Newgrounds.com — Everything, By Everyone.

The releases of ActionScript 3 and Alchemy mark the beginning of a new era for Flash game makers. Flashers are no longer limited to making Flash games in Flash or Flex, but can, in fact, port practically any game made with C or C++ to Flash, as long as they have the original source code.

We have seen this already with the port of DOOM that Mike (no last name) has submitted to Newgrounds, which is currently #1 on the Top 50. But, wait... is this right? Is this ethical?

I could understand this if id Games actually submitted it themselves, but Mike didn't make the game (despite the fact that it's not a stone). If this becomes a trend, Newgrounds will be filled with Flash ports of open-source games that the submitters didn't even make. At the top of the Top 50 will be classic DOS games instead of games actually made by Flash artists. Games that were not created by Newgrounds members, but simply run through a conversion program after changing a few lines of code to make them more internet compatible.

Does that seem right? At all? Not to me. In my opinion, using Alchemy to convert C++ games you made yourself to Flash and uploading them here is awesome. Taking games other people made and uploading them here, however, is not. It's the same thing as taking open-source Flash games and uploading them to Newgrounds even though you didn't make them. Nobody would consider that ethical, so why is it OK if they're DOS games?

To take this a step further, I have the same problem with a lot of music video submissions. For example, someone will animate a music video of a song by Weird Al or They Might Be Giants and upload it to Newgrounds. The music video will then receive great acclaim, many votes of 5 and several awards, not because the person who submitted the Flash did a good job, but because the song itself is funny. A great example of this is Super Mario Hyadain, animated by Scott-Falco. He stated in the description that he didn't write the song; it came from a video on Nico. Yet I'd hazard to bet that the reason it has a 4.35 out of 5 on Newgrounds has nothing to do with what Scott-Falco did, but the fact that the song is catchy. In fact, in my opinion, the visuals in the original Nico video are much better.

I'm not normally one to consider things "overrated" (perhaps because I'm called that so much on YouTube), but this is probably the only case where I'd make an exception. And I've felt this way for a long time, but have finally decided to say something about it before Alchemy becomes more accessible to people who aren't as familiar with compiling C++ programs and such (and, of course, to people who can run it on Windows without using Cygwin).

If you're voting on a Flash submission and you give it a high score based on stuff that the person/people who made the Flash didn't do, then, as the saying goes, you're doing it wrong. Hardly anybody seems to share this opinion, but it's something that I stand firmly behind. I'm not blaming the people who submitted the Flashes for this "overratedness"; I think it's awesome that Mike ported DOOM to Flash, and Weird Al himself enjoys seeing people animate music videos of his songs. But when we vote upon the quality of the submission, we should be voting upon the quality of what the submitter did. Otherwise, we may as well give students perfect grades for papers we know are plagiarized.

Log in to comment! | Share this!

The People Have Spoken

13 Comments

Nov. 28, 2008 | 7:52 PM Nuttro says:

Though I do like the classic 2d

Nov. 28, 2008 | 8:31 PM Koalafish says:

You know, you basically have the same opinions as me on that stuff you talked about, so your not the only one

You have to remember though, the newgrounds voting system is a little flawed

Nov. 28, 2008 | 8:48 PM Sonucais says:

I'm with you

Nov. 28, 2008 | 8:55 PM luka says:

Naturally, I think converting an open-source game that isn't made by you and uploading it online is not right. I see Mike's Doom conversion as an example of a conversion done right and it's also the first conversion I've ever seen. But then again, Flash game dev. industry already has this problem of having way too many remakes of commercial games. Converting the actual games into Flash is a step forward! :)

Nov. 28, 2008 | 9:10 PM SirMarth01 says:

I agree with everything you said, and you said it better than I ever would have been able to.

Nov. 28, 2008 | 9:12 PM AverageNewgrounder says:

the reason super mario hyadain as popular had nothing to do with the visuals OR the song.
it had mario, so the people loved it

Nov. 28, 2008 | 10:31 PM Wholyish says:

Luckily Mike cannot win an award because he is Newgrounds staff.

Nov. 28, 2008 | 10:43 PM Kyaztro says:

Get in line Nick, there's so much crap wrong with Newgrounds, that it's making Youtube look like it's oozing originality and quality. I couldn't believe it myself when I saw that Doom conversion climb to the top of the portal with top ranking awards, but don't get me started on video game parodies. did you see gun's of awesome yet? well the guy actually submitted a couple weeks ago when the "sane" portion of Newgrounds users were up, and the flash went through the portal like it should have, with no awards and very little recognition. Well the sure enough he deletes it, and I don't know what the hell the guy did, but he submits it a couple days ago, and it's front paged wins daily third and as of now has 100k views. Then just yesterday, I nearly passed out when Link and Navi was front paged with daily third. Not only has it been done a thousand times, not only was it on Orcarina of time( Everbody seems to disregard the 20 other zelda games), not only was it poorly done, not on purpose I may add, and not only does the guy think he is a likely to become the next Egoraptor( I don't know why you would want to anyways) but he plans on making a series about it. Yup, so what I'm saying is that it's impossible to stop this crap from flooding the portal, hell, video game parodies are the reason this site got so big, so let the unoriginal, reused, half assed submissions rake in the revenue, mean while Fulp will take care of the original, hard work flashes and make sure they get there time in the spot light too.

