Reference books and articles (in my industry at least) are peer-reviewed, if you are getting them from the major outlets. You know they are credible, or at least validated by several other PhD's in the field.
Or maybe they are corporate funded propaganda. You don't know until you check the references and see who has peer reviewed them. The exact same thing goes for Wikipedia articles. Maybe articles in some given publication are always reviewed by certain parties and you can build up a level of trust, but said publications change and are sometimes purchased outright. You can't rely upon blind trust in a publication be it wikipedia or anything else. Look at the references and read critiques if you are a scientist. If, on the other hand, you just want someone to tell you what to think, you can ignore them. I just don't think wikipedia is all that less trustworthy that a random encyclopedia or book from the store and statistically that seems to be the case from the studies I've read.
I can't believe you're actually linking to junkscience.com. It just goes to show some people never bother to research their sources. Are you sure there is not a Fox news article you can cite as well? First, DDT is a dangerous pesticide that was horribly overused. It can be applied in beneficial ways, but is rarely the best option. The 50 million people number you cite is pure crap from a source so lacking in credibility they have been used as an example or the dangers of corporate sponsored propaganda in numerous studies. Now tell me again how this in any way indicates humans are not responsible for global warming?
These articles could have been written by anybody. It only seems appropriate that I would be skeptical about a topic written by a less than credible source about a t0pic I know little about.
The same is true for reference books, articles, television programs, etc. That's what the references are for. I agree you should be skeptical of wikipedia articles, I'm just not sure you should be more skeptical than you are of other sources of info.
Care to back any of that up? I'm aware of very few recent OpenGL games.
That's easy. DirectX is Windows and Xbox specific (aside from the rare re-implementation of the APIs which are soon to be more common, but are not as yet). So grab a list of the top N PC games and see how many of them have a version running on PS3 or OS X or some other platform. Now take a look at those in that list that are not made by a Microsoft owned publisher and are not that company's first successful game. You'll end up with a very short list. Half-life is about the only notable one.
Also, I think you mischaracterise DirectX as 'quick and dirty'; How is using DirectX 'cutting corners'?
Using DirectX itself is not cutting corners, but designing a game upon a non-portable, non-modulare framework is. It is entirely possible to design a game that way and most who do rely just on DirectX. The next game they make they usually have to scrap most of the code and start over because little of it is reusable. If the game is successful, ports are more expensive and slower. It basically means they "cut corners" initially to keep development cheap and thus have greater long-term costs if they make another version or a port. Big development houses almost always plan on a more long term basis and invest up front for more reusable code and easier ports. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of them do use DirectX for components of the Windows version, but in a modular fashion with portable coding practices. This should be clear from the thread a few comments up, but I probably should have repeated it for people like you, joining the conversation later. DirectX versus OpenGL was a drastic simplification used to quickly categorize.
Allow me for one to say that I am sick of the "Christians are anti-science" bullshit that the left loves to harp on while giving the environmental movement a free pass.
Well, technically, christians, by definition, ascribe to a non-scientific belief or system of beliefs. Environmentalist, however, are by definition advocating a goal, not ascribing to a belief. There are certainly people in both camps that are more or less disposed to adhere to the scientific method, but christians go in with one strike against them.
I think it is fair to say, however, that a significant number of influential christians are very anti-science. That is not to say that christians in general are, but where you see fundamental attempts to undermine science or legislate behavior that ignores the facts and theories determined by the scientific method, you're often dealing with one religious lobby or another.
Bickering over what culture has more extreme anti-science elements, however, is useless. It is just a variation of the "at least we're not as bad as china" argument. I think eliminating unscientific arguments at the onset is prerequisite for reasonable decision making. At that point it becomes clear that while there are plenty of unscientific arguments out there, the scientific method does indicate that global warming is happening, at a faster rate than can be explained by any proposed natural causes. The correlative factors that give the most promise for explaining the phenomenon indicate a human action and carbon dioxide emissions are the most probable candidate of all theories thus far proposed. A person acting rationally, therefore, must act with the knowledge that it is the most probable way to effect change and should be addressed as such.
Until people realize that whatever human beings are doing to the atmosphere is not and cannot be the whole story, then the "It's all our fault!" environmental movement is bankrupt both morally and intellectually.
This is called a strawman argument. No one ever said that there were not multiple factors that determine the temperature and even warming trends. That does nothing to address that the best scientific theory indicates that humans are significantly contributing to unusually rapid changes in global warming.
Here's some other Inconvenient Truths... * DDT is not very dangerous to the environment
DDT is plenty dangerous to regulate its use. It may not be as harmful as some other substances, but few of those substances were ever used in the massive quantities DDT was.
