It's only so very, very recently that game engines having easy HTML5 support was even a thing so it feels weird as an old timey old-head to see it spoken of as something vital.
I think not everything *works* in a browser. Like... experience-wise.
I’m older than the internet. I get it. In fact, I’ll admit I still harbor some resentment over the switch from Flash to HTML5 games.
It’s certainly not vital if someone is making a standalone game or already has a reputation or fanbase. If I know I want to play a game because I saw someone online doing a Let’s Play, that could drive me to push through an installer and some light troubleshooting and and and…
If, however, a person’s game is one of hundreds, then they need to outcompete for people’s limited attention. Each pain point is a spot where you can lose people that will play and might enjoy your game. In another jam I did, people with web builds received an average of 5 ratings and many more plays. People without received an average of 1.
I wouldn’t want to play a triple-A game in the browser. I don’t even like playing most games in the browser. But for a jam where I don’t know anything about the games and need to get through 25 of them, I like to be able to preview them like I would an asset pack before I download them.