Could you take a browser based RPG seriously?

[Morning Star]

herionedusk.com really impressed me. While it was only a demo and had very simple mechanics, the potential for a pretty awesome game is definitely there.

It works brilliantly on all screen sizes which is pretty cool and I've found myself going back and smashing away at it now and then just for fun, even without any story, real quest or deeper mechanics.

So my question is; if a browser based single player game which was something like this, but with well a well written story, more interesting combat, full party creation and more complex mechanics was released, would you play it?

I know I would irrespective of if it was a browser game. Just wondering what others thought.

I sure would. Could you please edit your thread so it says "heroine" instead of "herione"? took me a while to understand why i couldn't find it. Thanks!

 

[Cynic]

Shit sorry, changed and linked in OP now. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Midair]

I don't see full screen or scrolling in that Dr Who game. Or a custom mouse cursor or fine grain collision detection. Maybe with webgl or flash, but I thought you were talking about the standard browser surface. Either way, I agree that something like Heroine Dusk works well.
It might be difficult to sell a browser game compared to selling through established distribution platforms. I am thinking that someone would follow a link to the game and try the free portion but not have a buying mindset when asked to pay. Even if you don't object to paying to access a webpage, the habit of having to do it doesn't exist.

 

[Cynic]

Dude, HTML5 + Javascript is capable of doing pretty much anything Flash can do now.

Custom mouse cursor is trivial. The Dr Who game was made to be a very small playable area (it's a Google Doodle so it needs to fit above the search bar in the Chrome home page, that's the spec), there's no reason why you couldn't make it full screen when building it.

I agree with the difficulties of monetizing via selling access, however, I also believe that it hasn't really been tried before in this format. Think of a story driven deep RPG that gets released in chapters. Price point per chapter isn't huge. Why wouldn't you pay if the game was good? I would.

 

[Midair]

Dude, HTML5 + Javascript is capable of doing pretty much anything Flash can do now.

When I was looking at HTML5 games fairly recently, it was pretty tricky to do scrolling and accurate collision detection without the frame rate dropping. Web browsers are designed to display text, still images, and transitional animations, not arcade games.

I agree with the difficulties of monetizing via selling access, however, I also believe that it hasn't really been tried before in this format. Think of a story driven deep RPG that gets released in chapters. Price point per chapter isn't huge. Why wouldn't you pay if the game was good? I would.

The fact that it hasn't been tried before means that you are asking every potential buyer to pay for something they have never paid for before. That creates an obstacle, or at least the risk that comes with something new and different.

 

[Cynic]

Dude, HTML5 + Javascript is capable of doing pretty much anything Flash can do now.

When I was looking at HTML5 games fairly recently, it was pretty tricky to do scrolling and accurate collision detection without the frame rate dropping. Web browsers are designed to display text, still images, and transitional animations, not arcade games.

HTML5 == canvas;
canvas > text + images;

I acknowledge that it's definitely going to be tough to monetize it that way. But I think it's worth a try. If it doesn't work then go free and put ads but that should be avoided if possible.

 

[Abelian]

How would you feel about a one off pay per chapter fee? For example the game is 4 chapters long, you get chapter 1 for free then you can pay per chapter to continue. Maybe if you purchase all three chapters you get a reduced bulk price.

This is what Apogee did back in the 90's: they released the first episode for free and players would buy the two or three other episodes for the full game. I thought it was a good idea, since it allowed players to see if they enjoyed the game's features before committing to a purchase, but they later abandoned the shareware model.

 

[Cynic]

This is what Apogee did back in the 90's: they released the first episode for free and players would buy the two or three other episodes for the full game. I thought it was a good idea, since it allowed players to see if they enjoyed the game's features before committing to a purchase, but they later abandoned the shareware model.

I think it's the only kind of model that would be viable for a browser based game though other than subscription fees, which do not really work for single player, finite experiences. Micro transactions is pretty much the go to monetization model for browser games ATM and it is in direct conflict with producing games of any quality.

