Filed under: Business, Games, Internet, Features, Adobe
The tipping point for online games
Have browser based games reached their tipping point? The evidence says yes. And this will quickly lead to a huge influx of better and more accessible browser based games pushing an old industry into the mainstream for the first time. Let me explain.Just a few days ago we posted a review of a little Flash game called Elements TD. We weren't the only ones. In less than two weeks the traffic to the game has grown by over ten thousand percent. Yes, you read that right. 10,000%! Over a million hits a day. Currently the game hogs over 40 Gigabits a day of creator David Scott's bandwidth.
Why is this one example important? Because it illustrates the rapid rise of Flash game development.
In-browser games have been around for a long time. "Arcade" websites like Yahoo Games, Pogo, and Shockwave have arisen to collect these games into one place and market them. Despite respectable success by many of these competitors, the quality of online gaming has continued to lack luster. Flash Elements TD shows us that it doesn't have to be that way and that a great game can be developed independently and marketed successfully. It also shows how great ideas can be taken from existing desktop games and turned into viral web based epidemics.
And an epidemic in online game creation is about to overtake us.
With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet.
They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...
