The writing on the wall

[Jackolantern]

Finding this message on the homepage of the Push Button Flash game engine the other day really surprised me and made me start thinking. As one of the largest indie and small commercial Flash game engines, their closing down shop is a major sign of things to come for Flash. They say it right in the message:

Now, however, Mobile has become the center of the universe

Flash has basically lost the battle on mobile platforms due to not having any support at all on iOS or Windows Phone, and having limited support and performance on Android. HTML5 is eating Flash's old position in the mobile world and on the web. But this is the first major Flash game project I have seen go down and openly ascribe the cause of the closure to the industry and world at large changing.

Note that of course I am not saying Flash is dying by any means. Even if HTML5 were to bury it tomorrow (which it isn't close to doing), it will be a decade before we see it totally gone. But this just did interest me, and further galvanized my decision to seriously look into HTML5 game and app development.

[mattykins]

HTML5 is a powerful language for mobile app / game development indeed. However even though flash is not a viable option when developing for a mobile platform, it is still widely used on the web.

Sites like Newgrounds keep flash game development alive and I doubt flash will be completely gone in a decade, however it is hard to say with HTML5 becoming more and more popular every day

[Jackolantern]

I think what would really be a big boost to HTML5 would be a Flash-esque IDE. When you take away the Flash Professional IDE, raw Flash development really starts to look more like HTML5 development. I think better tool support will be a huge boon to HTML5 developers, but no one is really wanting to invest in making those tools while HTML5 is still in such constant development.

EDIT: And yes, Flash is not going anywhere anytime soon. The fact alone that HTML5 is not really broken at all into banner ads (Flash's 2nd biggest use behind video streaming) is a sign that Flash is still going strong. But I was really talking about in game development. I think HTML5 is starting to really gain momentum in that field, and may take a chunk out of it in the next few years.

[mattykins]

If were talking strictly game development then yes HTML5 beats flash in almost all categories. However as i previously mentioned sites like newgrounds will keep flash game dev going strong for a while. That being said though when HTML5 gets a proffesional IDE and stops constantly changing, Flash will become extinct in game dev

[OoZI]

I agree with Mattykins on this. Flash is not going to be dead, and is still widely used on the web. HTML5 is getting more popular everyday, and alot of Flash games are being recoded into HTML5.

[Jackolantern]

I agree with Mattykins on this. Flash is not going to be dead, and is still widely used on the web. HTML5 is getting more popular everyday, and alot of Flash games are being recoded into HTML5.

Wait...you are basically saying two contradicting things there

Again, I don't think that Flash is going anywhere anytime soon. But...I feel the winds of change blowing.

[OoZI]

What I meant was, HTML5 is defiantly gaining control, but Flash will never be completely dead.

[Jackolantern]

Yeah, probably not, but when people say "dead", they don't mean it has 0.0 users. "Dead" usually means probably around a 70%+ decline in usage. It will still be a long time before HTML5 gets to that point, but it is going to be an interesting next few years.

[Verahta]

So if you had to choose between HTML5 and Flash to make a browser game right now, which one would you lean towards?

[Jackolantern]

Me personally, HTML5, probably with Impact.js. HTML5 game development is on the way up, and, at least to some degree, Flash is waning a bit. Plus, there are several different tools to convert HTML5 games to all major mobile platforms so it can be sold in the app stores!