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You don't need to develop for HTML/JS directly to target the browser as a platform. (Not to say it's not an option worth considering, just that you can get the delivery benefits from other stacks.) Many current engines can build for the browser as well as native applications: Unity, Godot, GameMaker, OpenFL come to mind.

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Using things like DOM integration, WebRTC multiplayer, URLs as navigation requires you to develop for the web as a first class platform , which you can only do with JS directly.

And you lose being able to deploy native, responsive and less buggy code to mobile devices, consoles and other desktop OSes.

The value proposition just isn't there when Unity and similar engines exist.

Yes, you lose many of those capabilities, but you also gain new ones. I bet agar.io would never have been played had it been a Windows executable or a Steam game. The friction in starting the game and playing the game is so low, that it drawfs all other downsides by far.

In fact, this is the exact justification why HTML/JS business apps have thrived, because even though JS has tons of problems, all of them can be overlooked when you gain the capabilities of the web.

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