Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts, the giant game maker that has had trouble finding new hits, thinks shooting robots can be done cheaper, easier and in more places.

On Wednesday, Electronic Arts will demonstrate a sophisticated multiplayer video game, complete with three-dimensional graphics and rich illustration, written in an Internet standard called HTML5 that enables the game to be played entirely through a Web browser. That means people can play it on smartphones, tablets, personal computers without a dedicated gaming device, or they could play it on gaming machines.

The game, called “Strike Fortress,” has development costs substantially less than a game for a console system of similar quality, said Richard Hilleman, chief creative director at E.A. “We’ve learned how to exploit parts of HTML5 that nobody foresaw.”

“Strike Fortress” may not be on sale for a year, if at all, Mr. Hilleman said. So why is E.A. showing the game at Google I/O, Google’s annual conference for software developers? The game only works on Google’s Chrome browser, and the tablets need to be running the most recent version of Google’s Android operating system, which is called Ice Cream Sandwich.

“Google is trying to get all the developers to make games” for Ice Cream Sandwich, said Jack Emmert, chief executive of Cryptic Studios, a game developer. “It makes their tablets a lot more attractive.”

E.A. says it wants to demonstrate what the technology can do. The company has decided it needs outside game developers,” Mr. Hilleman said, “and Google has helped us, so we’d like to help them.”

E.A. is showcasing the ease by which “Strike Fortress” was planned and built. The company started work on it last August, and wrote the software in five months, using a number of college interns.

E.A. could use some help of its own. The company’s stock is off by 42 percent so far this year, partly because of a poorer than expected reception for a game called “Star Wars: The Old Republic.” Besides lower costs and more developers, both E.A. and Google may be looking for a way to make high-quality games and tablet computers more attractive in markets that don’t have lots of gaming consoles.

“HTML5 gets you into new markets, like Brazil, Turkey, Asia, and Eastern Europe,” said Mr. Emmert. “There aren’t a lot of hard core games on phones or tablets yet, and the people who play them are the ones who will spend the most.”

A game like “Strike Fortress” in HTML5 is something of the holy grail for the gaming industry. Games like “Angry Birds” are developed by teams writing for phones or tablets, and sophisticated multiplayer games like “Halo” are delivered on consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox or the Sony PlayStation. Personal computer games lie in between. All those different outlets require different software tools, trained coders and design staffs conversant in their technologies.

While HTML5 could sharply reduce development costs, game developers have been concerned HTML5, which is intended for better renderings of text and video, can’t handle a 60 frame-per-second interactive shooter, as a weapons-rich pastimes are called. E.A. has already shipped a couple of other games that work in HTML5, but “Strike Fortress” is far more complex, in terms of image and sound rendering, and interactive responsiveness.

Two Strike Fortress players on PCs, for example, can control robots armed with guns, tanks and drones across a ruined cityscape measuring 200 by 400 virtual meters, while a third player views a map of the robots moving around on a tablet, and attacks his friends. There is next to no latency affecting the play, E.A. says, no matter where each player is located.

The computing behind the game is done in an E.A. data center, reached through the browser. As in other industries, this cloud computing model means a lot more computing power can be used for any task, for less money.

E.A. has developed some add-ons for HTML5 as well, including the capability to generate over 200 sounds in Strike Fortress, in a way that indicates movement in three dimensions. The company plans to share that among its own groups, helping them adapt to HTML5, before it shares it with the world.

Mr. Hilleman said the ability to write games that go across lots of different devices would affect how E.A. charges for games, as well as how it tells stories in games. “It won’t fit into the $60 console game market,” he said, adding that the company had not decided on how to charge for such a game.

A successful HTML5 game might have cheaper development costs, but may require more narrative ingenuity. That is because people use each of their devices with a different level of commitment.

“A phone game should be played over 90 seconds, like an arcade game; Angry Birds is like Pac Man,” Mr. Hilleman said. “People play on tablets for 10 minutes or so, and ‘Plants Versus Zombies’ is good for that.” PC games are typically played for 22-30 minutes, he said, though playing a game on Facebook is usually shorter. On consoles, people often play for two hours or more.

A successful game in HTML5 may have to speak to all those different attention spans, Mr. Hilleman said. “Cloud gaming means a lot more than streaming games,” he said. “This is about inviting a lot of new people into the tent.”