Only a little while ago, there was a love letter written to Flash Game Developers. This letter praised Flash Game Developers as the most talented, the most innovative, and the most entrepreneurial of all the game industry and lamented the fact that the current market views Flash Games as the “wannabes” of the industry. Flash Game Developers are shunned as mere “hobbyists” and often marginalized to the point where many in the industry have to seek other work to sustain their passion for games. This letter was an attempt to shake up these developers, praise them, and to tell them to stop settling for mere fractions of a penny in eCPMs and to directly ask players for money for games that are often more fun, more innovative and more addicting than the big AAA-titles.

The love letter created a lot of buzz and a lot of enthusiasm among Flash Game blogs. Now micropayments have suddenly become the next big talking point among the larger Flash distribution networks. But I think that this is the self-defeating attitude of Flash Game Developers coming to the surface again. Instead of settling for fractions of a penny, now developers have the courage to ask for whole pennies instead. Micropayments are a step up, but I think that ultimately it misses the point. However, not very many Flash Game developers believe that it is possible to ask for more money, especially in this downturn economy.

What people don’t see is that Flash is set to become the game development platform of choice for one of the biggest revolutions in the computer industry. I will explain in this article the market forces churning under the surface that are about to erupt and will place the indie Flash Game Developer at the forefront of this revolution.

The Technological Rat Race

What is the "Singularity" made of?

For the computer buyer, it seems like the moment you purchase a computer, you already own an obsolete piece of machinery. Every two to three years, what was once a bleeding-edge computer now needs a massive overhaul to even play the latest games or run the latest software. Often you need a new graphics card, denser memory chips, more hard drive space, and perhaps even a new CPU and motherboard to support it. Before you know it, you’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars only to have to do it again in another two to three years, just to keep playing the latest and greatest games.

But if you are not a gamer, and just need a computer for email, some word documents and excel, and to play a couple match-3 games, the level of technology, data storage, and information at your fingertips is more than absurd. Already you can buy a half-terabyte hard drive for less than $100. All the pictures I’ve taken of my family for the past 5 years can be stored on a single Compact Flash card on my digital camera. All the music my wife has bought on iTunes, and all our CDs can fit on a single thumb-drive. This is tremendous computing power, and apart from games, the average user only uses a fraction of a computer’s capabilities.

There is more computer in your cell phone than in the Moonlanding.

All of us are compelled to keep up with this technology rat race, and for the most part, we do. We don’t understand that this trend in computing is not a predetermined path of technology but an orchestrated effort of only a few corporations.  But what is happening under the surface is a seismic shift that will change computing forever.

Tremors

I think it is an understatement to say that a lot of people complained about Microsoft Vista. Some of it was typical Microsoft hate speech and some of it were legitimate complaints about the bugs it contained, the harassing security features, the system slowness, etc. The question that was on the minds of many gamers was, “How does this improve my gaming experience?” And when the feature sets between DirectX 9.0x and DirectX 10 were put side-by-side, many gamers resisted the idea of going through the trouble of upgrading for a couple new neat shaders. XP was good enough and even continues to be good enough for the most recent PC games.  And from the developers side, pushing more and more photorealism only increases production costs.  As it is, even double platinum titles are barely breaking even.  So even devlopers are not fully inclined to use the latest technology for less returns.

Can you tell which on is DirectX 10?

To Microsoft’s credit, they have done a wonderful job on Windows 7 in removing all the issues that Vista created. They are a lot better at meeting expectations instead of hyping a product and sorely disappointing their customers. But the one thing they aren’t talking about is that lingering question that looms over their financial future, “Is it worth the upgrade?” And the truth that no one at Microsoft wants to say is “No. It’s not worth it.”

Consider the technological advances we’ve seen in office technology from the last 15 years from Windows 3.1, to Windows 95/98, to Windows XP. Remember the early versions of Word Perfect from the early 90s and compare it to the stability, usefulness and ubiquity of Microsoft Word 2002. But since Office 2002, what have been some of the innovations to the Office Suite by Microsoft? A bigger menu called “the ribbon”? Just how many ways can you really improve a Word Processor, much less an Office suite of spreadsheets, presentations, and word processing? Is it worth dumping another couple thousand dollars on a new computer and a whole new operating system, just so you can have the latest office productivity suite that sports a brand-spanking-new “ribbon”?

Both the U.S. Federal Government and large-sized corporations are giving their answer of “no” to Microsoft quite profoundly. In fact, it is quite easy to see many desktop computers in government agencies still running IE 6 and Office 2000-2002. Because of the expense of upgrading all these computers in both large corporations and government agencies, consultants and software developers are often required to create web-based applications so that they can work around the limitations of the hardware of each desktop. In fact, it is not surprising to see requirements that the web-app must run specifically on IE 6.

Stuck on IE 6

When Microsoft forced the issue and upgraded all computers to IE 7 with a mandatory middle-of-the-night Windows Update, it actually crippled several government agencies from doing work. This is because all the IE 6 compatible web-applications that were created for the government were reliant on IE 6-specific exploits and bug-fixes that ran in code. Once those exploits and bugs were fixed and no longer existent in IE 7, the applications suddenly stopped working. Some of those web-applications were critical enterprise systems.  Despite the initial manditory upgrade, Microsoft had to quickly release to the public a way to uninstall IE 7 and rollback to IE 6. This is why we will see IE 8 with adjustable compatibility settings.