* One of the founders of Greenpeace supports nuclear power
So? Greenpeace is a political group and nuclear power is a reasonably safe clean, and cheap power source compared to fossil fuels.
* The Kyoto Treaty exempts some of the biggest carbon polluters of all
So? The Kyoto treaty was a compromise designed to reduce global emissions. Some large producers of carbon dioxide are in the same industrial growth phase the US was seventy years ago. You can't get ahead of everyone else using a practice and then ban others from doing it themselves and expect them to go along with it.
In any case, all the points you make do nothing to address the issue at hand. Our best data indicates humans are significantly increasing the temperature and rate of change of temperature of the planet. Oil companies are using money to influence our educational system to teach that this is not the case.
I found it pretty freaking slick at how you conflated economics and morality - but the more I think about it, the more I believe one doesn't follow the other.
I'm not the previous poster, but I certainly think economics is a tool that can be used to accomplish some moral or ethical goal. It is as related to ethics as say, law is.
but let's say you were right - then you are basically advocating communism of sorts, or some sort of equal distribution of wealth, and I just can't buy that only on the account of prior historical instances. Not that I can necessarily prove or disprove whether it is possible to sustain communist/socialist/whatever past-liberal regimes, I'm just saying so far any attempts have failed.
You're making a classic mistake. An economy is not a capitalist one or a socialist one or a communist one. Every economic system on the planet is a blend of all three in different proportions. Historically, the US has always practiced communism on a wide scale, with communist cells being families and extended families. Historically the US has almost always practiced socialism in the form of a navy a postal system and public schools. Historically the US has always practiced capitalism in the form a of a largely unregulated market and private businesses.
When you refer to "historical instances" what you're probably referring to is instances where an economic system tried to move to move to an extreme. Too large of communist cell sizes leads to too much concentration of power paired with unmotivated decision making. It makes power grabs by any one power too easy in most political systems. Too much socialism in a non-closed system leads to lack of motivation for innovation and a stagnating economy easily disrupted by outside forces. Too much capitalism leads to concentration of wealth and eventual return to feudalism and then violent revolution by the poor.
Make no mistake, however, our current balance of these elements is not a moral choice, but a practical one as determined by what works. It is not more moral or ethical to share resources among a family or extended family or whole community. It is not more moral or ethical for the wealthy to be taxed more heavily than the poor. It is simply a matter of trying to maximize whatever values a society possesses, whether those are ideal living conditions, freedom of choice, or minimal government intervention.
People of the Mac: your machines can run Windows now. Upgrade, pay the Microsoft tax (since you have so much disposable income;), and reboot when you want to game. Who cares what OS is running behind your game that takes up the whole screen?
I know being a Windows user this may be hard to understand, but I don't quit my programs, let alone reboot my machine. My e-mail reader has been open for a month. My terminals have been running longer than that. I quit them when I reboot, which is when there are updates that affect me and require it. Rebooting to play a game? Absurd. I play games, but I'm not about to quit all my open programs and have to spend 15 minutes restoring my computer to its working state just to play some game. I'd rather just play a game that works natively in my OS of choice, or runs well within a Windows VM. My purchases will reflect that choice.
You do realize you're recommending people repartition their hard drives and shell out for a copy of Windows just to play a game? I've got a news flash for you. A few geeks might do that, but not enough to have any affect upon the sales of a game. People don't buy OS's or install OS's or partition hard drives. They don't even know what OS's are.
So that is why I care what OS is running behind a fullscreen game. Also, if you're a geek do you really only have one monitor? You don't have a second one full of IRC sessions and IM chats and a Web browser looking up something while you wait for something to happen in game? Sorry, you failed to make your sale.
We were discussing whether these companies use portable code including OpenGL or if they were using just DirectX. Whether or not they get a Linux port specifically, is another matter. So taking a look at the top 10 PC games of 2005, for example, yields 9 games that have been ported to a platform besides Windows or the XBox and 1 that was Windows only. Or specifically adderssing the games you list, you can remove Company of Heroes (published by MS I believe though THQ). You can remove Oblivion, Civ4, Warcraft3, WoW, Call of Duty 2 and UT2004 which were developed in or ported to OpenGL and published to the Mac and/or various consoles.
That leaves only Half-life 2 as not fitting into one of the three categories I listed. They are actually in category 4, which is smaller than the others, but is game shops that are really focused on DirectX and do not move to portability, probably because the people with all the pull only know DirectX and are afraid to move. There are a few of these companies, but I think my point still stands fairly well.
Again, we're not talking about ports to any specific platform, simply the types of PC gaming companies that do not generate portable code using pre-established APIs and with OpenGL at the onset of development. For Linux specifically, even with portable code the incidental costs are not always worth bringing it to market, given Linux's share on the desktop.
