Participant

Question

An open Letter to Adobe. (For all programs)

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
August 29, 2018
4 replies
568 views

Hello!

In this little letter here, I'd like to discuss Adobe Animate, and Macromedia Flash 8.

I'm going to begin by describing a scenario. Jim. wants to get into animation. he has a really cool project in mind to make this animation. he looks up what his best options are for animation. ToonBoom and Adobe Animate come up. but both are not only frantically expensive, but SUBSCRIPTION based as well! This little passion project of his doesn't have any backers and Jim completely broke. He enters the word Free at the beginning of the search bar. then discovers that Macromedia Flash 8 is available for download in several different locations. after doing a bit of research he sees that Adobe doesn't seem to mind due to the fact that they haven't done anything for YEARS to really crack down on it, and it seems widely used.

he downloads Macromedia Flash 8 from a strange place off a strange website, luckily there are no viruses. he makes his passion project and is quite happy with his work.

However now he is at complete risk of being fined to the point where his entire life could be destroyed in an instant if he is discovered for using a 13 year old piece of software for a little passion project that he wanted to make.

Believe it or not that scenario happens literally every single day.

Macromedia flash 8 is a VERY widely used program. so much so that collaborations involving animation have to specify software versions from Flash 8, to Flash CS6, to Animate.

Animate in itself is a very shiny and pretty program mind you. I've seen it in action and used it myself. wonderful set of tools. While it may be lacking some optimization and a plethora of features when compared to Animate, Flash 8 still does it's job as a very basic and rudimentary art/animation program.

There are literally thousands of artists at risk for being fined. Adobe LITERALLY has the power to snuff out the animation community in an instant if they put enough money and work into it.

However... that would be fairly counter productive and could lead to a serious outrage against Adobe for attacking the creative community. The creative Cloud kills Creation. in a sense. Irony at it's best.

So here is my suggestion to Adobe:

Polish Macromedia Flash 8 some to be a bit more compatible with more recent Operating systems if need be, and release it as freeware. it would put a VERY good impression on Adobe as a company and would allow creators to have more confidence, not only to release their works, but talk about the programs they used to create it.

Now I'm not saying to give Flash 8 a complete overhaul. Keep it as is, small, dinky, slightly buggy. and kinda frustrating at times. Keep it to be the Flash 8 we know. Now not only would this allow Content Creators to more easily have the tools they needed to make what they wished without threat, it also gives them respect to Adobe for supporting smaller creators and incentive TO those smaller creators to purchase animate once they become more notable.

This also allows people to become familiar with the classic Adobe Software layout, which would make them gravitate towards what's familiar. I personally wouldn't get Flash 8 then go onto ToonBoom for example. I know how to use Flash, so I'm going to get Animate because it's the latest version of what I already know

This applies to all software mind you. even older versions of Photoshop could apply to this rule.

I hope that this letter finds the Staff of Adobe well and I hope that it gets moved up the chain so that those who can put it into play may consider this.

Macromedia Flash 8 is still in use. it is still widely popular. IT'S STILL RELEVANT. please help the Animation Community in this regard.

Thank you for reading.

I hope I didn't just make a fool of myself.

P.S: would this be at all possible?

This topic has been closed for replies.

C

ClayUUID

Legend

As noted, this is a basically nonsensical request. If Adobe was interested in growing the hobbyist Animate market, it would make far more sense for them to offer a cut down "Animate Essentials" version of the product than to try to dig up the source code for a 13-year-old program and make it work on modern operating systems.

_keyframer

Community Expert

I don't know what "widely used" means statistically.
If it is that widely used and accepted, then updating it will open a can of worms for all of those who have remained with Flash 8.
I can't foresee any type of business model for Adobe or any software developer to update a 13 year old piece of software in parallel with its most up-to-date version. The Adobe marketing department's heads would explode trying to explain why there are 2 versions of the the same product 13 years apart.
The cost to support 2 versions of the same software would likely introduce issues with pricing. Would the updated version of Flash 8 still remain free and downloadable? That would break Adobe's own subscription policy for the entire suite of tools.
As for cost, Harmony is $109 (US) per month. Animate, if purchased alone is $20 per month.
I do not think Adobe is actively fining and "snuffing" out Flash 8 users. That just doesn't sound like it could be real.

