Most studios sitting on a back catalogue treat it as history. It is closer to inventory — finished, tested products that cost nothing more to make and are currently earning in exactly one place.
The arithmetic
A new casual title costs a team several months. Porting an existing one to the web is a fraction of that, because the design, art, balance and testing are already done. What remains is engineering: build size, memory, browser performance, and the SDK work for each portal.
On the other side there is no install step and therefore no cost per player, which is the expense that broke the mobile model in the first place.
What a port actually involves
- Build size and load time cut to what portals accept
- Memory brought under the browser's ceiling — see why WebGL builds fail on mobile
- Input rebuilt for mouse and touch in the same build
- A different SDK per platform for ads, saves and leaderboards
- Submission to each portal, each with its own review
What it does not cost you
Web distribution is additive. Your mobile rights, your store listings and your existing revenue are untouched — the web version runs alongside them and reaches people who were never going to install anything.
This is what we do day to day — WebGL and alternative store publishing at Factorial Studio.
