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Mozilla Labs To Promote Open Web Gaming 127

Posted by timothy from the good-idea-oh-lord dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla Labs has started an initiative to promote and develop gaming based on Open Web technologies. They write, 'We are excited to present to you the latest initiative from Mozilla Labs: Gaming. Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser. We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible. We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices.' To that end Mozilla Labs will launch Game On 2010, a game development competition, at the end of September."
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Mozilla Labs To Promote Open Web Gaming More

Mozilla Labs To Promote Open Web Gaming

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  • Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wampus ( 1932 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:11PM (#33505102)

    Maybe they should focus less on evangelization and more on making a browser that people want to use. Chrome is eating their lunch and they are content to push agendas instead of pushing code.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by odies ( 1869886 ) *

      Exactly. The battle against H.264 will end up costing them even more market share too.

      But what always seems weird to me in discussions about web games in here is the dissing of Facebook games. People complain how they are apparently timewasters, stupid and how people should be playing real games instead. Why? They are entertainment just as any other "real" game and people think they're fun to play. They might be more tailored towards casual people, but in fact in the 1990's and 2000's I remember reading dis

      • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples@gmai3.14159l.com minus pi> on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:26PM (#33505162) Homepage Journal

        and don't have a universal way for websites to embed them.

        There was iframe before there was iPod.

        Usually you also end up having to give out your full code

        To a greater extent than you end up giving your code to anyone with an SWF decompiler?

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by internettoughguy ( 1478741 )

          How the fuck is this modded troll? The GP seems closer to a troll.

          Of course Mozilla, as a member of the floss community is going to promote floss and open standards, as does Google, and even Apple to an extent.

        • You can decompile anything - and since adobe released the full spec for swf, it's hard to say it's less open

          However, that's not the point - the point is that html5 games are crappy in terms of performance compared to flash. It's the same as the current "manipulate the dom" model - a stupid hack that wouldn't have gone anywhere in a sane world.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Surt ( 22457 )

            That's depressing if true. The performance of flash is truly atrocious. At least with an open source stack you have the hope that a competent performance engineer will have a look at some point, with flash there's no hope, because such a person would have to agree to work for adobe.

            • You're free to improve on Adobe's implementation. They published the spec, they made the latest Flex source open-source so you can download it and bang away on it, you already have access to a complete reference implementation and there's nothing preventing you or anyone else from releasing a different player if you think you can do better.

              That's a lot better than html5, which is a work in progress and much fought over.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Surt ( 22457 )

                Yeahhh ... right. I'll invest my time writing a complete player implementation when I could contribute to open standards like html5. Let me know when they open-source the code to their flash player.

                • I'll invest my time writing a complete player implementation when I could contribute to

                  ...Gnash [gnu.org], the GNU SWF player.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Exactly. The battle against H.264 will end up costing them even more market share too.

        What battle? Open video is here to stay and it's usage is growing every day. Look:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLPPlRDOZx0 [youtube.com]

        You can watch that video in WebM natively in your browser with no plugins. Firefox will not only be just fine but will, in fact, be better than ever. So will Blackberry with the embrace of open audio on the Blackberry Torch 9800 and Curve 9300 [berryreview.com].

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by westlake ( 615356 )

          What battle? Open video is here to stay and it's usage is growing every day. Look.You can watch that video in WebM natively in your browser with no plugins.

          That video wasn't recorded or edited in WebM.

          It was trancoded by YouTube - and it will play just fine in your H.264 enabled browser.

      • I see a double standard in the way you praise Facebook gaming while "dissing" open source games. First, you say that we should consider Facebook games as just as good as "real" games. On the other hand, you also say that "the state of open source games is not good." But for every popular Facebook game (e.g. Farmville, Mafia Wars), I can download dozens of FOSS [wikipedia.org] games that are just as good or even better. So okay, maybe these FOSS games are just knockoffs of some commercial game. But aren't those Facebook gam

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by oljanx ( 1318801 )
        I have a suspicion that assuming "real" games cannot be delivered to a browser is a lot like saying 64k ought to be enough for anyone.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by whitehaint ( 1883260 )
        RE: Facebook games. It's because of Zynga, the company that keeps pushing you to blow your money on stupid crap, is a cause of much wasted space on peoples wall and in general are slightly unethical wankers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by cabraverde ( 648652 )

        The battle against H.264 will end up costing them even more market share too

        Don't be ridiculous. There are sound legal (not idealogical) reasons why Mozilla cannot implement H.264. Patent law, basically. For you to portray that as Mozilla fighting a 'battle' is downright disingenuous.

