Web Games Dead?

There are two trends imo. Some titles keep using Flash especially if it's kind of huge project relying on desktop users. And there's slow transition from Flash to HTML5 (and also mobile using wrappers) for small games.

And for "browser games" they are also in transition with HTML5 (like recent HTML5 Travian) as market is now more demanding than mere "Excel sheet wrapped in cute graphics"

It's not dead, just not it's golden days.

Mobile games are more popular than web games because developing them is very similar but the income from web games is minimal by comparison.

there is currently no incentives for web technology to improve. Infact there are many reasons the big firms (apple, google, microsoft) dont want to see any form of desktop/native experience in a web browser.

1) They want you to use their proprietory technology to build an "app" as you have to pay for this and you'll get locked into their dev system which encourages you to continue making apps for their platform.

2) They want to lock their customers into their eco system (though not as much a problem as it was the feeling amongst users is still "i cant switch to PlatformX because i have all these apps on PlatformY")

3) They want to sell apps through the app store and not allow apps to be accessed through the web. Only text/video is encouraged here.

and the dev tools / code are different between each platform. Fab...

Of course this is the exact opposite of what all of those people championing HTML5 wanted, we were told canvas and opengl would deliver games.

We are having the wool pulled over our eyes, W3C is a total farse.

Well, I am working on a browser game, I've never been fan of "small Flash games" but there is a market for them as well where people earn money mostly from licensing their games to networks. ( https://www.truevalhalla.com )

But still I think mobile games are the worst where CPA is high, competition is fierce and it takes sheer luck or serious money flow to be noticed.

And better don't have very high expectations from Canvas or webGL although they are not very bad, just not suited for every task.

How much on average does a popular web game make?

Hard to say. However, it appears that the entire web game sector accounts for just ~5% of game industry revenue, vs ~25% for mobile.

I was about to reply $0, but then noticed you used the word "popular".

The vast majority make nothing. The median value is $0 profit.

But if you only take the popular games, which means you are only taking the outliers, they can make quite a lot of money. I don't think anyone knows the average probably because it is meaningless. The average net worth of people in a bar may be tens of thousands each, until Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos walks in, then on average everybody is a billionaire.

Many sites will be making dollars, some will make hundreds of dollars, some will make thousands of dollars, but when you throw in a site making a fortune their average appears considerably higher than their median.

Statistically YOUR game -- if you ever complete it -- will not be profitable. However, if you iterate over the product with a strong business plan which begins before the product is even designed, you can almost certainly beat those statistics and make a profit, since most web games don't have any business planning.

Of course this is the exact opposite of what all of those people championing HTML5 wanted, we were told canvas and opengl would deliver games.

I feel like there's this weird sense of WebGL + Canvas + HTML5 not being capable of delivering games, but I'd argue that's not true anymore. WebGL support has grown enough in the last while that I'd feel confident using it to make some pretty decent games- and there's a reasonable amount of stuff done with Unity or Unreal's web players (or Phaser etc. or from scratch) to show that it's doable. There's a very low barrier to entry, and you get multi-platform out of the box (given your game gets along with different browsers). The real issue, IMO, is that there's not really any money in it. If the goal is for the game to be a direct source of income, then web isn't really a viable platform - but advertising games, kids games, content associated with other media or something, stuff to drive traffic to your website, etc. make a lot more sense.

I think we see fewer web games in the sense of what you'd see on newgrounds mostly because mobile has hijacked that market, and because indie devs have a lot more options now.

Of course this is the exact opposite of what all of those people championing HTML5 wanted, we were told canvas and opengl would deliver games.

I feel like there's this weird sense of WebGL + Canvas + HTML5 not being capable of delivering games, but I'd argue that's not true anymore. WebGL support has grown enough in the last while that I'd feel confident using it to make some pretty decent games- and there's a reasonable amount of stuff done with Unity or Unreal's web players (or Phaser etc. or from scratch) to show that it's doable. There's a very low barrier to entry, and you get multi-platform out of the box (given your game gets along with different browsers). The real issue, IMO, is that there's not really any money in it. If the goal is for the game to be a direct source of income, then web isn't really a viable platform - but advertising games, kids games, content associated with other media or something, stuff to drive traffic to your website, etc. make a lot more sense.

