7 ms·

Cool cool cool ... though these kinds of browser proof-of-concepts have been around for a decade (more than a decade if you include Flash+alchemy running Quake)

Cool cool cool ... though these kinds of browser proof-of-concepts have been around for a decade (more than a decade if you include Flash+alchemy running Quake). Is the browser coming back as a gaming platform yet?

pdntspa 4y ago
Ugh I hope not. Battlefield 4 took a thousand steps back when they tried to make all the UI a web app If this shit becomes mainstream say goodbye to ever owning your data ever again
- hot_gril 4y ago
  I don't want to "own" a 50GB platform-specific root-accessing game.
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    Then don't buy it? I don't want to rent something that doesn't recognize platform conventions or take full advantage of my hardware and storage, when it can and should have Neither do I want to have to pay some rent-seeking wanterpreneurial fuck a monthly fee to access content that runs better locally
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      Then don't rent it.
- SahAssar 4y ago
  That started with BF3, and worked pretty OK there.
  - pdntspa 4y ago
    It worked horribly! It worked so poorly that BF4 had to switch back to an in-game server browser
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >If this shit becomes mainstream say goodbye to ever owning your data ever again 1. We're in that world now. You think you 'own' those mobile games you bought? You think games couldn't be pulled from your digital Steam library? 2. In the era of Flash and before mobile, browser gaming used to be a much much bigger thing.
hot_gril 4y ago
One complaint about Flash was inefficiency, but are the alternatives faster? Complex Flash media could run on early 2000s PCs. Modern webpages cannot.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Sick burn!
astlouis44 4y ago
With WebAssembly and WebGPU, absolutely we are going to see resurgence in games, this time with near native performance and modern fidelity visuals that are closer to what can be done on PC, mobile, and consoles. Web will be huge for increasing accessibility, especially for casuals who have never downloaded Steam before. Imagine the Cambrian explosion that will take places when playing becomes as simple as clicking a link?
- anthk 4y ago
  Like Newgrounds and Minijuegos at the Hispanic/Spanish speaker world? I mean, 15 years ago people already did that.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Keep dreaming, WebGPU is a MVP of where next generation APIs were in their 1.0 version, almost 7 years ago. It has taken a decade, it will arrive without proper tooling, and require everyone to rewrite their shaders as well.
- macspoofing 4y ago
  >Imagine the Cambrian explosion that will take places when playing becomes as simple as clicking a link? We've had Canvas/WebGPL since 2011. Emscripten came out 10 years ago. WebAssembly 5 years ago. I've seen countless of these kinds of demos over the last decade. Literally no difference between this one and what was demoed years ago. So for years a plugin-free browser was good enough for 'modern fidelity' gaming - but it never happened. There is no 'Cambrian explosion' coming. Casual mobile killed casual browser gaming.
pjmlp 4y ago
Not really because the development experience sucks, no wonder the industry is turning into streaming instead.
whoisthemachine 4y ago
I see MMO's relying on browsers, because the web model and the subscription model align nicely. We had browser based (probably still do) text based "MMO's" that relied on the browser, and there's no reason that something like World of Warcraft or Second Life couldn't run in the browser fairly easily today.

pdntspa 4y ago

Ugh I hope not. Battlefield 4 took a thousand steps back when they tried to make all the UI a web app If this shit becomes mainstream say goodbye to ever owning your data ever again

hot_gril 4y ago
I don't want to "own" a 50GB platform-specific root-accessing game.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  Then don't buy it? I don't want to rent something that doesn't recognize platform conventions or take full advantage of my hardware and storage, when it can and should have Neither do I want to have to pay some rent-seeking wanterpreneurial fuck a monthly fee to access content that runs better locally
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    Then don't rent it.
SahAssar 4y ago
That started with BF3, and worked pretty OK there.
- pdntspa 4y ago
  It worked horribly! It worked so poorly that BF4 had to switch back to an in-game server browser
macspoofing 4y ago
>If this shit becomes mainstream say goodbye to ever owning your data ever again 1. We're in that world now. You think you 'own' those mobile games you bought? You think games couldn't be pulled from your digital Steam library? 2. In the era of Flash and before mobile, browser gaming used to be a much much bigger thing.

hot_gril 4y ago

One complaint about Flash was inefficiency, but are the alternatives faster? Complex Flash media could run on early 2000s PCs. Modern webpages cannot.

datavirtue 4y ago
Sick burn!

astlouis44 4y ago

With WebAssembly and WebGPU, absolutely we are going to see resurgence in games, this time with near native performance and modern fidelity visuals that are closer to what can be done on PC, mobile, and consoles. Web will be huge for increasing accessibility, especially for casuals who have never downloaded Steam before. Imagine the Cambrian explosion that will take places when playing becomes as simple as clicking a link?

anthk 4y ago
Like Newgrounds and Minijuegos at the Hispanic/Spanish speaker world? I mean, 15 years ago people already did that.
pjmlp 4y ago
Keep dreaming, WebGPU is a MVP of where next generation APIs were in their 1.0 version, almost 7 years ago. It has taken a decade, it will arrive without proper tooling, and require everyone to rewrite their shaders as well.
macspoofing 4y ago
>Imagine the Cambrian explosion that will take places when playing becomes as simple as clicking a link? We've had Canvas/WebGPL since 2011. Emscripten came out 10 years ago. WebAssembly 5 years ago. I've seen countless of these kinds of demos over the last decade. Literally no difference between this one and what was demoed years ago. So for years a plugin-free browser was good enough for 'modern fidelity' gaming - but it never happened. There is no 'Cambrian explosion' coming. Casual mobile killed casual browser gaming.

pjmlp 4y ago

Not really because the development experience sucks, no wonder the industry is turning into streaming instead.

whoisthemachine 4y ago

I see MMO's relying on browsers, because the web model and the subscription model align nicely. We had browser based (probably still do) text based "MMO's" that relied on the browser, and there's no reason that something like World of Warcraft or Second Life couldn't run in the browser fairly easily today.