In like, 2005-2010ish I remember there being these awesome online games through sites like Mini Clip. All disappeared from the internet.
I understood it had something to do with Java? Or… some plug in? I don’t really understand what either of those mean.
What happened to online games?
Is facebook not full of them? When I used facebook in the early days of facebook games, there were lot’s of flash games that later transitioned to HTML5. Games like Farmtown got copied and monetised (e.g. Farmville).
I think the company was Zynga that copied new indie facebook games (I seem to recall drama) and monetised them.
Does that ecosystem still exist?
Yes, but Social Media games have always had MUCH lower quality than online/standalone games.
I don’t know what flash games you were playing but I can’t remember any that I’d describe as quality. The ones I were playing were mostly user uploaded ones made with pirated versions of flash dev tools (I was known to make my own for a while too - this may have ifluenced what I was exposed to).
The most polished games I can think of outside of facebook pre-HTML5 were those ones where you drag the clothes off the woman and it’s a photo of her naked underneath. I seem to recall settings for changing breasts too.
What quality flash games are you thinking of?
Umm, Kongregate and Armor games used to produce famous games. I liked platformer games like Amberial or FancyPants Adventure, also Bloons TowerDefense or I Love/Hate Traffic. Rebuild was one of great ones (strategy survival after zombie apocalypse), etc. There were talented guys out there.
Kongregate was dope, it was like Steam but for flash
Hmm, I think those games came out a bit later than when I was playing flash games.
I also think many of the facebook games were more polished, but on thinking about it there were not a lot of genre options. Most facebook games were quite similar to each other in terms of time passing in real life being a core part of most facebook games. Flash games were a much wider variety of genres.