1. What's the advantage of doing this in HTML5 vs Flash? This is not a game I can play on a touch screen device.
2. Why should customers get excited about a game that would have looked pretty average even in the 1990s? Nobody cares that it's HTML5.
I could just perceiving that because I'm an HTML5 nerd though.
Flash is supported by 93% of the visitors.
HTML5 = 50%.
Chrome supports HTML5, and there are a lot of Chrome installs out there.
My question is, by the time that smart phones become fast enough to run stable versions of these html5 games, won't they also be able to handle flash games with relative ease as well?
In the medium to long term, HTML5/WebGL becomes a much more attractive prospect. Desktops are mostly covered already. Most mobile phones browsers should support WebGL in the near future (FF mobile already does). Plus any connected TV with a browser will support it. Suddenly your installed base looks a lot more healthy.
The thing to remember about the quality of the games you are seeing is that games take a quite a long time to make (6-24+ months) and this technology has only been mature enough to use for around 6 months. We're really at the very beginning of the road for WebGL games.
Also, this game is created in Construct 2 which advertises itself as a 'no programming required' game making tool. It's not surprising that the games are simple if it is entirely general purpose code.