7 ms·

We may be seeing the same HTML5 demos on HN, but we're living in two different universes. In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompat

by slacka 13y ago

We may be seeing the same HTML5 demos on HN, but we're living in two different universes. In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompatible. If I do manage to get them working, my reaction is always like wow, I saw better native demos 10 years ago, and those just worked. Let's be honest. JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of. As a gamer, performance is critical and stuttering ubiquitous in HTML5 games is unacceptable. For a gamer who disables mouse acceleration, had a CRT until low latency gaming LCDs were available, and tracks his Star Craft APM, what does HTML 5 buy me other than performance issues?

monsterix 13y ago
> I saw better native demos 10 years ago, and those just worked. Agreed. But you're missing the point. In those 10 years those of us who played in the native universe will not be the target market any more. Just like we listeners of Pink Floyd and Metallica aren't the target buyers of Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of the day. The latter are as successful, immersive and relevant to those who matter. > JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of. Now this is an opinion based on the current_level_of_performance (which I agree is not at the expected level.). But it's not a great way to judge what the future could hold. It's definitely a bet, like you said let's be honest with this.
- Recoil42 13y ago
  >Now this is an opinion based on the current_level_of_performance (which I agree is not at the expected level.). But it's not a great way to judge what the future could hold. Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact.
  - monsterix 13y ago
    > Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. I believe so, yes. Assuming there will be 9 billion web users sometime into the future, non-native will be enough for most of the stuff though.
  - dagw 13y ago
    Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. In quality, perhaps. In sales, profit and market share, I'm not so sure.
  - grey-area 13y ago
    Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. Consider the barriers to browser performance: Hardware acceleration - already there with WebGL and for video codecs The JS language - this can be swapped out for something more performant - various options exist but it will take time and a brave vendor to do so. Rendering speed of HTML etc - this can be improved, both by simplifying things like the box model and by improving the renderer, we've already made huge strides int this area for standard UIs. These are solvable problems - eventually web properties could easily be compiled (in a sandboxed language or VM), and become native. I don't think there's necessarily a difference between a sandboxed process in a browser VM, and a sandboxed process on the desktop. Just because browsers are still developing and in the past have not been performant in comparison to native APIs, doesn't mean things always have to be that way. So while the present performance comparison of native to HTML means native wins (as long as you don't just do everything in webgl say), things don't have to stay that way. The greatest strength of the web platform is that it is simple, open, and extensible. This also makes it a bit of a mess of competing standards and leads to a problem with legacy cruft (like the reliance on JS), but it has held up remarkably well, and has proven flexible, simple and incredibly popular. It's difficult to charge people money for content on the web, but not impossible and that's more to do with culture than technical challenges. It's also difficult to lock people in on the web - that's something people hate about native which isn't going away. Eventually I expect the internet, and the web in particular, will reduce operating systems to a badly debugged set of device drivers (Andreessen was prophetic in that regard), and operating systems will be replaced as a concept and become simply the interface to hardware, which implements some standard APIs for the web and acts as a container for the VM which runs the code. We're not far from that situation already, and it is preferable for consumers and creators/developers. The