What happened to online games?
I remember back in the early 2000s, logging into my family computer and disappearing into the vast world of online games. From educational games like Animal Jam to more fashionable fun games like MoviestarPlanet, there seemed to be an endless amount of games at our disposal. But now? I hardly ever hear about anything beyond Fortnite for the younger generation. So, what happened to those games?
Most everything on the internet came to a halt when Adobe Flash started to decline. Flash allowed for anyone to play any game at the click of a button, but the simplicity of it caused complications. Their security began to malfunction and their overall support went down, allowing for other similar methods such as HTML5 to begin to replace it. Mobile games which allow for secure applications to be downloaded directly to the device, eventually gained more popularity, especially as newer phones and electronics took center stage.
There are still those like myself, that miss the nostalgia of the old games, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting them back anytime soon. Every game has either advanced over time to adapt to new younger audiences or completely shut down altogether. For instance, Club Penguin (one of my favorites) turned over ownership to Disney and became an almost completely unrecognizable game from the original. There are a few fan games, like Club Penguin Rewritten, that try to embody the original project. Yet, it ended up having non-secure security similar to the Adobe Flash software and only had a brief time of success. It still isn’t the same feeling as well with the fan games, from either the game itself or from growing older.
With everything advancing in the online gaming community, it seemed younger generations not only lost their old games, but completely replaced them with more complex and overstimulating games. So as far as our 2000s online games go, a nostalgic memory they will remain.