I think we see fewer web games in the sense of what you'd see on newgrounds mostly because mobile has hijacked that market, and because indie devs have a lot more options now.

Could you make, like $300 bucks off web games?

Could you make, like $300 bucks off web games?

There's companies that make millions of dollars from web games... so yes... but these companies also spend millions of dollars making and marketing their games though...

Aiming for $300 is kinda incompatible with wanting to run a professional business. $300 pays for, like, one day of professional labor. A real business plan would be based around spending over $300 a day for quite some time to produce a polished product, which you can then use to try and recoup those costs.

If you're aiming to earn $300, then you're probably going to be producing a non-polished product with zero marketing spend that won't attract any paying customers.

Of course this is the exact opposite of what all of those people championing HTML5 wanted, we were told canvas and opengl would deliver games.

I feel like there's this weird sense of WebGL + Canvas + HTML5 not being capable of delivering games, but I'd argue that's not true anymore. WebGL support has grown enough in the last while that I'd feel confident using it to make some pretty decent games- and there's a reasonable amount of stuff done with Unity or Unreal's web players (or Phaser etc. or from scratch) to show that it's doable. There's a very low barrier to entry, and you get multi-platform out of the box (given your game gets along with different browsers). The real issue, IMO, is that there's not really any money in it. If the goal is for the game to be a direct source of income, then web isn't really a viable platform - but advertising games, kids games, content associated with other media or something, stuff to drive traffic to your website, etc. make a lot more sense.

I think we see fewer web games in the sense of what you'd see on newgrounds mostly because mobile has hijacked that market, and because indie devs have a lot more options now.

I understand that there are ways to make good games that run in the web. Any plugin can be installed that can give you a desktop experience. The problem is that these alternatives are not backed by the big companies and they will never get proper support on mobile / xplatform. This is why there are no web games, because the mobile apps don't work in desktop browsers and desktop browser plugins (is webgl on mobile?) don't work on mobile.

I just find it ironic that people slated Silverlight and Flash for being proprietary and made arguments like "no one wants to install silverlight" (meanwhile firefox popup asks for updates every 2 weeks) or "you'll be locked into M$!!". But people are willing to pay $600 for the latest phone which by most accounts is only so fast so it can play the latest games. And the devs are lapping up the proprietary single platform tools like its going out of fashion.

Understand me, I'm not a fan of javascript, any junior dev that attempting to write a scripting language interpreter writes javascript by default, its inception was a hack. I prefer modern tools/languages. I would much rather there be a single well designed stack from a couple of big companies shared across all platforms but I understand that people dont want to beholden to the man - its just that that freedom stops when the money starts (as app stores) so I'm generally annoyed that great solutions have been killed off in the name of open standards only to be replaced by worse solutions down the line. Nothing is cross platform, if they were your desktop browser would have access to every game on ios/android/windows phone and the OP wouldnt be asking this question.

Any plugin can be installed that can give you a desktop experience. [...] Nothing is cross platform, if they were your desktop browser would have access to every game on ios/android/windows phone and the OP wouldnt be asking this question.

I feel like you've missed all of what my point was. You don't need plugins. WebGL is a lot more capable than people give it credit for- I think it has a bad reputation because of a lack of support up to a certain point, but support has improved a lot in the last while. I've run into some hesitation from diving into making something without an existing framework like Phaser, and I get that lots of people just don't like javascript, but it's doable. Cross platform doesn't mean that your browser "has access to every game" (?), I just think there's value in the web as a platform that can be used/accessed from almost any device.

Browser games can (and do, sometimes) make money the same way any other "free" game does - microtransactions, subscriptions, ads, etc.

Unity is a better choice for cross-platform games if you don't mind learning curve . Web games are better for simple games , even though webGL is rather capable , there are boundaries.

Unity is a better choice for cross-platform games if you don't mind learning curve . Web games are better for simple games , even though webGL is rather capable , there are boundaries.

