Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The Chrome Web Store uses Google Checkout as the payment provider and they will take 5 percent of
each transaction, which is significantly less than the rates on platforms like iOS.
Facebook
With over 800 million users, it made a lot of sense for Facebook to get into app distribution. The applications
and games provided on Facebook can be installed by any user, with the added draw that you can tap in to
the user's social graph of friends. You can find out more online at
https://developers.facebook.com/
docs/guides/canvas/
.
Facebook uses a system called Facebook Credits for in-app and in-game payments and is effectively a
proxy on top of a huge selection of standard methods of payments like major credit cards and PayPal.
iOS App Store
Although a closed platform, the App Store is a viable option for open web games that are ported to iOS
The iOS App Store uses Apple's own payment gateway and they will take 30 percent of each transaction.
Many more
These three examples are just the tip of the iceberg and it is fair to say that many other companies are
exploring the concept of app platforms to help developers distribute and sell their games. It will be
interesting to see which solutions have proven the most popular in a few years.
The not-so-good side to open web games
Now, it's very easy to write a chapter like this and focus only on the positive aspects to open web game
development. I've tried to present an unbiased view and I believe it is important to highlight some of the
non-so-good aspects of the web as a platform for game development (fortunately there aren't many).
The first is that there are varying levels of performance across platforms and devices, which is expected
due to hardware, but flies in the face of “write one, use anywhere.” Because of this, it is important to
research the platforms you are targeting your game towards and make sure that the functionality is
supported at a level that will allow your game to be a fun and playable experience.
The second issue is that the support of the gaming-related technologies is inconsistent across the various
browsers. For example, the GamepadAPI is only supported in Firefox and Chrome, and there is currently
no word on whether the other browsers will adopt it. The same can be said for the Mouse Lock API and a
few others. Another example is that Internet Explorer doesn't support WebGL and is unlikely to support it
in the near future, at least until they stop developing Silverlight.
The final issue is that the open nature of game development on the web is just not feasible for some
people right now, perhaps due to legal requirements. As I've mentioned previously, it is highly unlikely that
the open foundation of the web will change enough to accommodate DRM and compiled code across all
