Google released yesterday a Chrome update that temporarily fixed a bug that broke millions of web-based games, some of which couldn't play audio at all, despite whatever tricks and configs users tried.
The bug was introduced in mid-April when Google launched Chrome 66. One of this release's features was its ability to block web pages with auto-playing audio.
While the feature was obviously aimed at web pages with ads and auto-playing videos, it had an unforeseen side-effect of also muting HTML5 and JavaScript-based games.
Some games wouldn't play any audio at all
Not all games were affected the same. For some HTML5 games, users could re-enable audio by interacting with the game's canvas via a click-to-play interaction.
Unfortunately, older games and those that weren't coded with such policy remained irrevocably broken, no matter what Chrome options users tried to modify in their settings sections.
@PetRescueSaga there are no sounds coming out of the game I already tried this chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy other games have theirs but yours. . . . #whyohwhy
— Lone_Wandarer Goranski (@danceprodigy912) May 7, 2018
Chrome’s audio update broke my html5 stuff too. I miss flash :( https://t.co/oQdqOuNm6N
— Terry (@terrycavanagh) May 7, 2018
Millions of games affected
According to browser game developers who spoke with The Daily Dot last week, games built using HTML5 game engines like Pico-8, GameMaker, Unity, and Phaser, were affected. They estimated the number of impacted games to "probably millions."
With today's release of Chrome for Desktop v66.0.3359.181, Google has now fixed this issue, but only temporarily. Bleeping Computer has reached out to Google for more details on what actually changed, and a spokesperson pointed us to a comment made by one of the Chrome engineers in a bug report.
We’re doing this to give Web Audio API developers (e.g. gaming, audio applications, some RTC features) more time to update their code. The team here is working hard to improve things for users and developers, but in this case we didn’t do a good job of communicating the impact of the new autoplay policy to developers using the Web Audio API.
The policy will be re-applied to the Web Audio API in Chrome 70 (October). Developers should update their code based on the recommendations at: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes#webaudio
Comments
Maelish - 5 years ago
For those of us who don't play games, how do you manually re-enable that policy?
JohnC_21 - 5 years ago
Not sure if it will work but In the address bar type:
chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy
In the dropdown box where is says default select "Document User Activation is Required".
Maelish - 5 years ago
Thanks @JohnC_21. After the update, it says the policy hasn't changed and user activation is required. Nothing seems to be changed but that goes contrary to the article doesn't it.