Downloadable executable versus Web Play 8 1

I do feel like the average person is more likely to play a game if it is instantly available on its download page, mainly because they could simply not bother clicking the download button, or the download might take too long, or might actually be scared of the message Windows gives them if they're not used to it.

However, I don't think it's worth making a game web-based if it comes with a noticeable performance cost, because that'd amount to self-sabotage: The user would have a worse experience, would think it's poorly optimized, and would be unlikely to give the game a proper shot through downloading it.

Though that depends of the game, for example if the game itself has a slow pace, like in the style of a puzzle game that doesn't require rhythm or speed, then it would likely be totally okay!

At least that's what I think, and that's one reason I didn't compile my game for Web.

Thanks for the feed back brother.

It was well thought out.

You took some time out of your day to do that.

It is appreciated.

I went to Grok and have all the steps necessary to convert. Hopefully Grok got it right.

I don't know if you still need help but I'll leave my thoughts here anyway.

I would assume most people would prefer a web build since it is often far more convenient. I personally do not mind having to download a game. I think that if a person thinks your game looks interesting and wants to play it, but can't be bothered to download it, then I doubt they would leave useful feedback. One big benefit of a web build is that it is cross-platform, you don't have to worry about supporting other operating systems or cpu architectures. I don't think that having a web build is a major concern but it's a nice thing to have. It wouldn't be worth doing if it takes a long time to learn or requires a lot of effort. You shouldn't be worried about any performance issues if you are just doing a small 2D game, since it uses WebAssembly.

@Bklyn Thank you so very much for taking the time to respond.

I am going to take a day or two and see how hard it would actually be.

I have some instructions from Grok so we will see how that goes.

I do know that DaFluffyPotato has written a lot of software and he only uses an executable

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

Greatly appreciated

In my case I'm on Linux. So Linux + Web. But I've been game jamming for 10 years and yeah, you get about 2x the plays with web builds. I personally directly develop with a web target nowadays and optimize for its peculiarities since the start of every project.

Yeah, this is the analytics of a game of mine in Itch, which has both standalone and WebGL builds. Browser plays are like 8x of the downloads.

Thanks brother, that was excellent.

I guess it would be a good idea to try and get it to work on the web.

If I can get emscripten to work then I can do all my development in my compiler and then just convert it over.

Thanks again for the info.

Web builds are always nice to have, typically makes the game more accessible and just more convinient to play. Usually you get more feedback with them as well. If you want to learn emscripten this seem slike a good excuse all-in-all.