Stencyl released!

Where are you getting your figures for "a minority" from?From the sources I provided. If you follow the links, you can see them for yourself :)

Over 50% of the web is Firefox or Chrome which both support WebGL with fallback to hardware-accelerated 2D canvases.That are two points, that are not quite correct. Firefox and Chrome make 41%, while Explorer makes 52%. And you forgot again to see the fact, that 47% of the computers still use WinXP (Vista and 7 combined make less, 45%, Win 7 alone only 37%), so no hardware support for those, if they are using Firefox or IE. Chrome just makes 19% overall, and we know that those 19% are NOT only using WinXP, but Win 7, too. Let's say, it's half of them (I doubt it). That would still be around 39% of users who don't have hardware acceleration support.

source

Of IE, 10% is now IE9 with hardware-accelerated 2D canvas. Obviously IE8 and earlier aren't supported, but the browsers which don't have hardware-accelerated HTML5 gaming are now in the minority!See above. While it's true that Firefox and IE do support hardware acceleration, it isn't available for those, who still use WinXP, which is at least 39% of all web users. That's what I meant with "underestimated".

There's nothing, one could do about it. As time goes by, the huge base of 47% WinXP as operating system will shrink. But I'm absolutely sure, that's one reason for HTML5 not becoming as fast the successor to Flash as was hoped.

your forgetting about Smart Phones though Tulmanide.

I think its a mistake to trust one website with statistics and base a debate off it.

"It is worth noting a few possible anomalies with these statistics. For example, overestimation may occur with page refreshes, loading resources like css or JavaScript files, and feed readers may be counted."(http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development/should-web-developers-keep-up-with-browser-statistics/719)

Here are some other sources:

w3counter.com/globalstats.php

gs.statcounter.com

As long as those numbers don't change significantly, I wouldn't hesitate to predict, who's winning. If HTML5 isn't hardware-accelerated on the majority of browser/operating system combinations, it is too slow compared to Flash, to have any success for now.

At this point in time - flash games are undoubtable more accessible than html5 games (i dont think anyone is debating this). So why do we make html5 games? Because it is the way of the future (i dont think anyone debates this either do they?) - were embracing new tech!

w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

(Now this shows a trend!) - And if it continues growing like this, it wont be long at all.

I'm not debating on principles, I'm just giving a hint to those who wonder, why Flash isn't dying as fast as they thought.

You can either accept the facts, or ignore them. I didn't say anything against the future of HTML5, I rather said, that it will have success. I'm talking about the current situation as a hint to why Flash is in the lead right now.

And why do you accuse me for showing sources? I even didn't use the higher ones (some see over 55% of XP). But at least I showed them. For example, Ashley stated that over 50% of the browsers are Firefox and Chrome, but he did not provide any source.

The W3Schools' stats aren't saying much. They were collected only from the users of that site:

<font size="2">"W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to the browser that comes preinstalled with their computer, and do not seek out other browser alternatives.

These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is a more popular browser.

Anyway, our data, collected from W3Schools' log-files, over many years, clearly shows the long and medium-term trends."</font>

The W3counter link is a better one, having a lot of different sites in surveillance. And it shows the same, what I pointed to: A high user base with WinXP.

Statcounter again shows that large WinXP user base. It is a difference, if you use IE with Win7 (IE9+) or WinXP (IE8-). And it is a difference, if one uses Firefox with Win7 (hardware-acceleration support) or with WinXP (no support).

So, thanks for those links, they confirm that there is still a large user base that has no hardware-acceleration support and therefore will prefer Flash.

Again: it is the current situation. It has nothing to do with the future or the quality of HTML5 or C2 or Ashley's hard work to establish a really good game maker for that market! It is just the answer to those who wonder, why Flash is still so popular. As I said in a previous post: It will slowly change over time. It is not a matter of "if", but "when".

tulamide, hardware acceleration works on XP as far as I know. So everyone should be able to use hardware acceleration, XP isn't holding that back.

I forgot to say, I got my stats off http://gs.statcounter.com/ which shows IE at about 38% right now. Different sources have different stats so I guess it's hard to know for certain. But according to StatCounter 11% is IE9 which has hardware acceleration, which leaves only 27% non-HTML5 browsers. Other sites might show slightly different numbers but I think it's clear HTML5 should be fast for the majority of users already.

Im sorry tulamide i wasnt trying to attack you in my post, its just that i followed your sources through and they were all sourced from one website - then i read about the difficulties they have in accuracy when sampling.

Honestly i just thought it was a little misleading to say "these are the facts". But anyway - this is waaaay off topic now :). Once again, no offence intended.

Flash right now is more powerfull then html5. But the focus is on HTML5 tech (plugin-less in general). The big boss companies are betting everything on it, brilliant devs are makes brilliant things on it, there's tons of engines and frameworks for it etc etc. And there's NaCL that gives much more power (being able to use C++ or C# instead of JS). Unity will export NaCL or already does don't know exactly.

