Web gaming portal Armor Games has announced its plans to preserve its library of Flash Games in a move that should see thousands of these games made available for future generations of gamers.
Armor Games is one of the most popular websites out there to play web-based games. It's been around for more than 15 years and has hosted thousands of games, many of which were created using Adobe's Flash Player.
Unfortunately, Flash is coming to an end. Competing web-based game site Kongregate and Newgrounds have both detailed how they'll be handling the situation when Flash support ends in January 2021. Now, Armor Games has laid out exactly how it aims to preserve this piece of gaming history.
How Will Armor Games Preserve Its Flash Library?
Armor Games currently has a library of more than 3,700 Flash Games on its site. While they're still available today, it's getting increasingly difficult to play them as web browsers disable support for Flash. No gaming site would want to see such a large portion of its library axed, and that meant that the company had to consider its options.
The first option is to convert games from Flash to HTML 5. Unfortunately, there is no automated way to do this and this process would be expensive and time-consuming. The second option is to provide players with a desktop client, but Armor Games is reluctant to have players rely on a third-party program, especially because it would kind of defeat the purpose of a convenient web-based game portal. The third and final option is to emulate Flash in a browser — and that's exactly what it will be doing going forward.
"We have always strived to deliver the best web games with a seamless experience," read the news post from Armor Games. "Given our research and play testing, we have decided to use Ruffle, an open-source Flash emulation project to continue offering as many Flash games as we can."
Unfortunately, not every game will work with Ruffle right out of the box. This (hopefully) small selection of games will be disabled as the site works on finding a solution for these games.
There's also the concern of players who have made any purchases in Flash games recently. Anyone who has made purchases in a Flash game using the Armor Games payment system "since October 1, 2020" can contact support@armorgames.com to get a full refund. Should you opt to not get a refund, the news post states that any purchases made on your account will remain and will be usable when the related game is reactivated.
What do you think of how Armor Games is working to preserve its Flash library? What's your favorite Flash game of all time? Let us know in the comments below!
