The future of online browser games

AddictingGames.com Is one of the largest libraries of flash games. Featuring such classics as Clear Vision, Age of War and Fancy Pants, AG has been around for a long time. Many millennials fondly remember playing games on AG during class in middle school. Flash is an integral part of early internet culture. That being said, what will happen to websites like AG after Google Chrome, and other major browsers, completely discontinue flash in 2020?

Many have asked the question and I’m here to provide answers!

The truth is that we’ve been hard at work at Addicting Games to assure the future of browser gaming. Sure, most of our games library is currently in Flash, but we’ve been attacking the problem from multiple fronts. How do we intend to survive the inevitable Flash Doomsday event in 2020?

1. Investing in IO Games

IO Games are free multiplayer browser games, typically built in HTML5, that anyone can play without needing to login or sign up. A great example of an io game is krunker.io. These games are massively popular, standalone titles and standalone websites that have their own communities. IO game culture is very much different from flash game culture because the focus is more on multiplayer experiences.

Through our IO Game sponsorship program, we’ve invested in many io games, such as noob.io and bois.io. We’ve even produced some of our own, like bumbercars.io and tacticscore.io.

Easy-to-learn, easy-to-play, the gameplay loops for these games are typically much simpler than console games. IO Games are the ultimate form of casual gaming, because you don’t need to download, install, or update anything. Simply go to the address, and play. AddictingGames.com also released an IO games category this year, which features games like moomoo.io, Little Big Snake and starblast.io.

We intend to continue to invest in IO game titles because we believe it to be the future of browser gaming.

2. Convert flash titles to HTML5

Not only do we want to look at the future (i.e. IO Games) but we also don’t want to forget the past (i.e. flash). Flash holds a special place in the heart of many gamers, and many of the games we feature are timeless flash classics. This is why we’ve invested an enormous amount of time and energy into converting our extensive flash library into HTML5. We’ve started with the hits, like The Impossible Quiz, Bubble Spinner and Kitten Cannon, and are now working our way through even some of our more obscure titles.

It is a technically challenging feat: to convert thousands of titles from flash to HTML5. Although such automation tools exist, they are for the most part, abandoned due to the complexity of converting Flash to HTML5 in a reliable way. Mozilla discontinued project Shumway in 2015. Shumway was Mozilla’s answer to the flash problem; it was essentially a media player which would play flash in the browser. In regards to the discontinuation of the project, Mozilla engineer Chris Peterson stated “other product priorities are currently more important than propping up Flash.”

We have adopted a similar strategy. Instead of “propping up” an old, dead technology with downloadables, hacks and perhaps third-party extensions, we have decided to embrace HTML5 and convert all of our best titles to the future-proof technology.

We believe “nostalgia gaming” is a big part of the appeal of addictinggames.com. It’s a lot of fun to go back and play old titles and many of our users are concerned they won’t be able to after the discontinuation of flash. I’m here to quash that fear: AG’s library will remain, for the most part, completely intact after flash is finally laid to rest.

3. Distributing HTML5 games

HTML5 is not only great for multiplayer games, but the tech also enables a better and more seamless single-player experience. We’ve not thrown all our eggs in the “io games” basket but continue to invest in single-player experiences. Our current HTML5 single-player library consists of hundreds of games and we release dozens of more games every Thursday.

Addicting Games isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. We intend to continue to be a part of the continuously growing and expanding culture of browser gaming. Our classic titles will always be available, to this generation of gamers and the next.