[soccerdave]

Flash games are easily a multi-Billion dollar a year industry. You mention games shifting towards Steam. I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of games on Steam that are still created in Flash. Flash (through Air sdk) provides an amazing way to target web and all major mobile platforms with the same code base.

Also, I wouldn't judge popularity by money made through ads. The industry has long since shifted to in app purchases.

[benologist]

Can you show any Flash games making heaps of money? I have games of my own on both Kongregate and Armor Games from late last decade / early this decade, the business models behind that type of flash game (which was mostly licensing and ads) has almost entire disappeared and not been replaced.

[soccerdave]

Here are a bunch making anywhere from $50k per day to a whole lot more. You may need to be Facebook logged in to view them.

https://www.facebook.com/games/query/top-grossing/

Edit: Also, I believe Kongregate has a whole ton of games with In-App Purchases. I don't have any experience publishing on there but I do have experience on Facebook.

[benologist]

Facebook games are also declining, from Zynga at their peak to collectively less revenue than Candy Crush Saga on iOS.

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-payments-revenue-dec...

[soccerdave]

While it has declined, it is still almost a billion dollar industry on its own just on Facebook. You asked for "examples of games making heaps of money" and I included links to a bunch of them.