Flash Is Back

The old school online format has been overlooked in the excitement surrounding Web 2.0. Now it's making a powerful comeback

by Edge

Newgrounds.com, the large Flash games and animation site that spawned Alien Hominid, has been accepting user-produced submissions since 1999. That it has been quietly spearheading for eight years what is only now being trumpeted about in the mainstream media is indicative of how overlooked the Flash games scene is. Flash games are, after all, easy to write off as derivative and scrappy, good for a minute's cheap entertainment and little more.

But now, Flash gaming is undergoing a blossoming of activity and creativity. The people who make the games, often teenage bedroom coders, are getting paid for their efforts. They're used to the idea of creating something and putting it up on the web for all to see, and new websites are springing up to capitalise on their work. Flash itself is becoming more powerful as a gaming platform. And, perhaps most importantly of all, the scene is at the centre of the rise of 'casual' gaming.

"The rise of quick pick-up-and-play games is an important development, and Flash games mirror their rise in mainstream gaming," says John Bardinelli, contributor to casual gaming site Jayisgames.com. And because most web browsers can use Flash, playing a game through them is an effortless pleasure: "In the same way that short-form viral videos have taken off, I think we're seeing the same things for web games," says Jim Greer, co-founder of Kongregate.com.

"Digg has a section devoted to them, and 90 per cent are Flash. When one gets to the front page, the hits rocket -- games three years ago never achieved the same levels of audience awareness."

Such popularity is beginning to earn the game makers money. Newgrounds, which receives around 500,000 visitors a day with 200 game and animation submissions, each month awards the top ten contributors, as voted by users, $250. Kongregate, which was launched in December 2006 gives its game-makers a cut of up to 50 per cent of the ad revenue their games generate.

Meanwhile, companies like Crazy Monkey Games and Armor Games have begun to sponsor games in return for them featuring their logos and linking to their sites -- both Flash game portals that earn money on advertising revenue. It's in both parties' interest that the games are featured on as many other websites as possible. "This way we get some promotion of our website in exchange for the sponsorship," says John West, head of Crazy Monkey Games, who believes his was the first company to offer such deals. "The game developer keeps the copyright on the game, art, characters and so on."

West believes that the money a good game designer can earn is helping Flash games become better. "We're seeing more and more games being developed, and the quality level going way up as developers devote more time and energy to their games," he says. "People who used to develop these games for fun in their spare time quit their day jobs to earn their living developing games full time, and I see this market as continuing to grow very quickly. There's plenty of demand from players for new browser-based games, and plenty of demand from websites like ours for new games."

One of West's sponsored developers is Sean Cooper, creator of the Boxhead games and an ex-Bullfrog and EA programmer who decided to go freelance working in Flash. "There is money in Flash, there's a lot of ad revenue being made," he says. "I can't guess what these guys are making out of the games I'm developing but I'm doing really well out of it." Sponsorship means that he's paid as soon as a game is completed, sometimes being offered a share of ad revenue, too, and his experience means that he can command the best rates.