There would have to be enough cash-up-front pre-orders for the Mac and Linux version to completely cover the cost of development. Plus %10 profit.
Or EA, who owns Mythic, could tell them to do it since it is good business.
No one cares about the Mac and Linux game markets. They're too small.
Umm, that's why 9 of the top 10 selling games of 2005 have a Mac version?
Hell, a lot of developers don't even care about the *Windows* game market, because it's too small compared to the the console market.
Oh, what console will you be aiming at? If you're going for the Xbox, MS is already trying to make it one stop development for Windows and their console. Why not release for both? If it's the PS3, well, if your code is written well to start with and you want the possibility of going to the Wii as well, then Windows and the Mac are easy targets. Why not grab the low hanging fruit?
There a reason so many MMORPGs are being made for the PC. It's the only "genre" that can't be done well on consoles (no keyboard), and it's the only genre that makes piracy impossible.
Bah! Piracy is as big a problem on consoles as it is PCs. Games are developed for PCs and Macs because their is a market and money to be had. Anyone who ignores that market loses out. Blizzard has a clue with the top selling game of last year that just happens to target both the Mac and PC simultaneously and with semi-official support for Linux. People have been claiming the gaming market would move to consoles for over a decade and it never does, because PCs simply have more capabilities and room for innovation and because people need PCs for some tasks and want gaming in the same package. It is not going away anytime soon and with Sony's moves towards open and portable OpenGL models, it is getting easier than ever to target multiple platforms.
I doubt it. Mythic seems like a DirectX shop, but EA is not. Ever heard of "The Sims?" I'm pretty sure the numbers they have on mac sales of the Sims 2, which just happens to have phenomenal sales on the Mac (as well as PC) making it into one of the top selling games of all time. I doubt EA is about to ignore the mac market now. I doubt any big established developer not owned by Microsoft can be so clueless as to ignore the mac after doing any market research. Half the best selling games last year were simultaneous Mac/PC launches.
I'm guessing that either OS would have to attain more than 5% market share.
Take a look at the top 10 games of last year. Notice anything about their Mac support? 9/10 support the mac today. 5/10 supported the mac with the initial release, including all of the top 3. Whether this is causative or simply correlative to some other factor, it does not bode well for this Warhammer game. A lot of people look at the mac and dismiss said market as insignificant. If you think "5% of sales why bother?" maybe you need to rethink. 5% of sales is not 5% of installed machines. Macs pick up a few percent by having 1-2 year longer average lifespan. Then if you discount all the Windows boxes installed in offices that will never get games, you're looking at an even bigger chunk of your potential sales. Then if you look at the relative disposable income of the purchasers you start to get even more nervous. If you estimate how many games those mac users will buy, and then notice how much less competition there is on that platform, you're looking at even more sales. And then if you are selling a MMORPG that has an interoperability component and you realize you can lose 10 sales because one person in a group has a mac and they want to game as a group, well that quick evaluation of 5% may have just knocked your game out of the running for being a blockbuster.
A lot of people who consider themselves part of the gamer community do not realize that "hardcore" gamers are not most of the market. Casual gamers are the moneymakers, which is why the various Sims games and expansions account for 4 of the top 10 games in sales last year. There are a few kinds of companies that ignore that mac game market. Small companies without the capital to invest in cross-platform up front, MS owned companies that strategically avoid the mac, and companies dominated DirectX developers that for one reason or another can't manage the move. Mythic is now owned by EA, and they certainly don't neglect the Mac in general. So we'll see what happens with their future titles, but I suspect at least for now, they are in this last category and it will hurt them.
Re:The Success of the OS is Predetermined.
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Why Vista Took So Long
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· Score: 3, Insightful
That's an exaggeration. Microsoft has at least 3 competitors: Linux, Mac and Pirated Windows (TM)
The number of Linux licensed sold or pre-installed for the desktop is tiny. It is not enough to significantly influence the market in any way. Maybe if Walmart decides to push it it can be. Mac OS X does not compete with Windows. Apple maintains a separate vertical chain and competes with Dell and other PC vendors. It does not sell OS X to PC vendors and is thus in a completely different market. Pirated Windows does compete with them, but more than anything it severs to kill the low end market where MS will not legally profit and where competitors might gain a foothold. For the most part, this is a win for MS.
...competition is far from absent.
From an economic perspective, their is no significant competition for Windows. That is not to say the price is not regulated by the market, it is set at what they think will maximize profit though, not what will allow them to beat the competition. It is, thus, much higher than it would be in a competitive market and slowly climbing as they embrace more and and more markets and add that cost into the whole.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps it's not that developers are dumb, but instead it's that it's not quite as straightforward as you make out?