only thing standing in its way are the vendors of large ecosystems (hardware and software) like Google, Apple, MS and Amazon, who have a vested interest in corralling and controlling their customers and keeping them inside an area where they set the rules and can take a cut on every transaction. I'd argue the resurgence of native mobile platforms is the last hurrah of native, and simply another attempt to lock people into an ecosystem controlled by one company, it will fail as people start to realise their loyalty to say Apple is not rewarded. We'll probably see these companies grudgingly adopt the web, while still trying to corral their customers (it's what companies do when they get to a certain scale), but on the web that is much harder to do, because it's an open API, controlled by no-one.
untog 13y ago
JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of They are, but I very much doubt these guys are using the DOM or CSS. And if they're using asm.js then they're using a very different JavaScript, too.
- slacka 13y ago
  I was talking about HTML5 demos posted on HN. Like this one that DOES use CSS: http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ Granted, it's a terrible abuse of a CSS, but it's also a perfect example of how I'm supposed to be wowed by a buggy HTML5 demo my PC could render better in every way 15 years ago. And no one has answered my question yet. What benefit does HTML5 bring me as a gamer? Why are HTML5 games better than native games in my steam library, especially considering DSL is my only option for Internet here?
  - joshuacc 13y ago
    The same benefit the web apps generally bring: * The ability to play the game without installing anything * The ability to play the game on other peoples computers * Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.)
    - slacka 13y ago
      * The ability to play the game without installing anything Obviously you haven't played any HTML5 games. They all make you wait to download game data. And if the Internet gods have been good to you, it won't be cleared from your localstorage next time you start it up. Steam is far better. * The ability to play the game on other peoples computers So can Steam. * Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.) 10-20% of the games on Steam have Linux ports, and most of the others run fine under Wine. So 2/3 are better on Steam and the 3rd is primarily a benefit for the developer.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
_random_ 13y ago
Also unlike Steam you might have to re-download the whole thing if your browser decides to clear the cache for whatever reason. Can't play underground, on a plane or while camping as well (not a typical scenario though - nitpicking a bit).
- kodablah 13y ago
  Not when deployed with something like node-webkit which I would assume would be a common deployment strategy so you can guarantee Chrome and a certain version w/ certain features enabled/disabled.
- rictic 13y ago
  There's work going on for better app caching systems at the browser level. This is a UI and platform issue, but there's no tricky technical aspects. The user expresses the intent of wanting to cache a web app, and it is cached locally.
  - _random_ 13y ago
    "The user expresses the intent of wanting to cache a web app, and it is cached locally." So I will use [x] to find a game in [y] and then [z] it to play. Where: x = {Chrome|Firefox|Steam}, y = {some-sort-of-web-app-store|Steam store}, z = {cache|install}. I guess the success will depend on how easy and rich x-y-z experiences are, but you will still have to register, pay and download.
    - grey-area 13y ago
      But crucially you will be able to buy on the app using x,y,z, and continue to play the app using a,b,c from different hardware/software vendors, unlike the situation today with say a game bought on a mac. That's the advantage of the web over native APIs, and why I think its ethos will eventually win out - it is better for developers and users, but not for the corporations who would like to sit between the two as intermediaries.
dustingetz 13y ago
Think about why we build browser apps instead of native apps today. All those reasons apply.
- debacle 13y ago
  Because it's easier, so the programmers to build those apps are cheaper? Not a really good rationale when it comes to game development.
