Former professional Flash programmer here; now an iOS one; if you can't beat 'em, join them, right? Eight good years of major ad campaign mini-sites, interactive installations, art projects. Near the end of the line for Flash/Air, most of my projects were comprised of three contiguous 1080p screens with touch overlays, using 60fps interactive 3D interfaces, multitouch, maybe camera-enabled, farming data in realtime from multiple sources, to do very, very cool creative things. When mobile came out, everyone thought everything had to work to fit one platform. It doesn't have to. Flash had a place in higher-end hardware, it was practically designed as a resource vampire and it did good things if you fed it well. Away3D had brought it direct access to OpenGL. There were some great AR libraries. Sure you have your Cinders and your OpenFrameworks, but AS3 had a very nice, javascript-like, hard-typed, fully object-oriented syntax with multiple MVC frameworks available, and unparalleled control of creative minutiae. We should definitely embrace mobile-friendly technologies, open standards for the web, etc. Absolutely. But we shouldn't throw out what is still a pretty cool approach to doing immersive, high-resolution, multitouch non-web interactive experiences. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I'm a white guy, but I studied Film/Video Studies at the University of Michigan along with Computer Science. I currently freelance doing film/interactive hybrid projects for a lot of high-profile stuff, game companies not excluded. I had to chime in, because UofM really presses the race-awareness thing with film students. I also have a pretty multi-racial family and am happy to deck the first guy who drops an N-bomb at the bar. So my take: The important thing UofM taught was that stereotypes get most effectively propagated through mass media. For those of us in the industry, its imperative to understand the power we wield with regards to this sort of thing, in addition to all sorts of other effects we have. It's also important to make a dope game that everyone can get into. I can't help but think of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto San Andreas -- I had a conversation with my nephew, a 14 year old half-black, half-Danish kid, about this game. I felt the game walked the line well between being a decent crossover between entertaining game, celebration of hip hop culture, observation of the power structures behind organized crime in all its forms, and also the pan-ultimate failure of a good example of just about anything for young people. If I were 14, I'd want to play it. He told me, "yeah, my mom doesn't like me playing it because it makes black people look bad, but it's a fun game." Art needs the ability to reflect culture, represent it, satirize it. Where it goes wrong is when we use it to intentionally or UNintentionally harm a people or propagate an idea that harms a people. Often it's the latter we have to watch out for. But it's only a matter of time before Inky, Blinky, and Sue file a class action lawsuit.