“The death of Flash is greatly exaggerated and at the same time, not really a bad thing.”
This is what Flash developer Brad Borne had to say regarding the medium, especially after Adobe’s recent decision to end Shockwave support and push developers to wean themselves from Flash and onto newer tech for their browser-based games.
Borne is best known for making the free side-scrolling browser game Fancy Pants Adventures (in addition to a host of other Flash games). As he describes in the YouTube video above, he believes that Flash is largely misunderstood.
“First off, I don’t think Flash ever got its due, even when it was at its prime” he begins.
The accessibility of Flash games made the medium special. All one needed was a reliable internet connection. “Flash never gets the credit it deserves for how many people it can reach.”
“I remember the first time when a page was bragging that HTML5 could play a sound, and so that brings me to of course, why was Flash so disrespected?”
Borne argues that Flash became synonymous with “terrible” advertisements and holding back YouTube once the platform started transitioning toward high-def video.
“Flash should have never been used for either of those things,” Borne continues. “It was always terrible at that. Flash only worked when it was the one thing you wanted to do because it sacrificed efficiency for a format that more artistically minded people were able utilize.”
He goes on to say that clicking to enable Flash seems like the best compromise, and could let Flash exist even when HTML5 takes over. He blames the “Flash is dead” joke for the reason behind his so-called rant.
“I say the reports of Flash deaths are greatly exaggerated because Flash isn’t just Flash player. It’s not just the delivery mechanism,” Borne explains. “We need to divorce Flash player from the actual tools.”
And according to Borne, that’s what Adobe is doing through Adobe Animate. “Adobe’s been pushing the animation and drawing tools to be way, way better than they ever were with Flash.”
Be sure to watch Borne’s entire video, where he continues to discuss Flash and how it affects his development work.