The Ragtag Squad That Saved 38,000 Flash Games From Internet Oblivion

February 6, 2020 9:26 PM

Flashpoint and other enthusiasts have archived tens of thousands of games ahead of the software platform's demise at the end of this year. [Wired]

A burning meteor is headed for the wide, weird world of online Flash games. Adobe will discontinue support for Flash at the end of 2020, rendering the delightful—and sometimes disturbing—’90s- and aughts-era browser games unplayable. It’s bigger than losing access to classic time-wasters like Desktop Tower Defense and Line Rider. A seminal digital culture is at risk. To stave off annihilation, a small underground movement of digital preservationists is fighting hard to spare the little Flash games from their fate.

posted by hippybear (8 comments total)

Aw shucks, beat me to it. I was going to put a post together over the weekend.
posted by juv3nal at 10:10 PM on February 6, 2020

If you have more to add, add more!
posted by hippybear at 10:12 PM on February 6, 2020

I don't know that I substantively had any more that hasn't been covered in the article (which was new to me).
I'd seen Flashpoint make the rounds on twitter so I would have foregrounded a link to the official site as well as a link to the official Adobe announcement about the end of support for Flash for context.
posted by juv3nal at 10:22 PM on February 6, 2020

On consideration, it's worth noting, I think, that this:

"Right now, the Flashpoint torrent is 241 gigabytes, downloadable to any Windows user for free—all in the name of conservation."

While true from a conservation standpoint, might be prohibitively large for people who just want to play games, and there is a smaller download on the official site ("Infinity" on this page weighing in at 296MB) that just downloads games when you choose to play them.
posted by juv3nal at 10:26 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Strong Bad Lives!
posted by fairmettle at 11:42 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]

241GB is prohibitive even at Costco hard drive prices. That's the perfect addition, juv3nal! I didn't even do the research!
posted by hippybear at 11:46 PM on February 6, 2020

My NAS is ready.
posted by MartinWisse at 1:19 AM on February 7, 2020

I still feel like not fixing Flash was a missed opportunity. Many game developers started with Flash, and it was an accessible route into developing things that were graphically rich (not just games). Its poor reputation stemmed from two things: The proliferation of bugs that came about due to Macromedia/Abode's shoddy quality control, and the difficulty of making websites look the same across a bunch of different browsers, which led to developers and designers inappropriately resorting to partial or full Flash interfaces. Nowadays we have entirely capable tools for delivering rich user experiences on the web, but sadly with a much higher barrier to entry.
posted by pipeski at 4:23 AM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]