Actually, it is neither. Most big development houses do exactly what he said they should. Look at the top games of the last few years. They fall into 3 basic categories:
OpenGL as described
DirectX - made by someone MS owns
DirectX - the company's first and only really successful game
He says he doesn't understand the latter two categories, but that is because he's thinking in terms of development practices instead of business case. Category two is avoiding OpenGL because MS benefits more from promoting DirectX. Category three is a company that was uncertain if they were going to succeed so they kept their initial investment as small as possible by cutting corners and doing some things the quick and dirty way. They can pay someone to port it with proceeds, which won't make them as much cash, but they risked a lot less as well.
Not that there are not a few clueless companies out there that are on DirectX because it is all they know and they have too much momentum to hire better people. For the most part, however, the above categories describe the industry pretty well.
The reason why developers don't normally write a Linux or Mac version simultaneously is that it's actually a lot of work. And unless you can justify the extra time and money that you'll need to put in to doing it, it just doesn't make sense.
Doing it right does make sense if you're confident your game will be successful. If you're taking a shot in the dark, however, and might be making a flop, it doesn't make sense. It is a risk management situation though, not really a question of payoff.
Yeah, I'm not a WoW addict, but of my friends who play 8 now use Macs. That probably accounts for at least thirty people total that take part in their weekly gaming night that won't be even trying Warhammer.
Making a project Free and/or Open Source doesn't automatically makes it better no matter what some zealots may say.
Actually, yes it does. Being Free/Open source is a feature. Your argument is like saying "adding support for other platforms doesn't make it better." Sure it does, although the end result of such additions will not necessarily be positive.
The advantage of MMORPGs in the form that we all know is that one or several servers are run by an entity/company by its rules and the server rules are stricytly controlled by them.
I think it is debatable as to whether that is an advantage or disadvantage, but how does open sourcing this project stop some company from running a game using it on their own servers with their own rules?
Open Source almost always equalös division and we will see millions of variations of modifications that will be incompatible with each other and that will bring down the quality of the game.
Actually, I think the gaming market is ready for open source, but not following the same business model as Tux Racer, rather more along the lines of Apache. I'd like to see several companies contribute to an open source gaming engine and system and each of them build commercial games on top of them, including copyrighted artwork and trademarked settings. That way both commercial enterprises and community games can collaborate and improve the base engine and everyone wins. Ideally, I'd like to see a gaming environment with an engine that takes plug in game modules that anyone can create and which can be downloaded or purchased from a network built into the game engine. For the most part it is not the engine or the graphics even that need improvement in games. It is the story and game play. If one or a consortium of companies maintained this base system we could have numerous game modules developed faster for less cost and with more shared code. Really, how many slightly modified copies of the unreal engine does the average person need on their computer?
And look where they are now...about a 2% marketshare of the PC market!
Actually that is about 5%, which is to say considerably more than they had before Jobs took over.
Could you imagine the Zune supporting MS? Cause the iPod seems to be the only thing keeping apple around
The iPod certainly makes Apple a significant amount of money, but they're making more money total than ever before, both from PC sales and other products. It's hard to argue with results, but I guess you prove, if you get your facts wrong, you can do even that.
The software that is released changes quicker than WINE improves. It's a catch-up game, and unfortunately, WINE is getting farther and farther behind... A few years ago, the situation was actually better, and you could count on WINE to at least have a fair chance to run at least half of your games. These days, that's not the case. Yes, WINE improves, but not as fast as new games evolve.
I'm not necessarily saying you're incorrect about your predictions, but there are a few points worth considering. A few years ago, OS X took off on the desktop and a whole slew of developers and geeks moved over. A lot of those people could run a significant number of games natively. Thus the demand for WINE decreased. Apple is still moving its user base to Intel and with it, WINE becomes useful to those people again and to a whole set of users that have never had a use for WINE. In addition to hobbyists, WINE has real commercial applications on OS X's greater desktop market. Already one company has written a toolset for quick ports of applications via WINE technologies and two more are selling WINE based virtualization environments. A lot of that work gets fed back into the WINE code base.
Also, Sony and some other big players are stepping up to the plate with regard to OpenGL. It is no secret that Microsoft plans to fight the console wars partly by using DirectX to Windows and Xbox as a one stop development model for targeting the PC and console. Sony has already started to respond, moving to open source, OpenGL based models for the PS3 and stepping up their involvement in the development. If Nintendo and Apple see the threat as well and step in, we could see OpenGL based development suites targeting Windows, OS X, PS3, Wii, and possibly Linux as an alternative one-stop that will clobber DirectX. That's not to say it will happen, but the potential for a real alliance is there and I believe they are all members of the Kronos Group now in charge of OpenGL.
