Mozilla entering the Gaming Market

In a surprising move, the Mozilla Foundation has announced that they are entering into the gaming market. Noticing the rise in casual gaming, Mozilla are looking to embrace and exploit this growing market. As the developers behind the alternative web browser Firefox, the second most popular browser used to surf the internet in the world, the Mozilla Foundation believe that this is an ideal platform for casual gaming use. According to the Mozilla website, they state that “Mozilla Labs Gaming is all about games built, delivered and played on the Open Web and the browser. 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.”

The strategic goal of Mozilla is clear, identifying the growing popularity of portable internet enabled devices. It aims not only to bring games to the browser on conventional devices such as the desktop computer but also to devices like smart-phones. This is an emerging market that has seen incredibly growth recently with the rise in popularity of games available for the iPhone and iPad. This popularity is shown with NZGamer.com even having its own section dedicated to games available on the iPad.

It seems that competition is heating up within the browser market forcing Mozilla to differentiate itself from its rivals. With Google releasing its own browser, the Google Chrome, Firefox’s market share is under threat. Google Chrome has been positively received and is competitive in performance against the well established Firefox.

For those budding developers out there, Mozilla will be holding an international competition for the development of games. More details will be announced soon on their website and on their twitter page .