      • There are lot of knock offs in commercial gaming: just look at the zillion FPSes.

        However I found some really brave and innovative opensource games, like Tremolous and Globulation.

      • First of all, any of those technologies don't support games as good as Flash, and don't have a universal way for websites to embed them. Usually you also end up having to give out your full code, which just isn't going to work for companies and some people.

        I'm pretty sure that's how DirectX initially got started. I remember digging through bulk masses of Microsoft "free" code to find out how to do stuff early on. Little did I know then that most people probably just took and copy/pasted that code into their own game... but apparently that's how you "win" the game. You just have to write the program for some people and play ignorant when it comes to copyright.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arose ( 644256 )

      Maybe you should focuson what you want less and what Mozilla has always been doing. Not to mention that Chrome's "agenda" is very similar.

      Mozilla's agenda is "to open the web". Chrome's agenda is to "advance the web".

      • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JackieBrown ( 987087 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:32PM (#33505186)

        Chrome agenda is both. They are trying to "advance the web" by pushing "to open the web."

        There is a reason that they almost exclusively chose open protocols and standards for their products and browsers.

        They are large supporters of HTML 5, they pushed an open codec to give a viable alternative to h.264, they support imap and pop for gmail even though it allows you to bypass their adds, and they use jabber for their IM protocol instead of coming up with something new and closed like Mypsace, MS, Yahoo, Facebook, and Skype did.

        • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by mr_mischief ( 456295 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @12:04AM (#33505492) Journal

          Not just open protocols and open standards, but open source to implement them. That's a big deal, too. Everyone should see the benefits of open standards and open protocols. Open source is a subtler and less commonly chosen solution.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pr0nbot ( 313417 )

          Browser development is not Google's core business (advertising is). When push comes to shove, they will choose their business interests over your browser experience.

          Look at iTunes. It's just a media player. But Apple has no interest in making it the best possible media player - if they did, it would (to take a random example) allow syncing to as many portable players as possible, rather than just iPods. iTunes serves Apple's core business interests. I'd be really surprised if Chrome didn't go the same way.

          B

        • Google's "Chrome agenda" is to analyze and monetize your every move, to target users with adware. Their commitment to "open" is a tactic to lure the idealist tech mob into their corner (aka shut'em up by blinding them with feigned altruism), and lo and behold it's working. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world that de didn't exist" -Keyser Söze

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arose ( 644256 )

          They are trying to "advance the web" by pushing "to open the web."

          Right, their agenda doesn't exclude opening the web by any means, but it is not their agenda as such. The relative importance of the open web subgoal is currently unknown, as there haven't been many (any?) instances where they had to make a choice.

      • Re:Maybe... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by wampus ( 1932 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:34PM (#33505188)

        And here I thought Mozilla was after producing a quality web browser first and foremost. If I wanted to run something substandard that gives me an unwarranted sense of superiority because it is more open, there are Linux distros specifically for that.

        • If your company spends its time and capital developing all their new features open... it doesn't need to spend its time and capital defeating other standards. Betamax was technically superior to VHS.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by wampus ( 1932 )

            And? The Webkit/KHTML browsers are open. IE is open but not free. Using "open" as a selling point isn't very convincing when everyone is open and supports the same standards. Mozilla had a lot to do with progressing things to where they are now, but they run the risk of becoming irrelevant if they don't have a compelling product.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by maxume ( 22995 )

            People always say Betamax was better than VHS. Apparently it has better video quality, but it is ridiculous to pretend that recording time is not technically a feature (and VHS units had better recording times earlier).

          • Betamax was superior in many areas to VHS, but not in the one that counted. And that was tape length. I'll take driving a Chevy POS with 150HP over driving a Lexus with 20HP any day.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • NVIDIA and ATI create Linux graphics drivers which are closed sourced & therefore closed standards. Likewise Adobe with Flash

            Please stop spreading lies [adobe.com].

