Fear of HTML 5

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Not that anything can be done about it, but is HTML 5 the end of the App Store road?

Would love to hear what you all think. HTML 5 is all the talk and Facebook is already inviting specific developers to create games that can bypass the app stores and use HTML 5. They want to make app stores obsolete.

You can now play Angry Birds for free on the web if you have an HTML 5 browser, although they intentionally made it that if you try it on an iPad it tells you to buy it in iTunes, yet works in Safari on a Mac. I am sure they were compensated by Google to create it. They market it as playable on Chrome, but it works in other HTML 5 browsers if you try.

I guess my fear is that we are moving to a stage where everything is going to be paid by advertising. An even bigger concern is small developers like most of us can not simply setup a site to provide secure downloads, billing, and host our own add server to make money. Right now it is nice to give Apple or Google 30% to handle all that. There will be scattered game site all over the place hosting HTML 5 games and not one single place like the App Store people can go to.

Some people are predicting this scenario is only 2 years or less. Am I over worried about what HTML 5 is going to do to the small developer, or do most of you have the same fear? I know we can all learn HTML 5 and there will be tools that make it simple like Corona does now, my concern is distribution and will we have to have thousands of downloads before anyone is interested in paying you to advertise with you.
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#2

HTML 5 2D Game Engine
http://impactjs.com/ [import]uid: 12088 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41144[/import]

#3

@yuewah
Wow! The level editor looks fantastic! Just what Corona needs :wink:

@ggindlesperger
I don’t think we should fear HTML5 but embrace it! There are already some SDK that convert your HTML5 game into native iOS/Android app :
http://www.appmobi.com/

Let’s say there is no appstore but just HTML5 games. You’re games will be lost in big game portals just like the appstore but you will get revenue from advertising. It’s almost the same business model.

HTML5 is easy to learn, webGL is around the corner and you can’t make something more cross-platform than this.

Just my 2 cents
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#4

well, for now html5 can’t do exactly what you can on an app, and you don’t have easy tools to make games, so it will take some time. [import]uid: 44010 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41168[/import]

#5

Because communicating via a forum post and trying to explain a lot of background information can get lost in “translation”, I am going to share this.

I was one of the three original computer scientist at Adobe, who, back then, we implemented a technology we called PGML, which stood for Page Graphics Markup Language. Others called it PostScript Graphics Markup Language. PGML was submitted to the W3C working standards body and was renamed SVG. Short for Scalable Vector Graphics. SVG which in some cases is the core of some of the HTML5 rendering pieces you see floating around.

I was the one who wrote the first PGML viewer and the first rendering we demoed internally at Adobe was that of a vector drawing in pure markup language of the Simpsons family.

That was, if memory serves me right, 2001. Ten years later, SVG still trying to find its place. Nokia was a big proponent of SVG-Tiny, and other companies implemented SVG to their liking.

So what am I trying to say? Open standards can succeed only if driven by one company only. The nightmare of SVG on becoming a W3C standard and the specter of the “feature” factor can lead to long delays on anything becoming a standard or leading to fissures in the implementation.

The flip side is, if you look at Tamarind. Great open source initiative, that, didn’t go anywhere.

  • This by all means does not mean that we are not looking at HTML5 closely or that I am ignoring it or dismissing it… Just means, this has been my experience with open standars from two of the leading graphics companies (Adobe/Macromedia) trying to submit their technologies into the open standards bodies.

Angry Birds on Chrome is what I would call a POC.

One of the biggest issue down the road will be discovery of your app.

That’s all am saying for now :wink:

C.

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#6

Speaking of which. I had to add this

**Subject: Re: [Public WebGL] webgl+tablets
From: CXXXXXX@apple.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2011 10:56:30 -0700

WebGL will not be publicly available in iOS 5. It will only be available to iAd developers.

~Chris
XXXXXX@apple.com**

See what I mean.

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#7

Thank you very much for that info Carlos. Really appreciate you taking the time to add your experience to it.

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#8

Go with the flow. I see html 5 and other technologies as just more ways to make more money. More opportunities. I also think free apps and games supported by ads are the way to go. That’s my opinion anyway.

Google probably likes html 5 because of its Chrome OS. That and they want everyone to be on their cloud. I hate the idea of cloud computing because one company will be holding all your personal data. I’m not crazy about Chrome OS either.

Of course life would be much easier if there was just one OS, one programming language and all the hardware was exactly the same. Ahhhh Utopia.

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#9

“Ahhhh Utopia”. I think it was called Java at one point.

:wink:
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#10

I get the whole technology and new ways to make money. I see this differently though. We are only making money because there is very limited places people can go to get the apps we make. Really you could make a fortune just being on Apple’s App Store, because if you have an Apple device it is the only place to go without jailbreaking.

Right now we have a captive audience. If you are on Apple and Google’s market you are hitting the top 2 and really all you need to do at this point. You can do more if you like, but none of the others touch these 2 in potential.

Once things go to HTML 5 there will be no one or two stores that people go to for apps. We “meaning the Corona Community” sell a ton of apps to people who just browse the app store because it is on their device. They do not know where on the web to go to look for games and things nor do they care enough to look. Many of them did not even play games until the app stores and low prices introduced them to it. You start tossing games on websites scattered all over the net, only the gamers actively looking for games are going to find them. Only the absolute must have games are going to get enough publicity that people who normally would not look for games may look for it.

Then again I guess those types of people may be what keeps the app stores relevant. [import]uid: 8533 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41225[/import]

#11

HTML5? Don’t spend more than 10 seconds thinking about it. It isn’t even as good as Flash 1.0 (“Futuresplash”). The frame rates are disastrously slow. The options are limited. The CPU overhead is enormous. The development environments are primitive at best. And most importantly: HTML5 games aren’t as good as first generation iPhone games.

