Although it looks like Facebook has now delayed its Project Spartan reveal to a separate event, on the eve of its F8 conference, we thought we'd ask some of the companies in the vanguard of the mobile-social-browser revolution what they thought about all thing HTML5.

Here are the responses from Sibblingz chief architect and co-founder Ben Savage.

Pocket Gamer: How important do you think HTML5, and by extension technology such as Facebook's Project Spartan, will be for mobile gaming?

Ben Savage: Japan has consistently served as a looking-glass into the future of mobile, and already in Japan, 2 of the top 5 games on the GREE network are HTML5-based.

I believe that HTML5 will be to mobile gaming what Flash Player was to PC gaming. On the PC, widespread adoption of Flash Player made it an obvious choice for developers of games on platforms like Kongregate and Facebook.

On mobile, all the platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, webOS, and RIM) are all supporting HTML5, and once again, developers will choose the technology that allows them to reach the maximum number of users.

But, I do not believe HTML5 will ever completely supplant native mobile apps. There will always be a demand to get as close to the hardware as possible, in order to achieve the highest possible performance. However, HTML5 based mobile games will only continue to grow in importance, quantity, and performance.

Also as Project Spartan illustrates, there is a strong desire in the industry to resist the control over distribution that the platform providers impose over their native app ecosystems.

HTML5 provides a way out. When mobile games can be played directly in the browser, the entire ecosystem changes. Gone are the days of just one payment provider, and one app store. It will mean more competition, but also a more fragmented an chaotic experience for consumers.

Do you think Project Spartan will mean Facebook becomes a much more significant part of the mobile gaming ecosystem?

Today, Facebook has absolutely no presence in the mobile gaming ecosystem, so it's a safe bet that Project Spartan will increase its significance.

As to how successful Project Spartan will be, that will hinge not only upon the execution of the initiative from Facebook, but also on the quality of the games that Facebook's partners create, and how much resistance they encounter from the platform providers.

The unfortunate problem (from Facebook's perspective) is that they are building on the back of another company's platform (in this case, mainly iOS, but also Android). If Apple decides to throw up roadblocks (for example, let's imagine they intentionally disable sound in HTML5 applications) Facebook and the Spartans are left without any options.

I think the really difficult problem Facebook will encounter with Project Spartan is training users to accept this new method of finding, playing, and paying for games.

iOS users are already very comfortable with the process of downloading games from the App Store, clicking on buttons on their home screen, and paying with in-app purchases. Spartan will force them to change at least one if not all three of these behaviours.

Considering that most iOS users I know aren't aware of the ability to bookmark webpages to their homescreen, I'd say Facebook will have a very, very tough time training users to adopt this new flow.

What, specifically, is Sibblingz doing in this area?

We have created a technology platform, Spaceport, that helps game developers take the risk out of the equation.

Betting all your chips on the success of Project Spartan is a risky move, but so is ignoring it entirely. With Spaceport, you don't have to make a choice, you can publish to both, without having to rewrite your application.

Spaceport games are written in JavaScript, the language of HTML5, but you can take your pick of renderers, the component that does all the graphics, sound, and input.

We have four renderers available: a pure HTML5 renderer; a native iOS renderer; a native Android renderer; and a Flash renderer. As a result, you can publish your mobile game on all the channels.

Spaceport's HTML5 technology will provide you with the best possible performance available on mobile browsers. For example, we use SVG rather than Canvas. It's a harder problem to solve technically, but it provides better frame rates for mobile games.

We do all animation with CSS3 3D transforms, which are hardware accelerated everywhere they're available. The best part of all, is that we can automatically convert art assets created with Flash (SWF files) into HTML5 friendly XML documents. That means that artists can keep using the Adobe tools they know and love to author content for the HTML5 generation.

With the ability to simultaneously launch HTML5 and native versions of your game, hardware accelerated, scalable vector graphics automatically imported from Flash, a JavaScript API based on ActionScript 3 libraries such as MovieClip, Loader, and Stage, and the ongoing support of the Spaceport team, who will be optimising and improving the platform for years to come, we believe Spaceport is unrivaled bet for creating mobile games.

App stores have been incredibly good distribution networks so do you think the rise of web technology will reduce their importance, or can both types of distribution prosper?s

I would not say app stores have been "incredibly good distribution networks". They're just the only available option.

Honestly, I think app stores to-date have offered a really poor user experience. One of the reasons I am really excited about the rise of web technology is that it will force the app stores to innovate or die.

One of the worst aspects of both the iOS App Store, and the Google Marketplace, is the momentum-driven top tenapproach. When you rank applications by popularity, it means that popular apps tend to stay at the top, because so many users will only browse the first page of the directory listings. Much has been said about the problems of 'discovery', but I think this is the root cause.

There are so many better models to learn from. YouTube outcompeted Google Video in large part because Google Video adopted a lame top ten approach to its video listings. Why aren't app stores more like YouTube?

I listen to Pandora, not the radio, because I like the ability to customise my music to my personal tastes. I frankly have no interest whatsoever in the top ten popular songs on the radio. Why aren't app stores more like Pandora?

I love to browse Reddit because it always provides interesting content that refreshes continuously. Why aren't app stores more like Reddit?

I really hope HTML5 app stores bring some fresh perspectives and much needed competition to the lame app stores available today.

Do you think the rise of HTML5 will impact Apple's position as the most powerful mobile gaming OS?

No. Apple's success is due to the fact it offers the highest quality user experience. No matter what technology games are built on, the user experience is still critical, and Apple truly understands that fact.

After watching so many others try and fail to offer that level of user experience, I really doubt any of them will ever succeed.

As HTML5 gaming grows in importance, I would guess Apple will provide the most polish and shine to HTML5 games on its platform.

Thanks to Ben for his time.