Game Development On Android

Gamasutra is running an article about the state of game development on Android. The author explains some of the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and makes comparisons to development on the iPhone. Quoting: "While iPhone apps are written in Objective C, the Android SDK uses relatively more programmer-friendly Java. The iPhone store charges developers $99 a year to distribute their apps, while Android has a one-time $25 fee for developers. And the review process for iPhone apps grows increasingly lengthy — sometimes weeks or more — and it's somewhat arcane. Android apps go live as soon as the developer hits the publish button. Google handles the review process post-hoc, and is much more lax in terms of content. ... For now, if a developer decides to implement a game exclusively for a particular smartphone platform, and the choice is between the iPhone and Android, the tradeoff is between trying to get noticed in an incredibly crowded and competitive market where the potential payoff is huge for those at the top, or entering a market with low barriers, little competition, currently low returns, but the possibility of potential growth."

Comments

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[kyz]

Twenty years ago, in Europe, the PC was a dull machine that you only ever ran business applications on. Maybe a flight simulator if you're lucky. The Mac was an obscure machine for desktop publishing. If you wanted gaming, you bought an Amiga or Atari ST. Now look where we are.

You're pointing at the entrenched PC games market, where everyone has hugely invested in writing in C++ for the Microsoft Direct3D API.

By comparison, smartphones are relatively new and the investment in Apple's iPhone API is tiny compared to the gigantic Windows-only ecosystem (Windows-only middleware, Windows-only tools, Windows-only 3D programmers, etc.) that keeps gaming chained to PCs.

So, given Android programming is much easier (far more programmers know Java than Objective C), and there's not yet a huge iPhone-only ecosystem in place, switching is still relatively painless. All it would take is one damn good phone running Android to topple Apple off its perch.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RedK]

No, they're really not. iPhone and Android compete in the same space, with the same kind of marketing and appeal to the same kind of crowd. They are Internet devices that happen to have phones in them. And Android is pretty device agnostic contrary to Symbian. The Android Market is open to all Android phones and Apps aren't really limited to certain phones yet (the ones on the market all share the same specs under the hood). You can think the iPhone is safe, but Apple has a lot of competition coming in the next few years and they better be ready to fend it off.

Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

name a market segment that cares about *any* of that then get back to me.

Re:opinion

[XxtraLarGe]

I have to ask: I've been programming Objective C off and on for a few years now (around the time they switched to Intel), and while Objective C 2 brought a lot of good stuff with it, is dot notation really that big of a deal?

It's not a big deal for most people, but if you're coming from Java or C++, it makes it look slightly less exotic. So instead of having to write

[myThing setThing:5];

You get to write

myThing.setThing = 5;

It turns out to be about the same # of characters, so you don't really gain anything there (unless you don't like using your pinkies :-), but if it helps some people overcome their mental blocks, then it is probably a big deal for them.