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Is Flash still worth trying?


Rudrabhoj Bhati
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I started a larger than average turn-based strategy game initially in HaxeFlixel but later I was not happy enough with the performance and playability of HTML5 export of flixel (pure openfl looks better, IDK why). The code in Flixel is 65% of full game. I moved back to Phaser with JS. Is flash market still alive enough that it would be worth a try (which I think means earns at least 40% of the revenue a game may earn on HTML5) to port rest of the code to HaxeFlixel too? Research over internet gives conflicting results, sometimes it feels it is much more alive than even HTML5 but other times it looks abandoned. Anybody here with exprience on both Flash and HTML5?

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What's your business model?

 

Primary-license still exists in the Flash world, but from my experience has been a poor return on time since 2011.  HTML5 has offered good non-exclusive options and most market experimentation (i.e. revenue split) - it's also well suited to self-publishing with novel approaches (e.g. multiplayer turn based mode connected to social or messengers).  Mobile is the mainstream choice, most success stories come from there (but we should remember the normal).

 

Flixel via OpenFL for HTML5 is like riding a bike on a railroad wondering why it's so bumpy ...

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Totally depends on your expectations. You can still sell a flash license for a really good game for $10k+

Haven't heard about anything much bigger for quite some time.

Instead of smaller many games, I prefer to make more engaging and larger but fewer games. Ideally I wouldn't want to sell exclusives. So basically Flash world is good only for exclusives?

 

What's your business model?

 

Primary-license still exists in the Flash world, but from my experience has been a poor return on time since 2011.  HTML5 has offered good non-exclusive options and most market experimentation (i.e. revenue split) - it's also well suited to self-publishing with novel approaches (e.g. multiplayer turn based mode connected to social or messengers).  Mobile is the mainstream choice, most success stories come from there (but we should remember the normal).

 

Flixel via OpenFL for HTML5 is like riding a bike on a railroad wondering why it's so bumpy ...

OpenFl looks much better for HTML5. It is really sad, HaxeFlixel have manpower issues. It is like 2 days since I reported an issue with solution and they are yet to be implemented/checked. But yeah, another time when I reported an issue with solution it was corrected in main repository almost immediately. By Primary-license did you mean exclusives? I usually dislike exclusives, is non-exclusive market good enough in flash?

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"Primary-license" is a curious one, I think it was a term invented for Flash games?  As I understand it, a Primary-License is a one-off-sale, typically branded and exclusive for a period of time, and all subsequent non-exclusive licenses should be "site-locked" to prevent distribution.  In the Flash space a Primary-License with a top tier sponsor / portal is considered the desired outcome by many developers.  That said I never really thought it made much sense outside of the copy-and-paste-a-swf distribution model, so likely doesn't apply to HTML5 models that tend to use proprietary distribution networks?

 

The non-exclusive market in Flash tends only to work if you have a successful franchise - i.e. the Primary-License spread well, or the prequel did well.  Otherwise it will be small volume, low revenue sales, fair amount of time and risk implementing individual APIs.  By comparison selling a half dozen HTML5 non-exclusives for ~$500 each is more straightforward.

 

Have you considered using Phaser (via Haxe externs if you're a Haxe fan) as it's Fixel designed specifically for HTML5 (so no abstraction layer is needed, plus support and contributions are rapid)?

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It is really sad, HaxeFlixel have manpower issues. It is like 2 days since I reported an issue with solution and they are yet to be implemented/checked. But yeah, another time when I reported an issue with solution it was corrected in main repository almost immediately.

 

2 entire days, huh? You seem to have very strange expectations regarding software from free, open-source projects.

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I personally started out professional development with Flash.
I switched to HTML5 last August.

To be honest, it's very difficult to say... There are still opportunities with Flash games, but it definitely is not what it used to be several years ago.

If you have a very high quality game, or find the right sponsor, then I don't see anything wrong with it.

Personally, I still find some Flash-related work from time to time, but I mainly use it for graphics now.

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2 entire days, huh? You seem to have very strange expectations regarding software from free, open-source projects.

Na not complaining, what I mean to say is HaxeFlixel is so good a project it deserve much mroe attention than it currently have. :) And if it were closed source, then chances are, it may never get fixed :P :P

 

Have you considered using Phaser (via Haxe externs if you're a Haxe fan) as it's Fixel designed specifically for HTML5 (so no abstraction layer is needed, plus support and contributions are rapid)?

That is what I end up doing in next games as now I really prefer Haxe. Phaser for web games and Flixel for Desktop :P I have done more tests, simply HaxeFlixel can't meet Phaser. Probably when I get more time should work on Pixi implementation of Flixel, as it is a very good library.

EDIT:

So many things keep running in my head. For now Gods speed Phaser. If the HTML5 game turns out to be success than HaxeFlixel would be good for Desktop sequal. My exprience with Flixel on linux and windows have been mostly positive.

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