Of course it is a very different market than for web based, or traditional PC and console games, so I suppose it comes with the territory. Dumbed down, “one-button” casual games and grid based puzzle games, with little depth, are what the devices thrive on. But I’d argue that the market is due to the limitations of the device, not the limitations of the device are due to the market. If, for instance, you want to implement a retro action game, platform game or anything at all that involves shooting (to name but a few) you’re really out of luck.

The main problems are:

Visibility

Being forced to put your hand/finger right over what you’re looking at and/or tilting the device obscures our view of what’s going on. This is all without taking into account the greasy finger smears that can end up partially obscuring the screen.

Pointer Accuracy

Touch screens obviously lend themselves towards mimicking other pointer devices such as mice, trackballs and graphics tablets. The problem is they are much less accurate than all of the traditional pointer devices. This means hit areas such as buttons need to be bigger and people with large hands and fingers often struggle.

This and the visibility issue are huge inherent problems with touch screens and a big part of the reason why touch screens are also a bad idea on desktop and laptop PCs.

Lack of Multiple, Physical Buttons

Without multiple, physical buttons your control options are seriously limited. Say you’re faced with having to design a game to coincide with the release of an action film. Then you’re struggling. Prodding a screen with a greasy finger, whilst watching a constantly moving character simply jump through hoops just isn’t going to do it.

Current Solutions

These devices were never made for games. Their crude, simplistic input devices were designed for a totally different purpose.

If you need to implement multiple distinct interactions required by most retro game genres (such as movement, jumping, attacking/shooting) without a keyboard or controller you’re left with having to use a virtual, on screen controller. Again, this can obscure the on-screen action (particularly on small smartphone screens) and provides none of the feel or physical feedback of a physical input device.

The other alternative is to try and force a basic point and click based control system into every game. This leaves you in a similar position to only having a mouse for PC games (but with much less pinpoint accuracy). It’s ok for certain genres, but try using just a mouse to control a retro 2D platform game. This is why these sorts of games tend to turn into overly basic single action, one-button games, with most other actions happening automatically.

Physical Controller Add-Ons

Physical gamepad controllers for smartphones have started to emerge, usually clipping onto and extending the phone. This is a step in the right direction, but I worry about the practicalities of having to carry around a physical add-on that is at least as big as the smartphone itself. These are meant to be mobile devices and with smartphones getting bigger and bigger anyway, is anyone really going to be bothered to carry another bulky item around with them? There’s also the price issue. These controllers can often be an expensive addition to an already extremely expensive device.

A Solution is Required

As it stands now, gaming on smartphones and tablets is great for the Nintendo DS casual crowd. Although these are often people that wouldn’t normally play computer games. Until the control issues are sorted out it’s going to be extremely difficult to lure gamers away from consoles, PCs and even dedicated handheld gaming devices. Anything other than simple timewaster games are difficult to pull off on mobile devices and at best involve some serious compromises, in terms of controls at least.

Experimenting With the Wii Controller

Over the last few days we’ve been experimenting with using the Nintendo Wii Controller for an exhibition stand Flash game project using the WiiFlash code library. It’s working surprisingly well, despite the fact it’s a little clunky to set up. We’re also planning to test out some more input devices for these sorts of applications, including retro arcade machine joysticks.

HTML5 Games

We’ve been spending some time converting over some of our AS3 code libraries to Javascript for HTML5 games. It’s been an interesting experiment, trying to work around the many problems with the platform. Having worked with Flash for 10+ years now, I can honestly say it’s currently not even as capable as Flash was 10 years ago. Extremely patchy (and in the case of older iOS devices, non-existent) sound support is the worst of it’s failures, of which there are many. It’s also more of a processor hog on desktop computers than Flash ever was.

Overall it’s a fairly easy transition to make though. I’ve personally been coding in various languages (from BASIC to Pascal to C & C++ to AS3, as well as dabbling in a bit of 6800 assembly language) for over 20 years now. So making the transition to Javascript is a pretty painless task (apart from the fact it’s fundamentally a horrible language to work with and a massive step back from AS3).

Anyway, I thought it’s about time we get serious about adding this flawed and terribly glitchy string to our bow. If clients insist on primarily targeting the mobile web, we’re happy to accommodate that with HTML5. But we will still be recommending Flash as the much better option in the majority of cases.

