In terms of graphics quality, web-based games will catch up to consoles by 2013: This bold prediction from Facebook game platform developer Cory Ondrejka, formerly CTO of Linden Lab and co-creator of Second Life. He made this forecast late yesterday at the Emerging Technologies Review panel at the Game Developers Conference, where I'm doing some writing. Cory was on the panel to talk about JSGameBench, an open source game development platform for HTML5 that he's currently developing for Facebook. After the talk he explained his thinking to me more:
By "catch up", he means that by 2013, web-based game graphics will be a year or two behind console-based graphics, as opposed to 10-20 years, where they are now. His reasoning is that Javascript can already get to 50% speed of C code (which runs on most console games), even if there's ultimately a 3X performance penalty. At that range, he argued, web-based game deployment is an appealing option for developers who might otherwise develop for consoles.
But does that mean Second Life will be able to run on the web by 2013? At that question, Cory smiled after a long deep sigh.
"Second Life has a particular set of rendering challenges," as he put it, explaining that computation from servers (as SL runs) is costly, resource-wise. That in mind, he speculated that running Second Life on the web will probably not be feasible with the existing SL client -- however, he continued, if the client was rewritten to run with Web GL, it could very well be feasible.
So there you go. More from Cory in upcoming articles I'll be writing this month.
I think Cory's a bit over-optimistic. The goal is achievable, but not in two years.
That said, we're nearing a crossroads moment. Facebook would like to be THE hub for virtual worlds and online games. And they will be, by default, unless the industry/community can invent a better alternative.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Wednesday, March 02, 2011 at 07:16 AM
He is indeed over-optimistic I think. Technology moves fast and computers are getting better and better but only very few actually keep up with the speed and always get the newest computers.
The computers people have and use only change every few years and even fewer are 'gaming' machienes capable of displaying advanced graphics.
One of the appeal of Second Life for me is actully right in the fact that it is not the top and best when it comes to the visual expereince. It would be nicer if it would of course, but through this, it is playable on a wide range of computers (even when there are some known issues with laptops). So what ever the future will bring, the developers will only succeed if they dont have only the very top performence computers in mind and find and maintain a blance between brilliant visuals and accesability.
Running SL on the web might actually help in this. It all depends on how it is going to be done and from what it is visible right now, the best apporach might be to use the web-client as the first-look entry door for new residents before they decide if being in a virtual world is fun for them or not. And maybe beyond that when using hand-held devices ... but I have my doubts that this will happen as fast he predicts.
Posted by: Rin Tae | Wednesday, March 02, 2011 at 09:38 AM
He's WAY too optimistic. There's no web browser based game out there now than can match the PS2, let alone the PS3.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan | Wednesday, March 02, 2011 at 02:19 PM
Javascript can get to 50% of C code speed? Hilarious. Java maybe. Javascript can't get to 5% of C code speed.
Posted by: Mark C | Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 04:54 PM
@ Mark C "Javascript can't get to 5% of C code speed."
Well, your sad, constrained in the square thinking is bearing out to be as retarded at a retard.
Already Google & Chrome is implementing Javascript JIT compilers to byte code.
Entirely predictable except for those of low wits.
Posted by: Breen Whitman | Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 12:33 AM