            SWF File Format Specification (Version 10)

            The SWF file format is available as an open specification to create products and technology that implement the specification. SWF 9 introduced the ActionScript(TM) 3.0 language and virtual machine. The SWF 10 specification expands text capabilities with support for bidirectional text and complex scripts wi

            • I'm haven't looked at the spec myself, but I remember hearing that the main Gnash developer didn't find anything in the spec particularly useful. They had everything in the released spec figured out before it was released, and Gnash still doesn't fully support SWF 9 and 10. So I'm led to believe that Adobe's documentation is pretty sparse.
              • Well, if you've already reverse-engineered the spec, you're not going to find much useful in it - except confirmation that you got it right. Unlike, say, Java, where you can only get the conformance test tools if you pay beaucoup buck$ and sign an NDA - hardly open source.

                They make plenty of other stuff available as well - you can download the Flex SDK source [adobe.com]

                The Flex SDK is one of several open-source projects in a Subversion repository hosted by Adobe. Subversion is an open-source revision control syste

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by arose ( 644256 )
          You were wrong.

    • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by BZ ( 40346 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:29PM (#33505178)

      1) Mozilla's goal is an open web, not "making a browser". Making a browser is a means to an end.

      2) I'm curious about your use of "instead" instead of "in addition to".

    • This looks like the effort of 1 FTE [wikipedia.org], tops. For all we know, it may even be a volunteer project. And remember, open source evangelism is one of the reasons Mozilla got its edge and re-opened the web after the onslaught of IE.

    • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zixaphir ( 845917 ) <Jinira AT hotmail DOT com> on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @10:50PM (#33505268) Homepage
      I can not for the life of me understand how anyone thinks that Firefox is a substandard browser. It does everything I want it to do and more, while allowing me to tweak anything in almost any way I please.

      • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

        by wampus ( 1932 )

        Substandard is a strong word, but Firefox seems like it has lost its focus. If they keep it up, you could be downloading Firefox Communicator with 3D blink tag support while the rest of the players pull the market in another direction.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Toonol ( 1057698 )
          Yeah, Firefox is still my browser of choice, but I'm no longer as evangelical as I used to be. Ever since the Awesomebar debacle... they've seemed to have an agenda that was distinct from simply making a good, open, browser. They've gotten all 'marketing' on us, trying to move us in certain directions, rather than helping us go where we want.

          • Whose "we"? All the people who wanted Firefox to support ActiveX and proprietary IE tags a few years back?

            Mozilla always steered in this direction. The difference is you agreed with it back then, and now you don't. You changed, not them.

      • I would use Firefox exclusively, except I keep experiencing a weird lag problem, sometimes bogging down to about 1 frame every ten seconds. With FF as the only program running, on a dual-core gaming laptop. So now I dual-wield browsers: Chrome for normal surfing, Firefox to read the scores of RSS feeds I follow. If Chrome had something on par with Live Bookmarks, I'd use it, but until then, two browsers works fine. Except for that one issue, FF is a superior browser to Chrome, in my opinion. Better UI, be

      • I can not for the life of me understand how anyone thinks that Firefox is a substandard browser.

        It's slow and has a clunky interface. Not to mention the "automatic updates" bullshit that seems a lot like Windows automatic updating. Have you actually tried using other browsers?

        • You may think it has a "clunky interface", but I personally like it much more than Chrome. Though, I end up using Chrome more often because of synchronized bookmarks and I use multiple machines. That doesn't mean I like the interface. I just find that it has one killer feature I would rather not live without.

          As far as interfaces: Firefox > Chrome > IE8 (I have not used Safari or Opera, but I imagine they are Chrome-like in going for form over function.) I do however combine all the Firefox toolbar

        • "Clunky interface"? Really? The browser is completely configurable. You can make it look like Chrome [mozilla.org], IE [mozilla.org], etc. Mine just has the tab bar, a black status bar and a white "command bar", skinned by Vimperator [vimperator.org].

          Clunky default interface, possibly, but who cares?

          • "Clunky interface"? Really? The browser is completely configurable. You can make it look like Chrome [mozilla.org], IE [mozilla.org], etc. Mine just has the tab bar, a black status bar and a white "command bar", skinned by Vimperator [vimperator.org].

            That's exactly how you get clunky interfaces. By not designing something simple and elegant, but by making it "skinnable." Skinning is the antithesis of good interface design. You give it away when you say it is about what it looks like, rather than how it functions. Interface design is more than skin-deep.

      • Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @03:59AM (#33506480)
        Because of stupid ass stunts like foisting the 'Awesome Bar' on us with no option to completely revert back to the old behaviour (no, setting maxRichResults to 0 DOES NOT WORK before someone chimes up with it - it gimps the AB somewhat but it does not revert it to pre-AB behaviour).

        Because of stupid ass stunts like turning on silent automatic updates by default when we bitched and shouted at Microsoft for doing exactly the same thing.

        Because of the way activity in one tab can still block the entire browser, such as showing an authentication prompt (no way to switch to another tab while that there box is showing).

        • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          1] Edit->Preferences->Privacy->Location Bar->When using the Location Bar, suggest: Nothing
          2] Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Update tab->uncheck automatic update boxes
          3] you have a minor point; I'd suggest dealing with the authentication box first

          Now get back to work, Dick.

          • 1. Let me repeat this slowly - I do not want a gimped Awesome Bar, I want the pre-Awesome Bar functionality. That suggestion does not give me that. Currently no suggestions put forward in any of the times I have mentioned this on any of the forums I have discussed it in has reverted the behaviour, its just broken the AB in some way or other.

            2. That should be unticked by default - that is my entire point. Having the option to untick it does not negate the fact that it shouldnt be ticked in the first p

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Zixaphir ( 845917 )
              I am sorry, having to opt into updates is a security hazard in and of itself.
              • I do find it interesting how the acceptance of automated actions here on slashdot changes from moment to moment - so opt-in automated updates is a security hazard, but opt-out automated updates are not a violation of privacy *and* a security hazard (you are allowing the automated update server install whatever it wishes on your system)?

                At the very very least, Firefox should give you the option to opt-in or out on first start up - it doesn't, and that imho is poor.
                • I can agree with having the option on install or first start up. It doesn't exceptionally bother me, though, as you've probably already noticed. The track record of the security of Mozilla's (or anyone's, for that matter) automated update servers versus the track record of browser security in general makes it a kinda moot point for me. As for a violation of privacy, I have no idea where that idea comes from and I wonder what information you'd be transferring to Mozilla besides what version of their softwar

        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Because of stupid ass stunts like foisting the 'Awesome Bar' on us with no option to completely revert back to the old behaviour (no, setting maxRichResults to 0 DOES NOT WORK before someone chimes up with it - it gimps the AB somewhat but it does not revert it to pre-AB behaviour).

          The Awesome Bar works well. It's striking how poorly the URL suggestion systems work in the location bars of other browsers. Do you have any specific examples of how the Awesome Bar is a "stupid ass stunt"?

          Because of stupid ass stunts like turning on silent automatic updates by default when we bitched and shouted at Microsoft for doing exactly the same thing.

          Turn it off in the options. Saying "it should be off by default" is pretty silly when it's so trivial to change the behaviour.

          Because of the way activity in one tab can still block the entire browser, such as showing an authentication prompt (no way to switch to another tab while that there box is showing).

          Firefox 4 is moving to a tab modal model. Your nerd rage seems to be a bit misdirected. Maybe it would be more productive to participate in the Firefox project rather than complain

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Exitar ( 809068 )

        Because it has still awful memory leaks.
        I use FF to play an "html only" MMO (mostly due to some helpful greasemonkey scripts not working on chrome) and after 1 hour of play it is using 1 Gb (and when it doesn't reach that limit it's because it crashed before)...

        • I hate to be under the mantle of "it works for me", but I have never seen firefox running over 500MB of memory, and I have to push it to get that high. I don't know what platform you're running on, I don't know if you have Microsoft's Silverlight plugin, I don't know what you're doing right or wrong, if anything, but I have never had any memory leak problems with firefox.
    • Some people would bitch if you hung 'em with a new rope.

      • I'd bitch about that whole "you hanging me" part. I don't really care about the rope, unless it's old enough to break. Then I'd care if you wanted to update it.

    • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 )

      You're just angry because their first project will be a simulation of the genocide of your people.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It seems to me that people like to play lots and lots and lots of games through web browsers. It would seem to me that promoting building web games in an open way goes along with "making a browser that people want to use".

  • There isn't much information on this.
    If my game isn't open source, do I still get to participate?
    I'm working in Flash.

