New promising sites for HTML5 games

Recently, there has been an increasing talk about the oversaturation of projects with standard gaming markets, such as mobile, Steam, online. Beginners, indie or small companies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to promote their product and at least to beat the costs of its creation. In the same Google Play, dozens of new games are released daily, and significant money is spent on getting into the cherished tops for promotion. There is a situation when the top lines of the tops are constantly crowded with projects with very serious budgets. The same goes for Steam. So what to do?

In October this year, the familiar conference on the development and promotion of White Nights 2016 games was held in Moscow. This time some encouraging news was heard on the development of promising sales markets.

Unfortunately, I was not present at this event, but I carefully track the official YouTube channel “White Nights Conference” where the videos of the participants' reports are posted periodically. Among them are some very interesting speeches that show the emergence of new markets for gaming products. And the most interesting thing is that they are not yet cluttered, they have the priority of support from platform developers and a rather low feature threshold. These conditions look very attractive for indie or small companies that do not have a solid budget for the promotion of their projects. And I note that first of all we are talking about the web and, with some stretch, mobile platforms.

Rambler / Game

What is a Rambler - they know, probably, everything. This is a media portal that combines several services, such as mail, news, search, video, etc. Previously, the company has already tried to work in the game direction. For example, since 2006, it was possible to view and download demo casual games with the subsequent payment of the full version via SMS. Over time, this game showcase was covered up, and the games themselves moved to Kanoba. And here, at the White Nights 2016 conference, a report was made by the representative of Rambler about the company's new attempt to enter the gaming market as a platform for placement. Game showcase called "Rambler / Games" and is currently operational.
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The main idea of ​​Rambler is the creation of a symbiosis of partner games with a video service. As I understand it, it is supposed to create a closed ecosystem. The man watched the video (Letspley? Trailer?) And wanted to play this game. One gets the feeling that the video service will serve only the game showcase itself. How this will function is not yet clear, since the company has only begun the initial stage of the implementation of its ideas.

Rambler mainly focuses on the publication of browser games. Although in the future it is also planned to launch on mobile platforms. Monetization is expected due to gaming purchases. Here, of course, the question arises how this opportunity will be technically fulfilled. As far as I know, Rambler does not have any game currency and the corresponding API. Also, there are not any social gaming buns (friends, leaderboards, etc.) But, again, maybe I'm wrong. Unfortunately, on the Rambler / Games website I could not find any links to the developer portal.

For the time being, this project is only in its infancy, although a test case is already available on the Internet. Now it has only a dozen games with fairly simple content. No categories, breakdown by genres could not be found. Either slyly hidden, or it’s all that can be seen.

By the end of the year, developers are going to announce the launch of the platform. In the spring is expected to have a general release of the playground with video service.

What else interesting Rambler for igrodelov can offer:

• The report sounded the figures for revenue sharing . The company, while, decided to stop at 50/50. Here there are "neponyatki" why such a ratio is proposed. The same Google takes 30% from each transaction. Perhaps the company can offer something different from the usual income model, and the report did not say that. And perhaps there are partnerships on the type of publishing.
  
  
• The audience of the project . According to the speaker, six months after launch, the showcase should reach an indicator of 100 thousand users per day, as well as 10-15 thousand registrations at the time of the start of the game.

In general, while there is a double impression. The system of partnerships is not entirely clear: how to add a game, under what conditions. No data on the technical component. The idea of ​​symbiosis of video with games is interesting, but it is unclear how this will be implemented. Very modest projected attendance and registration rates. Probably, this is unlikely to interest (at least in the initial stage) the large sharks of the gaming business, but here there is a chance for indie and small teams.

In contact with

The fact that games can be placed on this popular social network is not a secret. Moreover, the site is quite difficult for the development and promotion of content. It also requires significant resources, but, of course, much less than for mobile platforms. Still, an interesting speaker from VKontakte was able to tell.

It sounded very intriguing: " The next milestone in VK's history is HTML5 games ... We are expanding our web platform ... we give developers to launch their HTML5 projects, both on the web and on mobile devices within the official VKontakte clients ... ". (See video “Maxim Babichev (VK.com) - VK.com Gaming Platform: News and Perspectives” from 8 minutes).

So, now there is a clear distinction - a showcase with games for the web and games for mobile devices. VKontakte developers seek to combine these two categories into something one through HTML5 and make the publication of games for these platforms transparent. That is, if you have an HTML5 game for the web, it will also automatically appear in the mobile client. No separate builds, only optimization for different screen resolutions and appropriate controls. Since the game will be launched inside the mobile client of the social network, all its functions remain alive. For example, you can chat with friends while the game is running in the background. The application will be cached and at any time you can continue its execution from the moment of “freezing”. In addition, the system API remains the same for both platforms.

