On Tuesday, I reported on Game Maker ‘s game development tool being acquired by Opera, the makers of Opera’ s internet browser. Opera has now officially announced the build, saying that Game Maker would be replaced by Opera GX, their exclusive game browser, in order to form the basis for a new division of the company called Opera Gaming.
This is physical material, but it is not unattractive. Opera GX is a browser designed with gaming in mind. It has Twitch and Discord integration, resource limiters to stop tabs from tuning CPU or RAM while playing a game, and a few other features that, if I’m honest, do sounds unnecessary to me. However, it currently has 7 million monthly active users, according to Opera.
The news was brief on details, except that both companies hope the partnership will direct new audiences to every piece of software. Krystian Kondra, Opera’s EVP Browser, said in a press release, “We look forward to further growing Opera GX and driving the growth of GameMaker as part of a wider ecosystem, making it more accessible to new users and developing it into the world. a major 2D game engine used by a commercial studio. ”
An Opera press release also talks about the possibility of “turning the vertical Opera GX into a new horizontal type. This flat opportunity is why we are building Opera Gaming and its infrastructure – so that we can combine games and browsing in ways that are mutually beneficial in terms of not only monetization, but also knowledge. ”
Physically speaking to one side, it seems as if the two software are directly integrated. I can think of Opera GX which has a built in store where people can buy games, and where those games made in Game Maker can run directly inside the browser.
I’m not sure that potential is particularly interesting, given that there are plenty of outlets for buying and playing games. I can’t see myself changing a browser anytime soon, or wanting a browser dedicated to a specific purpose.
That may change over time. Flash may have been killed last for good, but now there are HTML5 playback and streaming options and multiple clouds that allow people to play games without an installer. It’s still a distant future, but it’s a situation where I think the performance of the new browser is crucial.
For now, I’m still pretty worried about what this means for the heart of Game Maker: Studio 2, and all the developers who use it.