My take on HTML5 promises…
After reading Mark van der Chijs’s last blog post about Trends in Online Games: Cross Platform Gaming I decided to write this post in regards to HTML5 and HTML5 promises especially in the gaming industry.
First of all I would like to make sure that we are all on the same line when we talk about HTML5.
In my perspective when we all refer to HTML5 we have to make sure that we are not seeing HTML5 just as a new programming language standard but as a KIT of standards that may include besides HTML5, Java Script, CSS3 and other solutions like Web GL Library.
This new web stack KIT that many refer to HTML5, promises to revolutionize the way we interact with the internet and its contents.
Ultimately the only application that we will all need on our devices in the future will be one browser and that’s it… no more app downloads, no more add-ons and applets… everything you will haver need will be available built in on your laptop browser, tablet browser or mobile browser.
This is a huge promise: Total Cross-Platform applications… just imagine… developers could write the code, put it live and it would work automagically in all devices.
Update downloads?! forget them… once a new feature is developed and is shipped by the developer it would be instantly accessible.
And just imagine the savings that companies could have by using the same code on all devices… that would be huge.
Unfortunately all this benefits are still only a promise, but a promise that is about to come true.
We can see developments on HTML5 almost every month and many companies have been developing HTML5 products such as TIMWE one of the pioneer companies that really wants to grasp all the potential that HTML5 has to offer and put it on the hands of its clients from end-costumers to other companies such as telcos all around the world.
But there have been and there will always be the skeptics… the companies that don’t believe in this promises and will resist until the last moment to understand that maybe this time the promise can be true… and in my opinion… will be true (maybe at that time we will not call it just HTML5).
From what I have been seeing many companies especially in the gaming industry are still very conservative on their approach to HTML5 technology… and they seem to be very attached to flash development and all the game engines and languages that they already know to develop with.
You know what… we have all seen this movie… remember flash gaming development on the early days? No one believed it… it looked horrible and limiting but then a decade has passed and when you look at your moom… she is spending at least 4 hours a day playing Zynga products (almost all of them flash based) on facebook!
This time though I believe that we won’t need to wait so much time… one good sign comes from Adobe the company responsible for Flash that seems to have rapidly understood that what they are good on is on building tools and as so they are already building tools that will enable HTML5 development.
So… just my last few words… HTML5 is in its beginning stages… there will be hurdles along the way… there is a learning curve to be made… but… the promises can eventually be fulfilled as the standards progress and for that reason the companies that position themselves to take advantage of this technology will be one step ahead of the competition.