This weekend, something unexpected and wonderful happened. I had been feeding my girlfriend some game recommendations starting with 'Plants vs. Zombies' in the chrome web store, and slowly progressing to different titles. She has even installed some titles of her own! After recommending the game 'Royal Envoy' (which is a very fun strategy), I made the connection that she might like something a little more advanced like starcraft.

Long story short, she doesn't just like it, she loves it.

I would have never expected my girlfriend to be a gamer. Never. She doesn't seem the 'type'. She looks like a model, is generally fashion conscious, and fit the cultural mold of liking the typical things a girl like that 'should' like. She has even talked about her disdain for games in the past. But I'm glad that I've torn down those walls, and exposed her to a new form of art which gives us another thing to share in common.

Now, starcraft is an older title, and is inexpensive, but beyond the low price there were a few of barriers to entry.

First off, I needed to know about it. For a person that's not a gamer and not exposed to that type of content, this game is invisible. It's just not on the radar.

If that weren't enough, trying to convince someone that is a casual gamer to plunk down $60 on a title would be a huge challenge!

Add that to the difficulty of the game lack of a clear path of progression from simple titles to titles a little more complex. There are tons of games out there, some casual and some not, but finding games suitable for the target-audience is a tough job for someone that doesn't have a recommender, or access to a source of information.

What's even worse is that she uses a Mac! Starcraft is available, but AFAIK Mac's aren't terribly known for their great game support. Compatibility and games can be an issue.

Rub all of these things together, and you have content that's literally cut-off from someone that might actually really enjoy it.

The Chrome Web Store, solves those problems by exposing the user to content, makes trying something truly painless, almost guarantees compatibility, opens the door for pain-free payment models, and lets users get a general feel for the title based on user reviews.

I think this is what the Apple App store did so well. It made it really easy to find and try new things at a low risk. The chrome web store does it better as its basically painless to try something new.

Right now, the Chrome Web Store has a fairly weak game selection. There are some very good titles, but most things are sub-average. Also, the market seems to be finding price-points that work. I fully expect this to change.

I expect that the quality of titles, and the ease of use to increase by leaps and bounds in a few short months. Companies like Unity3D and Google are substantially lowering the cost of developing games for the web which will mean more, and higher quality titles. Also, the industry is finding what works and what doesn't -- from price straight through to ease-of-use.

We may not see WebGL games that give modern titles a run for their money, but the platform is more than suitable for pretty much all types of games, and certain games like real-time-strategies and Massively Multiplayer RPGs would simply be FANTASTIC on this platform. Why? There's no need to 'upgrade', new units, fixes, etc, can be delivered automatically.

For developers, this is also great. Why? Testing doesn't need to be near as thorough before release. In fact the game need not be complete and can be released in stages. This reduces risk, costs, and lowers time to market. Mechanisms like micropayments can ensure a nice return for serious players, and exposure through free demos can increase dramatically.

I'm a big fan of the web. I think it's a marvelous platform that is quite powerful and has grown nicely beyond serving up simple pages of text, graphics and links. The Chrome Web Store fills in a crucial need for the web as a platform, the discovery of content whilst improving ease of use.