Flash will either die or embrace the change. I'm pretty sure it'll be the second option, already is infact. Maybe HTML5 won't be the ultimate solution for all things (probably won't) but it's the starting point of a big change. It's not always easy to embrace so much change but it's that or die. Not replying to anyone just expressing my opinion.

kiyoshi

Adobe have already announced they are dumping Flash in favour of HTML5 for mobile devices. Not sure what plans are for continuing for PC or MAC. With severe stability issues surrounding Flash lately... Adobe will need to do do something before HTML5 not only catches up, but far surpasses Flash.

On my PC, HTML5 already performs way better than flash. Flash seems to win still on older hardware platforms though.

~Sol

I tried stencyl a while back, but I couldn't make sense of the gui. with construct 2 it just clicked. It's a pity C2 only runs on the pc since I'm a mac user. bought it anyway, though. hehe <img src="smileys/smiley23.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Stencyl seems like a great program in my opinion. They have the right idea about supporting flash and multiple platforms also.

Flash right now is more powerfull then html5. But the focus is on HTML5 tech (plugin-less in general). The big boss companies are betting everything on it, brilliant devs are makes brilliant things on it, there's tons of engines and frameworks for it etc etc.

As you say Flash is a lot faster, if HTML5 uses WebGL for the GPU boost and it's running in a decent browser for some things it's a bit faster than well coded flash, however if you then enhance flash also with Stage3D, Alchemy etc then flash totally destroys HTML5 in terms of power and speed.

Being a general coder using a range of programming languages i recently decided to go back to code with AS3 instead of using C2 for the moment. Don't get me wrong here i mean C2 is great in my opinion and why i purchased it but i don't think HTML5 is as good as flash yet so i am basically just waiting and focusing on other things for now. HTML5 is also constantly chagning at the moment, i made a few plugins for C2 a while back but had to make adjustments with new releases and then got hold up by needing updates to the SDK, months later they are still not added probably due to the developers having a load of other things to add first so that is also another reason why i have decided to change focus but then return to C2 at a later date.

Adobe have already announced they are dumping Flash in favour of HTML5 for mobile devices. Not sure what plans are for continuing for PC or MAC. With severe stability issues surrounding Flash lately... Adobe will need to do do something before HTML5 not only catches up, but far surpasses Flash.

No that is not correct, firstly they have not dumped it and will continue to release bug fix updates, after they released V11.1 they now are instead focusing on Adobe AIR and HTML5 for mobile devices because they are better suited for them. I am guessing they don't want to focus on flash because it would be a load of work having to make updates everytime a new phone/tablet was released which had a different configuration just so flash would work on it, with Adobe AIR and HTML5 they would not have to worry about that however.

Adobe now owns the Phonegap service and makes other tools like Edge so with HTML5 they probably want to stay current and also to try and start making money with these also. That does not mean they plan to stop all support for flash though but multi platform is a good way to make money and also if Flash ever did end many (hopefully many, many) years from now they would then still be able to keep going with their web based software.

For PC flash however support is still very strong and they are apparently now working on Flash Player 12, with V11 it just got Stage3D which is much better than WebGL in my opinion also and faster.

So while many pro HTML5 supporters like to point out about the mobile thing, what some of them say is often not right correct and a very powerful version of flash is still avilable for many mobile devices and for the PC platform flash is definately not going anywhere for a long time. Plus there is so many flash games online already and it's not like as soon as HTML5 was released people stopped playing them, if games are good then people will keep playing them and that is also true for other languages like Java with Minecraft etc.

The only thing that holds me from diving entirelly into HTML5 stuff is that i have to deal with Javascript. Yeah the runtimes are amaaaazing V8 and stuff but the language like it is now sucks. Oh, forgot one thing: JS sucks. Can't stand the rawness of the lang in general, no classes, no namespaces no types (yeah i think full dynamism sucks, hybrid rules), scope is a joke etc etc, and the prototypal inheritance. The result is every person codes in his style or a variation of the multiple JS styles CommonJS etc. There's no conformity. And yeah there's a new version in the making but god knows when it'll come. So Flash is dying but it's still better to code in it. And i've only coded in Flash a couple of times. One of these days a company contacted me :

Comp: So you're making HTML5 games !

Me: Hell Yeah ! I made them entirelly in Construct (explained what C2 is and all)

Comp: Hum, great seems like a nice tool. But can you code games in high quality ,perfomant and 100% multiplatform raw JS code ?

Me: .... Thinks: Damn i'm screwed...... :D

Intersting thread.

Ofcourse Flash games are more popular at the momment.

Its been great for a long time. And many publich games on flash gaming sites. But im sure Html5 will become as popular. Wait a year or two.

Theres great potential in html5.

in my opinion anyways.