I spent a long time mulling over which game framework to learn, and the biggest benefit of Unity was it’s export options to so many platforms. I’ve always enjoyed making web games, something quick and easy to play, which loads right in the browser, so I can easily show people by sending them a link or putting it straight on Facebook.
It’s so much easier doing that than asking for someone to download an executable file, which always seems like a big ask, or on a mobile to go to the app store (and the inevitable problem of being in ALL app stores, so that people aren’t excluded), and downloading, making sure they have enough space on their device etc etc, that all seems like a ballache compared to flinging someone a link to see what they think of the half-finished thing.
So Unity did still have that benefit. I could add a crappy game, half finished and buggy to Newgrounds, to see what people thought, and they didn’t have to do much (okay I suppose they had to have the plugin, but that’s only the same as Flash player for Flash games).
Chrome has now killed the Unity plugin
Which means it’s less easy to show a WIP, or a small game that only took a few days to make without the rigmarole of having to download it.
I’m hoping the time I invested in learning Unity wasn’t wasted, because it still is an awesome tool for exporting to Android and other platforms (although I haven’t made anything decent enough to distribute yet).
It’s not all bad, it looks like Unity has a way to export to WebGL, which means it should work in the browser WITHOUT even needing a plugin, which is even better. I just haven’t experimented with that yet.
But I probably will!
The image at the top of this post was created by someone who I think is quite pissed off about it. I got it here.