Google Web Store: new business model or gamble?

However, Helgason was excited about the possibilities of the Web Store. "If they execute that well it becomes really exciting. Then we can talk about changes.

"If they get the Web Store right, and it’s kind of a bold statement, but what may happen - and I’m not completely bulls****ing - but it may for the first time ever create a browser with a strong business model, a real business model, like an Average Revenue Per User browser.

"Firefox with 400 million users has an annual revenue supposedly of around $100 million, which is actually a 25 cent ARPU, which isn’t bad. But if you can go from a 25 cent ARPU to a $2 ARPU then suddenly that changes the economics because you can’t really acquire users aggressively at 25 cents per year, but at $2 then you can acquire users and hire a guy to knock on doors with a USB stick an install it."

However, he didn't feel things were currently quite so rosy for Google's gaming plans. "You really need to lure content in and with Google taking a 5 per cent cut it becomes more like a transaction fee. I wouldn’t be surprised that most people with web properties are spending around 5 per cent on payment and other infrastructures. It’s almost like Google might not make a lot of money from it.

"They’re supposed to not be making money in the Android market at all. The Android marketplace takes 30 per cent, however Google is only supposedly taking a few per cent of that and they carry the transactions charges and costs like that, so I suspect they are losing money."

While Chrome Web Store is directly targeting the iPhone App Store model, including one-click payments and application recommendations, it's also rivalling a number of other streaming and browser gaming services.

However, InstantAction boss Louis Castle, who is preparing to launch music game InstantJam for Facebook and also intends to release major games streamed to a browser, doesn't see Chrome as a real threat.

"The interesting thing about Google and native client and all that is games still have to be written or ported to a native client solution," he told GamesIndustry.biz at GamesCom last week.

"Which is fine for small games and things like that, but I really don't think there's the financial incentive, that the guys who are doing the next Medal of Honour or the next Call of Duty or the next Crysis are going to be racing out and writing it for a browser."

For developers who do stick to smaller titles, Chrome is just one more platform to consider, in an era when they're being aggressively courted from all corners – mobile, social, console and browser.

"We're trying all these things," confessed PopCap CCO Jason Kapalka. "They're all experimental right now and we don't know which will work and which will end up falling by the wayside.

"Generally PopCap has tried to be fairly catholic and not jump on any one bandwagon. It's very hard to predict the future."

Useful for both developers and consumers is Google's tendency towards fast updates – no seasonal firmware updates here, but instead silent and regular background downloading. "I'm a realist," admitted DeLoura at GDC Europe. "I think it's a really well-designed system, but if we discover there's a problem Chrome updates itself automatically and we'll fix the issues."

The battle is likely to be uphill nonetheless, and the key questions are both audience and game library sizes. "When this launches and there are 70 million people there, we want to have some really great games."

Chrome Web Store is open to developers now, and will support Google Checkout as a payment system at launch. Google's Mark DeLoura has confirmed it's a separate entity to the company's social network project, but some manner of convergence seems likely eventually.