The whole site
Six sections, thirty pages
Every page on the site, grouped the way it was written. The front page carries an edit of this; here is all of it.
The format and the machine
FutureSplash to Adobe Animate: the software, the file format, and the virtual machine that ran inside a billion browsers.
6 pages · section 01Ten thousand plays and a sponsor's logo on the loading screen
Newgrounds, Kongregate, Armor Games and the portal economy — how browser arcades were built, funded and eventually unmade.
5 pages · section 02Somebody made these, and you can still say their names
The named works and the named people behind them — from Xiao Xiao to Machinarium, from Tom Fulp to Jakub Dvořský.
9 pages · section 03It took ten years and was settled by a memo about batteries
Steve Jobs's 2010 open letter, Chrome's NPAPI removal, Adobe's 2017 announcement, and the plug-in's death on 12 January 2021.
4 pages · section 04Mochi Media put the advert inside the game and paid by the thousand
The ad networks, the CPM deals and what happened to the money when Mochi shut down in 2014.
2 pages · section 05What the archivist found when the plug-in stopped
Flashpoint's 100,000-entry library, Ruffle's Rust re-implementation, the Internet Archive's emulated collection, and what was genuinely lost.
4 pages · section 06The Format · The format and the machine
- 01FutureSplash Animator Shipped in November 1996 and Macromedia Bought It Six Weeks Later
- 02What Is Actually Inside a SWF File
- 03ActionScript 1, 2 and 3 Are Three Different Languages That Happen to Share a Name
- 04Adobe Open-Sourced the Virtual Machine and Mozilla Tried to Ship It in Firefox
- 05Adobe Renamed Flash Professional 'Animate' in February 2016 and Kept the Timeline
- 06Stage3D Arrived in 2011 and Briefly Made Flash a Serious 3D Platform
The Portals · Ten thousand plays and a sponsor's logo on the loading screen
- 01Tom Fulp Built Newgrounds in 1995 and It Outlasted the Plug-In
- 02Kongregate Opened in 2006 With Developer Revenue Sharing and Changed What Portals Paid For
- 03Three Portals That Took Different Bets on the Same Audience
- 04The Loading-Screen Logo Was a Contract, and the Contract Had Standard Terms
- 05FlashGameLicense Was a Marketplace for Something That Did Not Exist Before It
The Works · Somebody made these, and you can still say their names
- 01Alien Hominid Started on Newgrounds in 2002 and Shipped on Three Consoles Two Years Later
- 02Jakub Dvořský Made Machinarium in Flash and It Won an IGF Grand Prize
- 03Edmund McMillen Built the Meat Boy Prototype in Flash in 2008 Before Super Meat Boy Was a Project
- 04Adam Saltsman Made Canabalt in Five Days for a Game Jam in 2009
- 05QWOP Is a Game About the Difficulty of Walking and Bennett Foddy Wrote It in 2008
- 06Homestar Runner Ran on Flash from 2000 and Mike and Matt Chapman Still Own It
- 07David Firth Released Salad Fingers in July 2004 and the Series Is Still Running
- 08Brad Borne Drew Fancy Pants Man in Flash and the Physics Are Still Argued About
- 09Line Rider Was Made in Two Days by a Slovenian Student in 2006 and Then It Was Everywhere
The Argument · It took ten years and was settled by a memo about batteries
- 01Steve Jobs Published 'Thoughts on Flash' on 29 April 2010 and Framed the Argument for Everyone Who Followed
- 02Chrome's Click-to-Play Default in 2015 Was Quieter Than Jobs's Letter and More Final
- 03Adobe Set the Date on 25 July 2017 and Named the Partners Who Asked Them To
- 04On 12 January 2021 the Player Refused to Run and That Was the Designed Outcome
The Money · Mochi Media put the advert inside the game and paid by the thousand
The Archive · What the archivist found when the plug-in stopped
- 01BlueMaxima Started Flashpoint in 2018 and It Now Holds Over 100,000 Entries
- 02Ruffle Re-Implements the Flash Player in Rust and Runs in a Browser Without a Plug-In
- 03The Internet Archive Runs Flash Content in the Browser Through Ruffle and Documents What It Cannot Save
- 04Some of It Is Gone and the Archivists Know Which Parts