Projects in the Pipeline

We’ve currently got a few new game projects in the pipeline including a retro arcade game built in HTML5, our Fyoozd 2 puzzle game (which we’re hoping will arrive on both web and mobile platforms later in the year) and also a couple of commissioned projects in the early planning stages. Keep an eye on the site for more info.

The evidence that I’m seeing, based on fact, not uneducated opinion based on hearsay, is that Flash game plays are as strong as ever, if not actual getting stronger. We’ve seen absolutely no decline at all in the number of people playing our games. Our most successful game continues to get between 25,000 and 30,000 hits per day, and is still steadily climbing. Overall ad revenue, from our own self-published Flash games, continues to rise too.

This goes completely against the incessant, bandwagon jumping tech media’s Flash bashing that continues to go on. The problem is most of it is written by journalists that quite frankly have no clue about what they’re writing, but for some bizarre reason seem determined to spin any Flash related story they can get their hands on as “another massive blow to Flash”.

So the moral of the story is, don’t believe everything you read. The Flash game market is as strong as ever and showing no signs of slowing down. So if you’re thinking of commissioning a branded game, Flash is still the way to go. It still, by far, provides the best distribution channels, to get your game huge exposure. Despite the fact wherever you look these days, someone seems to be talking or writing about the demise of Flash, the actual stats say different, and they don’t lie.

It’s not too late to post your feedback in the comments of that post. We’ll be going through everything in detail and producing some preliminary designs over the next few weeks.  Plus, I’m hoping to be able to share some stuff with you during development this time around. We’re juggling quite a few projects at the moment as well as continuing to take on commissioned Flash game projects and we really want to take our time to get this right. So there’s a good chance this will take us up to the end of the year, but keep a eye on the blog for updates as and when they are available.

What I can say at this point is it will be very much improved over the original Fyoozd. The plan is to go for a completely different (and much improved) visual style and we desperately want to get a Fyoozd game onto mobile platforms. It’s clearly just screaming out to be played on mobiles and tablets. So everything from the way it’s represented to tweaking the controls is going to be designed with touch screens in mind.

Flash Is the Best Way to Get Guaranteed Exposure

The biggest problem with mobile is getting your game noticed. It’s a big gamble that may end up with little return. If all you have is a mobile version, you could end up having to allocate a substantial budget towards marketing the game itself. Otherwise it’s likely to get lost in the sea of apps on the mobile platform’s respective app store.

Flash doesn’t have this problem. Because of the nature of the technology it’s possible to distribute a single game file for hosting on many different gaming websites. This avoids the risk of having your game only available in one place (the appropriate app store) and having to drive traffic to that place. Flash gaming sites have a huge existing combined audience of millions ready to play your game and interact with your brand.

Although play numbers aren’t guaranteed, the potential is huge. Our most successful branded Flash game to date has achieved tens of millions of plays since launch. Trying to get this kind of exposure for a mobile only game is going to be extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible.

Flash Is More Cost Effective

If you want to target all available devices you’re going to need multiple native versions of your mobile game. Because Flash targets a common web based player, there’s none of this fragmentation. This makes Flash much more cost effective as a starting point and is more likely to be available to you within a modest budget, without spending a fortune.

Can’t I Just Use HTML5 and Target Both at Once?

I’m not going to go into the problems with HTML5 for games, or the reasons why it’s a terrible platform again. But apart from the numerous compatibility issues, there is no way to package and distribute HTML5 games in the same way as Flash. So you’re essentially left with the same problems of using a native mobile app alone – the game exists in one place and you need to drive traffic to it.

Flash Can Be Used to Drive Downloads of Your Mobile Versions

Because Flash makes it easy to generate huge exposure, you can harness this exposure to drive traffic to your mobile game. This is why it’s essential to treat the web based Flash version as the foundation and ONLY if budget allows, think about adding native mobile versions of your game. The Flash version can generate exposure for your mobile version, but NOT the other way around.

Flash First, Mobile Second

When considering using a branded game as part of your marketing campaign, by all means consider ONLY a mobile version if:

1. You have a decent budget to drive downloads of the app, or…
2. You don’t mind hardly anyone playing your game.

Always choose web based Flash first, if you want to guarantee decent exposure. Only then and if you have a substantial budget left, start to look at other additional platforms such as mobile.

