James

The tipping point for online games (Download Squad)

Jan 18th 2007 6:32PM I've never developed in Flash before, and I don't feel like I have a really good handle on what you need to do to get started. Don't you have to buy several hundred dollars worth of software to get started? Flash doesn't have human-readable source code (right?), so it's not something like C++/Java/Ruby/what-have-you where you can "code" in Notepad (albeit somewhat inefficiently). I'm not able to find any free/open-source development tools for Flash after a few minutes of Googling, but I guess that doesn't mean they don't exist.

If I'm right, though, and any Flash developer has to pay the entry toll to Adobe, I don't think it's ever going to reach critical mass. Tons of other computer trends have started with college kids working out of their dorms or start-ups that have next to no capital, and if you have to shell out $700 (per Adobe's site) just to get started, you're really going to stifle potential creativity...