Game Closure (HTML5) poaches Zynga's Mobile CTO | Hacker News Reader

Game Closure (HTML5) poaches Zynga's Mobile CTO

techcrunch.com

48 pointsmcmc13 comments

I have heard great things about Game Closure including that it speeds up development time, enhances game quality, and makes games run faster. Does anybody know what exactly makes their SDK so much better than competitors? A layman's explanation would be greatly appreciated.

I had to ask my co-workers to make sure they weren't just giving me a softball question; thanks for the interest :) So here's the pitch: write real, pro games in JavaScript, deploy to many platforms. Tools for artists, product managers, analytics, the whole she-bang.

Thanks I appreciate it. How does Game Closure do these things better than the many other HTML 5 based game development SDKs?

I think others provide a part of the stack, while we're striving for seamless integration, from concept to publication. Basically, once to bring on others to your game, things get difficult. We want JavaScript developers to write real games.

2 things stood out about this article:

-Is this company getting $100M offers before they have a product?

-Why would Zynga want to pay that much when they bought Dextrose Labs just a few years ago? (I suppose they could theoretically complement each other, one for rendering and one for developing)

With mobile and social gaming growing like gangbusters, millions of new gamers are coming to the platform for the first time, which represents a huge untapped market opportunity.

I've long thought that games would be the last bastion of native apps.

But when you consider that most mobile games are barely more sophisticated than the Flash games people have been making for years and that you're potentially leaving a ton of money on the table if you only build for one platform, it makes a lot of sense to try to push all this into the browser. In-app purchases are key but there's no reason you can't jimmy these into a PhoneGap layer.

The tech they're working on looks like it could be a game changer. Overview of their SDK: http://vimeo.com/42997484

I really hope this doesn't ship for at least a year; I need to get work done before an amazing crop of HTML5 games appears on the market.

Oh wow. Great move for both parties.

Every time I look at the game closure site it looks more impressive.

that's awesome. HNers: does anyone know when (if?) the sdk will be public? & free?

Hi, we're currently in private beta, but you can apply for access: http://gameclosure.com/beta.html

Sent. Are you actually accepting new devs at this time? I'd really, really like to get a shot at it.

I applied many months ago and haven't got an invitation, but I also have barely any experience in game dev (no finished games). They might be handing 'em out to qualified game devs only right now?

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