Will HTML5 games save my business?

[@DeputyChiefWhip]

What i like about you and your channel is you say it how it is. You dont do a thomas brush and sell it. You bring your audience down to earth, where the real value is!

[@orangepixelgames]

Must be my Dutch nature taking over, I don't like the 'fake' way of saying it's all 'easy' and selling a dream 🙃

[@DeavtheDev]

Yeah thomas brush is a stain on the game dev community. Hes so fake. Hes a snake oil salesman. He sells courses for $200-$500 to teach you how to "make money with gamedev" which is no better than those scumbags selling get rich courses.

[@SomeRando.]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!! 20years is a massive achievement.

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks! It is a massive achievement I guess 😁

[@Cellcrowd]

The first thing i learned (the hard way) is to put your pride aside and clone games that are currently popular. In the competitive market of casual games you won't sell original ideas without a huge advertising budget. As a small indie, improve on proven success.

[@ghostwarrior79ghost10]

Noted

[@orangepixelgames]

True, clone ideas or (re)build what you already know.. it feels simple and maybe a bit like cheating.. but it doesn't have to be bad, especially not for business!

[@patocarrasco]

​@@orangepixelgames It's not a hard rule, but I use this 70/20/10 formula: 70% proven design or something that other games are doing well, 20% something that you can improve, and 10% innovation or something new to the genre.

[@orangepixelgames]

Sounds very good, and I usually strive to do the same... Except for Regulator City where it was more 20% awesome idea, and 80% unknown 🙃

[@thygrrr]

Been a fan of your games as s fellow developer ever since the J2ME days. Happy to see you have an interesting strategic outlook for your venerable indie label.

[@orangepixelgames]

Cool to see some J2ME days developers pop up on here 😜

[@ManyFishGames]

I've been seeing a resurge myself in browser games. Like you said with the discord game and also youtube games seems like a viable revenue stream. Congrats on 20 years!

[@orangepixelgames]

Oh right KZbin games is also a thing! Yeah it's an interesting are right now

[@migcreatesgames2622]

I have tons of web based games that I have as prototypes small made quick that I would like include some sort of ads on as well. It a good idea and I wish you the best

[@orangepixelgames]

What's holding you from doing stuff with those games? Not finished enough to release or ?

[@migcreatesgames2622]

@@orangepixelgames I applied a few of those games with Pico, but no response yet. They are playable on itchio as I often challenge myself to make 15 day games. I have made longer versions as well of games that do well. I tried Kickstarter, but bo luck

[@migcreatesgames2622]

@@orangepixelgames i have them available to play on itchio. I applied to Pico as well for a few games, but no response. My goal is to use some of the popular games for longer projects

[@chadzulu4328]

I'm excited for you dawg! Good stuff. It's good to see your channel growing too.

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks, growing slowly, but growing!

[@grasslandgraphics]

Congratulations on 20 years! My experience releasing a few web games: one game I released actually got a lot of plays after the initial release on the platform I released it on (I saw like 3000 in the first few days which for me was awesome!), but because I didn't plan ad placement very well, those plays didn't translate well into much revenue share.

[@orangepixelgames]

That's my biggest obstacle, finding how to monetize with proper ad placement. Not being to aggressive with those, but still enough to actually make it a business model

[@grasslandgraphics]

@@orangepixelgames I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this! I would also love to hear which game portals / publishers you feel are the best, I know you kind of touched on this but would just love to hear more.

[@RealPeoplePerson]

Monkey Mart on Poki have had good results with their ad placement. In the game you walk around a shop completing tasks. There's a spot in the shop where a powerup/booster spawns every other minute. To activate it, you walk up to it and click to watch an ad. It's all up to the player if and when they do it - if you don't feel like watching any ad, it just sits there without bothering you or hurting the experience. It reminds me of how players experienced the monetization in Candy Crush Saga compared to Clash of Clans. In Clash players saw the "speed up timers" IAPs as helpful and relatively benign. In Candy on the other hand, they felt like the game was trying to grind them down until they bought the "you're about to lose, buy a few more moves" IAP; they experienced it as a battle between the player and the game, where buying the IAP is conceding defeat.

