Most platforms are expected to end support for Flash at the end of 2020, creating an complicated situation for websites like Kongregate that are largely known for expansive libraries of Flash games and building communities around those titles.
Kongregate has already touched on how it plans to preserve those thousands of Flash games once Flash support finally ends, but has now issued a wider plan for how certain website features will change once the game portal’s technological cornerstone is removed from the web.
One change of particular interest to game developers is the note that Kongregate has already closed down the game submission process, meaning Flash devs are no longer able to bring their creations to Kongregate.com.
Many of the social features built to fit around Kongregate’s library of now 128,000 Flash games will also vanish by July 22, including all non-game-specific chat rooms, most game-specific chat rooms, and the ability to add badges to existing games on the platform.
Many of the changes hitting the site reflect how Kongregate’s focus has shifted over recent years, with the company noting that some decisions are reflective of the fact that its focus has largely shifted away from managing Kongregate.com and toward game development.
However, due to that same shift shift a number of employees at Kongregate may have lost their jobs today. According to social media posts from those affected, several Kongregate staff were laid off with little to no notice the same day as this latest announcement. We’ve reached out to Kongregate for more details and will update this story following a reply.
“As most of you know, Kongregate.com was first created in 2006. The gaming industry has changed a lot since then,” reads an explainer from the Kongregate team. “During the intervening years, Kongregate as a company has grown and adjusted with those industry-wide changes. Today our business is largely focused on developing games and flash, as you are aware, is slowly going away. That means that Kongregate.com will need to evolve as well.”