«Flash is dead»-the development of new browser game standards

In a press release from the Hamburg game studio Playa Games, CTO Martin Well explains: «Flash is dead». Even if this is a bit dramatically formulated, the game developer is not so wrong. New technical further developments in browser game programming run the rank to Flash Player, which is considered unsafe: HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3 and Ajax, for example.

«This year leading manufacturers such as Google, Mozilla or Microsoft flash content will be banished from their browsers. The future belongs to HTML5,» said well in his press release in August 2016. Flash has been criticized for some time due to massive security deficiencies and has become more and more in the way with its no longer timely performance, so that the outdated adobe technology has been And after the browsers will disappear and has already disappeared.

Financial damage to developers by the abolition of Flash

It was also the Hamburg-based company Playa Games that developed a flash-to-HTML5 converter. Since existing flash-based online games are still widespread today, they represent the main source of income from numerous developers and publishers. If the flash content from one day to the next day is suddenly no longer available, the damage in Europe alone could amount to over 500 million euros annually. This is to be prevented with the converter. He was presented at Gamescom in Cologne in 2016.

The further development of browser games

Browser games are more present today than ever. Large browser game developers such as Gamigo and Bigpoint are primarily relating to HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3 and Ajax when programming. Only a few developers use the aging flash standard, even if most of the browser games are based on Flash up to the present time. The oldest massive multiplayer browser game comes from 1995-the game SOLThat was developed in Hamburg is considered the forerunner of modern browser games. As the first game, it not only opened a persistent virtual world, but was also operated by many players in the browser at the same time. It also enabled immediate interaction between the players. All subsequent browser games have continued this concept in a similar way. However, Planetarion from 2000 is considered the actual browser game «forefather». It was the first online game that was developed with the help of web technologies.

These games are not a comparison to today's browser game generation. In the early days, online role-playing games mainly dominated, which were mainly based on texts or tables. However, simulations and construction strategy games were not long in coming and quickly enjoyed great popularity. Since the first browser game steps were mainly mastered by hobby programmers, great graphics and animations were initially dispensed with. In addition, low internet transmission speeds limited progress at the time. With the help of the latest internet lines and technologies such as Ajax or Java, real-time strategy games, racing games, first-person shooters and action games with elaborate graphics were increasingly produced and offered via the various browsers. In the meantime, thanks to the increasing competition in the browser game sector for almost every gamer, the right game is the right game.

Browsergame innovations 2017

Promising and exciting new releases have already been announced for 2017. For example, the online role-playing game is Blesswhich is previously only available in Asia, in the starting blocks. The release of the browser game, which was equipped with an opulent graphic for a browser game thanks to Unreal Engine 3, has already been announced by the Berlin publisher Aeria Games last April, but it is not yet playable in Europe. Incidentally, none other than Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer is responsible for the music of the game, who, for example, composed the film music for «Gladiator» and «King of Lion». As further browser game highlights for the 2017 calendar year, among other things Albion Online, SoulWorker and Crowfall expected. As in the trailer below for the browser game Bless can be seen, the quality differences to the conventional computer and console games become increasingly lower. Accordingly, the demand for browser games is getting bigger: According to Statista, the number of mobile game users is expected to increase in the next few years from around 16 million users (2015) to over 18 million in 2020.

Image rights: Flickr Krazycarts Daniel Garrido CC BY 2.0 Certain rights reserved

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