[@ACBros_06]

I used to play gunslugs years ago. Nice game. Such games inspired me to be a game dev full time. best luck

[@orangepixelgames]

Gunslugs has such a nice history for so many people :) pretty cool !

[@CallousCoder]

I actually wrote 1 tiny shmup 2D game as a PoC in Zig with RayLib and compiled it to WASM and one biggish game (a remake of Stone Age puzzle game from 1993) in Godot and compiled it to WASM, and I think web games are a great platform especially when you don’t need to do JavaScript and front end crap. I did on this channel a strategy game in React to learn React and I’m not a fan. But Godot, RayLib and what else can effortless compile to wasm is definitely a great thing.

[@DeavtheDev]

What does PoC mean?

[@MrXlee1967]

Did you make any money? Is money mainly made from adds?

[@CallousCoder]

@@DeavtheDev Proof of Concept. I wanted to see if RayLib was a nice lightweight wrapper around OpenGL and see if zig could indeed compile to wasm.

[@CallousCoder]

@@MrXlee1967 I have not yet monetized Stone Age which is the bigger project that I want to exploit but I doesn’t need to talk to the rights holder. Sure it’s a game from 1992 and it’s polished up but I’m strictly not the rights holder. I did the port to the ST back in 1992 and loved the game.

[@CallousCoder]

@@MrXlee1967 I actually checked in on this video to see monetizing strategies but he’s not there yet. I hope to learn as I want to do several revamps of 90s puzzel games.

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

good to see you excited. have you ever thought about making a beat em up in the vein of double dragon ?

[@orangepixelgames]

So so so many times! Still not sure how to go about it tho.. never made such a game 😅

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

@@orangepixelgames I started but stopped because you have to animate so much, many characters reacting , falling , punching etc. but really love beat em ups

[@orangepixelgames]

🤔 yes but I think there are some 80s and 90s beat em ups that did it with fewer animations. Maybe someday I'll try one..

[@vidarlystadjohansen9829]

@@orangepixelgames I thought it would be cool to see your take on it, bet you would do something new and interesting with it. I have played most of the beat em ups there are. hard to not make them too monotonous. needs random elements and powerups etc

[@KoN312]

Hey pascal. Really like how you think about getting the things done, that you need to achieve. I also think that some 'markets' shouldn't be neglected. I play a lot of android games for example for years i do.. you've made yourself a name there and the ppl know you deliever quality and no heartless sh*t only to gain money. Its good to make some gems work on other platforms because a lot of ppl will love it👍 keep up your good work and have a nice day!✌️👍

[@orangepixelgames]

Sadly then mobile game business, especially for premium games which I like to make, has gotten worse over time. And now with a site like Toucharcade closing down, it will be even harder letting people know about new releases... I'll still release there, but business wise it's becoming a lesser platform at the moment (these things can change overtime tho, so let's hope it will improve again 🤞)

[@jorava8768]

I have been considering this, too. I love making small games with unique ideas. I hope this works out for you!

[@orangepixelgames]

We'll find out hopefully soon!

[@simonairey8982]

I love some of your older games, and always admired you took the effort to add a control scheme for Xperia play. In a previous video you said that it is hard to release arcade style games like those old ones, I think they would translate well to web based games. What I would love to see is a game that combines elements from your older games. It would be a lot of work but really fun to play. You could have side scrolling shooter levels (neotoria). Where you are flying to a planet when you arrive you could have space grunts style dungeons, with certain challenge rooms. You might need to mine for treasure and it could be a drill level like one of your previous games. There could be a heist. You had the game where you would collect loot on a single screen while avoiding the enemies. A lot of your older games were great fun and perfect for handhelds as they could be played in short bursts. Your art style is unique and looks great. I would love to see a way for those older style games to be appreciated by a new audience. Meganoid 2 is one of my favourites as that Indiana Jones style theme looked amazing. Keep up the excellent work Pascal. I love yours games and your videos.

[@orangepixelgames]

That idea doesn't sound 'small' 😁 and I loved the Xperia play!

[@simonairey8982]

Yes, definitely small or easy to do just a selfish wish of mind. Im not sure what the code for those old games was like. If it is easy to port them to the web based platform. I think they would be a good fit.

