We are now living the second decade of the Flash application as it was first developed by Macromedia in 1996. In later in 2005, the company was acquired by Adobe, which quickly set itself in pursuit of improving the code. As will all first attempts, the building blocks of flash had its flaws. Designing took time and was rather complex, assembling flash game applications thus became expensive and reserved for the very few.
As the code evolved, so did arcade game websites willing to offer sponsorship money to fund the development of new games. Today, even a beginner programmer can teach himself how to program in flash in as little as one week. However, the most popular flash game applications are more developed and complex, designed to entice the user into playing over and over, for extended periods of time. Most of the flash games developed recently and available to play online for free are now divided into genres, or categories. Among the most popular, you could easily find some of the most traditional like Adventure Games, Action Games, or Shooting games. With the evolution of the industry, you could now begin to see new subject descriptions like Tower Defense Games, Hunting Games, and RPG Games. Possibilities are endless and are sure to expand as the number of free flash games available to play online continues to grow.
There are many advantages to playing free flash games in the internet. Most would say that the most important is the fact that they are free. Game websites that charge their visitors for playing online have become very scarce, if not extinct. You will find that only the larger and more elaborate games feature payments, but only as an option in order to enable more advanced aspects of the player experience. Such features come the form of items you could only acquire as a paid member, the unlocking of certain areas of the playable world, or perhaps being able to develop your character past a certain point. On the very high end, out of the box video games, better known as multi-player online role playing games (MMORPG) have also integrated part of the playing experience online. By inducing the player to go online in order to play a multi player version, gamers meet online in virtual world where they get to compete against each other in an ever developing platform. These settings are ever changing, since they are located at the game developer抯 server and updated in real time.
Judging from these giant leaps, it is safe to say that we are just witnessing the beginnings of an industry with infinite potential. As long as there is an internet surfer out there looking for entertainment, there is sure to be a flash game application waiting for him.