According to the representative of VKontakte: " ... the process of the upruva will not be any different from how it happens for the web ... the game should work with the user data and have a viral ... without any buttons to return to the client " (see the video "PANEL DISCUSSION : Are There Games on HTML 5, or What Is Out There for Flashers? ( From 54 minutes).

Thus, VKontakte offers another very attractive platform for the distribution of games.

Classmates

I was not particularly interested in this social network, and I don’t actually have one there, but for game developers there are also a few interesting sites. To begin with, four types of platforms are supported in OK: web, native, mobile HTML5 and instant messenger. The last two options are particularly interesting. Mobile games HTML5 - this is not new to OK, but according to the representative of this social. networks (see the video “Are There Games on HTML 5, or What Is Out For Flashers?” from 11 minutes) they provide a maximum feature for a more or less pretty toy in a few weeks, which can result in 50-60 thousand. installations per week. There are few games in this category and there are a lot of niches that can be occupied.

The idea of ​​launching games directly in the system messenger looks quite unusual. It will take root or not, but this has already appeared and even has something to play. Whether the games will be lost among the flow of messages, whether users will play them and what the “exhaust” will turn out to be so far is questionable. However, this is a new, free and, most likely, promising platform that would be a sin to miss. Again, “business sharks” will appear on it only after a serious promotion of the system.

Of course, such games in the messenger must meet not only the requirements of the system, but also have appropriate social mechanisms. It is clear that the single player mode here will look much paler than the multiplayer, and the number of interesting genres for users is very limited. But this is a new platform and "Classmates" will make a lot of effort for its promotion. Again, a very serious chance for game developers.

What is the result

So, novice developers are faced with great difficulties with the promotion of their games in the standard stor and platforms. Now there is an opportunity to try to start up with much less effort on new sites, get fichering from moderators and thereby earn some money. There is only one condition - games must be HTML5.

HTML5 / WebGL is a stumbling block for many developers, despite the many tools available. The familiar and very common Unity has many problems with WebGL, especially in the mobile segment. A lot of developers are still sitting on Unity and due to the limitations of the latter, they are forced to ignore platforms for HTML5 games. The situation is similar with Unreal users. However, there are other technologies. Not as famous, but with better options for creating HTML5 games.

2D

For example, the designer Scirra Construct with a visual logic editor. Its distinctive feature is the possibility of rapid prototyping and the presence of a full-fledged scene editor. Also available are many software blanks and resources in the company's online store. The designer is very expensive. But for exporting to HTML5, the free version is perfect.

Free 2D engine Defold . Another typical representative of this direction. It seems to have everything: scene editor, version control, particle generator, tile editor, etc. It looks very promising, but note that the source of the engine is not attached, which may somewhat limit its use.

And of course, all sorts of libraries, for example, Pixi.JS , Phaser , etc.

3D

Unfortunately, the set of tools for creating three-dimensional games for HTML5 is much smaller, but here there is something to see! It all depends on your goals. If you want to be limited only to stationary computers Unity and Unreal perfectly will approach. However, for the most promising platforms discussed above, you need an engine that works optimally in different environments.

Gaining momentum Blend4Web is a powerful open source framework built on the basis of Blender. Almost everything that Blender can do is natively transferred to HTML5. The latest releases of the engine have been enriched with built-in search for the path, blanks for the game from the first person, support for the materials of the photo-realistic render Cycles, support for VR. The engine has a dual license, but the paid version is pegged to the ruble and is not subject to these wild dollar rates.

Simple and functional BabylonJS engine. Just a huge collection of demos on the site. A distinctive feature is an online scene editor with very powerful features.

Interesting 3D engine PlayCanvas .

Library ThreeJS . About her, I think, everyone has heard.

In general, I did not set out to search and compare various game engines, so the list is incomplete. The main thing is that you can choose a tool to suit your taste and a specific task, and not to wait when you finish the necessary functionality in a seemingly familiar tool. Time is precious!

As they say, he who seeks will always find. And new sites for hosting games simply require attention to themselves.

Used sources:
Janna Goranskaya (Rambler) - What Does Rambler / Games Mean?
» Maxim Babichev (VK.com) - VK.com Gaming Platform: News and Perspectives
PANEL DISCUSSION: Are There Games on HTML 5, or What Is Out There for Flashers?