For having developed 10 html5 and WebGL games over the past 10 years, I’m a firm believer of instant interactions and the potential of WebGL to deliver the same experience as native games, but I think at the end of the day, what makes a game successful is still its design, both graphics, UX and gameplay, that’s still so core to the quality and success of a game that instant games cannot play solely or mostly on that technical aspect. It has to be mixed with other proven success factors like network effects and one or more of the 7 powers.
With better world models, coding capabilities, and game asset vibe coding interfaces, eventually generative AI will usher in more independent game developers. Apps using games as a retention mechanism is not terribly exciting to me as a gamer.
Great article. I personally believe the future of games via messengers apps has to be viral growth, and deeply social, so we've still a long way to go.
I run a company Sonzai Labs, working on creating viral social experiences, starting with TeleMafia and Pocket Mob.These are games which can leverage the existing social graph of messenger apps, and deepen social connections via chat. Existing games on Telegram and Line already use share features, but I think it can go much deeper -- economies, shared progression, and even group PvP.
To me, the power of messenger app games:
[1] available anywhere (as you mentioned)
[2] instant (loads right away, wherever, whenever)
[3] incredibly social (in the place we already spend all our time, we are primed to connect with others)
For having developed 10 html5 and WebGL games over the past 10 years, I’m a firm believer of instant interactions and the potential of WebGL to deliver the same experience as native games, but I think at the end of the day, what makes a game successful is still its design, both graphics, UX and gameplay, that’s still so core to the quality and success of a game that instant games cannot play solely or mostly on that technical aspect. It has to be mixed with other proven success factors like network effects and one or more of the 7 powers.
Love it!
With better world models, coding capabilities, and game asset vibe coding interfaces, eventually generative AI will usher in more independent game developers. Apps using games as a retention mechanism is not terribly exciting to me as a gamer.
Great article. I personally believe the future of games via messengers apps has to be viral growth, and deeply social, so we've still a long way to go.
I run a company Sonzai Labs, working on creating viral social experiences, starting with TeleMafia and Pocket Mob.These are games which can leverage the existing social graph of messenger apps, and deepen social connections via chat. Existing games on Telegram and Line already use share features, but I think it can go much deeper -- economies, shared progression, and even group PvP.
To me, the power of messenger app games:
[1] available anywhere (as you mentioned)
[2] instant (loads right away, wherever, whenever)
[3] incredibly social (in the place we already spend all our time, we are primed to connect with others)