Adobe Shockwave

This article is about the Shockwave multimedia platform. For the player, see Adobe Shockwave Player. For the application authoring platform, see Adobe Director. For "Shockwave Flash", see Adobe Flash Player. For the Adobe Flash file format sometimes referred to as "Shockwave Flash", see SWF.
Not to be confused with Shockwave.com.
Adobe Shockwave
Developer(s)Adobe Inc., Macromedia, MacroMind
Target platform(s)Web browsers, Windows, macOS
Editor softwareAdobe Director
Player softwareShockwave Player
Format(s)DIR, DCR, DXR
Programming language(s)Lingo
Application(s)Browser games, desktop apps, video games
StatusDiscontinued on April 9, 2019
LicenseProprietary[1]
Websitewww.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/ Edit this on Wikidata

Adobe Shockwave (formerly Macromedia Shockwave and MacroMind Shockwave) is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on the Internet. Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. MacroMind originated the technology; Macromedia acquired MacroMind and developed it further, releasing Shockwave Player in 1995. Adobe then acquired Shockwave with Macromedia in 2005.[2] Shockwave supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.[3][4]

During the 1990s, Shockwave was a common format for CD-ROM projectors, kiosk presentations, and interactive video games, and dominated in interactive multimedia.[5] Various graphic adventure games were developed with Shockwave then, including The Journeyman Project, Total Distortion, Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou, Mia's Language Adventure, Mia's Science Adventure, and the Didi & Ditto series. Video game developers developed hundreds of free online video games using Shockwave, publishing them on websites such as Miniclip and Shockwave.com.

In July 2011, a survey found that Flash Player had 99% market penetration in desktop browsers in "mature markets" (United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand), while Shockwave Player claimed only 41% in these markets.[6] Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR are alternatives to Shockwave, with its 3D rendering capabilities, object-oriented programming language, and capacity to run as a native executable on multiple platforms.[7]

In February 2019, Adobe announced that Adobe Shockwave, including the Shockwave Player, would be discontinued effective April 9, 2019.[8]

  1. ^ Adobe Software License Agreement. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  2. ^ Elia, Eric (1996). "Macromedia unveils Shockwave and Director 5". Newmedia. HyperMedia Communications. ISSN 1060-7188. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
  3. ^ Macromedia Shockwave for Director User's Guide, Volume 1, New Riders Pub., 01-Jan-1996
  4. ^ Macromedia Shockwave for Director, Volume 1, Hayden Books, 1996
  5. ^ Kelly Hart; Mitch Geller (2008). New Perspectives on Dreamweaver CS3, Comprehensive. Cengage Learning. p. 429. ISBN 978-1-4239-2531-6.
  6. ^ "Flash content reaches 99% of Internet viewers". Adobe. Archived from the original on October 2, 2011. Retrieved 2014-08-07.
  7. ^ Adobe Director 11 review Archived 2015-05-28 at the Wayback Machine, Page 2, KEVIN PARTNER, 1 May 2008, PCPro Magazine, "Adobe's AIR technology makes it possible to deploy Flash as a desktop application"
  8. ^ "End of Life (EOL) for Adobe Shockwave". helpx.adobe.com. Retrieved 2019-12-23.