Project Masala – HTML5 Game Creation for Everyone

June 22 2011, 6:03am

Hi everyone, I’m happy to announce a new chapter in GameSalad’s story, as we finally take the wraps off the highly anticipated Project Masala. Over the past three years, we set out to bring the tools of game creation to everyone. Now we embark on a new mission to share those games with people all over the world, across multiple platforms, and on all devices. The first step in that journey starts with the launch of the new GameSalad Arcade powered by HTML5. Publishing to HTML5 via GameSalad Arcade will replace our current web publishing option, and is available starting today! By harnessing the power of an emergent technology like HTML5, GameSalad developers will have a distinct advantage in reaching a wider audience than any other development platform. Needless to say, we are very excited to put the GameSalad community at the forefront of such a disruptive technology. So why do we think GameSalad Arcade and HTML5 publishing are such a big deal?

Massive Distribution: GameSalad developers can now reach a potential audience of over a billion people using a web browser, larger than any console or device. Embedding Capabilities: Games published to GameSalad Arcade can be embedded and shared on other websites, just like a YouTube video. By simply cutting and pasting a single line of HTML, anyone can post games on blogs, forum threads, and just about anywhere HTML is accepted. Social Integration: HTML5 games can be easily shared on Facebook and Twitter via GameSalad Arcade, as well as within the embedded player. Better Discovery: No downloads or third-party plug-ins are required to play HTML5 games, reducing the overall friction in game discovery.

To sum it up, we think your potential audience just got a whole lot bigger. Besides being incredibly cool technology that I’m sure everyone can’t wait to play with, we also believe there’s a big financial opportunity in HTML5 games. We’re working on a number of monetization solutions for our HTML5 games and we’ll be rolling those out in the coming weeks, so stay tuned. Until then, we’ve made it very easy for developers to utilize GameSalad Arcade as an added marketing tool to promote iOS titles. If you publish a full or demo version of your game to GameSalad Arcade, you’ll also have the ability to add App Store links to help generate sales for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac versions. Longer term, I’m sure many of you have heard about the big plans that Facebook has for HTML5, as well as many of the other tech industry giants. We’re excited to be a part of the next generation of distribution platforms and we think GameSalad developers will benefit greatly from green field opportunities in these emerging, but potentially enormous markets. Another thing I’d like to discuss is the current state of HTML5 as a development platform. We’ve been playing around with HTML5 games for some time, and it wasn’t until recently that we felt HTML5 was ready for primetime. That said, it certainly has its quirks and limitations, but we are highly encouraged by the pace of innovation coming from the browser makers to address these known issues. Of course, any new platform means new methods for developing and optimization. To help with that process, our own internal game team, lead by Billy Garretsen, has prepared a series of text-based and video tutorials. These tutorials can be found on our GameSalad Cookbook site on YouTube, as well as on our Blog and in the Community Forums. Lastly, I’d like to give a big pat on the back to all of the GameSalad team that worked countless nights helping to produce this labor of love. We’re excited to finally get this in your hands and can’t wait to see what you all will do with it! Cheers, Steve