    • Re:When I want to read the article, it isn't there (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DamienRBlack ( 1165691 ) on Tuesday September 07, 2010 @11:07PM (#33505334)
      I don't think it matters if you game is open source, just the tools you are using. I think using flash goes against their goal. There are plenty of flash games, they are trying to show games that use open platforms.

      • Re:When I want to read the article, it isn't there (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mr_mischief ( 456295 ) on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @12:20AM (#33505556) Journal

        Flash (the authoring tool) can now produce HTML 5 Canvas + JavaScript. Flash Player (the runtime) was produced for years because there was no other viable option for running the output of Flash.

        The output right now pretty much sucks, but they're working on it. The Flash IDE is pretty nice, so if people who have invested time in learning it can eventually put the output onto a standard web page without requiring a plugin on the client, I'm sure that's what most people will be smart enough to do.

        Also, Adobe has done a lot of work on standardizing the SWF format and even the save format used by the Flash IDE. Macromedia's versions used to just dump a memory image to disk to save a Flash project. Now you can save it as an XML file that can be worked on with a node editor, text editor, XSLT, or whatever. The SWF format targeted at the Flash Player is even published so that other players can be written to the exact spec, although HTML 5 + JavaScript will hopefully be the dominant output from the IDE soon.

        Now, I don't see the multi-hundred dollar Flash development system itself becoming open source any time soon. Adobe does have some tools they've put in the open realm, though. The quality of clones both open and closed of the IDE is improving. There are scores open source tools that output to SWF now that could also output to HTML 5. One programming language I've worked in (haXe [haxe.org] even targets SWF, JavaScript+HTML DOM, or the Neko VM selectably (but with different libraries and some differences in capability for each).

      • I don't think it matters if you game is open source, just the tools you are using. I think using flash goes against their goal. There are plenty of flash games, they are trying to show games that use open platforms.

        Flash is an open platform. [adobe.com]

        SWF File Format Specification (Version 10)

        The SWF file format is available as an open specification to create products and technology that implement the specification. SWF 9 introduced the ActionScript(TM) 3.0 language and virtual machine. The SWF 10 specification

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      I also wonder if there is something to win in their competition.
  • Did any of you ever enjoy Strat Con [deltatao.com]? It did not use much horse power and should work fine if ported to javascript/html5.

    • You might be Interested in an HTML5/SVG Version of freeciv: http://freeciv.net/ [freeciv.net] It's still in development but it is playable already. Best results in in Chrome, Safari or Firefox.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Khelder ( 34398 )

      I had StratCon for my Apple IIGS. Played it every evening between dinner and bedtime for months. Great game for its time.

  • There are no rules or at least guidelines for now. I'm curious whether or not Flash will be allowed. I guess not, since if they do, all the winners will be flash-based.

    Love it or hate it, Flash is the best way of writing a game for web (and in some cases mobiles), and with frameworks like AIR or tools like ZINC they can become standalone apps for Win/Mac/Linux - effectively meeting the promise made by Java 15 years ago.

    Two years ago a wrote a little chess game [sparkchess.com]. I initially considered Java and then Silverlig

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gaspyy ( 514539 )

      Just speaking of inconsistencies, the text links at the top of http://www.mozillalabs.com/gaming/ [mozillalabs.com] (which use a web font - Museo Sans) look different in Firefox and Chrome, while on https://gaming.mozillalabs.com/ [mozillalabs.com] the red circles with "Read blog", "Follow" are rendered incorrectly by Chrome (latest DEV build). What's not to love?

      • It's great that you can now inspect multimedia-rich web pages and see that all the elements that compose them (including scripts, fonts, sounds) are now first-class citizens, not distinguished from hyperlinks and images, instead of alien entities sealed in a square box in the middle of the page. You can now learn how they work by looking at the code, and even rip the resources you like, as you have always been able to do with text and images. I think HTML5 is a long overdue update to HTML that, in the long
        • Flash runs great on the Wii - without the need to write specifically to the Wii platform. Same app, same appearance.
    • Flash is still the way to go - and contrary to the fud being spread here, the flash standard is completely open [adobe.com] - anyone is free tom implement it.

      You also get cross-platform from one codebase for free. Windows, Linux, BSD, even the Wii! And since smartphones will increasingly be able to run flash, why bother with anything else (especially slow non-portable html5 games).

  • There's clearly an unfulfilled need for online browser fart aps!

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