Does Armor Games support games built with Silverlight? I've seen a number of posts mentioning it, but nothing that explicitly says, "yes" or "no". Can anyone help me out?
I feel the need to correct the inaccuracies here: -Silverlight is completely compatible with Flash, both can co-exist happily together. A site can easily support both without any issues. -Silverlight is an extremely robust runtime and 70% of all users have it installed already (it's a free, 20 second install for those that don't have it yet). There's absolutely no reason people wouldn't be able to play games that use Silverlight. -Silverlight doesn't "stalk" you. Not sure where this notion comes from. Silverlight (just like Flash) supports cross domain web access which makes it possible for game developers to allow their games to talk to their web servers but 1) this is no different than Flash 2) this just makes the games better because they can save high scores...etc.
I personally wrote a very cool online jigsaw puzzle game that I'd love to share on armorgames and there's no reason (technical or otherwise) armor games couldn't include Silverlight support. It would be a win-win for everyone.
-Silverlight is an extremely robust runtime and 70% of all users have it installed already
I seriously doubt 70% of all users have it installed. Also you have no source so your claims have no footing.
Also it would seem like a big waste of time setting up sliver-light which is larger and less streamlined that flash. You have to have multiple files and folder for silverlight while flash is just one file. Also I think alot of people don't want Microsoft getting any ideas since if it See's silverlight game making money I'll pull one it's magic tricks to try and extort more money out of it. Microsoft doesn't have the best track records. Lastly it's really not needed link me to 5 really, really good silverlight games.
I'm seeing 70% consistently on all my sites (I have a few of them) via Google Analytics. RiaStats.com is probably the best source however and shows 67%. Plus, the number will just continue to increase.
Regarding the multiple files/folders comment: I'm not sure what you mean here. From the developer's perspective, just like flash is a .swf file, Silverlight is a single .xap file. For those remaining 30+% that don't have Silverlight installed, they just have to install the runtime (just like you would with Flash). The Silverlight runtime take 20 seconds to install and is ~5 MB. I'm not sure how large the Flash runtime is but I sure we're probably splitting hairs here. From the user's perspective, installing Silverlight is completely painless (unlike the .NET framework).
Regarding Microsoft's motives, I would literally eat my hat if Microsoft ever charged money for Silverlight. It goes against every goal Microsoft has for Silverlight near and long-term (I know folks on the Silverlight team so you'll have to trust me on this). In fact, as far as track records go, Microsoft has never charged for a development platform runtime (at least in the 15 years I've been in the biz) and the trend has even been to make the development tools free and the libraries open source.
The bottom line IMHO is, Flash is awesome, Silverlight is awesome. Developers will build cool games on both platforms. Users shouldn't care what the games are written in as long as they are fun and secure. Armorgames can support whatever they want, I just hope they're better informed about just how similar Silverlight is to Flash and expand their list of games by supporting both.
Well 70% on your sites might not be the best statistical tool. If for say you have a site that caters to people who love Microsoft then I wouldn't' be surprised if it reached 70% install base.
Also I never talked about how small the install is, it almost seems like your trying to advertise it.
Microsoft motives are not the best. Doesn't matter the intentions of the people on the inside if the higher ups have better ideas. Look at Kinetic, Microsoft would sue people just for making open source drivers for it. It's the same closed garden as Apple.
I'm still waiting for the list of really, really awesome Silver-light games. Because that's the only way I'll become popular is when they make good games which I haven't seen yet.
I agree, my sites might not be the best source, that's why I referred to riastats.com. They're known as the best independent resource for measuring Flash, Silverlight and Java adoption. You should check them out.
I thought you were refering to the install size when you said "setting up sliver-light which is larger and less streamlined that flash". I guess I'm still not sure what you mean by this. And just to be completely clear on my own motives, I built IMO the best online jigsaw puzzle site on the web (http://PuzzleTouch.com) in Silverlight (sorry for the brag but I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it). I'm just a single developer who wrote it in my spare time and am just trying to get the word out. It's totally free and I don't make $ on it. I just want to share what I've worked so hard on and being able to put it on a site like Armorgames would help... I really think users would love it. Furthermore, I also happen to be a Silverlight expert and know a lot about it so I just wanted to dispell any false rumors about the technology.
I've seen a lot of really cool stuff written in Silverlight but you're right that there aren't nearly as many Silverlight games out there yet as in Flash. However, there's nothing technologically inferior about Silverlight so hopefully it's just a matter of time. Flash has been around a LOT longer after all. Maybe PuzzleTouch will serve as one example for your list.
Oh well I was referring to the finished game not being a single file.
Riastats looks nice but I don't trust a site that uses "because data makes sense" and "elemenates".
Also I wasn't talking about quantity of flash game but quality of the good ones. No one is interested in shovel-ware in any medium.
If Silver-light wasn't owned by Microsoft I would be for it. Adobe needs pressure from a another company instead of siting on it's patents and software. But Microsoft is not someone who would improve Adobe but try to destroy it. Which isn't what people are looking for.
although i would also like silverlight on armor games, maybe with an on/off button to hide silverlight games if you really really hate it, but i have to point out 1 thing to the claim it is easy to install.
for windows, it is pretty easy(if you have a supported browser), but for Linux, its dramatic. moonlight is not as far as silverlight, so new versions are unplayable, and it is not really as easy to install.
on that point, flash isnt great either to install on linux, and then specially on 64bits linux, its even worse then installing silverlight.
but @darkroot, it's a bit silly(in my opinion) to bash a product because it is from a certain company. i know a lot of people bashing MS, but still have an XBOX 360, thereby falsifying their own claim that everything they build sucks.
it is true Adobe needs a competitor, and since silverlight is still the underdog, it is very good to promote silverlight i think. you claim microsoft is such a bad company, but what about adobe(they own flash), adobe acrobat for example was good once, but is very bloated nowadays, its possible flash goes that way, and you say MS is so closed, well, the argument about kinect is already not true since they now endorse the open source use of Kinect, but flash isnt that better. the whole standard is closed, so i won't see why silverlight is that much worse on that point.
plus, you can build silverlight apps for free, while for flash you need to pay about 600 dollars(if not more) to buy flash, and if you dont want to miss out on features, you need to pay it about every one or two years, so unless using a pirated version of flash(what probably the large sum of the flash developers do), is silverlight on that part better.
Im not trying to bash flash or say silverlight is the best, i just try to say that both things have good and bad points, and that in my opinion, it would be a good idea to have both silverlight and flash on armorgames, to give users the largest choice possible, and giving silverlight developers a bigger audience, since most of the silverlight games are now spread on the web, not played much because of that, and therefore killing the developers will to create games.