[@devratgames]

Just want to say you are my biggest inspiration for my own game dev channel and development. Happy anniversary!

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks! Good luck with your own dev channel, just keep uploading content!

[@RaonakDM]

After experiencing how difficult it is to keep an app on the mobile app stores (API updates require games to be updated or they get removed from the stores :( ). I came to the same conclusion. The thing I'm having trouble with is how to monetise properly.

[@orangepixelgames]

That problem is for all developers on every platform. Monetizing games can be done in many ways, but none of them seem easy 😅

[@BrettKromkamp]

Carry on rambling. Love it ☺

[@orangepixelgames]

😁

[@hambonetunes1988]

I have been game deving on/off for years, the biggest thing that has turned me off is just how long it takes, really looking forward to see how successful you are with much smaller projects ...might get me hyped to try to actually finish something (a super small project). Please share all the skinny, glad you are super excited! Was GOP a success? I picked it up and played it some, thought it was quite enjoyable!

[@orangepixelgames]

Creating games can certainly take time! GOP did good, but could be better. It will be profitable and I thoroughly enjoy the game myself, so in those regards it's a success

[@iainkey5102]

Great to see you excited again :D Good luck with your testing, will be interesting to see if you think it's viable

[@orangepixelgames]

Stay tuned for more! 😁

[@certilremy]

Fun fact, I always get the videos every weeks for almost 3 months but I didn't realized that I never subscribed to the Chanel. I did it today, good work, I love your contents.

[@orangepixelgames]

Glad you finally subscribed! 😜

[@js-craftacademy6740]

best of luck Pascal :) not a game dev, but I love your content.

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks, and glad the content still entertains non game devs! That was the original plan with the channel 😅

[@js-craftacademy6740]

@@orangepixelgames For me your channel is like an indie hackers' reality show for game dev :) And a very realistic take on business

[@Zizaco]

I'm very curious about how it goes! Thank you for he video. I'm curious as to why you are planning to build it from scratch. You could build a wrapper around the phaser (like your java engine is built around libGDX), something that you can replace if needed, but it would at least be a shortcut. No? Also, are you planning to go with JS or TS? BTW: I'm enjoying HoL: gauntlet of power on my Steamdeck! It rocks

[@orangepixelgames]

A wrapper around an engine doesn't sound very optimized. And as powerful and useful browsers and JavaScript have become, it's still important to keep things optimized in my opinion. (And I like to tinker with it, learn a lot about modern JS that way, and will know what's going on inside my games 😜)

[@MikeHart66]

Just being curious, why getting sidetracked by working on the html5 games right now instead of getting RC out and then getting into the HTML5 side of things. What advantage do you see in this workflow?

[@orangepixelgames]

Main reason was that I was focussing on RC for the last 4 months pretty much day in day out 😅 I needed a tiny break from it! Next week I'll be back on it with fresh eyes and ready for the final stretch. It's also nearing completion! So it's in a good place. And other reason was having the basics for web games ready to go when I'm done with RC in a few months and hopefully can dive straight into making a game 🤞. I always have my next project already 'going' when I wrap up the previous one. So I avoid the weird state where you finished something and need to come up with the next thing.. that often leads to procrastinating 😁

[@MikeHart66]

@@orangepixelgames Thanks for the inside. "So I avoid the weird state where...." that is actually a very great reason to do it that way.

[@luotigames]

My mobile games years ago did have a very short tail, they died like in a month. Web games is something I would like to try, but I remember uploading one to one site, but did never got a response why it was rejected. Btw my upcoming game has a whack a mole minigame in it :D

[@orangepixelgames]

My whack a mole idea was originally a joke, but in my head I have turned it into an interesting space critter smashing arena game like idea 😅 perhaps I'll actually make it into a game!

[@florianlutze9068]

Aren't you using LibGdx? Isn't there a built-int web-port in that framework? So basically no need to rebuilt the games in JS

[@orangepixelgames]

That web export never worked for me, and also doesn't support all code.

[@Zendrael]

Chrono & Cash is one of my favorites!

[@orangepixelgames]

It's a fun one! 😁 Actually made a fresh new updated PC version a few years ago, but didn't do anything with it... 🤔

[@lucd9642]

You could compile your Java code in to Web Assembly and then run that in the browser. Then you won’t have to rewrite your games in another language.