  - bdicasa 13y ago
    Not sure how you come up with that logic - most applications are built on the web because it is easily accessible to millions of users.
    - pjmlp 13y ago
      No, because the world is full of JavaScript kiddies.
      - lmacsen 13y ago
        There is no more than kiddies who eat shit about JavaScript.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
saraid216 13y ago
> In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompatible. If I do manage to get them working I, too, like to strip naked outdoors in a Chicago winter and then complain about how the city isn't keeping its streets reasonably well-heated.
- asdfs 13y ago
  I've come across browser games a number of times that wouldn't work in my regular browser, requiring me to switch to another one I have installed. Your analogy is not very apt.
pfft876xb 13y ago
There are some absolutely amazing HTML5 / WebGL things out there; I'm just not sure you've seen them. It's true that browser incompatibility is an issue, but say you're ONLY targeting Chrome desktops, which still has a bigger user base than most consoles--if you're doing it right you're getting hardware accelerated graphics and the performance is pretty great. Have you seen cloudparty.com? It has multiplayer in-world building, skeletal animation, particles, full screen effects... the works, and the performance is definitely up to snuff. Observe tons of realtime screencasts here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CloudPartyInc http://www.youtube.com/user/CloudPartyInc I think that the problem is that WebGL is young and there are LOTS of ways to shoot yourself in the foot perf-wise. Only a few teams have really figured it out and the rest are making the tech look bad. But the performance is there if you're an experience graphics programmer and you know your way around JS wackiness.
- asdfs 13y ago
  After going through a few of those examples, the performance really isn't that good. For example, in Chrome my computer struggles to run "The Isle of Yosemite" in 1650x1050 at 30fps when looking at a fair bit of geometry. Yet I can easily play Battlefield 3 or Natural Selection 2 at 30fps, and the gulf in image quality, how much is in a given scene, and how much game logic there is is enormous. Thus far, HTML5 games seem more like a replacement for basic 3D flash games more than anything. Whether that will change at some point in the future I don't know, but at this point I have not really been wowed by anything.
- CmonDev 13y ago
  "...absolutely amazing HTML5 / WebGL things out there..." In the end of the day it's just a script running on top of Open GL.
thefreeman 13y ago
It's easy to talk trash on a technology that is in its infancy. Wait... WebGL games are still not as good as game engines that have been developed for 20 years? SHOCKER. The technology is only going to get better. The whole point of these demo's is to show what is possible even now when the specs aren't finalized and the technology is barely adopted. Give it 3-5 years and I would be willing to bet you'll need to eat your words.
- yen223 13y ago
  > Wait... WebGL games are still not as good as game engines that have been developed for 20 years? SHOCKER. That's the point, isn't it? We already have all these fast, battle-tested game engines Heck, we have 15-year-old game engines that run on the browser (or do Flash games no longer count?). Is it really worth it to toss all that out and switch to WebGL?
  - sanderjd 13y ago
    No, but it is worth it to both keep all that and work on WebGL.
  - fc2 13y ago
    Is it worth replacing a proprietary plugin (which the owner may stop supporting at any time) with an open standard (which has guaranteed continued development)? Yes, I believe it is.
- dualogy 13y ago
  > The technology is only going to get better Used to think that when I was high on WebGL in summer 2011. Sure some progress was made since then but really not as much as I expected. I really thought "by 2013 this will run on ALL browsers and on MOST mobile devices out-of-box, no config flags needed". We're still not there yet by a long shot. So you're saying it'll be another 3-5 years? That's cool by me, I'll check back in 3-5 years then. This stuff is easy enough to pick up for anyone who has a grasp on basic modern OpenGL workings anyway..
- biomecha 13y ago

