Kongregate No Longer Accepting New Games, Shutting Down Forums and Chat (techraptor.net) 17
Kongregate, a video game publisher and web gaming portal featuring over 128,000 titles, announced that many features on the site are going away. The site is no longer allowing uploads of new flash games, and will be shutting down forums and chat services. From a report: Previously, anyone who created a game was able to upload their title for anyone to play, which is why the website has "over 128,000 titles." Another key feature hitting the chopping block is badges. Badges were achievements of varying difficulty, which were periodically added into popular games. Players were granted points upon earning a badge. Kongregate is also famous for its chat features. While playing a game, users can talk with each other in a "chat room." On July 22, most chat rooms are closing down in addition to "non-gaming" forums.
It is worth noting that the company is still supporting Kartridge, a gaming platform where you can purchase titles -- it operates like Steam and GOG. Kartridge has essentially the same features as Kongregate, such as chat rooms and badges; only, this is a curated platform that has downloadable games instead of Adobe Flash. Kongregate also continues to "focus on developing games," according to the post. Most of these titles are on mobile, however, some can be found on Kartridge and Steam, like Realm Grinder.
It is worth noting that the company is still supporting Kartridge, a gaming platform where you can purchase titles -- it operates like Steam and GOG. Kartridge has essentially the same features as Kongregate, such as chat rooms and badges; only, this is a curated platform that has downloadable games instead of Adobe Flash. Kongregate also continues to "focus on developing games," according to the post. Most of these titles are on mobile, however, some can be found on Kartridge and Steam, like Realm Grinder.
Alas (Score:2)
Entire franchises and genres of gameplay got started on Kongregate and similar sites, thanks to the low barrier to entry and not having to install sketchy executables on your computer to try out a game. In my opinion Kongregate also gives lie to the whining about good games being undiscoverable if too many people are releasing them. I guess the logical successor is itch.io, where you can...install sketchy executables on your computer to try out a game. They do claim to offer a sandbox service at least.
armorgames.com (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Why? (Score:2)
I thought it was supposed to be pretty easy to convert flash to HTML5. What happened to that?
Re: Why? (Score:3)
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Not THAT was bullshit.
Chrome already contains a Flash player written in HTML5, does it not? So all the games *were* already running in HTML5 anyway.
Besides, if you can literally boot Linux and Windows inside a VM in the browser (VM), and can run Unreal Engine, then you can freakin run your Flash games for which there already is a HTML5 player!
And ActionScript is just JavaScript with types too.
It is more likely that nobody wants to fix any security holes one might find in that HTML5 Flash implementation, and
s/Not/Now/ (Score:2)
I got a PEBKAC error, while posting. ;)
Re: (Score:1)
Well, clearly it is a lie. If it were genuinely a straightforward process, Homestar Runner would have been converted to html5 rather than uploaded to YouTube as poor quality captures. If I had to guess as to why, I'd say that Flash was probably extremely hacky to script in, and converters can't delineate between what is wanted and what is scripted.
Re: (Score:2)
well this sucks
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Well, if you still want to play the games, people have you covered. https://bluemaxima.org/flashpo... [bluemaxima.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Should have used this:
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I thought it was supposed to be pretty easy to convert flash to HTML5. What happened to that?
Adobe didn't step up and provide a javascript flash player and they're the only ones who know what's in the files...?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the specification is available, even if bulky to read: https://www.adobe.com/content/... [adobe.com]
There's also at least one open-source flash player, not sure on their quality. But regardless, it's something that had plenty of time to prepare for,
Where's Sarah McLachlan? (Score:1)
Please put it into archive.org! (Score:2)
With all the games in a working state!
Kongregate was really well-made. It likely inspired this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/484/ [xkcd.com]
Sure, it had many tiny shitty Flash games too, but e.g. games like Meatboy were more fun than "yet another Doom clone" (I refuse to call it a genre).