Personally, I rather significantly doubt that people would play more AAA games if they could download them in their browser rather than Steam.
The best argument against javascript + WebGL is "javascript is bad." But the disadvantages of JS are sometimes strengths. The lack of static typing, for example, allows a REPL. It's true that with an average gamedev team, you'll get below average results. But with an above-average team, powerful languages tend to translate into stellar results.
Oh well, I guess I'll wait a few more years for browser vendors to implement some kind of concept of a webapp installation.
Uh? Languages with static typing can have REPLs. See: Scala, Haskell and more. I don't think that is what makes JS an option for game development, but rather its ubiquity in browsers. If you remove that, I don't see why you would choose it for serious development.
Performance. Show me some like gears of war running in a browser and then I will be convinced.
> The best argument against javascript + WebGL is "javascript is bad."
That is the worse attempt to portray the other side's argument I have seen a while.
> The lack of static typing, for example, allows a REPL.
You can also just have a console implemented, like most AAA games. They are also built into engines like Source.
> It's true that with an average gamedev team, you'll get below average results. But with an above-average team, powerful languages tend to translate into stellar results.
I don't understand how javascript would allow someone like John Carmack to make anything new, I write Javascript every day but when it comes to games I much prefer something like c#.
http://grinninggecko.com/2011/02/24/developing-cross-platfor...
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6757945/cache-manifest-si...
