2

So I posted https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/300630/what-causes-old-games-to-disappear-off-kongregate assuming that Kongregate would be considered a 'game-specific hardware or utility' (well, a utility. It's software, not hardware.). Apparently that's not ok because Kongregate is not accessed via a desktop application (usually):

How a website works isn't a game-specific utility; that's for things like Steam and Origin and such. Now, if Kongregate was a desktop application like they were, we might be able to help. Beyond that, how the company that runs it handles things is up to them; not really something we can help with.

I'm having trouble understanding what makes an online game hosting service accessed via browser different from an online game hosting service hosted via special-purpose client. Could someone explain in more detail what, exatcly, makes my question off topic and why, preferably with reference to what makes Steam, etc, different?

I've read through When is non-game-specific still on-topic? and that doesn't seem to make things any clearer for me...

2
  • To answer the actual question; I don't think kongregate removes games for being old, the most likely reason for a game to stop working or be removed is because the developer changed something, one of the games you linked looks like it was linked to dropbox so the developer may have changed something in their dropbox or maybe dropbox changed permissions. Another explanation could be changing technology, perhaps games are not compatible with the newest drivers/browsers/whatever and thus cease working.
    – Aequitas
    Feb 16, 2017 at 6:26
  • @Aequitas I mean, that's what I figured kinda. I was just hoping for an answer from people who know more about flash than me-- it's not a problem that I've run into before and it seems both pretty rampant and pretty limited to games released via flash hosted on the internet. I don't know whether it's more of a technical limitation (changes is Flash player, changes in browsers, dependancies on 3rd party software (e.g. dropbox) that change) or whether it's more of a social issue. I figured people who know more about Flash gaming and/or gaming portals would be able to explain it.
    – Please stop being evil
    Feb 16, 2017 at 6:32

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

At the end of the day, Kongregate is a website. There's nothing special about it, beyond it hosting flash games. If you wanted to ask questions about the games themselves, that we could help with.

Websites aren't a gaming specific utility; they're a web server with files. That's it. Just because it hosts games still doesn't put it in our area of expertise. It works exactly the same whether it's hosting files, movies, music, pictures, or whatever. Flash is just another file type.

That's why it's not gaming specific. As a further mention, though, why games get removed and how they are handled would still be off-topic; it would fall squarely in developer intent.

Now, if you want to get a game working that isn't, that we can certainly help with; that's gaming expertise to a tee, as games are strange and do weird things even at the best of times.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .