Questions on the future of flash games post flash support end

[derakino999]

Hello everyone, as you might have heard, flash games support will end somewhat bear the end of year (or maybe later, or sooner, don't know the exact date).

Anyways, that makes me worry about what this implies for the future of flash games.
Notable companies that come to mind right now are:
Crimson comics
Jsk games

What i wonder is, what will happen to them?
Will we still be able to download and play them on an external emulator?

Well the emulator part i'm 99% sure yes, but about the download part... will they not become unavailable?

As in we better stack up and go on a backup crusade? Like, right now?

What are everyone's thoughts on this matter?

 

[Bryanis]

Well, considering that some circle using flash have been releasing new version of old game where the game is in anothe rengine and the animation is now a (often but not always HD) movie of the former flash animation, at least some circle try to keep they work avaiable. Still, it's lot of work, and for some circle, it mean getting to learn how to work with another engine. So flash only circle may close or have to get through a long period of no release just ot get up to date with a new engine.

And yeah, even if emulator exist, I don't think most selling site like dlsite, DMM.... have had a formal stance announced concerning selling (or keeping in library for re download) old flash work...

 

[AceofWind]

For now, swfchan will likely still be active for the foreseeable future, it's the only site I'm aware of right now that actively archives flash content from around the web. People are already starting to move on to alternatives such as Adobe Air (which JSK has been including with his most recent games), HTML5 and Unity.

 

[derakino999]

@Bryanis I didn't think they would need to fiddle with emulators themselves, i thought when you bought a game you obtained the .swf and how you played it was up to you?

@AceofWind Yeah i'm not worried about new games, but old already existing games, which are tons and some are on one site and some others on another.
Does swfchan have a solid collection?
Maybe it would be best if i were to start downloading games like mad, after all...

 

[kvier]

swfchan has a fairly comprehensive collection of every pornographic flash that's distributed in a single file. It's got problems with flash that are distributed amongst multiple files.

There's many people working on archiving all the non-pornographic games, easily findable by searching.

 

[Fenril]

It should be worth mentioning that it's actually quite easy to download flash files if you have a browser add-on. There's lots of add-ons which allow you to download virtually any and all embedded objects on a page, from flash to videos.

About the only problematic flash games would be the ones that call for other programs. One that comes to mind would be Slave Maker.

As far as running flash games, there are programs for that, too. The obvious one would, of course, be Adobe's own flash player. But there are alternatives if you don't think it'll stick around. One program I've been using for a long time is called Swiff Player although I'm not sure how easy it would be to find these days.

 

[super_slicer]

It should be worth mentioning that it's actually quite easy to download flash files if you have a browser add-on. There's lots of add-ons which allow you to download virtually any and all embedded objects on a page, from flash to videos.

If you use firefox just right click and click on view page info, click the media option on the top of the window that will pop up and you'll get a list of all the images, videos and flash files on the page. It also has the option to download a specific one if you select it.

About the only problematic flash games would be the ones that call for other programs. One that comes to mind would be Slave Maker.

There are actually a few that are just containers which will pull all the resources from a server and the intent of the design is to prevent just anyone accessing it.

 

[derakino999]

Yeah chrome has that exact same method as firefox slicer mentioned.

So, in a nutshell, they will just become non-online playable anymore, but downloadable anytime?

God if that were to be so i wouldn't worry one single fuck

@kvier Yes, i have seen a few that have files and folders besides the main .swf file

 

[Nightverge]

As far as "emulators" go, you can get it right on the

You must be registered to see the links

. Look for "

You must be registered to see the links

"

Once the projector is on your computer, you have to

You must be registered to see the links

as the default program for .swf files. Look at slicer's post 2 above me to find those.

 

[Rextra]

As far as emulator go there's Ruffle, which is an open-source Flash emu written in Rust programming language. Not sure if linking is allowed so just Google Ruffle emu and you should find it.

Flash survival mostly depends on whether site owners keep or remove all the Flashes hosted on their sites by the end of the year. If they decided to remove them en masse then expect extinction. Adobe will only block any flash file from running on your browsers and will show us this warning screen:



It will then redirect you to the official Flash EOL page. I tested this by sped up my device date and time setting to March 2021.

I want to write much more but then I'm busy hoarding flash now, so I'll be just linking to a pretty detailed thread made by a VN fan on VNDB:

You must be registered to see the links

Read the rest of the thread, especially the last post for pretty detailed ways to preserve any flash that you like.

Regarding some big flash sites and their response to this crisis:
Armor Games - will use Ruffle and temporarily disable any flash that can't be run by the emu until they find a better solution
Kongregate - will donate their flash to a digital museum
Newgrounds - partial integration of Ruffle, launched their own Player that enable you to play flash indefinitely
Y8 - launched their own flash player
SWF-chan - still being discussed, it will be offering direct downloads, using ruffle or using browser that still enable flash. The site promise that they will still online next year.
H-flash - will remove nothing, they will use ruffle and offering direct download
Furrafinity - No announcement yet but it seems they will take the same path as Armor Games
Deviant Art - Still waiting for a response from them regarding my inquiry about flash through email.

 

[TitanAnteus]

Don't delete flash.
Keep your flash projector.

Flash files are no longer going to be secure so take care of where you DL your flash files from and you should be fine.

 

[Hentaispider]

Don't delete flash.
Keep your flash projector.

Flash files are no longer going to be secure so take care of where you DL your flash files from and you should be fine.

Flash files were never secure in the first place.

 

[Rextra]

Flash files were never secure in the first place.

Big portion of flash games are 100% playable offline so yes, a lot of them are pretty safe.

 

[Hentaispider]

Big portion of flash games are 100% playable offline so yes, a lot of them are pretty safe.

If you're taking precautions like disconnecting from the internet(which won't even protect you from a lot of stuff - if you're that paranoid, you should be running a VM), that means you don't think it's safe.

 

[Rextra]

If you're taking precautions like disconnecting from the internet(which won't even protect you from a lot of stuff - if you're that paranoid, you should be running a VM), that means you don't think it's safe.

Preservation projects are meant to be as independent as possible without external support. Rely too much on the net means that if something bad happening to the server or net in the future then your flash collection are still in danger. It's not about safety, it's about independency from sites that originally hosting those files. I currently own about 15,000+ flash none of which give me any threat to my device. If you want to be 100% safe tho, simply live without internet.