The web as a gaming platform

• Expensive, platforms get left out
• Moving to a new platform requires new skills, new tech
• Authors are at the mercy of app stores
• 2014 and I still need to install games before I can try them out?

Do I want to make a game for tablets, or do I want to make a game for {Some platform} (Android, ipad, ...)

Wrong ideas...

• "The web is not meant for making games, JS is slow"
• "I have invested in technologies that are not written in JS"
• "I need to access the hardware (accelerometer, camera, etc.)"

The Web was originally a way to present static information

The web became more dynamic, and people started building online applications and services

• The architecture of modern browsers has changed a lot
• Mozilla research expereiements with a new browse technology (Servo)

• Crazy amount of engineering effort goes into JS performance
• JS lets you do a lot of things...
  • Some of which are slow
  • Some of which are easy to optimize

• A subset of JS that can be reliably and efficiently optimized
• Compatible with every browsers since it is JS
• Google Chrome and Opera followed us (thanks guys!)

• Why not a bytecode spec like, say, LLVM?
  • LLVM is huge
  • LLVM's bytecode VM ~> 20 Mo!
  • Not designed with security in mind
  • JS being higher level: implementation is not constrained by the bytecode spec -> more freedom for optimization
• What does byte code give us anyway?

• Emscripten: LLVM IR → JS
• Works great with C++
• Generates very efficient code (asm.js)
• Performance ~1.5x native performance
• Very dense representation
• There's also Mandreel and Duetto

• Low level access to the GPU
• Security
• Evolves along with the OpenGL ES spec

• Pretty much covers all the needs of the game industry

• WebTelephony
• WebSMS
• Vibration
• Screen orientation
• Power management
• Battery status
• Geolocation
• WiFi information
• Device storage
• Contacts
• Mouse lock
• WebBluetooh
• Network information
• Web activities
• Push notifications
• Permissions
• WebFM
• WebPayment
• Ambiant light sensor
• Proximity sensor
• Raw sockets
• Camera
• Background services
• Data store
• ...

• asm.js: http://asmjs.org
• Emspcripten: https://github.com/kripken/emscripten
• Mozilla developper network https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US
• Servo https://github.com/mozilla/servo
• Goo engine (WebGL) http://www.gootechnologies.com
• Play Canvas (WebGL) https://playcanvas.com/
• Slides: nical.github.com/ngf-slides