Good article about Flash's constant and never-ending downside. I always wonder why so many people, who use Flash (or have Flash installed) don't have the "Check for updates automatically" box checked.
Folks using outdated (and, in all honesty, the latest) Flash are pretty much leaving themselves, and their personal info WIDE OPEN. No wonder Google, You Tube and almost every other company/site that used Adobe's Flash, has distanced themselves.
If not for this one game (WGT), I wouldn't have anything that comes from Adobe on my computer. I won't install Java for any reason, ever.
Adobe Flash is dying, and those who think it's not, must live on another planet or something. Countless news articles in the last few months have come out about Adobe Flash's guaranteed demise. The only questions is, how long can Flash hang in there.
And, there are several GREAT online game MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) platforms out there. Since none of us know what the future holds for WGT, regarding Flash, all we can do is sit, be vulnerable, and hope we're safe while opening the site/client.
My opinion is that the cost effectiveness of changing the platform is definitely not worth the money. But, I have no idea what WGT's revenue is, nor whether the bosses are considering a "safe" alternative to Flash.
Downloaded (installed) MMO platforms are the way to go. Definitely expensive (to the company), but 100x safer, and they would be much better at putting halt to the cheats/multis abuse that's rampant here. The only downside to downloaded platforms (Steam,Desura, Galaxy, Origin, HTML5, WebGL, etc...I left Unity out because it's probably worse than Adobe in terms of safety) is that the player will need a decent computer (not a gaming computer, either, but at least 4-6mb ram min. and fairly good graphics card). The downside to browser-based MMO's is that they have to have dedicated servers, and anything that's added/updated means downtime. Downloaded MMO platforms don't have downtimes, but their updates/fixes do mean waiting a few minutes longer to open, than normal, as they update it. But, bottom line is they have no need nor use for Adobe Flash.
If I were the decision-maker at WGT, I'd just do what they're doing right now. Ride it out and hang on until the very day that Adobe Flash completely dies. I wouldn't change platforms, but I would be (just as they are doing) leaning most of my resources towards making the Mobile game better, and better. The future is there, not here.