Interesting topic!... I for one have played a few flash lite games on the Nokia N80 and whislt it is in it's early stages, I can see potential in the vast amounn of devices in the not too distant future that may also support this media format.

It would cetainly make an obvious choice for the mobile developer to utilise this method for mobile games design etc. not to mention get round, if not overcome neally all the usual traps facing j2me coding for fragmented mobiles.

I for one will be keeping any eye on flash lite
to see how it pans out for everybody, but for now it's still creaky old j2me development until further notice :)

One thing that might not be known to all is that Flash Lite can also be used for more useful applications that communicates over the bearer etc. See e.g. this thread at J2ME Forums:
http://www.j2meforums.com/forum/index.php?topic=11818.0

As Flash Lite is only provided by one entity there's a big chance implementations of Flash Lite will be considerably less fragmented than ditto for Java ME.

I don't look very positively at Sun's open source intentions with Java ME (rather they should take over the responsibility for Java ME deliveries completely), as that will make it even more fragmented, and Flash Lite then has all possibilities to become the choice for graphics-intensive phone applications.

For sure, Flash Lite needs to get implemented in phones too. Java ME exists in approx 1 billion phones by now, so there's a lot of catching up to do.

We see Flash Lite as a great opportunity for new and creative games. Porting is more easy and image effects are more easy to create.

However we also see the downside of it all. Up to now, creating successful J2me games is only being done by companies who seriously invest in porting (some student projects left out of scope). That way, the market was protected by natural boundaries. Now, the market will be open to anyone with the Flash Lite package on their PC's and by the use of vector graphics, no porting needs to take place. So probably, we will see huge amounts of software hit the market, undermining the current financial balance we all enjoy due to the porting pain.

I see what Merel is saying about Flash opening the market to being flooded with Flash games and "undermining current financial balance" but maybe that is actually needed.

The innovations occuring in Flash gaming are taking place rapidly while innovation in mobile gaming is as slow as can be. Perhaps opening up the market will foster a more competitive environment which will push the industry forward.

Personally I would like nothing more than a giant surge of games to hit the market. All of the money that publishers spend on porting could be reinvested into creating better Flash games and finding new ways of generating revenue. Also, who wouldn't want to play Bowman 2 on their mobile phone?

http://addictinggames.com/bowman2.html

I agree the outcome down the line will probably be that flash will take over on mobiles for entertainment. When we reach that point as Merel stated, everybody will be doing it and it will mostly all become free and the business revenue models we have now for j2me will totally collapse. The only way forward from that point, would be advert wrap gaming perhaps like GreyStripe are doing but with flash lite games and entertainment perhaps. Actually that is not so good as then I wonder how I will make money for my business like many others do at the moment... I think this wave is coming but I want to ensure I have the right 'surf board' to ride it in years to come else I'm out of business once more :P

Having said all that just because it may open up the market to great degree that may be a good thing as not all things that are free are so good but competition will be full on that's for sure!

(or) Maybe I can retire early before any of this actually happens so I don't have to worry about it ;)

And how is the flooding of flash games going to be any different from the flooding of j2me games that we have seen since the start of mobile gaming?

The problems with flash lite will remain the same as it is with j2me: alot of home made content, and some of that "crap" is sold commercially scaring away buyers.

I can only hope that it will open up new ways of selling content, and more awareness of content for phones, so that people will buy more and publishers/developers can sell their content easier (not losing revenue shares left and right).

And I'm sure microsoft isn't sitting still either.

Well I don't actually know Pascal as I don't have a crystal ball but if I personally should move into flash games down the line away from j2me for example I would want to charge for them that's for sure as I don't like to work for nothing :)

Because of j2me fragmentation it is a bit offputting to some but with flash lite perhaps it is more a case of that 'some' coming onboard as well that waters down the whole thing even further and it's bad enough as it is
just with j2me marketplace and getting 'good' distribution deals.

One of the most important elements of making a product a success is the usability part.
As we are talking here mainly about mobile applications and games the frontend part is quite crucial.

Java was developed to make object oriented programming more natural and more easy to programmers although less powerfull then developing a program with c/c++. Flash has a much more frontend focus and has her roots in vector graphics with an object oriented flavour.

It's more easy, faster and even powerfull developing a good graphical user interface with flash than java with limited resources. In that perspective flash can really make a big difference in the usability (mainly output part)and specially the experience of your mobile if it will keep thesame programming power as java next to helping the porting issues.

If usability of applications and games will increase so will the amount of mobile application users increase in freeware as well as commercial ware.

About freeware and commercial ware, I believe there's enough room for both and support of flashlite on all phones will not have influence on this on the long run.

Ciao,

interesting post and discussion. I am a FL developer for about 2 years now. As most of you mention the FL potential is great but as you know it faces the same problems as J2ME di d at its early stage. J2ME is the dominant mobile technology and FL it's just starting out.
In any case the cool part of FL is its fast development cycle, which allows you to spend more type in usability and user experience. In mobile it's probably the most important aspect. If anyone is interested in FL please drop me an email or visit my blog for more infos.

Alessandro

Hi,

we´ve developed with Flash for 7 years, and Flash Lite for 2 years, currently having a portfolio of 11 Flash Lite games & have experience on 10+ released J2ME games (under a different company name), so here are some thoughts on Flash (Lite).

Flash (Lite)
Pros:
- Faster prototyping (J2ME, Symbian and Brew developers might want to use Flash Lite as a proof of concept tool)
- Faster development & release to market
- Porting is easier, but one has to have access to all target devices
- Truly Cross-platform development (use the same base code for PC online/downloadable, Mobile, iRiver MP3 players, and PSP)
- You can do things (with vectors, or graphic effects etc.) that are quite hard/impossible with J2ME
- First devices with Flash Lite 2.x are being released to consumer market, so the object oriented Actionscript 2 can be used

Cons:
- Flash is a bit unstable development platform
- Flash Lite documentation has been poor (had to do some blackboxing)
- You can´t do all the things that J2ME is capable of (3D, for example)
- Number of devices with Flash Lite pre-installed is still low

In Europe, even with Nokia devices with Flash Lite 1.1. preinstalled, nothing has happened with Flash Lite content business -- it´s great to have tech on devices and no content at all :)

The upcoming Verizon Flash launch in USA already has been a major push for the Flash Lite content, and opened some distributor eyes in Europe (and Asia -- don´t mean Japan where Flash Lite has been pretty strong) as well.

According to Nokia (heard this a couple of weeks ago in MobileMonday Helsinki), in 2010 there´ll be at least 250 million Flash enabled phones -- it´s a start.

All in all, in our opinion the future looks bright for mobile Flash.

We try to ponder these things in our blog as well.

Miikka
CEO, Aniway Ltd.