Can We Sell WebGL Games Yet?

[away168]

Hi, long time no post. I am about to port games to pure WebGL due to performance and graphics limitation of Canvas API. My question is, is it market ready to HTML5 games publishers? are there any commercial publishers out there dare to take games that uses WebGL only? as I am yet to know those who accept games other than the ones that uses Canvas API.

 

I start this question cause iOS 8 supports WebGL now, but then it's iOS device exclusive by then.

 

 

Thanks!

[GameOptimal]

I don't think webgl related games sell at the moment since sponsors still want games to be runnable on older samsung and apple devices on the mobile browsers. This will include Samsung S3, and iphone 4 which don't have proper webgl support for the browsers. If I recall Iphone4 can't run IOS8 so it probably won't have webgl support. Iphone 4s can run ios8 but its awfully slow so I think it might be safe to assume webgl related games may not do well on that device. This takes out a large demographic for sponsors which is why not all of them are interested in webgl yet.

 

Maybe in the future once a new round of devices come along and the requirements for html5 games has changed, we will see more sponsored webgl games.

[agamemnus]

The S3 does have webgl support. You just need to use Crosswalk to enable it with switches.

[GameOptimal]

Most html5 sales are from html5 games that are optimized to run on mobile and desktop browsers without webgl.

 

Crosswalk is mainly used to give a native app experience, I don't think it will help much with mobile browsers like the stock browser on S3.

[agamemnus]

That's true... but you can still make your own Crosswalk-Cordova app/game and sell it, if you're feeling lucky...

[trill]

I think publishers really have to think about their strategy. Pushing WebGL support can only benefit the HTML5 market in my opinion. I think HTML5 games ecosystem is slowly getting tired of millions different endless runner, simple puzzle and tap-tap games with 2 objects on the screen.

 

Not to mention that 90% of new games coming on the App Store for instance, are optimized for iPhone5.

[Gods]

Yes WebGL is ready as long as its works on 50%+ of devices there will be a market for it

[kingsushi]

I know this is an old thread, but what's the status on this now?
Is it ok to completely move over to WebGL without affecting sales? 

[mattstyles]

For desktop ALL evergreen browsers have great support.

 

If you are supporting older browsers then webGL wont be your thing anyway.

 

Mobile support is largely the same as this time last year, all modern devices support webGL (there might be some funky implementations though, but mostly it will be fine) but you have a broader spectrum of support for mobiles. In general though its supported well.

 

I cant vouch for whether publishers will be happy or not with webGL-only games (highly dependent on the game of course) but support for it is almost ubiquitous.