Chrome Web Store

[Harkins]

http://www.1up.com/news/google-shows-future-browser-games



If you've heard the rumblings about Google buying web game companies and investing in Zynga, they're starting to reveal their mad scientist plans to take over online gaming.

The Chrome Web Store will list games with player reviews and process one-time or subscription fees (5% fee, no exclusive req'd).

[Marek]

I have to say, that's pretty exciting. I'm going to read up on this and see how this is implemented

[lolninja]

Oh this is cool, once they get micro transactions working I can see this being massive for PBBG developers. By the looks of it you could version the installed app and have the majority of your games content downloaded into their browser, which will help keep bandwidth costs down

[jannesiera]

At first sight looks kinda similar like: http://devlounge.bigpoint.com/ .

And how would the 5% subscription fee work? 5% of what?

[lolninja]

I get the impression that google will be handling payments for you, so if you wanted a button to buy gold or something that transaction would be processed using google checkout, and google would take a 5% from that.

They mentioned that they currently have pay to own, and subscriptions, and they hope to have micro transactions soon, its going to be a case of giving google 5% for exposure to your application I think.

[Marek]

It's more than just a store. It's giving web apps a special place within the browser.

It looks like Chrome apps are basically wrappers around web apps that may or may not be given special privileges (such as access to local storage and other APIs). That's what they mean by "installable". They can continue to run directly from the web or, if the app supports it, can be used offline.

This nudge in the direction of installable realm for web apps could be pretty exciting combined with HTML5. It's what web apps (and browser games, in particular) have been waiting for. The problem is that Chrome doesn't have a huge audience. On the other hand, if they decide to only target this web store, you have a nice delicious guarantee that the user will be on Chrome.

The 5% transactions sound like a remarkably good deal for the amount of exposure that the webstore is bound to bring. Facebook has also introduced a microtransaction platform called Facebook Credits, although I think it's still in beta.

[Chris]

A note: you have to be US or UK resident to use it (Google Checkout allows merchant account for these 2 countries only). Welcome to year 2010 Google, the age of globalisation and unrestricted international trade...

Another note on Google Checkout, I haven't checked but it seems to accept only credit/debit cards, so a player without those can not make a direct account transfer (as opposed to every single other payment processing service I ever encountered). It really puzzles me how Google managed to create the worst payment service on this planet...

[jannesiera]

A note: you have to be US or UK resident to use it (Google Checkout allows merchant account for these 2 countries only). Welcome to year 2010 Google, the age of globalisation and unrestricted international trade...

Another note on Google Checkout, I haven't checked but it seems to accept only credit/debit cards, so a player without those can not make a direct account transfer (as opposed to every single other payment processing service I ever encountered). It really puzzles me how Google managed to create the worst payment service on this planet...

Sounds kinda similar to Amazone tbh. Also, it's not very surprising as it's only in it's first stage and you can be sure more countries and perhaps payment options will become available.

[Ben Adams]

Oh this is cool, once they get micro transactions working I can see this being massive for PBBG developers. By the looks of it you could version the installed app and have the majority of your games content downloaded into their browser, which will help keep bandwidth costs down

Your looking for Google InApp payments: http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2011/07/make-money-with-in-app-payments-for-web.html

Its in beta and you currently need a US based account - but it should roll out wider soon...