In my earlier post, I mentioned briefly that we would be shifting from making games which were exclusively mobile to web games. There are a bunch of reasons to do such a switch, and I didn't feel I could do them justice unless they were their own post, so here's that post!
In essence, the reasons for switching can be summarized into four key points: Flexibility, Ease of development, Ubiquity, and Portability.
Put simply, the web offers developers more flexibility than mobile platforms. While its true that mobile devices can offer a far more powerful experience with seamless 3D graphics and seamless integration with a operating system, there are limits inherent to each mobile platform which limits what can be done. As a small (miniscule, really) game company, flexibility to create fresh games with minimal limitation is crucial.
Let's face it, it's pretty hard to beat web development when it comes to ease of development. There are no emulators to worry about, to test a update, you generally only need to refresh he browser. The languages of the web are well documented, widely understood, and a wide range of tools and libraries exist. Not only does this mean games can be made faster, it also means that rookie coder schmucks like myself can easily jump into the process with minimal pain.
Yes, it does seem like smart phones and tablets are popping up everywhere, but the Web is pretty much Everywhere. What's more, the web is built on a set of standards which apply pretty much everywhere. There are some exceptions (yes, I'm looking at you Microsoft) but for the most part, a web game developer doesn't have to worry about what kind of platform the game will run on, only that the game is well designed and runs efficiently and bug-free. Again, for a tiny indie game studio, that's invaluable.
Closely related to the concept of Ubiquity is the concept of Portability. Most smartphones and tablets are pre-equipped with the ability to treat web sites as semi-native applications. This means that instead of developing for just one platform, a developer can make games that work on the web and then easily port them to whatever mobile devices seem to make the most sense at the time. Overall, this is a far more sane solution.
So in summary, for those whose eyes glazed over, we've made the switch because we can make better games for more people with less stress in less time. Beautiful!
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