Nov. 28, 2008 | 11:42 PM Kajenx says:

Yeah, it's a shame, but the Newgrounds awards don't mean much anymore. They used to, but not now...

Alchemy is pretty exciting, though. We can use native 3D in flash and it actually runs! Now I just need to learn c++...

Nov. 29, 2008 | 12:14 AM TomFulp says:

Mike ported Doom because it was the free demo and was made open source by id. Most classic games aren't free or open source, so we don't expect to see a lot of that in the future, but I do have the same concerns about the future of the Flash gaming scene, now that the floodgates are open for C++ ports of both new and classic games.

We're facing a lot of decisions when it comes to formats. I've been getting requests for NG to support other browser gaming platforms, some of which would open the Portal to some really good games. Similarly, many Flash artists are moving towards better programs that don't generate SWF files, but standard video files instead.

We've been holding the line as a FLASH community, but if we really are a larger CREATIVE community, we have to decide how we'll cater to other formats, and how these formats will compete with eachother. People already submit animated video in Flash format, and it always kinda bugs me, but you can't stop the future... Bandwidth is plentiful, video is ubiquitious and there is better animation software than Flash. We could continue a diehard embrace of Flash and watch artists drop off over time for other formats, or we could change the whole paradigm of NG and embrace general creativity instead of just Flash. I'm still very much on the fence with this, because I'm a huge Flash fanatic and we already have more good content than we can put in the spotlight. We don't necessarily need MORE content and we risk losing some of the focus that makes us special as a Flash community.

I know this is completely off-topic from most of your post. I agree that Flash based on commercial songs is usually not deserving of the accolades it receives. It's cool that Weird Al is supportive, but otherwise I always recommend digging through the Audio Portal.

Nov. 29, 2008 | 1:30 AM NAveryW responds:

Thanks for the response, Tom. As I said, I don't think that Mike did anything wrong by submitting DOOM to the Portal. I just think that it's not right to judge a Newgrounds submission based on facets that the submitter was not involved with.

As for other open-source games that could potentially be submitted to Newgrounds (in the order I think of them): Tyrian, Commander Keen, Another World, Quake. One could also submit an emulator for pretty much any previous-gen console, allowing one to play any game from said console within the Flash frame. Using that method, one could take an unlicensed ROM (e.g. Super 3D Noah's Ark) and have the emulator run it automatically, thus, for all practical purposes, making the ROM the Portal submission.

Nov. 29, 2008 | 12:50 AM JheeBz says:

^ What Tom said.

Nov. 29, 2008 | 7:39 AM TomFulp says:

Yeah I've been thinking about the whole emulator thing... I imagine there's gonna be some Napster-style battle in the future, where someone makes an emulator that doesn't host the roms, but makes them too easy to find, and suddenly one Flash file could be loading up every game ever made with ease. Crazy stuff...

Mike is staff so he can't win any awards, but the question comes up about Doom mods... If someone has made a Doom mod that is 100% original art, audio and level designs, it is seen as their own original game, built with the open source Doom engine. So if some really good Doom mods get ported to Flash and posted on NG, you suddenly have this new realm of competitors that ARE original games built off a framework, owned by the authors who submit them, but it just seems to crush the whole landscape for Flash game competition. Same with Quake 2 mods once those can be ported to Flash. But does a 3D Flash game built off the Papervision framework deserve a manufactured advantage over a 3D Flash game built off the Doom framework?

It's possible NG will have to get really specific with how awards are given out. Mike is a staff member so he doesn't get the big prizes anyway, but who knows what is in the pipe. I do think it would be awesome for Doom and Quake mods to be playable via browser, since that IS progress for games that otherwise saw their day. I just fear for how that will impact "the scene", and we'll have to maneuver and adjust to handle what is likely an inevitable future. The same inevitabilities that exist for Flash developers are inevitabilities faced by NG as a relevant site for the creative community as a whole.

Nov. 29, 2008 | 10:20 AM squidly says:

Yeah, I too find it un-ethical and just plain wrong. And the fact that mike is part of the staff makes anything he does make a huge impact on newgrounds, because not only was it front paged, it was also advertised by Tom. Probably is going to cause a chain reaction, unless people like you take the first step and admit that it's just not right. Then you take the second step, but I don't know what the second step is. So just keep on that first step.

I guess.
Well, it's good to know somebody cares here.