HTML5 *is* good for creating animated ads. If you’re interested in doing that, I highly recommend Sencha Animator. It’s free for another couple months, until 1.0 comes out.

But for game development HTML5 is (at least at this point) still a joke.

Even more importantly: Developers need revenue. Where is the incentive to write games in HTML5? Ad revenue is terrible…

Besides, the whole argument for HTML5 is that it’s cross platform.

But so is Corona, and Corona rocks. [import]uid: 40285 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41466[/import]

#12

@jroven0 please open http://playbiolab.com/ in your iPhone mobile safari, it is made by html5. The frame rates are very fast, coronaSDK cannot do this at this moment. [import]uid: 12088 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41499[/import]

#13

Ahhh… Here we go…

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#14

Thanks for the “insider” opinion Carlos. I tend to agree, HTML5 is definitely a “wait and see” thing. The tech world lives on the cutting edge, often obsesses about it, embraces the latest fad, the latest “concept”… and then 75% of it goes nowhere or just gets absorbed or reworked into the amoeba. Much to my personal annoyance, when Google seems to back something or pump it up, many people react as if it’s King Midas touching a POS and turning it to gold. I’m not saying that HTML5 is useless garbage, but I’m going with the practical, patient approach.

Ad revenue also… am I the only one who finds ads incredibly annoying in a game? I will happily pay 99 cents or even $5 for a GOOD game that doesn’t shove ads in my face. If the “future” of mobile gaming is based on ad revenue, then I’ll quietly take my leave and go back to console or PC gaming. It might cost $30 for a game, but at least I don’t have to endure ads for “ftd.com” begging me to pay $49 for a dozen roses for Valentine’s Day.

Brent Sorrentino
Ignis Design [import]uid: 9747 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41527[/import]

#15

@yuewah – Huh? Corona would blow that biolab out of the water. The frame rate on that is terrible – with regular lags and screen tears on Chrome running on my 2.4 GHz dual core Mac Book. The music is compressed 8 bit, and there are no complex multi-frame sprites or collisions with complex polygons (probably because the framerate was already poor). The physics is extremely basic.

When you say “ConronaSDK cannot do this at this moment”, which feature are you referring to that cannot be achieved in Corona? I could do that in Corona in a few days easily, and I’m not the best coder.

The only thing that Corona doesn’t have is a level editor, but how difficult is it to lay their 16 or so possible tiles onto a grid and export? You could probably use SpriteDeck.

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#16

A large tile map rendered using Corona SDK on device is extremely slow because the total number of visible display object is limited. If you search for “Lime” in the forum, you will see many people talking about this. Hopefully, ansca is looking into it and I think coronaSDK is getting cool. [import]uid: 12088 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41593[/import]

#17

Now that has nothing to do with HTML 5 vs Corona and Lime.

And I am working with Graham on finding a solution along with my team.

The tiles problem is a completely different and it is an optimization issue at the end of the day. Nothing more/less.

Don’t get all caught up on a functionality that has not been optimized and start making claims.
Just a few hours ago I said **Ahhh… Here we go…

[SIGH]

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#18

Just my 2 cents, yuewah,

A “large tilemap being slow on Corona” is a vague and unfair accusation. It’s not that the number of display objects is limited by Corona, but moreso by the device.

Obviously, all mobile devices have limited texture memory and limited overall memory. It doesn’t matter if you’re coding in Lua/Corona or Objective-C. You simply can’t render a massive world tilemap and display it all at once.

Massive tiled worlds (let’s say Zelda: Link to the Past, or Ultima 6 for us old-timers): ALL of these style games have a tile management system which loads and UN-loads tiles as they are needed or not needed. Or the world is broken up into “chunks” that are loaded when necessary. There’s simply no other method that works within reasonable memory limits. Now, these days you could probably render the entire world of Zelda:LTTP on a dual-core desktop with 8 GB of RAM. Not so on an iPhone or even the iPad2.

As Carlos says, at the core this is an optimization issue, not a Corona issue.

I don’t know how that HTML5 game handles its tiled worlds, but I’ll bet my lunch it has some kind of tile management system in it. I hope Graham and others can find a solution or write a similar system for Lime… that would make it awesomeness x100, whereas now it’s awesomeness x10. :slight_smile:

Brent
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#19

I also believe HTML 5 is a good ways from over taking apps. I was just curious what the rest of you thought. I am concerned that so much is going to ad supported content. I know in my case I never check out ads. I do not understand how it has become such a major force as everyone I know is more annoyed by them.

Really was not looking for a debate between Corona and HTML5. I believe Corona is the best product on the market for app development. Was more concerned that the only way to make money in the future is to host some website with 100s a free games that you can advertise on. That would make the small developers most likely not able to compete.

The big companies like EA are already complaining about the small app developers and how it makes it so tough to for their “superior products” to be noticed. They think app stores are destroying the gaming industry because people are gradually expecting to not pay more than $5.00 for a game because of the app stores. I would hate to see the app stores go away and only the big time players can afford to host sites with HTML 5 games and make any money.

Before app stores people like us could not really profit from our love of making games. App stores really leveled the playing field and software like Corona allows us to compete by making a quality product without investing tons of time.

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#20

HTML5 vs CoronaSDK should stop here.

CoronaSDK is a great product because of its great tutorial, community and template which help beginner to start writing game. [import]uid: 12088 topic_id: 11333 reply_id: 41620[/import]