Flash Game/Movie collection websites

Games on the Internet are not a new thing, and neither are the following websites I'll be talking about, but to those who haven't heard of them, these are a pair of the most popular and most important flash websites on the internet.

http://www.newgrounds.com
http://www.kongregate.com/

Newgrounds has been around since 1995, and since its humble inception, with the tagline,"The problems of the future, today." It has steadily grown into a giant of a website with a community of well over a million frequent users and the new slogan, "Everything by everyone."

This slogan barely needs to exaggerate anymore, as they've become a behemoth of a website with portals to submit user created Flash Animations, Flash Games, Music, and more recently, Art.

The music section of the website is filled to the brim with music of every genre, created by its members, to be used in flash projects. (If you're ever having trouble finding a song for a flash project you're working on for class, swing by the Newgrounds Audio Portal.

Now, probably what makes NewGrounds so important to the flash community, is that they have had a user-moderated collection since 1997. They've got a system on their website for voting on flash animations, and if your flash animation/game receives too low of a score from the userbase, it becomes "Blammed" and deleted from the website.

A steady trend of members getting more picky, and standards improving over time (Not to mention the actual Flash Program improving significantly) has lead to the average submission to Newgrounds changing from stick figures drawn with the line tool hitting each other with crudely drawn thicker lines that are supposed to be swords, to deep and moving complicated animations that rival those of commercial animation studios!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/304212

Animators trying to be the most popular and get their name out on the Internet as a worthy artist have improved over time, and, depending on how you look at it, Newgrounds (which, I remind you, has been around almost as long as Flash, itself, has) has grown alongside the artistic community, and gradually made Flash into the widely popular program that it is today. If not for NewGrounds, Flash might be used for graphic user interfaces, and that's it!

The other website I want to mention is Kongregate.

Kongregate is a flash website similar to Newgrounds, except they focus on games and only games. What makes Kongregate special over websites like Armor Games or One More Level, is a special API that Kongregate pioneered to make most of the games on their website work together to create global leaderboards of High Score tables, and Achievements (such as a badge on your userpage if you collect 100 stars in a game, or some other challenge) like XBox Live, or more recently, Playstation 3 trophies.

By adding achievements to games, users are forced by their need to COMPLETE things and accomplish something for a little badge on their userpage so they can show off to their friends, Kongregate has managed to make Flash Games much more popular and widespread. Before, people might find a game that they really liked, and stick to it, but now, thanks to Kongregate, everybody on the website tries just about every new game that rolls in, and more artists are able to get their work known by more of the public.

Ever since Kongregate pioneered the system of making every game on the website a part of the overall collection game, other websites, including Newgrounds, have copied them, but none have implemented it so completely as Kongregate.

These two websites make up the majority of the non-commercial flash community. With forums that discuss and describe animation tips, collaborative projects where everybody makes 20 seconds of some song and they piece them together into a complete music video, and a tremendous archive of stuff, be sure to check them out!

Also, be warned, the flash animations have ratings, and some of them are rated mature. :)