Bottom line is, if some percentage of the user base prefers a much older version of software, then they are going to use it. Updating it would likely not pay off for Adobe or this specific demographic of Flash 8 users because after 13 years of updates, why would they start embracing another update that goes back 13 years minus 18 months (based on the typical 18 month update cycle back then, give or take). If someone is just trying to learn an animation software and has very little to no budget, specifically under $20 per month then the alternative would be an iPad based animation app for which there are several. But then the toolset with iPad apps compared to Animate or Toon Boom will be lacking severely.

*I don't work for Adobe - just speculating most of this based on experience.

Animator and content creator for Animate CC

C

CirtexQuakeAuthor

Participant

you clearly have never been in any sort of Creative community.

The entirety of the creative community uses so many different versions of flash it's unreal. And i did say update for optimization with operating systems did i not? not the program itself. it would still be compatible with actionscript 2.0 and it's files.

Explaining the reason for releasing Flash8 again is fairly easy, as Flash 8 is notorious for issues with crashes and the like. so the logic behind it is "you can use this old version that can do all the basic aspects as the newest version, and if and when you want to you can get the newer one."

and by Widely used. I'm talking Several million. whole communities. forced to use flash8 because they can't afford a monthly subscription to a Really shiny program that fully blown Companies use.

_keyframer

Community Expert

"you clearly have never been in any sort of Creative community." <<< This

Sorry I misunderstood you. Yes you asked for Flash 8 to be optimized so that the vast creative community could download Flash 8 for free knowing it will work for all future Operating Systems. I was just giving you my opinion based on realistic expectations. It would be a wonderful world if companies could afford to invest the time and cycles in parallel with current live products to ensure freeware for all creatives everywhere. That indeed would be great.

Then you asked for all software [Photoshop] to be supported in the same manner. From the business side of things, what's the incentive for Adobe aside from supporting a certain demographic of the creative community? You claim millions are using Flash 8. How do you know this? What's your source? I google this information and found a few suspect websites you can download Flash 8 from that have since been marked as containing viruses.

I even googled "flash 8 community" and came up pretty empty. I'll continue to look. If you have any links to online communities devoted to Flash 8 that are active and thriving, I'd love to be a part of it.

Let's say you are correct - there are a couple million Flash 8 users and a huge creative community surrounding this 13 year old software. Let's also say I'm an Adobe product manager or even the CEO and I look at the stats for how well the Adobe Cloud subscription platform is doing - which is over 12 million subscribers and expected to reach upwards of 20 million in a couple years. The Adobe creative community known as Behance has over 10 million members - Behance comes with your subscription to Adobe Cloud. So safe to say they are not using Flash 8. But even though it's subscription based, the community is thriving/growing.

As the CEO, how would I plan the next fiscal year? It would be tough to convince shareholders that part of our business will be to support all software over a decade old. Sorry again if I misunderstood you on this.

I'm not trying to belittle the flash 8 community. I love that it exists. i get it. I've used it. I've been on the Flash and now Animate CC prerelease team for decades. I've taught Flash and now Animate for decades. I've even written several books on the topic. This may even surprise you: I'm involved in many creative communities. No really. Several, in the physical and virtual form. I won't start to list them here but your first comment did make me chuckle.

My response was simply from a realistic business point of view. To resurrect 13 year old software, even just to polish it up a little for the smaller creative community that still uses it is not as simple as it may seem. But I'm on your side. It would be a wonderful world if there was a free version of every software program that could be used forever for those that can't afford the full package deal in the effort to support their respective communities. And if that was the business model, the incentive would be for everyone to avoid paying for the real product and just continue to use the free one that gets polished every year. I'm sure software companies would thrive...oh wait....

Animator and content creator for Animate CC

C

ClayUUID

Legend

cirtexquake wrote
While it may be lacking some optimization and a plethora of features when compared to Animate, Flash 8 still does it's job as a very basic and rudimentary art/animation program.

What a bizarre way to describe what was at one point the industry-leading state of the art in vector animation.