output option for ps2 format.

I think there is gonna be a big demand for online games in the future...just wait till broadband hit's the mainstream...

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Yeah, a PS2 optimazed plugIn would be great.

An other good market for Flash games will be the cell-phone/pda market of the future. I heard something about a Flash-Plugin in the EPOC OS.

So try to make your games in the EPOC QUARTZ resolution next time.(240*360) ;)

Yes flash developers have a good future. On the other hand flash is a software rendering only plug-in, this is why it is cross platform. Unfortunately that means it will never run at speed necessary to make a commercial quality game!

Also I believe that the Play Station 2 roomers are that the PS2 web browser might some day support the flash plug-in.

I still think flash games will be in good demand, but I would not get my hopes up, that a flash developer will be making PS2 games… that’s just silly.

Happy Flashing! :)

What I meant was that flash designer will not just be limited to designing for the web. If it becomes common to use Flash for the interface, then there will be transition into the gaming industry although not being directly involved with the actual game design or anything. Also I would never say it's silly that one day we could be designing ps2 games - look at the difference in quality of the flash sites today and those of just last year...many of the games programmers who program for the ps2 and dreamcast today started out programing space invaders for the commodore 64 and spectrum....did they ever think the games industry would advance as fast as it has?

there is similar build ups to games and flash games...

start with pac man.. space invaders.. someone dose some cheesy 3d cubes... people walking around.. shooting games... ect...

every game needs to build off another game inorder for it to be more complex.. or at least rules for a game have to be come standard before people will move on to the more advanced stages of creation..

right now we have flashers writting lots of differnt types of code to do the same thing... also we have the limitaions of flash itself..

however in a little bit somethings may become standardized and who knows.. someone might make a C++ 3d engine that can interact with flash or a data file that flash can use with it at the same time to create 3D...

still its all speculation until it happens.. one thing that flash has on its side is that its popular, with that people will keep using it and it will become more powerful with time.

I think one of the most attractive thing about flash games is that they're free, and you don't need to install anything. A lot of people don't want to download a small game because it might contain a virus, and there are also lots of people who don't know how to install a game once they've downloaded it. Of course the swf is also downloaded, but that happens without the user noticing it.
Flash games are also great for people at work. You can't go play Unreal tournament or something like that at work... but you can sneakily play a few flash games without any problems.
I think flash games certainly have a bright future, but only if they keep evolving. After about two years, a flash game that doesn't have a multiplayer mode probably won't make it... And when more and more people are getting broadband internet access, people will want bigger, more detailed and more complex games. (though I think small flash games will allways be popular because a lot of people don't have much time to play games)
We're gonna have a lot of fun in the future, but it's also going to be more work to make a successful flash game.

then again, things could turn out completely different :D

Olorin

Its great guys this discussion board is....
indeed i am more relaxed now.........

Well be it PS2, dreamcast i would always hope that flash become an industry standard for games in the future wherein all the technologies will have extensive support for the FLASH engine.

What i like the most about flash is its clean graphics......
i also belive that flash engine needs to be more developed so that it handles more load on it...cause i have seen the swf game getting slowed down drastically when u use more variables....and when u talk about developing complex games then u will be using dozens and dozens and dozens of variables and flash should be capable of handling all that.

Hope macromedia is certainly doing something about it...

dont i am not a technical expert but ....probably making flash more penetrable into the machine can be of use ...

HI,

I have been a way for a while, new Job.

I agree with all comments above.

The games industry is bigger than the pop industry, meaning it is a serious little baby.

I do think Flash games have a future, especially as far as the net is concerned, 'phones and even hand held PC's. However with new games consoles like the PS2 and Dreamcast taking games to an almost movie industry level, simpler games are losing their worth. I do beleive there will never be any serious money to be made out of Flash games directly. Obviously revenue can be gained through commercial links, advertising, hit rates etc. but as for the games themselves they are only at a Spectrum type level which wasn't worth much even 5 years ago.

I hope people continue to develop Flash games though, as more games means more ideas, and more new concepts. Flash has given the ordinary person a chance to realise some of there previously untapped gaming ideas.

