A Chat with Clay.io’s Austin Hallock

A few weeks ago, a new non-profit, I'd been working on - Hyperaud.io was chosen to take part in Mozilla's WebFWD accelerator. It's a fantastic initiative that puts you in touch with people and resources to help you build and move your projects forward. The best bit about the initiative are the people you end up working with - they're a great bunch, take it from me.

The WebFWD cohorts a doing some very cool things, but a start-up that might be of interest to HTML5 games developers and readers of this blog is Clay.io.

Clay.io provide a service that aims to make it easier for developers to integrate tools and features. They also make it simple for developers to distribute their games on multiple platforms.

I spoke to Clay.io founder Austin Hallock about games, HTML5 and life.

When did you first get into gaming?

I vaguely remember some Super Nintendo, but the main ones at the prime of my childhood were the PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Gameboy Color (born in '91). So I got started fairly young as with most kids in my generation.

And when did you write your first game?

I want to say it was when I was 10 or 11 - though I'm not sure how old I was... but at the time I was just writing batch files that had basic if else statements. It wasn't until I was 19 when I first started with graphically-involved games - working on a WebGL game that was never finished.

What attracts you to the HTML5 platform?

Games anywhere. There are so many different mediums for playing games now, and it only makes sense to have a language that works across every single one of them.

What do you see as the issues for developers who choose HTML5 as a platform to write games on? I ask that question working with HTML5 media a lot, we often have difficulties on mobile.

Performance on mobile has always been an issue - though it is definitely improving. One that's cited a bit less often than performance is the tools for developers. HTML5 isn't as mature as iOS, Android or Flash for game development, so the tools aren't as robust. Of course, we're trying to help fix that last one

Have you got any tips or tricks for developing HTML5 games?

Any time I have a tip/trick, I try to write an article about it - those can be found here and here. It's difficult to condense them into a short answer.

What resources do you look at to keep up with the latest happenings within HTML5?

I stick mostly with HTML5GameDevs.com and following the right folks on Twitter. There's also the new HTML5 Hub, but I can't say I follow that closely.

What is the maturity of HTML5 on mobile, what do you see as the challenges here going forward?

You can get games that work well in Safari on iOS, and Chrome/Firefox on Android are pretty good as well. However, games developed for these devices need to be fairly simple - Zirma may be the most advance game I've seen perform well, Run Pixie Run is probably the most visually impressive. Aside from performance, the Web Audio API still needs more support, as does WebGL.

Why did you set up Clay.io?

I was developing a WebGL game, and as I was building it, I realized there wasn't the Steam equivalent for HTML5. Meaning, no existing solution for marketing games, and no single system for cataloging achievements, high scores, etc... Seeing that void convinced me I need to focus on that instead.

Where would you like to see Clay.io in a year's time?

It's a bit tough to try and imagine a year from now because a lot of our growth relies on the growth of the entire HTML5 game market. I definitely would like to see our team expand past two people and grab a few key partnerships.

You're part of Mozilla's WebFWD initiative - what's that all about?

WebFWD is a really cool program Mozilla runs to help companies that are trying to make the web better. The program primarily brings in technical-heavy teams and helps them with more of the business perspective. This help comes in the form of two virtual meetings per week and concludes with a demo day in San Francisco after 3 months.

What do you find most challenging about starting up your company?

Managing every aspect of the business is a heavy burden. Right now Clay.io is made up of myself, and Robert who is working part time. That means I'm responsible for everything from the business development to marketing to customer support and product development. That can be hard to manage at times

What would be your advice to budding HTML5 games developers, seeking to make a living from their work?

Have a look at the licensing model for making money. Most of the HTML5 game developers who are able to make a living from it are doing so by creating fairly simple games that work well on mobile devices. You have a lot of more traditional Flash game portals that receive organic traffic on mobile devices, but can't serve up their Flash games - so instead, they buy a non-exclusive license of an HTML5 game for anywhere from $500-$1,000. Self-plug here, Clay.io helps set up Publishers with Developers to make it easier to sell licences.

What do you think the most exciting thing happening on the web is right now?

Anything related to WebGL. With WebGL, we can start seeing console-quality games in the browser... which is really cool. Related to WebGL, there are some interesting techniques for speeding up these games like asm.js.

How do you like to unwind, away from the keyboard?