by slacka 13y ago

monsterix 13y ago

> I saw better native demos 10 years ago, and those just worked. Agreed. But you're missing the point. In those 10 years those of us who played in the native universe will not be the target market any more. Just like we listeners of Pink Floyd and Metallica aren't the target buyers of Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of the day. The latter are as successful, immersive and relevant to those who matter. > JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of. Now this is an opinion based on the current_level_of_performance (which I agree is not at the expected level.). But it's not a great way to judge what the future could hold. It's definitely a bet, like you said let's be honest with this.

Recoil42 13y ago
>Now this is an opinion based on the current_level_of_performance (which I agree is not at the expected level.). But it's not a great way to judge what the future could hold. Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact.
- monsterix 13y ago
  > Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. I believe so, yes. Assuming there will be 9 billion web users sometime into the future, non-native will be enough for most of the stuff though.
- dagw 13y ago
  Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. In quality, perhaps. In sales, profit and market share, I'm not so sure.
- grey-area 13y ago
  Native will always fundamentally beat non-native, that's a plain fact. Consider the barriers to browser performance: Hardware acceleration - already there with WebGL and for video codecs The JS language - this can be swapped out for something more performant - various options exist but it will take time and a brave vendor to do so. Rendering speed of HTML etc - this can be improved, both by simplifying things like the box model and by improving the renderer, we've already made huge strides int this area for standard UIs. These are solvable problems - eventually web properties could easily be compiled (in a sandboxed language or VM), and become native. I don't think there's necessarily a difference between a sandboxed process in a browser VM, and a sandboxed process on the desktop. Just because browsers are still developing and in the past have not been performant in comparison to native APIs, doesn't mean things always have to be that way. So while the present performance comparison of native to HTML means native wins (as long as you don't just do everything in webgl say), things don't have to stay that way. The greatest strength of the web platform is that it is simple, open, and extensible. This also makes it a bit of a mess of competing standards and leads to a problem with legacy cruft (like the reliance on JS), but it has held up remarkably well, and has proven flexible, simple and incredibly popular. It's difficult to charge people money for content on the web, but not impossible and that's more to do with culture than technical challenges. It's also difficult to lock people in on the web - that's something people hate about native which isn't going away. Eventually I expect the internet, and the web in particular, will reduce operating systems to a badly debugged set of device drivers (Andreessen was prophetic in that regard), and operating systems will be replaced as a concept and become simply the interface to hardware, which implements some standard APIs for the web and acts as a container for the VM which runs the code. We're not far from that situation already, and it is preferable for consumers and creators/developers. The only thing standing in its way are the vendors of large ecosystems (hardware and software) like Google, Apple, MS and Amazon, who have a vested interest in corralling and controlling their customers and keeping them inside an area where they set the rules and can take a cut on every transaction. I'd argue the resurgence of native mobile platforms is the last hurrah of native, and simply another attempt to lock people into an ecosystem controlled by one company, it will fail as people start to realise their loyalty to say Apple is not rewarded. We'll probably see these companies grudgingly adopt the web, while still trying to corral their customers (it's what companies do when they get to a certain scale), but on the web that is much harder to do, because it's an open API, controlled by no-one.

untog 13y ago

JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are terrible technologies to base any gaming system off of They are, but I very much doubt these guys are using the DOM or CSS. And if they're using asm.js then they're using a very different JavaScript, too.

slacka 13y ago
I was talking about HTML5 demos posted on HN. Like this one that DOES use CSS: http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ http://www.keithclark.co.uk/labs/css3-fps-new/ Granted, it's a terrible abuse of a CSS, but it's also a perfect example of how I'm supposed to be wowed by a buggy HTML5 demo my PC could render better in every way 15 years ago. And no one has answered my question yet. What benefit does HTML5 bring me as a gamer? Why are HTML5 games better than native games in my steam library, especially considering DSL is my only option for Internet here?
- joshuacc 13y ago
  The same benefit the web apps generally bring: * The ability to play the game without installing anything * The ability to play the game on other peoples computers * Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.)
  - slacka 13y ago
    * The ability to play the game without installing anything Obviously you haven't played any HTML5 games. They all make you wait to download game data. And if the Internet gods have been good to you, it won't be cleared from your localstorage next time you start it up. Steam is far better. * The ability to play the game on other peoples computers So can Steam. * Cross-platform accessibility (Windows, OSX, Linux? Doesn't matter.) 10-20% of the games on Steam have Linux ports, and most of the others run fine under Wine. So 2/3 are better on Steam and the 3rd is primarily a benefit for the developer.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]

_random_ 13y ago

Also unlike Steam you might have to re-download the whole thing if your browser decides to clear the cache for whatever reason. Can't play underground, on a plane or while camping as well (not a typical scenario though - nitpicking a bit).

kodablah 13y ago
Not when deployed with something like node-webkit which I would assume would be a common deployment strategy so you can guarantee Chrome and a certain version w/ certain features enabled/disabled.
rictic 13y ago
There's work going on for better app caching systems at the browser level. This is a UI and platform issue, but there's no tricky technical aspects. The user expresses the intent of wanting to cache a web app, and it is cached locally.
- _random_ 13y ago
  "The user expresses the intent of wanting to cache a web app, and it is cached locally." So I will use [x] to find a game in [y] and then [z] it to play. Where: x = {Chrome|Firefox|Steam}, y = {some-sort-of-web-app-store|Steam store}, z = {cache|install}. I guess the success will depend on how easy and rich x-y-z experiences are, but you will still have to register, pay and download.
  - grey-area 13y ago
    But crucially you will be able to buy on the app using x,y,z, and continue to play the app using a,b,c from different hardware/software vendors, unlike the situation today with say a game bought on a mac. That's the advantage of the web over native APIs, and why I think its ethos will eventually win out - it is better for developers and users, but not for the corporations who would like to sit between the two as intermediaries.

