First of all let’s be clear on the definition of “mobile internet”. I’m talking web browsing on mobile devices running mobile operating systems and browsers (tablets and smartphones), not using a mobile internet connection on a laptop (or other fully functioning PC) for instance.

I keep reading how mobile internet access will eclipse, or is already eclipsing internet access on desktop (and laptop) computers. In fact, only today I came across another website proclaiming desktop internet usage only accounts for less than 50% right now and then implying that the rest is now taken up by mobile. I’ve also seen all the fancy “prediction” graphs and infographics that show that we all will have forgotten what desktop computers are within a couple of years, and we’ll only be using mobile devices for the internet.

My question is, is there any hard evidence to support this? Or is it just the sensationalist media making stuff up? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time the media (or companies with their own agenda) exaggerated, misinformed, or just made stuff up and it certainly won’t be the last. And the trouble is, when they do, too many people just seem to blindly accept it as fact.

I’m quite prepared to accept if I’m wrong on this, but the real-world figures I’m seeing (that have been confirmed by other’s web stats) are that mobile traffic currently makes up less than 20% of internet traffic, with the rest still being from traditional fixed computer connections. So where are people getting this 50%+ from, I really have no idea.

Now I’m not saying 20% is a figure you can ignore, but it is still a minority audience and certainly WAY below the figure the media are pushing. The problem is, I’m seeing more and more clients thinking that they should be targeting the mobile web as a priority, which inevitably alienates a large portion of the desktop audience (when it comes to games and apps in HTML5 at least).

So, as I said in the beginning, I’m merely posing the question. If anyone has real-world traffic figures for a website(s) that isn’t targeted specifically at mobile users and has anything even approaching a 50-50 split of traffic, please post your numbers to the comments below. I’m quite happy to stand corrected on this and the more data we can collect in one place, the better we can judge what is actually going on in the real world and not in some journalist or mobile device manufacturer’s fantasy land.

What a lot of people don’t understand about Flash, is it doesn’t have to be deployed on the web. In fact, many interactive kiosks are powered by Flash and have been for years. Flash can be used to develop full screen, stand-alone Windows applications for use on any PC based installation. What this means in practice, is anything up to a fully featured bespoke retro arcade game, for use on location, becomes affordable. Video games can be a great way to increase footfall and interest at any physical location, whether that be a promotional stand in a shopping centre, an installation within a retail environment or on a huge screen as part of an exhibition stand. The possibilities are virtualy endless.

Free from the limitations that come with running in a web browser, Flash games can accommodate a variety of input devices, from keyboards, mice and touch screens to gamepads, joysticks and even the Nintendo Wii controller (as we’ve been testing recently). This gives a huge variety of control and presentation options. For instance, if you want to mock-up an old school arcade machine, it’s relatively simple. A mock cabinet, with display and arcade sticks can plug into PC hardware that will run your custom game.

It goes without saying that you’re free to continue to use your finished game at multiple events. This allows you to easily spread the cost involved. So if you have a number of exhibition events throughout the year there’s no reason why you can’t plan to use your game at all of them.

Only yesterday I discovered another Facebook application game that included a competition based on player scores. And as expected the scoreboard was full of scores that were impossible to attain in normal gameplay. This is the fundamental problem with doing this, players can cheat to win prizes and any experienced Flash game developer, quite frankly, should have known better.

I’m not going to go into too much of the technical side but I am going to explain the two main methods players use to cheat. It’s unfortunately unavoidable, although there are some limited precautions we can take to help prevent this happening, if players are determined enough they will get around them. And it goes without saying that the more worthwhile you make it for them (the bigger and better the prize), the more likely you are to attract some serious hacking attempts. For this reason we always strongly recommend to our Flash game development clients not to base competitions on high scores.

Scoreboard Hacking

This is the most common method used to cheat on web based games, in order to win prizes. Global scoreboards have to be implemented by using a remote server side script to send the score data to a data file or database. If the player knows where this server side script resides (and it’s fairly easy to find out) they can fake the act of the game sending a new high score. So they can effectively add whatever score they want to the scoreboard, without having to even play the game at all. This is generally how you end up with Flash game scoreboards full of impossibly high scores into tens or hundreds of millions.

There are limited methods to combat this, such as verifying scores as they’re submitting and discarding impossibly high ones. This won’t stop people finding the limits of that range though and filling up the scoreboard with equal, highest possible scores. It’s also possible to use something called a cryptographic hash to send the data. This adds a basic level of security to the data you send, which means in order to cheat you’d need to crack the code first. This makes it much more difficult, but not impossible and as I said before, make it worth their while and they will hack it.

It’s also worth mentioning that this isn’t something specific to Flash, it applies to all web based game technologies including HTML5. In fact scoreboards in HTML5 games are even easier to hack because the code is viewable by anyone with a web browser.

Cheating on Timed Games

Another possible loophole for cheating is with timed games. This will involve a bit of techy explanation, so I’ll try to keep it as simple as possible.

Game timers can be implemented in one of two ways:

Tie It Into the Main Game Loop

This has the disadvantage of only having accuracy based on the game frame rate. A game running at 30 frames per second (which is the frame rate we usually use) will be able to count the timer in steps of 1/30th second. This is usually fine (and preferable) for games where the timer just counts down a limited gameplay time, such as in a timed puzzle game. Although this can cause it’s own problems (which I won’t go into here), the timer is not independent of the game frame rate. If the game slows down or speeds up, the timer slows down and speeds up with it.

Tie It Into the Computer Clock

This has the advantage of much greater accuracy, allowing timers accurate to thousandths of a second. If you’re creating a game where the timer is the score, e.g. a racing game where the quickest time is the highest score, this is usually essential. Without this sort of accuracy, there’s just not enough to separate the scores of players and you’d end up with too many players getting the exact same time. The problem with this though is the timer is independent of the game frame rate, so regardless of whether the game runs at 30 frames per second or 60 frames per second the timer will run in the same “real” time.

This opens the opportunity to cheat. Programs are freely available that enable the player to change the frame rate of a Flash game as they see fit. So, if for instance you have a timed race game, the player could potentially double the frame rate, which would make the race happen twice as fast, but the timer would still run the same as it would at the normal frame rate. This could allow the player to halve their time and get a much better score and was likely the exact method used to cheat on the branded Facebook game competition I mentioned earlier.

Again verifying the times and throwing out impossibly fast ones before sending to the scoreboard is a partial solution, but not a particularly great one and certainly won’t prevent cheating altogether.

The Solution

Obviously none of these hacking issues are too much of a problem if there aren’t prizes at stake. With no incentive to hack the game, players are far less likely to try and even if they do, there’s no harm done. Plus, any good Flash game developer should be aware of these issues (although in practice it seems very few are) and take appropriate, limited security steps to make it harder, as we always do.

The problem comes when prizes are at stake. But this doesn’t mean you have to ditch the idea of a competition altogether, there’s a simple solution. Don’t tie the awarding of prizes to scores achieved, run a free entry prize draw instead.

This gives you complete control over the awarding of prizes and removes the incentive to hack, because the reward is only a chance to win a prize, not a guarantee they will win. You can also help combat obvious hacking through your terms and conditions, enabling you to put a limit on number of entries per person and exclude entirely players who might hack to gain many entries.

Overall, it’s a much safer solution and allows you to incorporate your competition, without risking the whole thing being rendered null and void by casual hackers.

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 development 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.