What difficulties have stood in the way of HTML5 in the recent past and what can be expected in the near future, read in our material written based on a conversation with Odnoklassniki and Playtox.
Predecessor
The fact that Flash will finally leave the market was clear five or six years ago. But there were enough of those who did not believe in the death of the format. One of their main theses sounded in the spirit: “Who, if not him?”
In response, as a rule, they shrugged their shoulders and said: we need to switch to a native mobile. And they pointed out three things:
- Apple has dropped support for Flash;
- Unity has abandoned Flash support;
- Google is gradually blocking the oxygen of Flash on the web.
If Apple was not satisfied with security, and Unity was poorly supported, then Google was straining, among other things, the archaic libraries on which the technology relied.
As a result, everything resulted in the following story:
- since 2016, Google has been deploying Flash content blocking in Chrome (other browsers are following it);
- In 2017, Adobe, the developer of Flash, announced that it would stop supporting the format in 2020;
- in 2019, a version of Chrome is coming out, which by default blocks all Flash content (including the one on social networks, plus the removal of the lock is valid only until the end of the session, after logging into the browser again you need to go into the settings and allow Flash to work on the page);
- in 2020, a version of Chrome is expected to be released, in which Flash support will be completely absent.
Efficiency
Developers of social applications, not ready to go to mobile, looked at the developing situation as a disaster. In particular, because they have not seen a universal replacement for him.
There were talks about Silverlight, WebGL, and new formats, but they usually didn’t go far. As for HTML5, designed to replace Flash, then in the middle of the tenth few people were satisfied with it. The reason is low performance.
“Unfortunately, although HTML5 has become more often used in game development, for example, in conjunction with WebGL, but in its current form HTML5 as a technology for game development is still weak,” Vasily Maguryan, head of the gaming department, told us four years ago Mail.ru Games.
The problems of HTML5 as a game format primarily concerned the development of complex games. City-builders, farms, role-playing projects with their voluminous databases, a large amount of content and numerous menus regularly encountered friezes and low frame rates. The problem was especially acute on mobile, where web sites with their own game libraries came along with native applications.
However, gradually this problem began to be solved by itself.
On the one hand, the social application market, dominated by Flash, in a hurry to save the user base, switched to mobile native. On the other hand, the performance of devices has significantly increased: processing complex HTML5 projects has ceased to be a problem for them.
The players' handset fleet is changing, and modern phones are much better at HTML5 support and performance.
COO in Playtox
At the moment, these problems are losing relevance. The level of developers is growing, and today you can observe such HTML5 projects, the existence of which would have been hard to believe a few years ago. Also, the development of technologies has played a significant role in this: browsers have become more productive, hardware has become more powerful.
Head of the Odnoklassniki gaming platform
How and why did they believe
The growth of trust and interest in HTML5 as a game format was not only due to historical and technical circumstances. A number of other factors played in his favor:
- the emergence of mobile gaming platforms focused exclusively on HTML5 (including from Facebook, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki);
- the transition of large desktop Flash platforms to a new format (for example, Kongregate) and the emergence of new;
- HTML5 import support in all major engines;
- an increase in the number of investors willing to invest in the development of such projects.
As a result, it would seem that if we talk about game development for HTML5, a uniquely prosperous picture should develop. However, there were some disappointments.
Hype
Since 2016, the future of HTML5 games has been associated primarily with mobile versions of social platforms. There was an opinion that the history of the end of the noughties would repeat itself, when the casual audience began to play inside social networks.
For a while, the niche became a trend in game development. However, in a couple of years, the hype has subsided.
Hype has come to naught, probably because there are quite a lot of restrictions. It is not so easy to create games: there are few ready-made engines and a lot of features of their application. To make the game for the store easier technically.
COO in Playtox
Hype is always a temporary phenomenon. The appearance of a new platform is a debatable event, since the scale is not completely clear. Now that mobile gaming platforms of social networks have become an understandable entity, there are fewer discussions.