When you combine those two factors, there is more than a little doubt as to the fate of WINE and whether it will decline and keep losing ground or take off with new life. I've never before had a lot of interest in WINE, but my company has a few hundred bucks ready for Crossover if they get certain apps running properly, and at a net savings to us. How many other companies are in the same boat. Anything cheaper than the cost of a Windows license and emulator is savings for us. That's a lot of cash for the commercial entity that puts it together. Cash = incentive = code = better WINE.
Am I the only one less than shocked by the implication that Vista's UI is going to be a mess, just like every other version of Windows? I mean I thought it was pretty obvious that somewhere early on in the formation of MS, they hired people that don't know how to do good usability testing and have never corrected the problem. Or maybe it is just that people in marketing or somewhere else have more say in the matter and end up overriding the right decisions.
Now I don't agree with all the quick and dirty second guessing. I think a lot of people want to have their Windows box shut down, closing all their apps and restart with a "fresh slate" while they go to the bathroom or something. But I also doubt that the existing UI described was the result of good user testing. The UI could be greatly simplified. Anyone, however, who was expecting this to happen has never paid attention to a Windows upgrade before or was privy to something I was not. The Windows UI will suck right up until it starts costing MS real money. Until then, users will just have to deal with it.
Having said that, one of the reasons I originally opted to get into World of Warcraft was that I was bored, I wanted a game to get into, and I didn't own a Windows box - which pre-empts me from owning the vast majority of top-tier PC titles.
The mac platform outperforms most estimates based solely upon market share for several reasons. They include: less competition, larger install share than market share, less piracy, macs are concentrated among those with disposable income, most office systems are Windows and do not get games while most macs are home machines.
I recall hearing from a videogame podcast at some point where an expansion pack for The Sims for the Mac had momentarily broke into the top 10 selling games of the week for any platform. That may speak to something about the general interests of people who run OS X, that they're more interested in The Sims than Half-Life...
Well, since half-life has never made it to the Mac this does not speak to the interest of the users, but to the popularity of what is available. Half-life is actually an exception to the rule in that it is a major, popular game, not made by a MS owned shop that has not been ported to the Mac. There are a few others like this, but not many of the super popular games.
Of course, in the case of World of Warcraft, the time spent to port the game may be worth it on profit for the fact that the game continues to pay the company every month as opposed to just a "1000 copies for $50" equation.
True. For multiplayer, community type games there is also the benefit of interoperability. You might lose 20 players on such a system if 2 of them have macs and the group is looking for something everyone can play (especially when one of those 20 is a cute college girl half the players are sweet on). I've seen it happen first hand.
It's also worth noting that some companies hire out-of-house programmers to port their work to OS X, but end up with buggy or otherwise lesser quality products as a result (see: Civilization IV).
This is true, and may get worse as quick and dirty ports using re-implementations of the Windows APIs become viable solutions. At least one company is already targeting the quick and cheap porting market using WINE based technology.
I know most people think it is a crazy idea, but I think it is long past time for games to go open source. Really, the open source model lends itself almost ideally to gaming and there is a lot of money to be made by the early adopter.
Already some games are carried to success by the mod community. Really there are several components to a successful game. Artwork, story, and gameplay. Of those, only the gameplay is at risk of being copied by competitors if a game is open sourced. Gameplay relies upon the engine (which most companies license from someone anyway), the UI, and the scripting and glue. So most companies would benefit from having an open source engine to use as it would save them licensing fees and let them benefit from the work of other companies and the community. The UI is partially graphics (which need not be open). So really all they are opening up is some of the UI and the glue. The scripting is part of the story and can remain closed.
Here's what I envision. Build an open source virtual game console. Included in this are one or more game engines, some public domain graphics, some free development tools, a basic UI, and online component for discovery of new games. Build it to accept modules which can be open or closed. Build at least one free game module, including public domain graphics, but containing trademarked characters. Build your own closed source professional dev tools. Get this game/setup as widely distributed as possible. Make it free as in beer and get desktop Linux distros to include it. Get Dell to include it. Get Apple to include it.
So everyone has a free game and your brand is out there and you're out a lot of money. Where's the profit? The profit is in making additional games, which players of the first game see advertised for free when they start up the first game. The profit is in contract work to make other games and in licensing fees for the dev tools or contracts to work on the engine. Basically game manufacturers get greatly reduced development time, easy portability, and cheaper development. You get established as the primary experts on the new system, control of the initial distribution servers, and first mover advantage. Everyone in this picture wins, except those still using a closed system. Even open source zealots will not argue too hard about a closed game module that runs within an open source sandbox and is only a game (mostly data). And since you still have copyright on artwork and story and trademarks on names and branding, you don't have much to worry about copycats undercutting you.