Better in what way? Saying "Unity is better" is like saying "cars are better than trucks", without any context. If you're an experienced Unity guy, then yeah, that'll be the path of least resistance if you just want to make a game that'll run on a fair number of platforms, but if your target is specifically web, Unity is in no way an objectively "best" way to go- (and technically is still using WebGL anyway.) I've used the Unity web player a few times and it was not a pleasant experience.

Again, I'll stick with my opinion that the whole "web is only for simple/cheap/quick/casual games" is mostly a misconception. *Every* platform has limitations, and it's up to the game creator to work within that. It's the same as saying "mobile is only for casual games", but there are clear examples of some pretty heavy/hardcore games that work just fine on mobile if devs take the time to utilize the platform. Whether or not there's a market for it, or whether there's many people bothering is another story, but I see no reason why we can't do complicated/hardcore games on web if we want to.

Unity is a better choice for cross-platform games if you don't mind learning curve . Web games are better for simple games , even though webGL is rather capable , there are boundaries.

Better in what way? Saying "Unity is better" is like saying "cars are better than trucks", without any context. If you're an experienced Unity guy, then yeah, that'll be the path of least resistance if you just want to make a game that'll run on a fair number of platforms, but if your target is specifically web, Unity is in no way an objectively "best" way to go- (and technically is still using WebGL anyway.) I've used the Unity web player a few times and it was not a pleasant experience.

Again, I'll stick with my opinion that the whole "web is only for simple/cheap/quick/casual games" is mostly a misconception. *Every* platform has limitations, and it's up to the game creator to work within that. It's the same as saying "mobile is only for casual games", but there are clear examples of some pretty heavy/hardcore games that work just fine on mobile if devs take the time to utilize the platform. Whether or not there's a market for it, or whether there's many people bothering is another story, but I see no reason why we can't do complicated/hardcore games on web if we want to.

Disclaimer : I intend to make a browser game involving 3D elements as part of game.

As I told "better in cross-platform way and if you don't mind learning curve". You're just saying same thing and say that I don't add any context. (No one mentioned webGL export of Unity but instead using Unity especially for mobile wrappers, not to mention desktop version. Why should I bother for webGL export when I can have desktop and major mobile versions? )

And I am saying "web is better for " , not "web is for" . Even though webGL is capable, there are boundaries making it suboptimal for above certain scope. You can make a nice complicated 3D game with webGL involving megabytes of assets (content distribution is another fun, it's why I plan mobile apps basically website ducktaped to assets) but why you should?

The reason behind casual mobile games is them targeting largest group of mobile phone users , ofc. Gameloft has several 3D titles (with up to GB level downloads) but it's not thriving as simply market doesn't have intense demand.

I wouldn't say that any medium of gaming is dead, but I would agree that mobile games get the most attention. It's kind of a self feeding thing that this increasingly fast paced world of technology is making people get bored more easily with each idle minute so more people are turning to games on their smart phones or tablets. Mobiles are in their hands and games are available. That's a natural attraction.

I can also see how busier people have less time to sit at home with a computer and play games there. I am wondering what this is going to do to future generations of young people in their mental development.

Will future generations be capable of sitting still and patiently at a computer? Computers have many advantages over mobiles, so if this is the trend then that would be a terrible loss.

I still have many friends playing Web games. I guess it is still available as long as the game is interesting, multiplayer, fair. I personally prefer new games by BTC-pot.com. Either on computer or on mobile.

I wouldn't say that any medium of gaming is dead, but I would agree that mobile games get the most attention.

They don't die. New venues open up and the industry expands, and the most popular areas have a lot of players for a while. They don't actually kill off the previous genres. Instead, the old genres just take up a smaller piece of a subsequently-larger pie.

Sometimes old venues, old genres, old systems, old visual styles, old effects may jump in popularity, with this or that 'retro' feeling getting a revival, expanding their market. It changes market factors on the others, but none of them really die.

We don't live in a world where the systems are exclusive, although many people think that way. People can play many types of games. People can play the latest exciting blockbuster, then switch to an obscure indie title, then turn it off and switch to a text-based story game. People own multiple game consoles, computers, handheld games, and phones as well. Our industry is growing, as new ways to play are added the industry grows and distributions shift.