dustingetz 13y ago

Think about why we build browser apps instead of native apps today. All those reasons apply.

debacle 13y ago
Because it's easier, so the programmers to build those apps are cheaper? Not a really good rationale when it comes to game development.
- bdicasa 13y ago
  Not sure how you come up with that logic - most applications are built on the web because it is easily accessible to millions of users.
  - pjmlp 13y ago
    No, because the world is full of JavaScript kiddies.
    - lmacsen 13y ago
      There is no more than kiddies who eat shit about JavaScript.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

saraid216 13y ago

> In my world, I always open up these demos in a browser that's incompatible. If I do manage to get them working I, too, like to strip naked outdoors in a Chicago winter and then complain about how the city isn't keeping its streets reasonably well-heated.

asdfs 13y ago
I've come across browser games a number of times that wouldn't work in my regular browser, requiring me to switch to another one I have installed. Your analogy is not very apt.

pfft876xb 13y ago

There are some absolutely amazing HTML5 / WebGL things out there; I'm just not sure you've seen them. It's true that browser incompatibility is an issue, but say you're ONLY targeting Chrome desktops, which still has a bigger user base than most consoles--if you're doing it right you're getting hardware accelerated graphics and the performance is pretty great. Have you seen cloudparty.com? It has multiplayer in-world building, skeletal animation, particles, full screen effects... the works, and the performance is definitely up to snuff. Observe tons of realtime screencasts here: http://www.youtube.com/user/CloudPartyInc http://www.youtube.com/user/CloudPartyInc I think that the problem is that WebGL is young and there are LOTS of ways to shoot yourself in the foot perf-wise. Only a few teams have really figured it out and the rest are making the tech look bad. But the performance is there if you're an experience graphics programmer and you know your way around JS wackiness.

asdfs 13y ago
After going through a few of those examples, the performance really isn't that good. For example, in Chrome my computer struggles to run "The Isle of Yosemite" in 1650x1050 at 30fps when looking at a fair bit of geometry. Yet I can easily play Battlefield 3 or Natural Selection 2 at 30fps, and the gulf in image quality, how much is in a given scene, and how much game logic there is is enormous. Thus far, HTML5 games seem more like a replacement for basic 3D flash games more than anything. Whether that will change at some point in the future I don't know, but at this point I have not really been wowed by anything.
CmonDev 13y ago
"...absolutely amazing HTML5 / WebGL things out there..." In the end of the day it's just a script running on top of Open GL.

thefreeman 13y ago

It's easy to talk trash on a technology that is in its infancy. Wait... WebGL games are still not as good as game engines that have been developed for 20 years? SHOCKER. The technology is only going to get better. The whole point of these demo's is to show what is possible even now when the specs aren't finalized and the technology is barely adopted. Give it 3-5 years and I would be willing to bet you'll need to eat your words.

yen223 13y ago
> Wait... WebGL games are still not as good as game engines that have been developed for 20 years? SHOCKER. That's the point, isn't it? We already have all these fast, battle-tested game engines Heck, we have 15-year-old game engines that run on the browser (or do Flash games no longer count?). Is it really worth it to toss all that out and switch to WebGL?
- sanderjd 13y ago
  No, but it is worth it to both keep all that and work on WebGL.
- fc2 13y ago
  Is it worth replacing a proprietary plugin (which the owner may stop supporting at any time) with an open standard (which has guaranteed continued development)? Yes, I believe it is.
dualogy 13y ago
> The technology is only going to get better Used to think that when I was high on WebGL in summer 2011. Sure some progress was made since then but really not as much as I expected. I really thought "by 2013 this will run on ALL browsers and on MOST mobile devices out-of-box, no config flags needed". We're still not there yet by a long shot. So you're saying it'll be another 3-5 years? That's cool by me, I'll check back in 3-5 years then. This stuff is easy enough to pick up for anyone who has a grasp on basic modern OpenGL workings anyway..
biomecha 13y ago