This is, of course, not the solution to all problems, but it is a big step forward. A lot of the work is already done by open source gaming projects and most of them would welcome a commercial backer and the benefits a few good full-time coders can bring. If I had the time and was confident in my management abilities I'd be on the ground floor of this startup right now. I just hope someone does it so we can move gaming forward.
The assertion is that the cost isn't worth it. Realistically, pretty much all of the really successful games not developed by a shop MS owns, eventually get ported to the Mac and that has meant away from DirectX. Of course now that there are WINE re-implementation options that will not necessarily be the case. Still, while arguing against maintaining a non-DirectX solution you might want to look at companies like Blizzard. They seem to be doing pretty well, don't you think?
...if making the game cross-platform, or supporting it once it is, takes more than a company-day, it's just not worth it.
Keeping code portable opens up the Mac platform, the Linux platform, and the console market. If your game isn't a flop maintaining portability is profitable. Of the top 10 best selling games last year, I think 9 are now cross platform. I think 5 were cross-platorm when released.
Making a game cross platform is a gamble, just like making a game in the first place. If you don't know if your game will be successful, you can cut your investment costs by aiming only at one console or Windows and hiring people that only know that target. If you're successful, you can still port, but you lost potential revenue by making that port harder with your initial decisions. If you know your game will be successful, you're almost certainly going to code with cross-platform issues in mind, or you've screwed up.
Bioware in the past has tried to take a middle road, by hiring some people that are more versatile and trying to address cross-platform issues, but in a half-assed sort of way. They made big promises but did not carry through, alienating much of their potential market. They ported parts of their games, but not all and charged more for the partial game on a different platform. Basically, they have been incompetent at a management level and it shows and hurts them.
I think the unfortunante reality is that in today's gaming market, you find that fewer people are willing to take a chance on the sales for these smaller markets -- too hard to predict revenue, and too hard to (some would say) to do the porting.
The really smart gaming houses that know their titles will be successful (look at Id and Blizzard) also know that coding their titles to be portable is the way to go, even if they don't want to target other platforms. It encourages good coding practices and makes a better program. Most of them rely heavily on OpenGL and do plan to port their games at least to the mac as part of their original strategy. If your game is almost finished and you're just now considering portability and other platforms, you screwed up. You might as well wait till it is out and see how popular it is before going after other platforms.
Some might say the Mac or Linux markets are insignificant, but the truth is a lot of companies make good money from the Mac market. Lets not forget to include consoles as well when considering portability. I've seen some companies cite the practices of MS owned gaming houses as reason not to make games portable, but that is pretty laughable when you consider it. Also, I've seen some people point to horribly botched porting projects as reason to avoid it. Instances where a Linux port came out a year and a half after the Windows version, was buggy, was a game that required a community, and where the port was more expensive than the Windows version and was more buggy than using the Windows version in WINE. That too is pretty sad.
Coding for portability and aiming at Windows, the mac, and one or more consoles can seriously increase the revenue from a game, but it has to be part of the original game plan and you have to code with that in mind. Porting after the fact can make money, and if you have a very successful title outsourcing the port can make some pretty safe money, but not nearly as much of it. I don't see a reason for any big publisher (not owned by MS) to not target multiple platforms from the outset. Anyone want to bet the MMORPG that topples WoW's supremacy is another simultaneous cross-platfomr release?
It's the same concept here. Now, not only does this guy get put away for 20 years or whatever for soliciting sexual acts, but he gets another few for doing it over the internet. Furthermore, I suppose, it could be a way to get around double jeopardy. So if you couldn't nail the guy for soliciting sexual acts, you could try again for soliciting sexual acts over the internet.
And you think that's a good thing? The concept of double jeopardy exists for reason. If robbery should be punishable by 20 years, change the law to make it punishable by 20 years, not by 10 years for robbery and 10 years for robbery using a banana. Trying to get around fundamental concepts of our justice system or pandering to the hysterics of those who fear random new things is stupid and unethical.
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Reference books and articles (in my industry at least) are peer-reviewed, if you are getting them from the major outlets. You know they are credible, or at least validated by several other PhD's in the field.
Or maybe they are corporate funded propaganda. You don't know until you check the references and see who has peer reviewed them. The exact same thing goes for Wikipedia articles. Maybe articles in some given publication are always reviewed by certain parties and you can build up a level of trust, but said publications change and are sometimes purchased outright. You can't rely upon blind trust in a publication be it wikipedia or anything else. Look at the references and read critiques if you are a scientist. If, on the other hand, you just want someone to tell you what to think, you can ignore them. I just don't think wikipedia is all that less trustworthy that a random encyclopedia or book from the store and statistically that seems to be the case from the studies I've read.
