
Google shows the Future of Browser Games - dirtyaura
http://www.1up.com/news/google-shows-future-browser-games
======
nadam
A little rant:

"USD only for App developers, WWW for buyers"

I translate it to myself:

"west: place with creative smart people. rest: dumb idiot consumers"

This is what always happen with 'gaming marketplaces', and 'mobile
marketplaces'. This is the case with XNA, X-Box Live, android market etc... As
someone from Hungary (Eastern Europe) I was naive enough to get excited about
some of these in the past. I no longer do that. My first task is to check for
this 'west-rest' rule. If I smell this I avoid the stuff like plague.

Maybe a good startup idea for someone who is reading this: create non-
protectionist gaming marketplaces? I think there would be huge demand for
that.

~~~
jasonkester
No need to go looking for conspiracy theories. The reason they don't do this
is simple: It's hard.

Look around at the plethora of ways to accept payment and send money online.
Dozens of them, right? How many of them allow payouts to non-US citizens? One.

PayPal, that's it. That's the only company that's managed to even partially
solve the horrible problem of how to put money into a non-US bank account and
not immediately go out of business due to fraud. They solved this because
solving fraud issues is the _only_ thing they do. And it took them a long
time. And _still_ they can't figure out how to do it for over half the
countries in the world.

Google doesn't hate Hungarians. They just don't know how to send you money.
Try not to hold it against them.

~~~
nadam
I don't understand why paying me money is a problem, and I don't get it what
kind of fraud are we speaking about. Normally the following should happen: 1.I
create an account on their site with my username and password. I log in with
this account. 2\. I upload the contents (game). 3\. Logged in with this
account I could: a.: specify my PayPal account to thich I expect the money to
be transfered. b.: specify my international bank account number (SWIFT code)

How can be there fraud? If I specify someone else's bank account number then
only I can lose on that. I cannot imagine how could I do any 'fraud'. This is
beyond me.

Edit: It is quite absurd. We have a global economy in which it is easy for the
money to flow in one direction but very hard (or sometimes impossible) to flow
in the other.

~~~
btn
There are also legal ramifications when doing business in a new country.

They (Google, in this case) have to ensure that they are complying with
appropriate company/tax/accounting/privacy/etc. laws for each country. This
may not be as easy as rubber-stamping some forms, so they have to prioritise
countries they are familiar with and are can already do business in.

~~~
storm
Google hasn't even managed to accept Canadian developers into the Android
marketplace, despite having multiple operations there - they either aren't
trying very hard, or they are just really, astonishingly bad at this stuff.

------
pavs
Its interesting to see that when talking about Sunspider benchmark, he
specifically pointed out that IE9 preview performs a lot better than IE8 that
was shown on the benchmark and even complemented the IE team for doing a good
job.

On the other hand IE team spreads FUD about Chrome:
[http://geektechnica.com/2010/04/microsoft-continues-its-
trad...](http://geektechnica.com/2010/04/microsoft-continues-its-tradition-of-
misinformation-with-ie8/)

Things like this is why its easy to dislike MSFT and trust Google (despite
privacy concerns). I have said this before and I will say it again, IE can be
the fastest, most standard compliant and most secure browser out there and I
would still not use it.

------
Groxx
Looks nigh-identical to a talk they gave, what? A few months / a year ago?

I think NaCl is _the_ single biggest part of all this. As I said in another
comment here:

I see NaCl as the only actual reason why things will move to being almost
totally web-based, and a damn good one at that. It's the ultimate merger of
both worlds, and you can (and they do / will) sandbox every application
(something I've wanted since I started looking into computers at all). Easy
installing + easy purchasing + easy updates + performance = win.

~~~
andreyf
_Looks nigh-identical to a talk they gave, what? A few months / a year ago?_

Yup, Google does this a lot.

------
dirtyaura
We are in an interesting junction point for browser games: will the future be
HTML5 based games or will all browsers start to offer sandbox that will run
native games like Chrome does.

Basically, will current AAA game industry shift to use HTML5 or will browser
makers be eager enough to get AAA titles to their platform that they will
offer native clients in browsers.

~~~
Raphael_Amiard
I think we will see flash games continue to spread, because it's a very good
platform for games.

I think we will see a lot more of HTML5 games. Time is needed so JavaScript
engines still enhance a bit, as well as browser's rendering engines.
Everything else will be palliated by libraries providing a good game
development environment for games in JavaScript.

For the moment flash has an enormous edge, but i don't see anything preventing
canvas+JavaScript to become a very good platform for gaming in the next 3 or 4
years. Whether it will be used or not is another question.

On the other hand i don't see Native Client having a big success. I could very
well be wrong about that, and it's really just a feeling, since with proper
ecosystem and integration, it could become a lot better than flash for web
game development.

~~~
xiaoma
Fortunately for those of us coding in flash (i.e. ActionScript 3), a move to
JavaScript would be pretty painless.

------
extension
They are not going to sell any browser games if they don't work on phones,
tablets, or TVs. And they wont, if they depend on Flash and NaCl.

~~~
extension
I don't understand the downvoting on this, but I'll elaborate.

Computer gaming was already a high-end, enthusiast market _before_ the whole
phone/tablet thing started. Going forward, it's only going to become more of a
niche as the desktop computer becomes strictly a work machine.

Casual entertainment is now delivered through convenient gadgets that work
where you are comfortable, instead of chaining you to a desk. Anybody who has
some of these gadgets knows that this is the way it must be, and soon that
will be everybody.

The technology stack Google is talking about here is nowhere close to being
viable for games on gadgets. And the gadgets already have fully realized
commercial gaming platforms anyway, that are always going to be way ahead of
the web stack.

There is just no reason to make games for the Chrome App Store. Productivity
apps are a whole other matter. But games, no.

~~~
patrickaljord
> Computer gaming was already a high-end, enthusiast market before the whole
> phone/tablet thing started.

I'm not sure what you mean by "computer gaming" but if you mean graphic
intensive games, I don't think that's what Google is aiming at (at least, not
as a priority). Google is aiming at social addictive games that millions of
normal people (not hardcore gamers) play, such as farmville and co. Google has
already bought/invested in 5 social gaming companies and those are doing great
on the "computer gaming" market.

------
neeleshs
Very very interesting to see C++ being thrown in to the mix.

~~~
Groxx
a la Native Client (NaCl).

Honestly, I see NaCl as the only _actual_ reason why things will move to being
almost totally web-based, and a damn good one at that. It's the ultimate
merger of both worlds, and you can (and they do / will) sandbox every
application (something I've wanted since I started looking into computers at
all). Easy installing + easy purchasing + easy updates + performance = win.

------
paul9290
I dont understand fully the point of this web store from a consumer stand
point. If i can go play the same game at www.x.com what is the advantage of
buying the same game in the Chrome store?

~~~
cryptoz
I assume that this web store will launch simultaneously with Google's Chrome
OS, where it will make lots of sense for you to use their store to browse for
games, apps, themes, and everything else.

It also seems that we're moving to a place where people are happy to pay $0.50
for a game if they know that paying means the developer will make more. Better
to use the official app store on your new Google computer and pay small
amounts for the apps you like than the old way of not being able to find a
Flash game hidden among a page of Flash ads.

