![]() But in terms of changes to web gaming software, the phaseout of Flash actually represents quite a lengthy process. Initially, I wondered how Flash could have faded so quickly, from being connected to millions of websites, to none at all in the space of ten years. ![]() I spoke to Oliver Joyce, former Newgrounds game developer, about the rise and fall of Flash, and what it means for online gaming. READ: Itch.io’s games aren’t ‘unspeakable’ they’re groundbreaking This year, as of January 2021, Flash has officially stopped running, disabling all its games, videos and animations across the world wide web. Just ten years ago, according to Adobe’s own numbers, Flash was installed on 99% of internet-connected desktop PCs, and thousands of free, browser-based games and animations were collected on websites like Newgrounds and Miniclip. If you’re old enough to remember the joys of Zynga’s original Farmville, the inexplicably popular Salad Fingers, or the cult classic Homestuck, you might feel strongly about the recent phaseout of Adobe Flash Player-a quick loading plugin for multimedia, animation and video that allowed internet users in the 90s and 2000s to create unique online content that would go on to transform digital cultures. I didn’t have internet at home until I was 18, but by then I’d already spent countless hours at public libraries and friends’ places playing Flash games, which were for me a source of endless comfort. ![]() Seeing the game screen replaced by a grey tombstone icon, I saw memories buried under the weight of the net’s transformation. It might have been a long time coming, but Flash’s disappearance hit me hard when I logged onto Neopets in early 2021 in a bid to distract myself from the isolation of the pandemic.
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