I can't believe you're actually linking to junkscience.com. It just goes to show some people never bother to research their sources. Are you sure there is not a Fox news article you can cite as well? First, DDT is a dangerous pesticide that was horribly overused. It can be applied in beneficial ways, but is rarely the best option. The 50 million people number you cite is pure crap from a source so lacking in credibility they have been used as an example or the dangers of corporate sponsored propaganda in numerous studies. Now tell me again how this in any way indicates humans are not responsible for global warming?
These articles could have been written by anybody. It only seems appropriate that I would be skeptical about a topic written by a less than credible source about a t0pic I know little about.
The same is true for reference books, articles, television programs, etc. That's what the references are for. I agree you should be skeptical of wikipedia articles, I'm just not sure you should be more skeptical than you are of other sources of info.
Care to back any of that up? I'm aware of very few recent OpenGL games.
That's easy. DirectX is Windows and Xbox specific (aside from the rare re-implementation of the APIs which are soon to be more common, but are not as yet). So grab a list of the top N PC games and see how many of them have a version running on PS3 or OS X or some other platform. Now take a look at those in that list that are not made by a Microsoft owned publisher and are not that company's first successful game. You'll end up with a very short list. Half-life is about the only notable one.
Also, I think you mischaracterise DirectX as 'quick and dirty'; How is using DirectX 'cutting corners'?
Using DirectX itself is not cutting corners, but designing a game upon a non-portable, non-modulare framework is. It is entirely possible to design a game that way and most who do rely just on DirectX. The next game they make they usually have to scrap most of the code and start over because little of it is reusable. If the game is successful, ports are more expensive and slower. It basically means they "cut corners" initially to keep development cheap and thus have greater long-term costs if they make another version or a port. Big development houses almost always plan on a more long term basis and invest up front for more reusable code and easier ports. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of them do use DirectX for components of the Windows version, but in a modular fashion with portable coding practices. This should be clear from the thread a few comments up, but I probably should have repeated it for people like you, joining the conversation later. DirectX versus OpenGL was a drastic simplification used to quickly categorize.
Allow me for one to say that I am sick of the "Christians are anti-science" bullshit that the left loves to harp on while giving the environmental movement a free pass.
Well, technically, christians, by definition, ascribe to a non-scientific belief or system of beliefs. Environmentalist, however, are by definition advocating a goal, not ascribing to a belief. There are certainly people in both camps that are more or less disposed to adhere to the scientific method, but christians go in with one strike against them.
I think it is fair to say, however, that a significant number of influential christians are very anti-science. That is not to say that christians in general are, but where you see fundamental attempts to undermine science or legislate behavior that ignores the facts and theories determined by the scientific method, you're often dealing with one religious lobby or another.
Bickering over what culture has more extreme anti-science elements, however, is useless. It is just a variation of the "at least we're not as bad as china" argument. I think eliminating unscientific arguments at the onset is prerequisite for reasonable decision making. At that point it becomes clear that while there are plenty of unscientific arguments out there, the scientific method does indicate that global warming is happening, at a faster rate than can be explained by any proposed natural causes. The correlative factors that give the most promise for explaining the phenomenon indicate a human action and carbon dioxide emissions are the most probable candidate of all theories thus far proposed. A person acting rationally, therefore, must act with the knowledge that it is the most probable way to effect change and should be addressed as such.
Until people realize that whatever human beings are doing to the atmosphere is not and cannot be the whole story, then the "It's all our fault!" environmental movement is bankrupt both morally and intellectually.
This is called a strawman argument. No one ever said that there were not multiple factors that determine the temperature and even warming trends. That does nothing to address that the best scientific theory indicates that humans are significantly contributing to unusually rapid changes in global warming.
Here's some other Inconvenient Truths... * DDT is not very dangerous to the environment
DDT is plenty dangerous to regulate its use. It may not be as harmful as some other substances, but few of those substances were ever used in the massive quantities DDT was.
* One of the founders of Greenpeace supports nuclear power
So? Greenpeace is a political group and nuclear power is a reasonably safe clean, and cheap power source compared to fossil fuels.
* The Kyoto Treaty exempts some of the biggest carbon polluters of all
So? The Kyoto treaty was a compromise designed to reduce global emissions. Some large producers of carbon dioxide are in the same industrial growth phase the US was seventy years ago. You can't get ahead of everyone else using a practice and then ban others from doing it themselves and expect them to go along with it.
In any case, all the points you make do nothing to address the issue at hand. Our best data indicates humans are significantly increasing the temperature and rate of change of temperature of the planet. Oil companies are using money to influence our educational system to teach that this is not the case.
