Line Rider, a simple game where players draw lines for a boy to sled on, became an internet sensation despite its lack of goals, rewards, or advanced graphics. It was one of the most popular searches on Google and led to many clones. The game's success highlighted the appeal of free, creative content on the internet. However, with Adobe ending support for Flash in 2020, there's concern that an entire cultural layer of gaming may disappear. Flash games were significant in bringing people online and were part of a larger narrative of internet history, including the dot-com bubble collapse and the rise of mobile gaming. The video also touches on the darker side of early 2000s internet culture, characterized by violent and controversial flash games.
Here are the key facts from the text:
1. Line Rider is a game that was already 14 years old at the time of the text.
2. Line Rider has no goal, no rewards, no plot, and no ending.
3. The game allows players to draw lines with their mouse and watch a boy sled along them.
4. Line Rider became an internet sensation and was played by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
5. The game was included in the 10 most popular search queries on Google.
6. Line Rider spawned dozens of clones and imitators.
7. The game was naively simple and absolutely unique.
8. Adobe will stop supporting and distributing the Flash multimedia platform at the end of 2020.
9. Flash games will stop launching after Adobe stops supporting Flash.
10. An entire cultural layer of the gaming industry may disappear from the internet due to the end of Flash support.
11. Flash games have done more for the internet than many people think.
12. The history of Flash games is written in blood.
13. George Bush's dancing saved internet entertainment and created memes.
14. The internet was not always a fun place, and 25 years ago it looked very different.
15. GIFs were the pinnacle of web design in the 90s.
16. Flash appeared in the mid-90s and became the salvation and curse of the internet.
17. Flash allowed users to draw and animate objects, buttons, and other things.
18. The Flash plugin allowed users to embed creativity on an internet page in a few clicks.
19. Sites literally became more diverse and interesting with the advent of Flash.
20. Flash helped sites become more attractive and interesting.
21. Flash was indirectly involved in the grandiose collapse of the dot-com bubble.
22. The dot-com bubble burst in 2000, and many internet startups died.
23. Amazon shares fell by 90% after the bubble burst.
24. The losses of the internet amounted to almost five trillion dollars in less than six months.
25. The internet was launched at 50% capacity after the bubble burst.
26. Only personal use pages and Google zones remained after the bubble burst.
27. Hundreds of thousands of IT specialists were thrown out into the cold after the bubble burst.
28. Newgrounds was a site that gained popularity after the dot-com bubble.
29. Newgrounds was saved by a small group of active users who uploaded their flash videos to the site.
30. Robert Smol created the site Miniclip in 2001.
31. Smol uploaded a small flash game to Miniclip that changed internet entertainment.
32. The game was a dancing George W. Bush that users could interact with.
33. The dancing Bush became the progenitor of flash games and memes.
34. The dancing Bush was created in a few days and sent out as a spam mailing to 4,000 people.
35. The game spread across the internet and earned £300,000 in two months.
36. The dancing Bush became the first interactive video meme.
37. Miniclip became a popular site after the success of the dancing Bush.
38. Robert Smol created a model for distributing free content that everyone from YouTube and news portals began to use.
39. The dancing Bush became the grandfather of the share button.
40. Miniclip's servers could not cope with the influx of users after the release of the dancing Bush.
41. The site's audience increased to two million, and income increased by £1.5 million a year.
42. Newgrounds began to emerge from a coma after the phenomenon of the dancing Bush.
43. Many flash businesses appeared who wanted to share their creativity, and Newgrounds was ideal for this.
44. Newgrounds acquired a comment forum and a rating system in 1999.
45. The independent flash movement began on Newgrounds.
46. The period from 2000 to 2002 can be called the era of puberty content for boys.
47. Dozens of games about the murder of politicians and celebrities appeared on Newgrounds.
48. The games of the "kill someone" genre stopped being popular after a while.
49. The stick figure became a trend and was used in many games.
50. Newgrounds looked like the fantasy of a psychopathic maniac during this time.