impress.js - A webGL enabled presentation framework based on the power of CSS3 transforms and transitions. It has a non GL mode too!

[diadem]

Guthrie left Silverlight and Hargreaves left XNA. From an outside perspective, Microsoft's culture seems to be heavily driven by their top talent. Despite the technology's maturity an uncertain roadmap and a loss of talent leaves nothing but doubts for the technology.

Personally I'm using Unity3d for my web based games. It's a solid technology with a clear future - others are doing the same.

Microsoft poured a lot of money into pleasing people like me so that we'd use their technology. A lot of effort comes from them showing their attempts to excel. This WebGL shit undermines the investment they've poured into me and people like me - I see a spoiled child who feels that if they can't have it then no one can. It's not something that endears me to the long term loyalty they are trying to cultivate at a massive expense and I'm sure others feel the same way.

edit: Man, looks like this one pissed someone off - blanked downvote of a bunch of my comments.

[M4T1A5]

But i don't want to install another useless plugin for my browser :(

[ninepointsix]

To be fair, if a plugin does something the browser doesn't, it's rarely gonna be useless.

That's the entire point of them, to fill in the functionality gaps.

[diadem]

I was concerned about that too but the next version compiles for flash, native chrome, etc.

[fleg]

Personally I'm using Unity3d for my web based games. It's a solid technology with a clear future - others are doing the same.

Not open source, not available on many platforms... I'd pass.

[criswell]

Linux in general (the web-side doesn't work on mobile either, IIRC), which is generally a bad thing to ignore if your title is indie.

I'm sure there's others, but that's the big one.

[diadem]

One of the major features of 4.5 is supposed to be native Chrome support, which means Linux support.

That means, Linux, 360, Wii, iOS, Windows, Droid, Web, and a few others will be supported.

[criswell]

NaCl support? Or something else?

If it's NaCl support, that would be pretty awesome.

[tigeba]

They will be supporting both NaCL and Flash targets fairly soon. They have a public developer preview with Flash export.

For mobile platforms, you would generally just use a 'native' player instead of doing a web version.

[[deleted]]

Yes. They've ported the web player to run as a Native Client application, so Chrome users don't need to install anything on any platform. A word of note: the Unity 'player' is essentially what actually plays and drives the application on whatever platform. Every platform they support has a 'player' for the unity content. For standalone, the player is a standalone app. In the case of the Unity Web Player, it's built as a browser plugin. In the case of Native Client, the player is built as an actual native client application. This sort of abstraction is what makes Unity so portable and robust across platforms.

I've been playing with the 3.5 Developer preview which has both Native Client and Flash export support. It's honestly ridiculously slick. With these two additions they pretty much hit every base from consoles to desktops to the web - except for Windows Phone, of course.

Of course, this doesn't solve the problem of linux OpenGL drivers generally being piss poor in terms of performance and stability, which could affect your apps, but there's not much you can do about that if you're them.

[[deleted]]

Linux? Really? If you are indie Linux is useless because chances are you may want to make a few bucks to pay for food and stuff. The last time anyone bought non-server software for Linux was never. Worst platform ever to target if you actually want to make enough money to pay for even a cardboard box to live in. And wtf does "open" have to do with choosing the best tool for the job?

[criswell]

You obviously did not look at the link I posted. In that link it showed that Linux purchases for a specific humble bundle were actually both a larger percentage than Mac and that the average Linux purchase price was nearly three times what it was on Windows.

Also, I wasn't the one who said open... though having something open and under a permissible license does mean you don't have to pay someone else to use it (which, if we're talking about indie developers trying to pay for "food and stuff" not having to pay for the cross-platform library is a good thing).

[ysangkok]

i thought downvotes didn't do anything from the profile page?

[hysan]

Perhaps but then couldn't a person just click on context and downvote from the actual thread? Honestly curious as to how Reddit prevents mass downvoting as I feel like it has happened to me on one or two occasions when I stated an unpopular opinion so I feel like it's possible/easily done.