Filed under: Business, Games, Internet, Features, Adobe
The tipping point for online games
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.
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.