

Ga.me – new 'online game console' now in open beta - benvio
http://ga.me

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mildtrepidation
I opened this and stared at it like an idiot for a minute. Am I behind the
times to expect something on the main page of a site that says what it
actually is?

Clicking through the tiny About link I found at the bottom of the page, this
appears to be a platform for monetizing web-based games, at least some of
which are WebGL-based (which I found out after clicking through one of them
and being told, once again, that Chromium isn't interested).

So... new Newgrounds. Except with microtransactions. Unless I missed
something?

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hahla
I think your just used to browsing one too many SaaS startup websites. Not
every website needs a introduction and breakdown of features, especially for a
game site where its target audience already knows what they are looking at.

~~~
mildtrepidation
That's not really what I usually look at, and I believe most sites will at
least tell you what you're seeing (particularly when their presentation is
just a gallery of thumbnails).

Anyway, given the other questions already posted in this thread, I'd say it's
warranted and constructive criticism for whoever might be running this.

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primitivesuave
Basically all of these games try to get you to make in-app purchases, which is
a huge turn-off for me.

Honestly, I find these in-app purchasing platforms to be completely against
the spirit of game development. I totally support a game developer's right to
make money off their work, but the way these games aim to do that is so
unethical.

Remember how fun games used to be before they were perverted by the greedy in-
app purchasing tactics? I'm sure there weren't many games making a million
dollars a day like Candy Crush, but with a classic game like Civilization you
come to respect the genius of Sid Meiers. What's more important to you, a
million dollars a day or the respect and admiration of the gaming community?
It seems like an insatiable appetite for wealth, driven by the example of
successful in-app purchasing games like Candy Crush, has been instilled in the
game development community.

One more thing - when your performance in a game depends largely on how much
money you spend on it, the value of actually being good at the game is
basically nothing. How am I to know that the top players in the world didn't
just drop a couple grand on the power ups and gold and whatever other virtual
shit they try to peddle. In games like Civilization, the only way to win at
the deity level was to be a bad ass motherfucker who doesn't take shit from
any other civ - if Civilization was invented today, you would be converting
your real money into virtual gold during those economic crunch times in a war
campaign.

Back in the day, it took a genius to make a financially successful game.
Nowadays, it just takes an in-app purchasing API. I hope people stop paying
the people who game human emotions for personal profit and start paying the
geniuses who make great games.

~~~
jiggy2011
People are still paying for great games without IAP, probably in greater
numbers now than at any point in history.

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kdaigle
I was really intrigued until I realized it was all IAP and copies of existing
games.

~~~
google-1
Were have you seen Polycraft or Save the Day before?

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message
Entered username, clicked "Lets play" and got TypeError: Cannot call method
'split' of undefined at (...).js:63:508 at createUser

~~~
google-1
Which browser/OS?

~~~
message
latest stable Chrome/OSX

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whatshisface
"Online game console"? You mean like Miniclip was back in the flash days?

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andypants
What's up with the submission title?

There's no information in this post, the website doesn't refer to itself as an
'online game console', the website doesn't have much info either.

It just looks like a regular flash game website like newgrounds, miniclip,
kongregate, except that it's using webgl instead of flash. What exactly makes
it an 'online game console'? Why is this notable?

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willtheperson
While the site loaded up fine on iOS, and it even seemed like the UI was
nicely formatted; not one of the games I tried would play.

Some complained about lack of WebGL, some just said "couldn't open that link"
when I pushed play.

I was confused because it seemed like the error was saying that the game I
picked needs something iOS doesn't have and not that every game on the site
wouldn't run.

~~~
davidgaleano
Safari on iOS dotes not support WebGL, so I guess none of the games would work
for you.

~~~
willtheperson
Right. What I was getting at is that your menu system worked fine and made no
suggestion that none of the games would work for me without me clicking into
each game and pushing play to see the error.

How am I supposed to know all your games run on the same engine?

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im3w1l
Unique visual style. Many very sharp edges on front page. Try to post comment.
"you need an email". input email. "post failed, you've not validated you're
email" Validation email is from turbulenz. Slightly confusing. I like the feed
by each game When Ben replied to a comment of mine I got 4 notifications, but
as far as I could determine it was only one reply.

Overall pretty promising.

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Pxl_Buzzard
As a developer, am I required to use your engine to publish on ga.me? What are
your quality standards for allowing a game onto the site?

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jamesaustin
There is no requirement to use the Turbulenz Engine to publish a game on
ga.me. You can use whatever engine you want.

(Obviously you would need to use the relevant API hooks if you wanted to use
any of the ga.me web services, for example, IAP, userdata, multiplayer, play
information. But this is all modular.)

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mden
You can't close all the annoying popup messages in the top left corner (like
the finish making account). That's really annoying, especially while trying to
play a game. The ones I could close didn't seem to expire on their own.

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drawkbox
Looks like it is built on Turbulenz
([https://turbulenz.com/](https://turbulenz.com/)), an html5 game engine that
went open source last year. It is a quality engine at this stage and a well
done site.

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bendmorris
Is there a reason this doesn't work for me in Chromium and suggests I download
Chrome? Is there a relevant difference between the two, or is it just not set
up to recognize and accept Chromium?

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joliv
Man, I'm getting this too :/ It's probably that they're just checking for
those four listed browsers they have there: Firefox, Chrome and IE 11.

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fastball
> four listed browsers

> Firefox, Chrome and IE 11

I think you missed one.

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dapak
None of the games were playable for me on Chrome. You might want to do some
quality assurance before going any more public with this.

Chrome Version 32.0.1700.107

~~~
davidgaleano
Which OS? Does WebGL work fine for you?

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jbeja
Awesome games, but i hate that the vertical toolbar doesn't give me any clue
what action will trigger the buttons icons.

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laoba
Most links on the site point to "Turbulenz". I would suggest changing it to
pages on the same site at least.

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gpmcadam
Slightly unrelated random thought. Is there no API for interfacing with a
games controller on the Web?

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google-1
There is but support for gamepads is very limited and not widely supported.

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alexcroox
None of the games worked in Firefox for me. Loaded OK but couldn't interact
with the canvas

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google-1
All the games require WebGL, does this page work for you?
[http://get.webgl.org/](http://get.webgl.org/)

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ashray
That page works for me but same thing - once the game loaded, I couldn't
interact with it. Firefox 27.0.1 on Mac OS X.

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nhtenc
This is made in html5 or WebGL?

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jbeja
Have some Angularjs in it, for what could check.

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loceng
If this is going where I can see it going, this is great; Please don't fuck it
up. :)

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andypants
Where do you see it going?

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pdat
Pretty impressed with how quickly I was able to log on and begin playing
games.

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nawitus
Non-physical console?

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gesman
Cool domain name!

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jokoon
you mean like the steambox ?

ooooooooh

