In a recent report published lately on Mozilla blog, it was disclosed that the company has been successful in developing a highly enhanced version of JavaScript, in a bid to use Web’s platform for the purpose of high end game development. The optimized version of JavaScript according to Mozilla will enable gamers to have a comparatively faster 3D experience on the web.
Without using any additional plug-in, Mozilla has hooked up with Epic Games and made it possible to bring to the Web, Epic’s Unreal Engine 3. The company further argues that using the port formed via the latest optimization technology of JavaScript, developers will be in a position to discover unlimited possibilities, especially when they intend to port their preferred gaming titles into the Web.
Rob Hawkes, who worked as Mozilla’s technical evangelist announced the news on Twitter by stating, “So the whole Unreal and Mozilla thing… I told you the future is bright for HTML5 games. And it’s going to get even brighter!”
Later during the day, Mat Groves, Goodboy’s co-founder who also remained part of the team that developed HTML5 2D renderer pixis.js, said it still remains an issue that people in general do not consider browsers when it comes to deep and immersive 3D gameplay. He further added that it has become kind of a cultural shift and there should be no reason for casual content not utilizing Unreal tech. However, he said that the recent development of Mozilla is a gigantic step in launching innumerable avenues for online gaming in an open environment.
Lately, Mozilla endeavored to prove that Web has immense capacity to act as a host or a platform for compelling games, which is apparent with the demo of its game Bananabread. Mozilla made use of a number of Web technologies including Emscripten, WebGL and now asm.js. What we understood from the demo is that high ended games are easily ported to WebGL as well as JavaScript and at the same time maintain extremely compelling and responsive 3D gaming experience.
The same blog further stated that Mozilla is also in process of launching its high performance Web-based games to become part of mobile phones. Working in collaboration with premium game publishers like ZeptoLab, Disney and EA, Mozilla is sanguine enough that soon it will achieve its goal, since these publishers work on the same technology that in turn delivers performance optimization to popular as well as top rated games.
In its blog post, Mozilla has invited developers to submit their fun apps and games to the company’s Marketplace, which will be coming later this year to Firefox OS.
Despite all these developments, Iain Lobb, a freelance designer and game developer was at all not impressed by the latest release of Mozilla and dismissed it as irrelevant by saying, “There is only one story that matters for WebGL and that’s ‘Internet Explorer adds support for WebGL’. There’s no story here that I can see. Nobody will actually use Firefox’s Unreal port, like nobody used the Unreal engine that was ported to Flash”.
