Darwin Gains Some Game Development Steam

PowerMacDaddy writes: "Apple's Darwin project is gaining momentum. Aside from finally having a mascot and an approved OSI license, Darwin now has some serious programming resources behind it. According to this article over on ZDnet, Monkey Byte CEO Lane Roathe is now heading the development of networking communications tools for Darwin-compatible games. Apparently, Roathe is currently working on versions of NetSprockets and OpenPlay for Darwin. Is it time for Slashdot to add another topic just for Darwin news?"

Comments

Re:Why do people port games to apple and not linux

[pixel_bc]

> I dont understand why apple gets game support and not linux

Thats an easy one.

a) there's enough of a critical mass that the average "AA" title will sell 50k units after its ported... maybe more.

b) stable, well defined target for porting

c) size of market - Macs are good home machines. They're everywhere. They're visable. People know what a Mac is. The average Linux box isn't rigged for mom & pop or little sister access. Joe Consumer still doesn't understand what Linux is, or what it means to him.

Re:How Apple treats developers.

[melatonin]

It's late in the night for me... I'm just bored.

Apple /// developers and customers were told the platform had a 5 year future. Killed in 2.5 years.

The Apple /// was killed because the product launch sucked. I don't think the 3 users and 2 developers were crying about it much.

Apple ][ Forever (yea, right)

Yeah, right! That thing had an insanely great lifespan; and I can still play Super Puckman on my //e emulator on my G4 :)

OpenDOC

OpenDoc. I loved OpenDoc.

OpenDoc got killed for a variety of reasons.

• Novell, the company with the septic touch(TM), promised to port it to Windows. The windows port went to crap.
• Apple's stock sucked and John C. Dvorak probably said something about Apple's death being nigh.
• If any idiot with a clue had to choose between shoving two object technologies down developers' throats, or just shoving OpenStep down developers' throats, the idiot would choose OpenStep. They paid $450 million for it.

Newton

I loved those things. Never bought one though; too damn expensive. My Palm is pretty cool though. I don't like knocking the Newton, because it was awesome, but I don't need a full-fledged computer in my pocket. I can code lisp on my Palm, what more do I need :)

You didn't mention QuickDraw GX. I still miss GX. But it died for valid reasons too...

Apple is a company that creates and promises everything. But you can make money doing that, unless if you're Sony (unfulfillment of promises is made up for by Sony's marketing budget).

Games aren't dead on OS X or for Apple. It's just not their time to shine yet. It's not the OS's time to shine yet.

So if Apple slaps the developers about, they can bail to a larger market of Unix running GNUStep.

I'm a fan of GNUstep, but going that route isn't an out for developers. They'd still make more cash on the Mac platform. Additionally, I think if you write GNUstep code you have to GPL your code.

LOL

[macgames]

Let me get this straight:

• - Apple now has some gaming muscle because the OS community is helping them out, even though they they are not doing squat to rebuild their Games SDK? Hello? Apple has grudgingly added DrawSprocket to Carbon support, but hey, where is that video hardware abstraction layer any decent system should boast? Where is your joystick API?

• - The hype over Roathe's joining of the OP effort is laughable. Roathe was "CEO" of a 3-person company that shipped sub-standard products (read: crap), and after the failure of MBO in the software area the company goes dyslexic and tries to sell Australian outback music over the Internet. Yeah, there's focus for you.

  - Apple couldn't care less about games on their platform. There were some dedicated individuals back in '95 that got the Game Sprockets up and running, but even then getting funding for that team was like pulling teeth (and when the layoffs in '96 hit, Apple chose to axe all but one token engineer on the team). Their product Marketing after Ben Calica left is non-existent. Their "games evangelist" group after after Mark Gavini left spent their days trying to make developers feel good about getting nothing from Apple.

  - Jobs' only "support" for games was to affirm that OpenGL is the king of 3D, acknowledging that people weren't going to switch to QD3D if you paid them.

  - Compare and contrast with Microsoft, who has the common business sense to see that games drive new computer sales, which in turn drives sales of their OS. Apple, OTOH, could rake it in since they could reap both the HW and the OS profits.

Don't get me wrong, I love the platform and I love working on games for the platform, but don't kid yourself that the state of Mac game development is any better now than it was before, and the addition of Roathe to the OS effort of OpenPlay is not a shot in the arm, it's cutting the arm off at the shoulder if you look at the track record of MBO.

How Apple treats developers.

[mr]

Think game developers have it bad?

Apple /// developers and customers were told the platform had a 5 year future. Killed in 2.5 years.

How about.....
Apple ][ Forever (yea, right)
OpenDOC
Newton

After a while, you run out of people to upset. Given the way Apple has treated Newton devbelopers, OpenDOC developers, the Apple ][ group, why would you think for your sub 5% market share that Apple would treat you any better?

Today's Apple developer has an out, something they never had before. Darwin and GNUStep. So if Apple slaps the developers about, they can bail to a larger market of Unix running GNUStep.