The tipping point for online games

Filed under: Business, Games, Internet, Features, Adobe

The tipping point for online games

by Ian Smith Jan 18th 2007

Have browser based games reached their tipping point? The evidence says yes. And this will quickly lead to a huge influx of better and more accessible browser based games pushing an old industry into the mainstream for the first time. Let me explain.

Just a few days ago we posted a review of a little Flash game called Elements TD. We weren't the only ones. In less than two weeks the traffic to the game has grown by over ten thousand percent. Yes, you read that right. 10,000%! Over a million hits a day. Currently the game hogs over 40 Gigabits a day of creator David Scott's bandwidth.

Why is this one example important? Because it illustrates the rapid rise of Flash game development.

In-browser games have been around for a long time. "Arcade" websites like Yahoo Games, Pogo, and Shockwave have arisen to collect these games into one place and market them. Despite respectable success by many of these competitors, the quality of online gaming has continued to lack luster. Flash Elements TD shows us that it doesn't have to be that way and that a great game can be developed independently and marketed successfully. It also shows how great ideas can be taken from existing desktop games and turned into viral web based epidemics.

And an epidemic in online game creation is about to overtake us.

Another great example of the rise of the browser as a gaming platform is Nintendo's now archived Mission in Snowdriftland. The game is a Flash based sidescroller of a quality in design and animation that easily rivals Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis equivalents from yesteryear. The whole thing plays in browser and counted down the days to Christmas with a brand new level every day. Nintendo gave it away, when just a decade ago they would have sold a half million copies of the same product for $50 each. Was it cost effective? Certainly, thanks to the lowered costs of Flash development. And as a marketing campaign it was brilliant. No doubt you can expect another Mission in Snowdriftland next Christmas.

I believe we are seeing the start of something, a revolution in game design and marketing. To use Malcolm Gladwell's phrase, we are at a "tipping point"; a flash point when online-in-browser-based gaming crosses the threshold and becomes mainstream. And the fuel for this explosion isn't going to be provided by a large corporation like Microsoft or Google. The fuel will come from the powerhouse of the Internet's organic infrastructure and its never ending demand for quality.

Here are the reasons why I see online gaming beginning to tip:

Growth of Flash development. As Adobe Flash advocates such as Ryan Stewart have pointed out for years, Flash is a great platform for application development. A key blocker to the success of Flash as a game platform has always been a lack of skilled and imaginative developers. Developers who might have created something cool in Flash two years ago were either sucked up into high level development for the desktop or left behind to work on low level PHP/ASP.NET web based products. Why? Well that leads us to bullet item #2.
Increased Bandwidth. When broadband climbed over the coveted 50% market penetration mark, Flash suddenly became a more viable option for content development. Now you can deliver a large Flash product to your audience without turning significant numbers of users away because of the loading time. Notice that the rise of Youtube and Google Video follow the same growth curve. Gaming lags behind do to its more complex nature, but it is quickly catching up.
The Digg Factor. Online gaming has been huge for a long time, but the vast majority of web users have yet to jump in. Why? There has never been a "place" to go find out about it, no simply way to keep abreast of new games coming online, and no platform to find and fellowship with other gaming advocates. That isn't the case anymore. With the rise of Digg, and its competitors, and the growing power of blogs, it is now easier to find and share great ideas as they happen. An independent developer can, today, create a cool product and get it in front of tens of thousands of craved social media users who are just looking for the next big thing to go crazy over.
The Nintendo Wii. Say what? Yes, the Wii. Nintendo hit on an unlikely market with their DS platform: people who couldn't understand or be bothered with modern games. The Nintendo Wii takes it one step further and targets a very broad range of people by being easy enough to pick up and use without knowing anything about games. Plus the Wii comes with support for a web browser and, more importantly, Flash. Wii users aren't going online to search for recipes or check their stocks. Wii users are coming online to play and they are about to galvanize a new market: the click to play browser game.

Essentially, game developers, like any developer, like their products to be seen, used, and adored. The framework and infrastructure is now in place to allow that for browser based games, and the demand is about to hit it like a train load of Russian bricks careening down a mountain pass.

What can we expect in the near future?

Obviously we can expect more games. But more importantly we can expect services to pop up along the same lines of Flickr and YouTube. These services will let you upload, share, and service your games without having to cover bandwidth costs. They will also act as a gathering place for a raging populous of players who will slowly suck more and more of their friends into the community.

Brace yourself. Browser based gaming is about to explode and, rest assured, Download Squad will be there.