 

[Severian Silk]

wat? Nothing "disappears" someone has to physically remove it. It's all data and for it to be gone, someone has to remove it.

http://www.geocities.com

 

[Midair]

You could make an optional offline version maybe. Use an embedded browser component to run the HTML5 app.

 

[Abelian]

One place where browser-based games definitely have an advantage at is the fact that it's trivial to release patches.

 

[laclongquan]

I just discovered the treasure trove of player experiences in playing Prince of Qin just disappear from the Net. Even the web archives only save the tittle, not the content. Dont tell me there's nothing ever lost irretriveably on Net.

 

[Cynic]

I just discovered the treasure trove of player experiences in playing Prince of Qin just disappear from the Net. Even the web archives only save the tittle, not the content. Dont tell me there's nothing ever lost irretriveably on Net.

Of course things can crash, servers can go down, but any developer worth anything has multiple back ups and version control on everything so honestly, the disappearing is the fault of morons, not the Internet itself.

 

[Cynic]

http://www.geocities.com

Ok so if the game you are playing is served from some shitty managed hosting platform from the 90s, you might be in trouble.

Again, any serious developer would have their own server and database, and both manage and regularly back up these things.

 

[laclongquan]

the forum of the Sengoku rance translation also goes with dodo.

Ditto the ufo-scene site for ufo moddings.

 

[Cynic]

the forum of the Sengoku rance translation also goes with dodo.

Ditto the ufo-scene site for ufo moddings.

Shit happens. If something on the Internet "disappears" it's entirely the fault of someone not backing up things. That's really all there is to it.

 

[V_K]

Yeah, that's completely different from offline, where you can just take your dusty floppy disk from the shelf and it will effortlessly run on any modern system.

 

[Visbhume]

I would play such a game. I too was impressed with Heroine Dusk.

I think the game being online in a server beyond your control could open interesting possibilities for single player CRPGs. Permadeath could be enforced and savescumming could be forbidden, or severely limited.

Savegames could be "historical" and encapsulate all the events that happened up to a given point. You could share them if you wish, if only for bragging purposes. There could be a searchable repository of these "histories". They would be like "Let´s Plays" but generated with support from the game engine. Stuff like that.

 

[Ranselknulf]

What would the purpose of a single player online rpg be?

Why host it at all when the person could play it on their computer?

The only thing I could think of is the person hosting wants to introduce an item shop of some sort to "improve" the single player game (wtf?) or make annoying pop ups to remind you to buy the latest DLC. A third option would be to have high score tracking system, but you're a fag if you care about getting the biggest numbers in a single player rpg.

Not to say a pure single player rpg couldn't be hosted online, but I seriously doubt it would ever come into existence. The logical purpose of going through the extra hassle of hosting it online would be to make money at some where in the games delivery because hosting costs money. There might be a philanthropist who decides to host a game online for free, but I've only seen that with emulated mmo's and they still usually end up making enough donations to keep their servers up without out of pocket costs.

Single player online is going to be a money scheme of some sort. Mark my words.

 

[Dickie]

What would the purpose of a single player online rpg be?

Well, I think the main appeal of making browser-based games or apps is that they work on all sorts of devices.

 

[Grunker]

If someone makes a great RPG I'll play it on a browser, iphone or chip buried two inches within my brain.

 

[Ranselknulf]

What would the purpose of a single player online rpg be?

Well, I think the main appeal of making browser-based games or apps is that they work on all sorts of devices.

I guess I could see that. I don't really do the mobile gaming thing because (my rationale here) if I'm out doing something I don't want to be distracted by my phone or other internet nonsense. I can wait until I get home to play games. I guess if you have a lot of down time waiting at the train station or like goofing off at work it might make sense.

Although, I guess there could exist people who don't even buy laptops or desktops anymore. It'd seem like a hassle to play exclusively on a mobile device though.

 

[Severian Silk]

morons, not the Internet itself

Does. Not. Compute.

 

[Cynic]

hosting costs money.

I don't think you realise that the cost is incredibly low to the point of being negligible in this discussion.

 

[Excidium]

Not sure why you'd make it run on a browser.