[@orangepixelgames]

Don't know enough about we assembly, how well it's supported by browsers, and if it's really better then the JavaScript route 🤔 which I'm somewhat more familiar with

[@mandisaw]

@@orangepixelgames WebAssembly is well-supported by major / modern browsers, but I don't know if you could write & maintain that translation layer yourself. Has to be constantly updated to reflect OS, browser, version changes :( Also not necessarily a lot of overlap between those up-to-date browsers with the regions & users who are big on web-games - people & places without smartphones, basically.

[@orangepixelgames]

I'll wait for smarter people (or those with more time) to solve something on that front first. Think libgdx was looking at TeaVM which can do webassembly (I vaguely remember reading that) For now, I love digging into JS 😁

[@gruntaxeman3740]

@@orangepixelgames It didn't work on Internet Explorer 11 but that has been long time dead and buried. Also It doesn't have garbage collector and it is much faster so it fits better for games. It is like writing games to SDL.

[@Artbyzig]

Great content as always man. I wonder if I should switch to HTML as well... I do libgdx, but I always wonder about the potential market I am missing when you have to download the game.

[@orangepixelgames]

Downloadable games and web games are just two different creatures for sure.

[@a6gittiworld]

Yeah, congratulations ✌🏼️🥳

[@orangepixelgames]

🥳

[@MysticRiverGames]

I should try to use web for quick demos too!, but I do not have enough time to try it yet, haven been thinking about that for over a year and still no time!

[@orangepixelgames]

I figured for me it was interesting enough to actually make time available for it.. but we'll see !

[@jamesgphillips91]

honestly curious as to what your thoughts on bevy are. Id rather interact with html canvas through it than raw dog it or try to build a game engine ontop of three.js or babylon

[@orangepixelgames]

No thoughts on bevy,because I never heard of it until just now 😁 but I like writing code and doing things in the oldschool way.. to each their own!

[@jamesgphillips91]

@@orangepixelgames ohh dude you should check it out for sure then. It’s a very barebones game engine that really just exposes an ecs to you. Your in your text editor, and have the option to use crates to get some nice hot reloading with blender. It’s much more a developers game engine than unreal or unity

[@jamesgphillips91]

@@orangepixelgames also to boot you can use tauri and then you’d have your web game and mobile app in one repo

[@mikesw3b]

Libgdx can export html games. I remember it was an annoying process getting all the errors fixed when I tried it some years ago... not sure if it has improved. GWT might not be reliable anymore.

[@orangepixelgames]

Never, ever, got that to work. So I gave up on it ever being useful for me 😁

[@TravisBerthelot]

I added web for my games back in 2011 using GWT. I don't have the integration with the popular web game sites. That seems to be the biggest hold back for me on web. I use my own Java based project like you. However, I don't deploy to Android with native libraries and I still support J2ME. My native builds just use a toy VM (Avian), but I don't need that for Android or J2ME.

[@orangepixelgames]

Still support J2ME ? That's pretty cool! 😎

[@TravisBerthelot]

@@orangepixelgames Yes forever.

[@orangepixelgames]

Is there still a market for it? Outside of emulator's

[@TravisBerthelot]

@@orangepixelgames Not directly. I just use it because it is simple and easy to port, and nothing new really requires me to move away from it.

[@TravisBerthelot]

@@orangepixelgames Oddly the same thing goes for my J2SE support as well. I don't really deploy J2SE for games either. Windows is Avian, HTML5 is GWT, Android is Java. So my J2ME and J2SE support are just internal for my own desire to keep with those 2 platforms.

[@gameboardgames]

I wish Unity had more resources to develop their WebGPU module. That'd change everything and really finally launch Web3 in a real big way. But no, they had to buy a whole bunch of overpriced companies and sink their stock through bad management instead. If you have no idea what WebGPU is: basically it's the 15-years more advanced new version of WebGL. You could make a graphic intensive game like a FPS in something like Unity's engine, and then be able to play it via the web. It's open standard tech so no company wants to spend much resources developing it. But it'd revolutionize web gaming. Currently there are no good engines or tools to make WebGPU games.