Personally, this is the first time I have been able to make my gaming ideas into reality. I have always wanted to program, but could never get to grips with some of the more hardcore programming languages.

For those who know me, I developed Santafighetr in december last year, but my game programming has been on hold, while I have been settling into my new Job as a Flash animator/programmer for a digital division of Hallmark.

I soon hope to get more of my games up on the net, and start looking into more advanced games for the more hardcore gamer.

Keep on Flashing people, and rememeber Flash is only as limited as your skills.

keep developing.

'til next time.

Chris
Animator/designer
Crown Greetings.

PS

if you have not played my game, check it out at:-

http://www.murrayanimations.co.uk/santafighter.htm

Bye

Hey,

some useful links/info relevant to the discussions in this thread.

*** PS2 interfaces ***
[from flashmagazine.com] The Strobe SDK for creating UI's for the PS2 is announced to be available in Q3 2001. The SDK is developed by Secret Level in San Francisco, CA. http://www.secretlevel.com

um.. Q3 2001 ?? - thats when flash 6 should be due?

*** hardware 3d support ***
the next version of the shockwave plugin will support 3d hardware. Test it out at http://www.macromedia.com/software/s.../SW3D_Preview/
So never say never for hardware 3d support in flash - although I dont see it happening soon


** some comments by me **

Chris said "I do beleive there will never be any serious money to be made out of Flash games directly. Obviously revenue can be gained through commercial links, advertising, hit rates etc."

- depends on what you mean by serious money - some of us are making a living out of flash games! Mostly through licencing games or being comissioned by companies to develop games. Id argue that if chman sold the banja.com site/engine they could get some decent money for it.
Also I reckon sarbakan got decent money for developing steppenwolf for warner bros ( see http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/steppenwolf/home.jsp )

Id suggest that in the future (as is the case now) most online games will be made in flash and most PC/playstation games will be made in c++. What will happen for digital tv games and as the web and playstations merge remains to be seen.

dd

i don't know what the future holds but one thaing that bothers me about the present is that when developers want to make flash games they feel obligated to make then in the most goofy cartoony style they can manage...i'm not talking about all of them alot of cool stuff out there...

but most flash games use the goofiest crap characters...
there i had to get that off my chest....don't mind me io just hate goofy cartoony crap...this isn't directed at anyone's games in this forum, i've seen alot of cool stuff here actually
[Edited by qwerdbeta on 04-04-2001 at 08:35 PM]

The future of online gaming is not so bright
check out :
http://members.home.com/ssantoso/moku.html
(63KB)

Yes i agree with you querdbeta that indeed flash output is more of cartoonish but if you are an artist then you can get any kind of output you want from flash thats why i like it. For me as an asrtist i enjoy drawing in flash sometimes if i have to create any kind posters or ads or whatever creative content which people other wise do it in Corel Draw or any other applications i do it in flash, although i know coreldraw as much as i know flash.
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I may be imagining very vague things but as a hard core flasher i have strong urge that flash sholud be developed to such an extent that it starts supporting microsofts DirectX. cause by using the directx libraries the flash developer will be shareloading the job that otherwise flash is doing so we get an enhanced graphics and game performance so that the developer can start adding in more things that otherwise he coudnt have had.
And Flash through its 5th version is getting a more OOPS like structure so a little more effoert and i dont think it will be long when we will start calling the directx classes which all do the wonderfull work when we hit the roads in NFS or shot around in QUAKE or talk to a scientist in HALFLIFE..........
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Any one from macromedia?????????

Will online games be successful? The news is litered with examples and articles about this growing industry. Here's a recent article.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/555920.asp?cp1=1

Now a better question is "Will FLASH games be successful?".

Rocketsnail Games
http://www.rocketsnail.com

some advice :
turn to Shockwave if want to do hard coding.
Shockwave is more OOP structured than Flash even before Flash was born.
U can make 3D games with shokwave.
also Macromedia is gonna release Shockwave3D. it uses/supports DirectX technology and OpenGl. you can expect the graphics quality of your game to match those in PSone.


==but if Macromedia decide to abandon her baby(Director) for some popularity reasons then i think u should stick to Flash.==