Head of the Odnoklassniki gaming platform
At the same time, Polotnyanko adds that “the audience continues to grow, and we see more and more developers whose monthly revenues on the mobile platform are in the millions.”
HTML5 platforms in social mobile applications
However, the hype could stall for other reasons. One of them is that HTML5 gaming platforms have begun to appear in mobile native applications. First of all, social networks began to position themselves as gaming stores.
The holders of the main mobile platforms (Apple and Google), most likely, were not enthusiastic about the initiatives of social networks. Apps with a library of their own games create competition between the App Store and Google Play.
There were no public conflicts, but Apple, for example, never allowed Facebook to monetize Instant Games through IAP.
This could be one of the reasons why Facebook recently completely changed the paradigm of its HTML5 gaming platform. Previously, games were one of the main bookmarks of the Messenger social communication app. Now they have been moved to the official Facebook app. However, it is not easy to find them there.
Simply put, within the Facebook mobile ecosystem, games have been removed from a prominent place.
Although such a move in relation to the HTML5 platform can be explained not only by the conflict with Apple, but also simply by the low interest of the audience in the platform, and this already has its own reasons.
They didn't go well, because the Facebook model is advertising, and they are not particularly interested in some kind of gaming platform. There is no normal catalog, there is no special work with content, there are a thousand mostly hyper-casual games.
COO in Playtox
Retention issues
Another possible reason why the hype around HTML5 games has dropped is the low (relative to native games) retention rate.
To return to the HTML5 game, the user must launch a social network and find the game in the application catalog, which is often not as convenient as in the App Store or Google Play. In other words, you can get a lot of organic traffic from a social network, but it can be more difficult to keep some games.
However, our interlocutors are sure that this problem has already been solved.
Now pushy can be sent via Chrome and social networks. Icons can be installed on modern handsets, you can use the player's contacts (e-mail) to return.
COO in Playtox
Low retention is not so much a problem of HTML5 games, in comparison with native games, as the lack of deep interaction of developers with the gaming platform. For example, we, as a social network, offer developers different mechanics to increase retention. These are notifications directly from the app, and various social interactions that increase player engagement. In addition, the icon of any game can be placed on the device, and use the capabilities of the social network application to notify players. Those developers who use all the features of the platform have no problems with low retention.
Head of the Odnoklassniki gaming platform
So the market continues to work. However, they are still not talking about him as actively as they did a few years ago. However, many people are trying to change the situation today. For example, Snapchat, which launched its own platform this April, or Mail.Ru A group that regularly organizes HTML5 contests and whose social platforms create comfortable conditions for new developers.
A new competitor
However, now HTML5 may well have a new big competitor — cloud gaming. In the next six months, apart from local and niche players, such giants as Google and Microsoft are entering the market. And both are confident in the bright future of the format, within which any game can be run on any device that the user holds in his hands.
The main feature of HTML5 projects, like Flash at the time, is the ability to launch the game from any browser on any platform. Now games of a completely different format will perform on this field, and how ordinary users will behave is not completely clear. Are they ready to spend time behind classic platform farms and three-in-a-row when Red Dead Redemption 2 is offered to them as an alternative?
However, Mikhalchenko does not believe in competition between HTML5 and the cloud, at least if we talk about the near future: “I don’t think it’s a competitor now. Maybe in a couple of years, when there will be 5G.”
What’s next
The gaming market is unpredictable. You never know what will “shoot” in a year or two. However, once formed directions and niches remain for a long time. And HTML5 has already become one of these niches.
There are several large ecosystems in the HTML5 games market that do not work on a residual principle, but are constantly developing and experimenting, there are also publishers, investors, evangelists here. The technological base is also constantly being improved.
All this makes it possible to talk about the continuing life of the format, which is unlikely to end within the next eight to ten years. Will it be active and intense?
Polotnyanko is sure that yes: “The number and quality of HTML5 projects will increase significantly. More and more developers will come to the conclusion that it is profitable to create for HTML5, because it allows you to place games on a number of platforms, as well as easily port them to Android and iOS.”