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Open Source Mac Game Programming Competition
Geert Poels writes "The uDevGame Mac Game Programming Contest was established by iDevGames in 2001 to energize game development on the Apple Macintosh platform. With the 2002 edition launched only two weeks ago, already 42 games have entered the competition. Most notable about this competition isn't the impressive collection of prizes worth $11,000 but rather the obligation for all participants to submit all source code. This kind of competition is groundbreaking for the Mac community in every way."
Apple did their level best to discourage game development on the Mac, early on. They were worried about it being perceived as a game machine (as the IIc was) rather than a serious business computer (like IBM's entry offering). To that end, they managed development on the platform much like Sony and other console developers do today; access to technical documentation, development systems, and serious tools (C compilers, assemblers, etc.) was tightly controlled. You had to submit a project proposal and have it approved, and proposals for games were decidedly not welcome.
Not surprisingly, it worked.
Tech docs weren't available for the Mac until several years later, when the PC game market was already well established. The Mac was also somewhat hampered by the closed architecture and need for approval from Apple before marketing hardware - you couldn't just develop a zany 3D-accelerator video card because you wanted to - until the PC had practically conquered the market.
Of course, almost none of these reasons apply today - you can easily get the latest GeForce for your Mac - but there is a great deal of inertia in the industry, and the smaller userbase doesn't help. There is also a viscious circle at work here: because of the lack of games, Mac owners didn't buy their systems to play games, and aren't perceived as game buyers.
You don't need Objective C to run "natively" on Max OS. You can also use Java (Mac OS X at least), assembler, C, C++, Pascal, or anything else. If your application only uses SDL and standard C/C++ calls, there is no reason to "wrap" anything in some other language.
Devs used to care about a good storyline, exciting game play etc. Now it's all about who gets the best framerates, what game has the prettiest textures. I don't care what the game looks like anymore, thats all window dressing.
Should I post this as anon to avoid burning karma? Nah.
The reason developers now make games that are all about framerates and pretty textures? It sells. The gamers that open their wallets and fork over the green decide where game development is heading.
Maybe it was cheaper to develop a game back in the hayday of "adventure games that actually had a plot", maybe all these "give me a good plot not fancy graphics" whiners aren't putting their money where their mouth is, maybe there's just a much better return on FPS/eyecandy games. Whatever the reason, every once in awhile you still see a game comes out that tries to revitalize the adventure game genre and it experiences lackluster sales.
Usually the most common excuse I've seen is that the new adventure game doesn't live up to the legacy of the older games everyone remembers from when the genre was still alive and kicking. The reason is there was a lot more competion to make a good game back then... Now, adventure games are almost a lost art and it will probably take a few tries before some competion builds back up. It means people will have to fork over some money for some lousy games in order to convince more developers that adventure is still a viable genre.
Course, open source changes the rules a bit. Seems though that most open source games are limited to emulators, software versions of board/card games and Tux racer. If the open source community picks up the adventure game genre, it would sure be an interesting thing to see.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Warcraft III.
What is its framerate?
What is its unit sales?
Framerate does not sell games.
There was Grim Fandango, Gabriel Knight and Monkey Island... Then online gaming really picked up. Adventure gaming died because your "opponent" is the person who set the puzzle. The puzzle never changes. Compare that challenge to evolving strategies of online opponents.
Games sell because of challenge. Play Counterstrike for three years and what challenge is there? A bunch of other people who have also been playing for three years.
Play Grim Fandango for 3 years and you have played Grim Fandango for three years.
Challenge not Framerate.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.