14 DAY TRIAL // Mozilla has announced a new initiative which aims to promote games on the web. The initiative is light on the practical details for now, but aims to promote the web and web technologies as a great platform for games, as opposed to apps which are becoming increasingly popular, especially on the mobile front.
"We are excited to present to you the latest initiative from Mozilla Labs: Gaming. Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser," Mozilla Labs' Pascal Finette announced.
"We want to explore the wider set of technologies which make immersive gaming on the Open Web possible. We invite the wider community to play with cool, new tech and aim to help establish the Open Web as the platform for gaming across all your Internet connected devices," he said.
The aim is to show that modern web technologies, available now or still in development, provide developers with the tools necessary to create compelling games.
Mozilla hasn't said how exactly it plans to do that. It has announced a competition though, titled Game On 2010. The competition will start at the end of the month when the details will be revealed.
While Mozilla isn't announcing anything like this, one very effective way of encouraging web-based gaming is through a web app store in the vein of the Chrome Web Store.
Mozilla has talked about the possibility of creating an Open Web Store, meaning one that will work for other browsers than Chrome and one not controlled by Google.
Google has made gaming a big part of the Web Store, which is slated to launch later this fall, as well as its upcoming Chrome OS. Mozilla may be adopting a similar strategy to promote web technologies and the capabilities of Firefox 4 in particular.