Hate the Application Not the Technology

The problem is most of the hate for Flash, from both users and the tech media is completely misplaced. It’s all based on the assumption that Flash is ONLY:

1. Those horrendous, pointless animated intros for websites that I don’t recall seeing since the 90′s.
2. Complex multimedia websites that take an age to load before you see anything.
3. “Annoying” banner ads – What users don’t seem to realise is those ads are the reason the content you’re looking at is free, but that’s another story.
4. Online video players.

These applications are just that, what you hate about them has NOTHING to do with Flash. The animated intros were just a poor, widespread design and usability choice that was used when the web was in it’s relative infancy. Flash just happened to be the platform used to make them. The loading times of complex multimedia websites are down to file sizes of content involved, not the tech used. An identical website built with HTML5 (or indeed any other platform) would take an equally long time to load. If you think animated banner ads didn’t exist before Flash, then you clearly don’t remember animated GIFs, and that’s without taking into account the fact that the majority of banner ads don’t even use Flash, but static images. Online video players are just a use for Flash as an application, which brings me onto the next point…

Flash Is So Much More!

This is the main problem. Apart from the fact that Flash is seen by many as just a very small subset of what it can do, in some cases based on long abandoned, misguided uses from a decade or more ago. These people who are complaining about Flash and the fact it should die are undoubtedly using Flash on the web in ways they didn’t even realise. With such a blinkered view and the fact that users don’t know or care how content is delivered, as long as it is, they often don’t even realise what they’re using is Flash based. This is only confirmed by the fact that I still hear people complaining after buying an iPad as a laptop alternative, only to realise half the internet doesn’t work on it.

Where Flash shines and will continue to do so, is for complex online applications and online games. It’s still the most popular platform for web based games for a number of reasons and will continue to be. For these sorts of uses it has no equal.

Then There’s the Performance Issue

The other reason people hate Flash and a big reason why Apple still refuses to allow Flash on it’s mobile devices is it’s way too slow. Again, misplaced. The real reason (that us developers again knew all along) is mobile hardware is so underpowered compared with desktop and laptop hardware. Even the highest spec current mobile hardware is equivalent to positively antiquated PC technology. As was to be expected, equivalent HTML5 content (the supposed Flash killer) is so slow it’s practically unusable on many mobile devices. Because of the inherent performance sortcomings of such low spec hardware, native apps are the only solution for complex multimedia applications, in order to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the device.

The Web and Mobile Are Separate Arenas When It Comes to Complex Multimedia Applications

Ultimately, the Flash vs HTML5 debate along with all the Flash hate stems from a desire to take unachievable shortcuts. Users, tech media and hardware manufacturers were (and still are to a lesser extent) intent on pursuing a currently unattainable “develop once, use everywhere” ideal, via the web. HTML5 was supposedly the tool to make that happen. But until mobile hardware catches up with current, low end desktop PC hardware, (at which point the remaining issue Flash is blamed for becomes a non-issue) web and mobile must be treated as separate platforms. Flash can and will continue to exist and thrive for complex web based applications and for mobile, going native is the only choice.

HTML5 is the Future?

It just reminds me of the days of trying to get anything above and beyond a static web page to work with HTML (+ Javascript + CSS). And that is essentially what “HTML5″ is, with some updated functionality. I don’t know if all the people singing HTML5′s praises and declaring it as the future have forgotten all the cross browser compatibility issues, hacks necessary to get anything to work at all, poor performance and general lack of visual control. Or maybe they weren’t around to use it and see it in action (or not, as the case may be). Or (in terms of the tech media) they don’t work in the industry and are just blindly following what they are told and hear like sheep, chasing sensationalist headlines, clearly without actually having any knowledge or experience of what they’re writing about whatsoever. The combination of HTML, Javascript and CSS was and always will be terrible from both a developer, client and user perspective. Going back to that is the future!?!?!

But I’m Told Flash is Dead?

Just because you read it doesn’t make it so. It really isn’t, far from it. From a client perspective, you really need to steer well clear of HTML5 for multimedia content. I know you’re thinking about compatibility with mobile devices, but what you’re going to end up with is an end product that runs much slower than it would with Flash, won’t work for a big percentage of users, because of cross browser compatibility issues and will run so slow it’s practically unusable on most mobile devices anyway. Plus, development costs will be much higher and the end result will be inferior. Oh and be prepared for the browser companies to change things in future versions that will break elements or stop your precious HTML5 working altogether. So be sure to budget for getting this fixed, again and again.

