2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

While Macromedia's focus for promoting the Flash Communication Server is through its ability to 

handle audio and video streams, its ability to send standard data packets makes it a viable server 

solution for multi player gaming. 

c) 

Shockwave Multi User Server  

Since Director MX, the Shockwave Multi User Server ( SMUS ) has been officially deprecated as 

Macromedia focuses on the Flash Communications Server. However, a number of Director multi user 

game developers still use SMUS for a number of reasons, including the fact that it supports features 

not available in the Flash Communications Server, including the ability to implement peer to peer 

networking capabilities, and UDP packet transfer. 

For developers not interested in using the Flash Communication Server for Director/Shockwave 

projects, another option may be the Nebulae Multi User Server from Tabuleiro, which replicates the 

functionality of the SMUS in a fully supported Java environment. 

B. 

Base Delivery Technologies 

1. 

Flash  

Of plug in technologies, Flash has the largest installed base, reaching over 95% of web surfers

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. Its core 

engine is primarily a vector based drawing system, combined with an ECMA based scripting language 

called ActionScript. The ActionScript language, like any scripting language, can be slow at times even 

when compared to the performance of other script languages such as Lingo or Java. For developers who 

want to get the most performance out of Flash, a number of disassemblers are available to allow 

developers to see exactly what is happening with their scripts, and this knowledge can be used to 

optimize playback. 

For many developers, especially those concerned about users needing to install additional software and 

plug ins, Flash will be the best option; due to its near ubiquity across platforms. 

2. 

Director / Shockwave / Shockwave 3D 

Shockwave continues to be one of the leading technologies for web and downloadable games. Its ability 

to handle fast bitmap blitting operations has given it the performance edge over Flash for certain genres 

of games, and with the introduction of a real time 3D engine and Havok physics, it has a huge potential 

for developing small, fun 3D games. Additionally, Director developers have the advantage of being able to 

create a Shockwave web demo version of the game, as well as a standalone projector version of the 

same game within the same development environment. 

Director is cross platform, and can be used to develop content for PC, OSX and Mac OS9. The Intel 

developed 3D engine for Shockwave includes a range of both standard and advanced features such as 

level of detail, sub division surfaces, skinning, multi texturing, and particle systems. Developers can 

create and deform meshes at run time, or can use content from all major modeling packages using the 

available exporter plugins which exist for 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave, SoftImage, TruSpace and 

more. The engine supports Direct3D and OpenGL, with a software renderer available as a fallback for 

systems without hardware acceleration. 

The real time physics capabilities offered by Havok provide a subset of their full v1.x package. The freely 

available Xtra offers support for rigidBodies, springs, and linear and angular dashpots.  

3. 

Java / Java WebStart  

Java began life with the promise of `write once, run anywhere'. While this has been achieved more so 

with Java than with any other comparable, contemporary language, it has yet to become the panacea 

once envisioned. On the other hand, Java is definitely a viable and practical platform. Java was originally 

developed to serve as a portable platform for content delivery on interactive set top boxes. The media 

group within Sun found themselves grappling with an explosion of portability, compiler, library, and 

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