HTML5 games reminds me of Oakland, California. Oakland is the smaller sister next to San Francisco, on the wrong side of the Bay. Every year, we say, this will be the year that Oakland becomes the Brooklyn of the Bay Area. But, it never happens. It's always next year.That's the story of HTML5 and games. Whether its Facebook embracing or dropping HTML5, HTML5 startups getting funding then imploding; the imminent success of HTML5 games is always a year away.But this year may be different.There are awesome HTML5 game technologies available, such as Tresensa, GameClosure, Clay.io, and Goo Technologies. Spil taking the lead with new ad technologies and $5 million in funding. And then there is Kik. Kik is a messenger platform with 100 million user and over 275,000 new users signing up everyday. What makes Kik unique compared to other games-focused messenger platforms such as Line, KaoKao, WeChat, and Tango is that does not distribute third-party game apps.
Game developer, Thomas "Less Milk" Palef, is currently in the middle of a self-imposed challenge to develop one new game every single week. Game development is a hobby for Palef, but he wanted to kick things up a notch and actually start finishing playable games. So, for over a month, Palef has been busy coding a producing a new HTML5 game every week."It's been six weeks now, and I've learned a lot," Palef said to Gamezebo during an interview. "I'm really trying my best to make each game better that the previous ones, and so far I think that I have achieved this goal. I know that I have only one week to make a game, so I keep my ideas and mechanics simple. This way it's not that hard to make a game in one week."
Spil Games, the leading global company for all things online gaming, has announced a $5 million investment today to be put towards the creation of HTML5 games. All in all, that lump sum of $5 million will be delegated to developers creating brand new gaming experiences, as well as updating existing ones to fit the new HTML5 foundation. Spil Games also plans to put some of that money towards the marketing of their own games, which currently enjoy more than 180 million users each month.In case you might be unfamiliar with the prospects of HTML5 as it continues to make its mark on the gaming industry and the world of technology at large, it is essentially a more fluid and flexible markup language for making content on the internet. But the biggest draw of the new coding language for game developers is that it can be utilized by a number of different platforms and mediums, such as mobile devices, which could potentially allow them to bring their games to a far larger number of platforms without sacrificing the additional time and resources needed to create an entirely new port."Of course, as if often to be expected with any kind of new or emerging technology, HTML5 has experienced a fairly slow adoption from the majority of game developers so far; however, Spil Games feels this is all about to change, and that 2014 will truly be the year for HTML5-founded games to truly explode. And just in case you didn't believe them, Spil Games CEO Erik Goossens has already stated the company's plans to launch 500 brand new HTML5 games over the course of 2014 alone! HTML500 anyone?
It wasn't too long ago that everyone had stars in their eyes about HTML5. It was supposed to be the future of casual games. Relatively easy to develop for, web playable on just about every platform - how could it miss? But flash forward to a year later, and it's far from the dominant programming language in gaming - and the folks behind Goko think they know why.
Back in March, we announced the PerfMarks report that the iOSwas clearly faster than Android devices when it came to running HTML5 games. Today, spaceport.io announced a new test that compared mobile phones to a modern laptop. The results? Mobile still has a long way to go.
Mozilla's BrowserQuest may look like a seemingly simple retro RPG in a web browser, especially compared to some of the stuff already out there. However, this particular game has a rather notable purpose that may not sound all that exciting to the average gamer, but for developers, it's quite the eye-opener.
Thanks to a report published by spaceport.io recently, we have now discovered which mobile devices reign supreme when it comes to running HTML5 games and applications. The answer: Nothing comes close to iOS (and especially the iPad 2) in terms of performance.
Social games publisher MocoSpace today announced the launch of five brand new games, all of them powered by the company's HTML5 mobile gaming platform. Here's a quick rundown of the titles;