Browser games are an interesting beast.  When most of us pick up a browser game, it’s usually to kill some time that we had nothing better to do with – whether that’s in a college dorm between classes, or at work while the boss isn’t looking.  Simple, addictive games draw in players who would otherwise never even look at a video game.  They’re the epitome of casual gaming, something that inexplicably frightens and angers some of us.

The Browser MMOG panel at GDC Austin, consisting of David Georgeson (Gaia Online), Philip Reisberger (BigPoint), Samuel Lorétan (Ankama), and Jesse Schell (Schell Games), argued that browser games were the future.  Certainly, browser games have certain advantages: they can be played from practically anywhere, and there’s no huge client to download.  Still, I initially balked at this assertion: I have yet to experience a browser game that could provide the depth of experience a traditional client or console game gave me.

The panelists did provide some solid points.  Easier system requirements means friends are less likely to get split up, which makes guilds more likely to jump from game to game as cohesive groups.  In spite of their reputations, browser games don’t have to be a shallow experience, and they all maintained that their own games of course had plenty of depth.  And many of their players played their games while also actively enjoying console games, so they’re able to work around the competition traditional gaming might provide.  I was still not convinced when I left, and had to spend some time mulling the matter over.

Games like Fusion Fall show off the current reach of browser games, giving players a fully 3d environment without a heavy download.  Reisberger strongly believes that in a few years time, we will see browser-based games that can match the production values of consoles and clients, with tools such as the Unity 3D engine.  And with upcoming projects like Gaikai, which will let you actually stream a full client over a browser, perhaps we will live to see a game where hefty client downloads are a thing of the past.

Believe me, I’ve worked on games with downloads upward of a gigabyte, and massive client sizes is one of the biggest barriers to getting players in the game.  As browser plugins become more powerful, game companies might have no choice but to switch over to the browser platform, whether we like it or not.  And while some of us resist the mass marketing of casual gaming in recent years, can we not also benefit from streamed content and no waits to get into the games we actually want to play?