submitting full source code to arcade sites

[plicatibu]

These days I received an e-mail from an arcade site that sponsor / develop it's own games.

This site usually sent me its Flash games asking me to publish them on my site.

The interesting point is that now it send me an HTML game (source + assets) so I can host the entire game into my on server instead of an iframe link.

Have you noticed this from other developers? Are you doing the same ( sending full source code to site owners so they can host the game)?

It seems to me that developers of HTML games will work like developers of Flash games (and indeed many HTML game developers were Flash developers): send full game to arcade owners in the hope to be more widespread than if just an iframe link have been sent and try to make money from in-game ads and by bringing traffic to their own sites.

[mattstyles]

What's wrong with an iframe? In general, for hosting content an iframe is a fine solution, we sometimes end up doing this for clients as it saves them worrying about a server or mangling their existing templates (some clients don't have the time or inclination to do this).

That aside, the absolute easiest way of distributing client-side HTML games would be to inline your JS and CSS straight into your html and just distribute the HTML file. I'd have thought that most publishers would give you a folder that would allow you to conditionally load in other assets etc etc though. Aside from that you'd have to create a file structure that represents all of your game and assets, similar to a swf, jar or Electron's asar formats (they're basically just zips that get exploded when used, kind of), but it's not particularly useful for HTML files as JS is interpreted so the compilation happens just-in-time so you don't really need to worry about it, you just zip it up, explode it into a folder and have your server serve that folder and you're done. Of course you can get more complex, but thats about it for serving client assets.

For a purely client-side game you'd probably want distributors to host for you though, purely due to cost.

Some publishers (I think) even let you run code on the server so you can make a more complex game, not sure there is a huge market for that, not if you're heading for the publisher route anyway. I'd hope that would change as HTML games get ever more complex and interesting.

To directly answer your question: we don't work with publishers, we work with clients directly, but our usual model is that we are commissioned to write the code/assets, the client will then receive that source, usually with some guarantees/update schedule etc etc, and the product is then theirs to do with as they please. So yeah, sending full source code. Pretty sure this is basically (without the ownership/commissioning things) how many publishers would also work.

[plicatibu]

I have my own arcades and I'm a member in a forum of arcade owners. One of the biggest barriers for HTML acceptance is the fact they didn't have the possibility to host the game.

Their experience is bad about using iframes (the server that hosts the game having some hiccups or the game stop working at all. Even worse, the game can be changed without they been aware of that.

So, when I start receiving game packages of HTML games as I did for Flash games I got curious to see whether it was new trending (in the beginning all HTML game developers refused to distribute the source code)

[mattstyles]

19 hours ago, plicatibu said:

 (in the beginning all HTML game developers refused to distribute the source code)

I didn't realise this, I guess people figure that code makes their game, my opinion is that while coding is hard it isn't so difficult that someone with persistence couldnt pick it up, its the mechanisms and design choices you make that make your game.

I would have figured that nowadays most games distributed their source/assets to publishers for publication, rather than a url for an iframe, the only exception I'd guess might be games that require server code to run, although, again, I'd pretty much expect publishers to be able to handle that. Maybe I'm wrong.