Is Flash gaming dead?

[drpelz]

Just curious because I read this article at http://www.photonstorm.com/archives/...tml5-and-unity and I'd like to know what do you guys think about the future of Flash gaming.

Currently I'm developing my first game and it gets released in March / April 2012. I'm still new to AS3 so I'm totally unaware about the future of the Flash/AIR-gaming platform. Do you think you can develop native Flash games for the next 3 - 5 years?

[CyanBlue]

"What" worries you as a game dev who uses Flash?

[drpelz]

That Adobe drops support for Flash suddenly and no new technologies (like frameworks) are developed any more.

[ASWC]

People can say whatever they want on internet, it's up to you to believe it or not. Adobe has dropped Flash support for mobile browser that's true, but what some people are saying about this being a set back or a 'black day' for Flash developers only show that they have no idea what it meant and no idea what they are talking about. just like if somebody reads this:

Originally Posted by drpelz

That Adobe drops support for Flash suddenly and no new technologies (like frameworks) are developed any more.

And believes it's the truth. lol

[CyanBlue]

Unless I've read it wrong, Adobe still plans to work on AIR that runs on Mobile devices. If that still is true, I have no complaint. I still can use AIR to develop anything I want.

I have multiple devices that I use and I hate going to a website that has lots of bells whistles. If I am on a limited device, I want to see something that's prepared for that. Flash on the mobile device just does not cut if you ask me. Yes, it runs generally well on something simple but you cannot run any complex Flash based websites simply because the device does not have enough juice to run it. That's my 2 cents.

[drpelz]

Ok. Thanks for your replies.

One question though: if I want to develop downloadable games for mobile devices is Flash/AIR the way to go? I just ask because I'm totally unaware abouth this AIR/mobile stuff.

[Xegnma]

Originally Posted by drpelz

One question though: if I want to develop downloadable games for mobile devices is Flash/AIR the way to go? I just ask because I'm totally unaware abouth this AIR/mobile stuff.

Depends on what you're trying to achieve. The current mode of thought is that non-native compiled apps like Flash/AIR suffer from performance issues. So for performance critical apps you're supposedly better off writing code native to the platform. Of course if you want your app on as many handsets as possible, with the native-code route you will have to write your code in multiple languages (Objective-C for iOS devices, Java for Android, C# for windows mobile etc).

Hopefully with the release of the optimized AIR 3.2, performance will be improved enough so we have a true "write-once-run-everywhere" solution. Ultimately though, it always boils down to trade-offs regardless of which platform you're working with.

[drpelz]

I suppose you mean "Stage3D hardware accelerated GPU rendering" (according to Adobe) for AIR 3.2.

Will that be fast enough to develop high performance games for the mobile platform? I just ask because learning Objective-C is not that easy and currently I don't have the time diggin' into it.

When you come from an AS3-background how long does it take to learn Objective-C for the mobile platform? 2 - 3 months?

[Xegnma]

@drpelz: You can check out the latest blog entry over at bytearray.org. There is a video there that features some stress tests of the new AIR runtime (on iOS no less). 60 FPS in some cases.

[ASWC]

If you plan on developing tons of app for iOs then I'd advise you to learn objective C instead. AIR for IOs has some limitation like being unable to load external .swf.