[@orangepixelgames]

I think Unity announced something just this week 🤔 in combination with crazy games. Got mentioned on my discord

[@gameboardgames]

@@orangepixelgames oh thanks! Missed that, will check out

[@HeiseSays]

Great idea

[@orangepixelgames]

Hope so!

[@DeavtheDev]

What game engine do you use?

[@orangepixelgames]

My own framework/engine

[@Tbjbu2]

cool I like that we are thinking about these stuff

[@orangepixelgames]

💪

[@MxzStudio]

Keep up the good work :)

[@orangepixelgames]

💪

[@TerrySznober]

Another exciting thing you can do when your HTML5 game is finished is wrap it in Electron and release it for PC, Mac, and Linux on Steam, Epic Games Store, etc. That's what I plan on doing!

[@orangepixelgames]

I know about it, not sure how 'solid' it works when releasing such a wrapped game o ln Steam. Don't think it can do Steam API stuff like achievements, cloud saves, etc?

[@ImCreativePolymath]

Hallo Pascal, in welke stad bent u?

[@orangepixelgames]

Hoezo? :)

[@ImCreativePolymath]

​@@orangepixelgames Iedereen is in Amsterdam en zo kan ik niet in persoon praten.

[@stewartdahamman]

Amazing - you are my favourite amber fish

[@orangepixelgames]

That's a positive thing..right? 🐠

[@stewartdahamman]

@@orangepixelgames Sorry, my English isn't so always good. I mean you like the amber fish as we call it in Asia, you move smoothly and good fortune follows you. Your eyes are looks like the amber fish also. You are a lucky person. I see amber fish is called Goldfish in the Holland for English.

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks for the compliment 😀

[@RealPeoplePerson]

Do you intend to significantly customize your games for each platform or come up with a product/monetization/promotion design that fits Steam, iOS/Android and Poki with only minor tweaks? Customization will of course take more time, but it has the potential to make the games perform better. I'm leaning towards the latter; create a paid game on Steam with a free demo, create a free game on mobile with the demo content and an IAP to unlock the full game, and a web game where in-game item prices are higher but you can watch an ad after each level to double the gold you collected. Hopefully this will keep complexity in check. A representative from Poki said in a talk at Unfolding Gamedev that you may cross-promo to Steam from your Poki game. If that's really true, I'm thinking Poki could serve as a decent platform for playtesting before release (like you might use Itch now), and a platform for both promotion and some ad revenue after release.

[@orangepixelgames]

I think I'd try to create 'lite' games for web specifically. Maybe highlighting a small feature from the PC versions and build a small game around those mechanics and using the same graphics.

[@dancingdoormanable]

Sounds like a plan. I wouldn't create my own framework though. I've just seen a video of a Godot platform game being exported and run in a web page. Seemed to work fine and creating it in Godot seemed quite fast. Unsurprising as the engine packs quite a bit of functionality. Slinging web games together with a tool like Godot has another advantage in that it gives experience in the Godot engine. I know learning a new engine isn't fun for you and creating a framework is, but.... if you like creating video's there is a demand for instruction, experience and critique video's. It would be nice to see somebody with actual gamedev experience use Godot for a tiny web game. I feel like the video's that are there lack the pro approach, both in video quality and business.

[@RichardDavey]

You won't see 'tiny' web games made in Godot because its release build export is still massive (20MB+) and only available in Godot 3 (you can't use C# in Godot 4 HTML5 yet). Of course, this comment will age as badly as a P Diddy video and it will only be a matter of time before they resolve this. As it stands today, though, it's not a great option for **tiny** web games. KZbin Playables, for example, have hard-capped bundle size limits they simply won't fit in, so no use for Pascal here. Yet.

[@orangepixelgames]

Godot really isn't my thing. And these html games only need a text editor and a browser, so I might so some videos on the technical side of those things in the future! (But I'm not a teacher yet, I still like to think I'm an actual game dev 😜)

[@digitalhokum]

Good luck!

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks!

