Html5 vs Flash, from being a sanctuary of multimedia for gaming to fading into the background as an alternative to HTML5, what happened that inverted the world for Flash? Why is Adobe Flash player retiring from the place it completely ruled? is Html better than Flash? We would be discussing all of that and more in this blog relating to the ‘game changing’ versions of HTML5 games and Flash Games.
In a conference in San Diego, Google’s Director of engineering revealed that the number of people viewing chrome via Flash has made a tremendous fall in just four years. It has decreased from 80% in 2014, to even less than 8% in 2018. What caused this disruption? First, we should know a little more about Flash. Understand the background to analyze its fall in demand in the market.
Flash was developed to be a vector-based drawing program, which was later recreated into a vector based animation program, a close contender to Macromedia’s Shockwave player. In 1996, ‘FutureSplash’, as it was called earlier, was purchased by Macromedia and transformed into a full featured web application tool. Its downloading size and its powerful outreach against its size was the prime feature that attracted most developers to embrace it as the preferred browser plugin.
In 2005, when Adobe purchased Macromedia and its whole line of products, it made significant changes in the scripting abilities of the software and also added 3D support. Soon after, they developed ‘Adobe AIR’ in 2008 that constituted extraordinary gaming abilities, unmatched by any other at that time and it received enormous success. What happened next was almost tragic.
The coming years were tough for Flash to survive, as it was the rise of smartphones with Android and Apple competing against each other to grab the market presence. In 2010, Steve Jobs hurled away Flash from being used in IOS devices and because the market was brimming with the welcoming of Apple devices, developers also moved away from flash to create apps and games suitable for Apple devices. In 2011, Adobe also pulled away from Flash and ensured that there are no associations made to develop Flash players on mobiles, which used to be the marketing advantage of Android over Apple. Gradually no developer was interested in taking up Flash as a platform.
There were certain demerits that could not be overlooked for Flash. At present very limited websites use Flash, which is either dormant and has never been updated or simply dead. So, what are the disadvantages that Flash puts us in while playing web games?
HTML5 was first launched in 2008 and later came after a vital transformation as a brand new markup language for scripting with its relaunch in October 2014. It is used to make complex effects and animation for websites and smartphones without any plugins which were why Flash was used. Hereafter the real combat begins Html5 vs Flash. The advancement in technology has made a space for HTML5 to be adopted by developers. However, let’s find out why is HTML5 game development preferred over Flash?
These were the additional features that HTML5 games provided to their users. It can be said that the emergence of HTML5 put Flash on the back seat but there can be no comparison that can be made between the two. The contribution to the legacy of games developed on flash would always be remembered in the history of the internet. Many flash games are converted to Html to escape death. If you wish to play flash games even after they shut down in 2020, here is a way you can do that.
As of now, HTML5 is the present of game development and it is flourishing with no shackles. How it is going to frame the future of the gaming industry, can be read at How Does Advent of HTML5 Games are Boon to the Today’s Gaming Industry.