Key findings that might interest fellow developers:
standards are rising: Average ratings dropped from 7.02 (2018) to 6.45 (2025), but the percentage of high-quality games (8.5+ rating) actually increased from 12.3% to 14.7%. This suggests quality polarization rather than overall decline.
Genre trends: Rising: Idle games, Strategy, RPGs (deeper gameplay mechanics) Declining: Traditional arcade/action games Stable: Puzzle and Adventure (web gaming staples)
Innovation wins: The highest-rated "hidden gems" all had one thing in common - innovative mechanics rather than genre variations. Games like "Detective Bass: Fish Out of Water" (9.3 rating) and "SYNTAXIA" (9.1 rating) show originality still pays off.
Market maturation: The correlation between rating and popularity is surprisingly weak (0.126), suggesting quality ≠ virality. However, play count strongly correlates with favorites (0.712).
Thanks for putting this all together! Incredibly interesting.
I'm surprised your data found 0 Flash games released in the past 7 years... there should be at least a few, although they may have gotten classified as HTML still because they're using Ruffle Emulation to be played as HTML games in current era browsers. You can use this tag page to see a 2022 game was made in Flash, along with a few others in 2019 and 2020: Flash
Something else of note, that may or may not play a factor in Armor Games, specifically... is that while I've been involved with the web game selection process since 2012, there was a period (Feb 2018 thru May 2022) where I was not the main decision maker on game onboarding. I was before that period, and have been again since that period.
I have other analysis and thoughts from my own compilation of similar data over the years, but that isn't for public consumption. Sorry.
Thank you for your . I analysed the data through crawling, but there may have been a problem with the data collection process. I am surprised to hear that FLASH games were released in 2022, as I was an avid fan of FLASH.
I am curious to know more about Tass's thoughts, but it is a pity that I cannot find out! I will post more interesting data when I find it.
