Thin games are online computer games absolutely oriented to the network capabilities. It’s an innovatory object for discussions about web entertainment of the future. The ideal thin game should support the following:
- There are no files to download before playing. The lightweight browser technologies as AJAX are used for high qualified view without page reloading.
- Open source game engines. The production of thin games and their tools is based on collaboration.
- Iterative (or modular) development. Like most websites, thin games can be published simple and very limited. The developers invest time to new features, spaces, and elements only when they get a feedback from the players. This lets avoid the expensive and slow classical release cycle related to the classical game development models. Also there is a higher opportunity to rise for beginning mini game developers (mini games might evolve and and join to larger game worlds).
- New business models. Running away from the standard single buy or subscription models, thin games will offer new models as in-game advertising, payed access to some areas of the game, in-game shop, etc.
- User created content. The players will be able and they will be encouraged to create objects, entities, and organizations, share them, and collaborate with other players in the game space. The creators of the thin games will be oriented to “participation architecture”.
- Joined worlds. Thin game developers will join entities, reputation, or even scripts of games with different brands. Various companies will work both, separately and together.
- Device independence. Even thou some of the thin games support device-specific capabilities (i.e. video cam, geographic positioning system, etc.), they will be all accessible and will function using any device attached to the internet.
In most cases, thin games will support the Web2.0 concept for online computer games.
(Based on a non-anymore-existing entry at Wikipedia)
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