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 webslinky: multiplayer browser games
This week, playing games. There really are thousands of ways to waste time in the office with browser-based games, games that don't require any software installation. Java, Flash and Shockwave plugins have enabled an entire sub-culture of online distractions that entail everything from tossing paper planes the furthest to letting go with the biggest cartoon belch. However, there’s more to browser-based gaming than such silly diversions. There are many that provide in-depth, multiplayer gaming. Although multiplayer browser games have really grown in the past few years, as broadband has become pre-eminent and so-called web 2.0 has emerged (or evolved), the earliest examples date from the mid-90s. Swirve.come runs the turn-based Earth 2025, which was first launched in 1996 and calls itself "the world's original interactive webgame", and the real-time fantasy MMO Utopia, which calls itself "the world's largest interactive strategy webgame". The culture of browser-based games, even at this multiplayer level, does seem to retain a more homebrew dimension. Swirve boss Mehul Patel says, "Swirve, while it is a business, is run more like a hobby." Despite advertising, business partnerships and some fees, or fee-based content, there's still a vast amount of free multiplayer browser gaming. Java-based fantasy MMORPG Runescape boasts 10 million unique users a month, the majority of whom have free accounts. It's another one with a long-ish history, originating in a multi-user dungeon, DeviousMUD, which was launched in 1998. When it was first launched in 2001, Runescape was run from developer Paul Gower's parents' house in Nottingham, but by 2003 had grown to employ 29 people and today Jagex Ltd, which runs the game, has more than 300 employees. Even then, it's a comparatively small-scale and lean indie operation, and as such a fascinating comparison to the huge, lumbering behemoths like WoW, EverQuest and the Korean mega-MMOs. Although these games have more basic interfaces, their content can be as elaborate in terms of items, quests, character development – and all without discs, all within the browser. Alongside the browser RPGs and MMORPGs, the other strong vein is strategy, either real-time or strategy. Rapidly coming to the fore in this area is relative newcomer Weewar, a turn-based offering that's as daring as Nintendo's classic Advance Wars games – with a similar cartoony style and comparable level of strategic complexity (especially when you pay a meagre few quid for a Pro account, and more types of hardware). Again, Weewar is being developed on a small scale, by two people, and currently offers 20,000 registered users games involving up to six players. The developers have been utilising free online tools, and step by step enlarging the scale of the operation – such as with the introduction of the paid-for content. The plan is to eventually open more servers and expand the game, and their progress is a great example of how multiplayer gaming experiences can still be developed at an indie, homebrew scale, without software distribution infrastructures but with a savvy business dimension.
Daniel Etherington
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