Shaky Legs

Computer manufacturers are beginning to see what is coming, and the constant drive for the latest and greatest hardware is reaching the point of diminishing returns. Not to mention, manufacturers are probably on uneasy terms with Microsoft, especially since the draconian tactics to cut off all licenses for XP-based builds. Seeing a new opportunity, a new target demographic, and utilizing the advances in computing technology, manufacturers are starting to produce a complete new product: the Netbook.

The Netbook

The Netbook is a small low-cost computer designed to have a long-lasting battery, 3G connectivity and with the minimal of features to cover the 90% use-case of email, word, spreadsheets and simple games that the average user needs. Netbooks have garnered mix reactions from the population, but it has opened the doors for many people who could not otherwise afford or consider owning a computer. And with the sudden downturn in the economy, Netbooks are in high demand.

Not surprisingly both Microsoft and Apple have not received the Netbook very willingly. Almost dismissively, Microsoft initially announced releasing a Windows 7 “Starter version” for the Netbook which will only allow the user to have 3 applications running at a time. It has been speculated that if one of those applications is anti-virus software, that doesn’t leave much room for computing. Steve Jobs even said “We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that.”

But this is not surprising. Both Microsoft and Apple make their bread and butter by enticing consumers to buy the latest technology – to constantly upgrade software and hardware and keep the rat race going. So it is only natural that both Microsoft and Apple try to cut the “technologically backward” movement of cheap under-powered Netbooks from under the knee.

The Seismic Shift

In the middle of Microsoft and Apple pushing to keep the status quo of the technological rat race with manufacturers dragging their feet, Google throws its hat into the ring with “Google Chrome OS.” So far, the market has met Chrome OS with a bit of stunned silence, and elicited laughing scoffs from Apple and Microsoft. However, deep down underneath, I think that the full realization of what is to come is only beginning to dawn on the market.

In a short sentence, Google spoke volumes when introducing their new product: “The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”

Google Chrome OS

I think that a lot of people were like me and didn’t notice what Google was silently up to these past 5 years. When Google Docs was created, I passed it off as an interesting novelty that you could create Word-like documents directly in a browser. When Calendar was introduced, I passed it off as a neat social networking event planner. Only in the wake of Chrome OS, does it come into full light the extend of what Google has done in amused silence and under the guise of novelty. Right here on the Internet is the full capabilities of an operating system and one of the most powerful office suites ever created. With just Google Documents and Calendar alone, and for the price of 4 Netbooks, you have the full capabilities of a fully integrated Windows Office with Exchange server.

There are a number of other changes that net-based computing does that would appeal to the casual user. With a light-weight operating system and an emphasis on storing documents online, the fear of data loss and crashes is minimized. Viral attacks and spyware is minimized. No longer do you have to worry about upgrading your machine for the latest office suite, because all the fixes are done on the Internet – at no cost to you. And because of the dedicated Linux kernel the hardware is freed up to produce the fastest possible performance for the least amount of computing power which can further reduce the component cost of the entire build. You may see fully capable Netbooks for as little as $100 and a higher availability of computers to schoolchildren and to the elderly at those prices. This creates an even greater demographic surge into the computer age.  If we are seeing 20 million new Netbook users in 2009, how many sales are we going to have when Chrome OS hits the streets late next year?

The Flash Gaming Revolution

Google has created a huge number of applications that users will need once their laptops are reduced to highly-streamlined web browsers. But the one thing that they have not created is media. To spearhead this effort, Google has partnered with Adobe in the creation of the new Chrome OS. In combination with Adobe’s effort to streamline performance of Flash to the point where it can soon be installed on the next generation of smartphones, and with Adobe’s partnership with nVidia to allow the Flash API to access the GPU, Flash will be able to perform faster and with less taxing resources than ever before.

Flash, a staple of the Internet experience, must be a given feature of the new Google OS to be complete. This allows users to access video and music through sources like Hulu and YouTube. But most of all, Flash gives Netbook users access to games – YOUR games.  You see, access to the Linux kernel on a Netbook would be incredibly tricky to program. But why make games on the OS-level and try to crack open the Linux drivers when Chrome OS is already running Flash?

One of the biggest hurdles for taking Flash Game Programming seriously is that a Flash game runs in a windowed browser. But with Chrome OS, web pages are considered to be fully fledged applications with full screen capabilities. Suddenly, your Flash Game could very well take up the whole screen of a Netbook computer without the intrusion of the browser’s borders and address bar and it is no different than a Windows game running DirectX in fullscreen mode – except for the fact that it was ten thousand times easier and thousands of dollars cheaper using Flash CS4.

The other big hurdle outside of the browser window is that people prefer to download and run games from their own PC. Thus when given a choice between a full screen version of Bejewelled versus a browser-enclosed version, people will spend the $20 and get the download. But when the only way to play a game is through the browser, you suddenly have a captive audience and can charge full price for an Internet-based Flash Game, validated through your own site portal and customer login.

Aftershocks

I think that the current model of chasing the latest operating system upgrades and fastest hardware is unsustainable. We have hit the point of diminishing returns and people are tired of the rat race and in this economy will not cough up the money for only a couple more shaders from the latest version of DirectX which even developers are hesitant to use. If we have learned anything from the Wii-phenomenon is that it is all about gameplay over glitz and it is not technology that makes great games, but innovative and compelling design.

Once computing takes this hard turn and goes closer towards heavy cloud-computing with light-weight and ubiquitous laptops, gaming will be changed for ever. And at the forefront of it all will be the Flash Game Developer.

Are you ready?