Flash gaming: Meet the developers

Few technologies have been declared dead quite as often as Flash. But instead of withering into obsolescence, collapsing under the competition or being devalued by the rise of the mobile market, Flash remains a fulcrum of indie dev talent and one of videogames' most vibrant creative scenes.

In fact, it has not just survived, but prospered. Its popularity as a webgame platform has become self-fulfilling, and the popularity of webgames themselves shows no signs of abating. And while you might think that developers would be attracted by the prospect of the iPhone's App Store and the untold sums made by the likes of Angry Birds (which was inspired by Castle Clout and Crush The Castle, both developed for Flash), the humble Flash webgame offers a low-risk market which can be surprisingly lucrative.

Over the course of this week we'll be examining different aspects of Flash development as it stands today: how an economy has blossomed to deliver an unusually stable income to its indie adherents; how Flash has weathered the competition from other languages and platforms like iPhone; and what lies in its future.

• Tuesday - the fascinating business of Flash games, which reaps reward for both indie developers and portal owners alike.
• Wednesday - an interview with Flash Game License owner Chris Hughes, who brokers deals between developers and portals.
• Thursday - the threats that face the Flash development scene, from HTML5 to Unity.
• Friday - Flash's future, and the technological improvements that Adobe hopes will keep it on top.

In this first part, however, we talk to developers including The Behemoth and Nitrome, who've watched the scene mature and explore just how the community has evolved from its hobbyist roots.

Scene stealing

Though Flash remains at the heart of webgame development, it's no longer quite true to say an exclusive Flash development community exists. What was once unified under the banner of a single technology has now become happily polyglot, experimenting with iPhone, Steam and any number of programming languages - though always defaulting to Flash as the current webgame status quo.

Newgrounds is one Flash gaming's leading portals and creative communities, founded in 1995 by Tom Fulp

"There used to be a time when there was a traditional PC game download scene and there was a separate Flash scene, which was sort of looked down on by the PC guys," says Tom Fulp, founder of famed gaming portal Newgrounds and co-owner of indie developer The Behemoth. "Now it's all sort of merged. A lot of the PC freeware guys are making Flash games or mobile games or both. And there's more and more people coming to make Flash games, so the whole scene of developers keeps growing. I guess there's room for everyone."

But as the options for indie developers have diversified, so have the centres of activity. Large though it is, Newgrounds is now far from the only gaming hub, and one of the few portals that still attracts a community of both developers and players.

"It's harder to keep track of everyone," says Fulp. "There are pockets of community, but not everyone knows each other. It's definitely fragmented in that respect. It's kind of a bummer. It's cool to have a community where players can interact with the developers. I'd like to think hardcore gamers will come to those communities, but a lot of people don't really care where there content comes from."