Adobe Animate: End of Life and Support Timeline

Dear Adobe Team,

Thank you for the many years of great software. I received the announcement regarding the end of service for Adobe Animate, and I would like to share my concerns about file access after the discontinuation.

-- Current Usage --

I use Adobe Animate to develop and operate a mobile game app called "Fushigi na Ikimono Funyamorake" (Mysterious Creatures Funyamorake).

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.jp.co.piisu.airfunya
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/jp/app/id950614962

I use Animate on a daily basis for the following purposes:

- Creating in-game item graphics (numerous assets including complex animations)
- Designing and laying out UI (linking symbols to classes and exporting as SWC)
- Producing various animation assets

This app is an ActionScript application running on Adobe AIR (maintained by HARMAN). It has been in continuous operation for over 10 years since its release in 2015. It is still actively used by many players, and we plan to continue the service going forward.

-- Concerns --

According to the announcement, access to Animate's FLA/XFL files will end after March 1, 2029. This creates the following serious problems:

1. Editing existing assets will become impossible
   If bug fixes or UI adjustments are needed while the service is still running, we will have no way to make them.

2. Years of accumulated production data will be lost
   FLA files contain layer structures, symbol hierarchies, timeline animation data, and other information that cannot be preserved through simple image or video exports.

3. Some workflows cannot be replicated by exporting to other formats
   In particular, the workflow of linking symbols to classes and exporting as SWC cannot be replaced by simply exporting images or videos.

-- What We Would Like Adobe to Consider --

We would appreciate it if Adobe could consider any of the following options:

1. Provide a perpetual license version for viewing and editing FLA files

Please consider offering a perpetual-license tool with limited functionality that allows users to open, edit, and export FLA files after the subscription ends. No ongoing maintenance such as new feature additions or new OS compatibility updates would be necessary. The current version as-is would be perfectly sufficient.

2. Open-source Adobe Animate

By open-sourcing the Adobe Animate editor, the community could continue development and maintenance. For Adobe, this would eliminate post-EOL support costs. For existing users, it would open a path to continue using FLA files well into the future.

-- About Adobe Animate as Software --

Adobe Animate is, to me, a truly one-of-a-kind piece of software. The seamless integration of vector drawing and animation creation, intuitive motion editing through the timeline, asset management via symbols and libraries, and the tight integration with ActionScript for interactive content development — no other software brings all of these together in a single tool.

I have been creating with this tool for over 20 years, going back to the Macromedia Flash era.

-- Final Thoughts --

Adobe Animate is an irreplaceable tool that has been loved by countless creators and developers throughout its long history, stretching back to the days of Flash. While I understand the decision to discontinue the service, the fact that files will become completely inaccessible after March 2029 represents an enormous loss for long-time users.

I sincerely hope that Adobe will find some way to ensure that existing FLA files remain accessible in the future.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I would be grateful for any response.

Terrible decision. You are clearly out of touch with your audience. This is a product that is ingrained with so many studios and pipelines. Animate offers so much that other programs don’t. And for the love of everything holy DO NOT offer AE or Adobe Express as alternatives! It makes you look insanely out of touch with your own products. 
nobody supports this decision and your entire company and business model is horseshit. 

Y’all are the most anti-consumer company out there.

If this decision isn’t reversed, we’re all cancelling our paid subscriptions, this is the last straw, y’all

Devastated that Adobe has decided to drop Animate (formerly known as Flash and also Future Splash).

After using the product for over 25 years to create thousands of animations, countless interactive websites, desktop applications and immersive eLearning, as well as spend many days on the road demonstrating the product for Macromedia and Adobe, I just can't believe that Adobe would ditch it like this.

I understand that the rationale is that Adobe plans to concentrate more on AI. What bothers me is that the practical skills that we've learned over the years - design, layout, typography, image editing, illustration etc will become irrelevant, replaced with a prompt (don't forget to ask for figures with the full complement of fingers).

Workflows that we relied on that may have begun on paper, transferred to Illustrator and Photoshop and from there to Flash/Animate or Premiére and After Effects. Lost.

Use cases that included simple cartoons and character animation, animated and interactive infographics, and so much more, replaced by AI.

Adobe doesn't seem to care about the investment in time and resources that a very loyal community has made.

I for one am disappointed in the lack of care for existing customers. I'm hoping that my Adobe subscription will be reduced appropriately.

A plea for a software house out there to buy the product and continue.

This is such a boneheaded move made by a company who fundamentally misunderstands their customer base. You really have no idea how industry pros use Animate. If you did you wouldn’t offer such garbage replacement solutions like using presets in Express or the pin tool in After Effects. You’re screwing over an entire industry for what? To make shareholders happy? Because you couldn’t find a way to inject some garbage AI? Animate was the backbone of so many careers and shows for 25 years and so we get a measly 12 months to figure out how to archive, move pipelines and not disrupt productions? Why should I expect better from such a garbage company? 

WHY????

I can’t believe this! It's harmful and illogical.

Hello. I am very disappointed to log in at work today to find out about this. This is a program that I use professionally at my job and is irreplicable. Please reconsider your decision to discontinue this product.

This is hugely disappointing. I saw this posted on Reddit in case anyone wants to sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/ve-adobe-animate-don-t-let-this-essential-creative-tool-disappear