For me, it’s the fact that every god damned program I want to use requires a fucking subscription.
Shout out to fucking Blender and GIMP and InkScape. They’re really keeping shit cool.
So sick of this “pay to play” structure we now have on EVERYTHING.
Am I misremembering or would corporate websites randomly have branded flash games
We got a free, breakfast-themed Doom total conversion .wad in boxes of Chex. Truly a golden age.
ChexQuest marked humanity's peak
I remember script based marketting gimmicks like a percy jackson bolt thag would delete elements off a website
wtf happened to all the random fun gimmicks popping up, prob mobile browser support issuss
Generally speaking, giving javascript that much control over your browser was a security hazard.
But also, firms used to have much larger staffs. It wasn't just two marketing guys in a trench coat trying to tell you they were a $10B company.
I see you don't appreciate the "click all traffic lights" minigame on every single website in existence
Oh, wow, we're there now?
Like, the online hellscape of endless Flash applets and browser shovelware games is retro now?
You get what that means, right? In twenty years you GenZ Tumblr nerds will be in some online forum recoiling in horror at some kid waxing nostalgic about back when you could just play a free gacha game full of anime waifus and where have all the good phone games gone?
It's happening and you're not ready.
Well, either that or Thunderdome. We'll see.
Ok but where have the good phone games gone. I'm horrified watching a 10 year old or so relative playing games on his phone only to spend 90% of the time watching unskippable ads.
I actually made a random game you can play without login or tracking or anything. Dunno if it's any fun, though 🤔
And you need a keyboard to play. Otherwise it's just a screensaver.
https://nailbar.io/proj/miniduel3/
Sorry about the plug, but I am kinda proud of it.
I mean, that's a pretty badass screensaver.
Robot Unicorn Attack was my shit.
Yeah, I miss it in some ways, too. It was more of the Wild West of internet.
I would argue today's internet is fully optimized for control over people (when desired) & profitability. Unless there's some Earth-shattering backlash where idk people kill all ads & they purchase NOTHING online unless they very specifically search for it....this is the internet, perfected. The internet is free, our attention & wallets are the product. Traded, tracked, bought, and sold.
I grew up in the wild west of the internet and I do miss it. Things were so much more interesting, but that was probably becuase I was a kid and the internet was new, so having all this content was not usual.
It used to be a whole weird wide world. Then the corpos got a hold of it, and now it's 5 giant spyware websites filled with screenshots of the other 4. Say what you will about the old web (NO HTTPS!) but at least it was human.
Ebaumsworld.com
Newgrounds.com
I miss those days so much, never forget what they took from us.
I opened lemmy to procrastinate working on my web game and this is the first post I see.
I can take a hint internet.
Itch.io game devs unite! There's still hope. I miss Ebaumsworld, New grounds and Miniclip too but I think there a small part of the Internet that still has this charm.
Here's my game dev contribution:
I'm sympathetic to the "Why does everything have to require a fucking login?"
But come on. So many of those games were just inferior reskins of classics. If you want to play Pac-Man, then play Pac-Man. You don't need to go to Lays.com and play Cheeto Crunchers, where a giant Chester Cheetah floating head chases snack foods through a maze.
Issues with Flash and the actual quality of those games aside, what I really miss from that period of the internet was that children could use it safely. There's no spaces for children on the internet anymore and I think that's really sad, nine year old should be playing Hannah Montana dress-up not get eating disorders from TikTok influencers
Edit for clarity: I didn't mean to come off as though I think the internet was ever safe for unsupervised children because that's not what I believe. What I was trying to say is that the loss of spaces made for children, with adequate content curation and moderation, pushed children on social media which is awful for them
Oh, you sweet, sweet child.
I'm just going to say I'm very glad you discovered flash games before you discovered IRC.
I've been inside a few big companies and I've seen exactly how it works.
In order to manage huge organisations, they divide them all up into cost centers. And the website is considered marketing so it gets given a budget on the theory that it brings customers. It uses the budget to make games and it does indeed bring customers.
Then a few years later, the shareholders are asking why their stock hasn't outperformed the market, and they put in a CEO tasked with fixing it, and the CEO asks the head of the department in charge of websites what can he do to address the fact that his department is losing money instead of making it.
The old internet was like the wild west. Who'd have thought it would meet a similar fate to it too?
I loved their Dexter's lab Flash game back in the days. CN and Nick lost their charm
I miss Kitten Cannon so much lmao, and Madness Interactive, and addictinggames . com (which iirc died so probably don't visit and yes the website was mispelled).
I'm on a Macromedia kick this morning but the internet really died when adobe bought flash, turning point for me personally lol
What "not leaving money on the table" does to a mf
I was thinking about old flash games the other day. Swords and Sandals and Line Rider ate a lot of my time.
I apologize in advance for any decrease in productivity or wasted time.
For preserving the least toxic and most culturally relevant Tumblr heritage posts.
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