Tags: browser, Flash, games, nintendo, online gaming, OnlineGaming

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Kroc Camen said 4:10PM on 1-18-2007

I've created an open source project that lets you make turn based two player games using AJAX and Javascript (No Flash or Java!). Not enough online games let you play two player with a specific person, so I decided to do something about it. Click my name link for details.

Yatrik said 4:27PM on 1-18-2007

Awesome article! Very exciting and sensational, yet at the same time you provide very valid points. If games are provided for free, would the banner ad revenue be enough to pay for it's own development? Could developers even profit from them? I've played many browser based RPG's and have been astonished at the recent growth in complexity and depth in completely free games!

Ian said 5:03PM on 1-18-2007

I suspect that most, if not all, of web based games will be launched for free using limited support from Google Adsense and the like. While a company could try and collect talent and somehow charge for access to these games the simple relatively is that as soon as they do that people will pop up who will give essentially the same thing away for free. Like video, gaming growth will be fueled by free.

GamerD00D said 5:24PM on 1-18-2007

"Essentially, game developers, like any developer, like their products to be seen, used, and adored."

Clearly Kroc Camen (poster #1 above) is reflective of that statement! lol....

Kroc Camen said 6:49PM on 1-18-2007

*shrug* we don't get paid to make these games for free. It really isn't easy; a game will live or die by the interest it garners. There is always the likely possibility that you can spend years developing something, for it to go very largely ignored, which is why it is very promising that the independent game development scene is growing heathily. A lot of people genuinely do not understand quite how much time and sacrifice it takes to do this job.

James said 6:49PM on 1-18-2007

I've never developed in Flash before, and I don't feel like I have a really good handle on what you need to do to get started. Don't you have to buy several hundred dollars worth of software to get started? Flash doesn't have human-readable source code (right?), so it's not something like C++/Java/Ruby/what-have-you where you can "code" in Notepad (albeit somewhat inefficiently). I'm not able to find any free/open-source development tools for Flash after a few minutes of Googling, but I guess that doesn't mean they don't exist.

If I'm right, though, and any Flash developer has to pay the entry toll to Adobe, I don't think it's ever going to reach critical mass. Tons of other computer trends have started with college kids working out of their dorms or start-ups that have next to no capital, and if you have to shell out $700 (per Adobe's site) just to get started, you're really going to stifle potential creativity...

Ian said 7:06PM on 1-18-2007

In terms of flash development it does cost to get in with the Flash editor, but that isn't a very high bar and many many people already have that tool as part of their job or education. Is an average Joe who codes in PERL and writes CRON jobs going to pick up and build a cool Flash game? Doubtful. But he isn't the target market for Flash nor the best equipped to imaginatively create a visual experience.

That said, Action Script is the language behind Flash. While you still use the tool for a lot of things the Action Script controls, in a JS type syntax, the details of the application.

James said 12:55PM on 1-19-2007

Huh. Good to know, but for some people $500 (the cost of a medium-good used laptop) is in fact a pretty high bar to *start learning* a language you don't even know you're going to like or use. I understand they have a 30-day trial, but they really need a free-to-home-users/hobbyists/students "lite" edition that's free forever (with appropriate license restrictions) that people can cut their teeth on, before they have a chance of becoming as widely accepted as XML/HTML or C++/Java. If the history of computer programming has taught us anything, it's that closed languages will never survive in the long run.

Ryan Stewart said 10:54PM on 1-21-2007

The barrier to entry for Flash is tiny, and in some cases you don't even need to go out and buy the IDE. OSFlash - http://osflash.org/ has some great resources that might help you get started. And for those of you that are web developers, ActionScript (the scripting language in Flash) and JavaScript have a lot of the same syntax.

David Scott said 6:34PM on 2-03-2007

WOW,
David here (creator of Flash Element TD) thanks for the great review and comments. It doesn't feel like I am pushing any envelopes with my games but it's nice that you think so, and I agree with your other points.

With services like MochiAds & adSense it is also becoming increasingly easy to generate the sort of revenue from flash games that you would have expected to reach if you went with the old model of selling them, but of course without the worry of piracy.

The future for browser based games (flash/java/ajax) is a bright one and it is great to be in the thick of it at this turning point.

Jeremy said 7:14PM on 3-19-2007

Hey i really like this game, but my mom has this weird thing against me playing games online. So i really want to beable to download this game so i can play it, but i cant find any place to download it at. So if any body knows of a place reply to this plz. Thx everyone

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