But HTML5 Will Get Better, Won’t it?

I know what you’re thinking, it’s early days, it’ll all sort itself out. No it won’t. If we’ve learned anything from the past, in terms of these same problems that Flash solved years ago, it’s that they don’t get sorted out. It’s still a nightmare to get the previous version of HTML (+ Javascript + CSS) to work properly and consistently across browsers (and that’s well over 10 years old now).

The trouble is, Flash is a standardised plugin, across all browsers, put together by the company that originated those standards. HTML5 implementation is each particular browser company’s interpretation of standards that are woolly and changeable on a whim, at best. But not only that, certain browser companies decide to ignore the standards as they see fit and just do their own thing. This has always been the case and will always be the case.

What’s Guaranteed With HTML5

By all means insist on HTML5 instead of Flash for your web based multimedia content if you want to be guaranteed that:

1. It will cost more and take longer to produce.
2. It won’t work on a big percentage of browsers in use.
3. It will break in future, without you doing anything.
4. Ongoing maintenance will be required to keep up will all new versions of browsers, at your cost.
5. It will run so slow, it’s unusable on many mobile devices.

This is all without me getting into the fact that if you’re using HTML5 for a game, it’s likely hardly anyone will get to play it in the first place.

If you really must have mobile compatibility, then a native app is the way to go, alongside the Flash web based version. Trying to do web and mobile at once with HTML5 just isn’t going to end anywhere good. You’re just going to end up with an inferior end product that doesn’t run well (if at all) on either.

What we really should be doing is pushing Apple to back down and allow Flash player on their devices. Then people won’t continue to buy iPads as alternatives to laptops, only to realise half the internet doesn’t work on them. But that’s another story.

So please, please, please don’t buy into the HTML5 hype when you’re getting complex multimedia content created for the web (an app, game, widget, etc.). Flash does the job much better and will continue to do the job much better, giving you a higher quality, more consistently compatible end product, for less money.

Many are either web designers that decided to start making games or independent game developers that have seen an opportunity to make money doing commissioned work. Although it probably seems alright to commission either a web design company OR an independent game developer to produce your advergame, this can be problematic.

Choosing an Independent Game Developer

A good game developer should have the skill and experience to make a great game, the problem is they generally don’t have the skills or experience to deal with commissioned advergames. Most have no experience of anything but producing their own games. So you could find your developer is clueless when it comes to working with agencies or in-house marketing, brand guidelines, pitching and quoting for projects and managing all of this to make sure the job gets done and delivered on time. In fact one of these companies (mentioning no names) recently contacted us to get an idea of cost for a project (clearly wanting us to help them out with a quote), shortly after starting to advertise their own advergame services.

Without commercial design experience, independent game developers can end up completely out of their depth when it comes to advergaming, like this guy.

Choosing a Web Designer

It might make sense to use the same company that does your web design for your advergame. That way you’re working with designers you’re familiar with and keeping all your contract work in one place. But if you hire a web designer to produce your advergame there are a different set of problems.

Sure a good web designer has the experience of working in a commercial design environment and dealing with everything that goes along with it. The problem is, there’s a world of difference between designing and producing a website and creating a game. Web designers just don’t generally have enough experience of the challenges specific to making games. And because they’re not exclusively making games day in day out, the chances of ever getting really good at solving these specific technical and design challenges are slim.

Of course there is an exception to this, if they are sub-contracting to a true advergame specialist. Agencies and web design companies often come to us for their advergame projects, as they recognise they don’t have the necessary expertise in-house.

Choose an Advergame Specialist

True advergame specialists have experience of both commercial design and game development. This ensures that not only are there no surprises (and minimal difficulties) when dealing with things like branding and project management, but you also get a great game delivered on time. Certainly in the UK there’s probably half a dozen developers offering advergaming services that fall into this category (with dozens more in the other two), and it shows in the quality of the work produced.

So, if you’re planning on taking the leap into advergaming for your business, make sure you use a highly experienced true advergaming specialist. Or at the very least, make sure you check that the developer you’re planning to use has extensive experience of BOTH video game design & development and commercial graphic design. Otherwise you may end up with a difficult development process and/or an inferior end product.

