  Web browsers have come a long way since their inception, evolving from a
simple means of displaying text documents over the network to complex software
stacks with advanced graphics and network capabilities. As personal computers
grew in popularity, developers jumped at the opportunity to deploy
cross-platform games with centralized management and a low barrier to entry.
Simply going to the right address is now enough to start a game. From
text-based to GPU-powered 3D games, browser gaming has evolved to become a
strong alternative to traditional console and mobile-based gaming, targeting
both casual and advanced gamers. Browser technology has also evolved to
accommodate more demanding applications, sometimes even supplanting functions
typically left to the operating system. Today, websites display rich,
computationally intensive, hardware-accelerated graphics, allowing developers
to build ever-more impressive applications and games.In this paper, we present
the evolution of browser gaming and the technologies that enabled it, from the
release of the first text-based games in the early 1990s to current open-world
and game-engine-powered browser games. We discuss the societal impact of
browser gaming and how it has allowed a new target audience to accessdigital
gaming. Finally, we review the potential future evolution ofthe browser gaming
industry.
