4 ms·

"Web-based" "install now!" No. Stop it.

by just2n 13y ago

wfn 13y ago
"Web-based [...] using Unity3D" If you didn't have a Flash player and the game was made in Flash (surely that would meet one's expectations for a "web-based game", or at least until very recently) and you didn't have a Flash plugin, would you complain as well?
- mtgx 13y ago
  I think we're trying to move away from plugins, not go back to them.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    Desktop, see no plugins.
- 6ren 13y ago
  One problem with Unity is lack of a linux plugin (whereas Flash has one). Is it "web-based" if it doesn't work everywhere the web does? But whatever your answer to that theoretical question, in practice, I cannot play Unity games because I'm only using linux machines. IMHO not being able use a platform is reasonable cause for complaint.
  - hatu 13y ago
    Unity has Linux exporting but that's for stand-alone games only, the web plugin isn't available.
  - __--__ 13y ago
    Is Flash "web-based" if it doesn't work in iOS?
- just2n 13y ago
  That no longer meets my expectations of a "web-based game." I would consider my expectations fairly realistic. I also believe most have always referred to games that use Flash as "Flash games." When Macromedia Flash originally became popular, it solved quite a few very real problems in existing browsers. SVG support was nonexistent. JS performance was horrific which prevented smooth animations. Browsers were VERY inconsistent about how input was handled, and CSS-assisted DOM rendering was extremely awkward, slow, and browser-specific. There was no real "video" or "audio" support. You embedded a video or audio object and hoped the user's browser had a codec available to decode it, and that was a whole world of WTFs indeed. It provided a means of DRM, which is apparently important to people who have too much money and still want more. Last, but certainly not least, there was no way to establish a real-time duplex connection with a server (full TCP access is still not possible without experimental flags, but WebSockets allow most of the needed functionality). Flash completely filled the multimedia-on-the-web niche. It was such a fundamentally missing piece that it would be eventually shipped with many browsers, and some (Chrome) even included their own Flash players. It became so fundamental, it was ported to almost every major platform. I'd argue it became a de facto, proprietary, web standard. In this case, Unity3D is a game engine that's meant to target many platforms. It isn't "web based," it's just something that happens to be running in a browser plugin. I thought for a moment that this meant Unity3D was building for HTML5, but alas, the plugin plague continues. And to be fair, Flash is almost completely obsoleted by current HTML5/CSS3 features, but will likely outstay its welcome in the name of backwards compatibility.
- tomjen3 13y ago
  Webbased = HTML. Lets not confuse terms here.
- Schwolop 13y ago
  FYI - the latest Unity3D can export in Flash format too.

"Web-based" "install now!" No. Stop it.

by just2n 13y ago

"Web-based" "install now!" No. Stop it.

wfn 13y ago

"Web-based [...] using Unity3D" If you didn't have a Flash player and the game was made in Flash (surely that would meet one's expectations for a "web-based game", or at least until very recently) and you didn't have a Flash plugin, would you complain as well?

mtgx 13y ago
I think we're trying to move away from plugins, not go back to them.
- pjmlp 13y ago
  Desktop, see no plugins.
6ren 13y ago
One problem with Unity is lack of a linux plugin (whereas Flash has one). Is it "web-based" if it doesn't work everywhere the web does? But whatever your answer to that theoretical question, in practice, I cannot play Unity games because I'm only using linux machines. IMHO not being able use a platform is reasonable cause for complaint.
- hatu 13y ago
  Unity has Linux exporting but that's for stand-alone games only, the web plugin isn't available.
- __--__ 13y ago
  Is Flash "web-based" if it doesn't work in iOS?
just2n 13y ago
That no longer meets my expectations of a "web-based game." I would consider my expectations fairly realistic. I also believe most have always referred to games that use Flash as "Flash games." When Macromedia Flash originally became popular, it solved quite a few very real problems in existing browsers. SVG support was nonexistent. JS performance was horrific which prevented smooth animations. Browsers were VERY inconsistent about how input was handled, and CSS-assisted DOM rendering was extremely awkward, slow, and browser-specific. There was no real "video" or "audio" support. You embedded a video or audio object and hoped the user's browser had a codec available to decode it, and that was a whole world of WTFs indeed. It provided a means of DRM, which is apparently important to people who have too much money and still want more. Last, but certainly not least, there was no way to establish a real-time duplex connection with a server (full TCP access is still not possible without experimental flags, but WebSockets allow most of the needed functionality). Flash completely filled the multimedia-on-the-web niche. It was such a fundamentally missing piece that it would be eventually shipped with many browsers, and some (Chrome) even included their own Flash players. It became so fundamental, it was ported to almost every major platform. I'd argue it became a de facto, proprietary, web standard. In this case, Unity3D is a game engine that's meant to target many platforms. It isn't "web based," it's just something that happens to be running in a browser plugin. I thought for a moment that this meant Unity3D was building for HTML5, but alas, the plugin plague continues. And to be fair, Flash is almost completely obsoleted by current HTML5/CSS3 features, but will likely outstay its welcome in the name of backwards compatibility.
tomjen3 13y ago
Webbased = HTML. Lets not confuse terms here.
Schwolop 13y ago
FYI - the latest Unity3D can export in Flash format too.