Flash Isn’t Dead

Despite the fact the media have been hell-bent on regurgitating the ridiculous rhetoric of companies with their own agenda such as Apple, Flash is still alive and kicking and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Now I won’t go into the details of why HTML5 hasn’t and won’t replace Flash for games, but in relation to branded games, the main reasons to forget HTML5 are:

Performance

HTML5 is still way too slow on many mobile devices, meaning instead of being the cross-platform miracle you’ve been lead to believe, it is in fact practically unusable for games. Even Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame recently admitted that betting on HTML5 was a mistake. So using HTML5 to allow mobile compatibility probably isn’t the best idea.

Exposure

Performance issues aside, getting exposure for an HTML5 game is a huge problem. There’s no reliable way of seeding an HTML5 game, and no signs of one on the horizon. There isn’t the infrastructure of Flash gaming sites available to get players playing your finished game. So it’s highly likely that hardly anyone will see your game, unless of course you’re just using it for visitor retention on an already extremely high traffic website. The whole point of a branded game is to increase brand awareness and drive traffic, how is it supposed to do that if it only exists on the website you’re trying to drive the traffic to?

Should I Just Get a Native Mobile App Then?

Native mobile apps solve the performance issues on mobile platforms, but again, the same problems with distribution. It’s highly likely you’ll just end up with an app sitting there, that hardly anyone downloads, or sees.

Stop Focusing on “New Tech” and Start Focusing on What Delivers Results

It’s so easy to constantly focus on what the latest technology is and think you should be targeting that. New technology like HTML5 isn’t what it’s made out to be. And while a mobile game might make you feel like you’re keeping up with the latest technology, getting it to provide a worthwhile return, in terms of exposure, is far more difficult than with Flash. In fact you’ve only got to look at the millions of unsuccessful apps sitting on the app store, doing nothing, to realise this.

Flash Games Still Provide the Best Exposure

For games, Flash is truly unbeatable in terms of exposure. As long as you have a good seeding strategy, using a Flash game for your marketing campaign makes most sense, if you don’t want your game to go unnoticed. There’s a huge network of gaming sites waiting to post your game to drive the traffic needed to make it a success. Any good branded Flash game developer should be able to help you utilise this.

Don’t be fooled into thinking mobile is what you should be focusing on, or even worse you can kill two birds with one stone and get a web and mobile branded game by using HTML5. Flash is still by far the best solution for branded games and the only solution that can provide guaranteed exposure for your brand.

Best to Ignore the Casual Game Market

It’s easy to go for the obvious option and start looking at Flash casual games online to get ideas for your Flash advergame. The problem with this is there is very little innovative design in the casual game market. All you’re likely to see is endless rehashes of whatever happens to be flavour of the month. Currently with Flash games, that appears to be distance games. Trends come and go and you can guarantee whatever is even remotely successful will spawn hundreds of clones (of varying quality). This brings us to the other problem, quality is very hit and miss. Do you really want to go trawling through hundreds of low quality games to get some ideas?

Look at Gaming History

The best thing I can suggest when looking for ideas for your advergame is forget Flash and casual games. Look at gaming systems and games of the past.

Maybe it’s a misspent youth playing the coin-op arcade games of the late 80′s and early 90′s, along with old home games consoles such as Sega Megadrive, SNES and home computers such as the Commodore Amiga. But these are great sources of inspiration.

Because you’re looking at cutting edge games from a bygone era you’ll see some great, relatively simple games that focus on gameplay over fancy graphics. These games didn’t have fancy 3D graphics, but made the most of what they had. Plus there’s definitely a certain charm to these retro games that tends to be missing from a lot of modern games, even casual games.

Most of these gaming systems are pretty hard to come by these days, unless you trawl through eBay listings, in which case you might find a bargain. But there are plenty of retro gaming sites where you can check out info and there’s always YouTube for gameplay videos.

Alternatively Speak to an Expert

The obvious alternative is to use a developer with a vast knowledge of games and gaming for your advergame project. That way you don’t have to go trawling the web to look at all these games. Any good developer should be passionate about games and have a broad enough knowledge of games to draw on to give you plenty of ideas without you having to do the legwork.

If you want to speak to an advergame developer with both a huge knowledge of gaming past and present as well as skill and experience in game design then get in touch for chat about your next project.