the-inbetween.com

IGF Web Browser Games

The IGF competition now has a "Best Web Browser Game" category, which should prove to be a benefit to those more indie than indie game developers that had no business being in the same category as the six-figure budget types of indies. That always struck me as an odd disparity -- to have games with $200,000 budgets in the same category as those with budgets in the negative dollar range. Such differences are inevitable, as "independent" paints a broad picture, but it always seemed a little bit unfair.

Of course, there's no reason why anyone couldn't do a quarter-million dollar browser game (Habbo Hotels costs, for example, are seven figure), but with the lower consumer expectations and attention-spans -- browser games are seen much more as quick diversions -- that wouldn't seem like the greatest of investments. Not for something non-persistent, at least. And because of that, the market is far more self-sustained at the lowly, indie maker level.

The other benefit is that browser games are far easier to deploy and are generally easier to develop. So about that IGF-off...