[@sergiorodrigoroyo5079]

JavaScript changes quite a bit, but so does Java and C#. I left Java at 1.8 and now it's quite different. Same with C#, I was using 5.0 and now at 9.0 it's quite different, let alone when I upgrade to 12.0. I would even say that JavaScript hasn't really changed that much in the last 7 years, at least I haven't noticed when using it professionally. There are lots of new features planned but no one really uses them out there as they aren't very well supported yet. Not fighting though ;) JavaScript has a "changes fast" reputation and it's changed a lot since you wrote those games 10 years ago. Anyway, TypeScript might be your friend, it improves certain aspects quite a bit.

[@orangepixelgames]

Have yet to look at Typescript in all these years.. 🤔 maybe I'll try that on another week of web game adventuring!

[@lucasfisher3d]

You should setup a Ko-Fi account. I bet there are more than a few people who have found your videos incredibly beneficial for their game dev journey and would be happy to send a couple bucks your way (myself included).

[@orangepixelgames]

Best way to support me is buy one of my many games on a platform of your choice, and leave a good review where possible 😎 and in return you even get a fun game!

[@gfddgitgud3848]

Of course.

[@Simon-ik1kb]

I'm not a developer, but I wonder how difficult it is to protect your game's source code from being stolen if it's a web-based game?

[@antonlevkovsky1667]

If you go the WebAssembly route (the absolute majority of browsers support it now), the task to reverse engineer the code will be comparable with with that of disassembling a native binary. You can also obfuscate javascript.

[@burdenedbyhope]

@@antonlevkovsky1667you can uglify your code, it will be as easy to read as assembly. Remember to not include source map in the build and you will be fine. For the assets, there are different techniques also.

[@Simon-ik1kb]

@@antonlevkovsky1667 Thank you for the quick answer. I did not know about these things. I have now started researching them. As I understand, I can use Godot to build web games by exporting to a WebAssembly build, and I don't have to worry as much about people taking my source code, correct?

[@Zodiacman16]

It’s not possible to 100% prevent it, but you can make it harder with techniques like site locking. Some people will also wrap your web game in a web view and publish to Google Play.

[@mandisaw]

Most web-games are ad-monetized. So they aren't really trying to disassemble the source, or reverse-engineer anything - they just take your game wholesale and intercept the calls to ad networks with their own. Even if they can't do that, they can just display your game wrapped in their own "chrome", including tons of their own ads.

[@DailyPaily]

browser games are resurging ? cool

[@orangepixelgames]

Maybe browser games never left? 🤔😏

[@DailyPaily]

@@orangepixelgames ArmorGames,Kongregate, etc are shadows of the golden flash games era.

[@PhantomHarlock78]

Flash was an amazing platform for games. Too bad had died.

[@orangepixelgames]

Never got into that, but it did have some cool games!

[@sylvainschellenberger]

Lots of ideas and leads to explore here, good luck with it. I would advocate you to reconsider using a framework. Phaser got recently industry funding which lead to hiring additionnal developers. Its creator, Richard Davey, has been tinkering with rendering pixels on screen and browser performance for two decades and is very well aware of where the technology is going (hello WebGPU!). If your web games division become a serious one, this could be some weight lifted off your shoulder.

[@orangepixelgames]

I just like my own work methods, same for my PC releases. But I know Richard 😁 and all of the Phaser activities, so who knows, someday!

[@syncretictakeout2842]

I think that releasing more games on the Atari VCS will save your business!

[@orangepixelgames]

Doubtful with such a tiny market 😁 but games are coming at some point. Gauntlet of Power Switch (and VCS) are the playable and in testing phase

[@syncretictakeout2842]

@@orangepixelgames I know, I'm just trying to talk you into more VCS games 😆

[@orangepixelgames]

It's right now mostly UpTo SeriousLion porting those remaining games 😜

[@TheAndrejP]

Ho3❤doyu tei sbout wezm

[@TheAndrejP]

Ceretuithough wsbgsmes novedsysvw4s most li donr in unit8 and god godot

[@krimpfugly]

This video was a waste of time

[@orangepixelgames]

Thanks for letting me know! 🙃

[@Evan842Complex]

We don’t use Javascript anymore. Typescript looms

[@orangepixelgames]

I'm fine on the JavaScript side of things for now 😁

[@MxzStudio]

11:21 good idea !

[@rasterop1]

Libgdx + gwt

[@orangepixelgames]

Never worked for me