I found it pretty freaking slick at how you conflated economics and morality - but the more I think about it, the more I believe one doesn't follow the other.
I'm not the previous poster, but I certainly think economics is a tool that can be used to accomplish some moral or ethical goal. It is as related to ethics as say, law is.
but let's say you were right - then you are basically advocating communism of sorts, or some sort of equal distribution of wealth, and I just can't buy that only on the account of prior historical instances. Not that I can necessarily prove or disprove whether it is possible to sustain communist/socialist/whatever past-liberal regimes, I'm just saying so far any attempts have failed.
You're making a classic mistake. An economy is not a capitalist one or a socialist one or a communist one. Every economic system on the planet is a blend of all three in different proportions. Historically, the US has always practiced communism on a wide scale, with communist cells being families and extended families. Historically the US has almost always practiced socialism in the form of a navy a postal system and public schools. Historically the US has always practiced capitalism in the form a of a largely unregulated market and private businesses.
When you refer to "historical instances" what you're probably referring to is instances where an economic system tried to move to move to an extreme. Too large of communist cell sizes leads to too much concentration of power paired with unmotivated decision making. It makes power grabs by any one power too easy in most political systems. Too much socialism in a non-closed system leads to lack of motivation for innovation and a stagnating economy easily disrupted by outside forces. Too much capitalism leads to concentration of wealth and eventual return to feudalism and then violent revolution by the poor.
Make no mistake, however, our current balance of these elements is not a moral choice, but a practical one as determined by what works. It is not more moral or ethical to share resources among a family or extended family or whole community. It is not more moral or ethical for the wealthy to be taxed more heavily than the poor. It is simply a matter of trying to maximize whatever values a society possesses, whether those are ideal living conditions, freedom of choice, or minimal government intervention.
People of the Mac: your machines can run Windows now. Upgrade, pay the Microsoft tax (since you have so much disposable income ;), and reboot when you want to game. Who cares what OS is running behind your game that takes up the whole screen?
I know being a Windows user this may be hard to understand, but I don't quit my programs, let alone reboot my machine. My e-mail reader has been open for a month. My terminals have been running longer than that. I quit them when I reboot, which is when there are updates that affect me and require it. Rebooting to play a game? Absurd. I play games, but I'm not about to quit all my open programs and have to spend 15 minutes restoring my computer to its working state just to play some game. I'd rather just play a game that works natively in my OS of choice, or runs well within a Windows VM. My purchases will reflect that choice.
You do realize you're recommending people repartition their hard drives and shell out for a copy of Windows just to play a game? I've got a news flash for you. A few geeks might do that, but not enough to have any affect upon the sales of a game. People don't buy OS's or install OS's or partition hard drives. They don't even know what OS's are.
So that is why I care what OS is running behind a fullscreen game. Also, if you're a geek do you really only have one monitor? You don't have a second one full of IRC sessions and IM chats and a Web browser looking up something while you wait for something to happen in game? Sorry, you failed to make your sale.
We were discussing whether these companies use portable code including OpenGL or if they were using just DirectX. Whether or not they get a Linux port specifically, is another matter. So taking a look at the top 10 PC games of 2005, for example, yields 9 games that have been ported to a platform besides Windows or the XBox and 1 that was Windows only. Or specifically adderssing the games you list, you can remove Company of Heroes (published by MS I believe though THQ). You can remove Oblivion, Civ4, Warcraft3, WoW, Call of Duty 2 and UT2004 which were developed in or ported to OpenGL and published to the Mac and/or various consoles.
That leaves only Half-life 2 as not fitting into one of the three categories I listed. They are actually in category 4, which is smaller than the others, but is game shops that are really focused on DirectX and do not move to portability, probably because the people with all the pull only know DirectX and are afraid to move. There are a few of these companies, but I think my point still stands fairly well.
Again, we're not talking about ports to any specific platform, simply the types of PC gaming companies that do not generate portable code using pre-established APIs and with OpenGL at the onset of development. For Linux specifically, even with portable code the incidental costs are not always worth bringing it to market, given Linux's share on the desktop.
Yes, clearly you should be running NetBSD on that kid instead.
I dunno, shouldn't kids have a few more open ports, by default?
There would have to be enough cash-up-front pre-orders for the Mac and Linux version to completely cover the cost of development. Plus %10 profit.
Or EA, who owns Mythic, could tell them to do it since it is good business.
No one cares about the Mac and Linux game markets. They're too small.
Umm, that's why 9 of the top 10 selling games of 2005 have a Mac version?
Hell, a lot of developers don't even care about the *Windows* game market, because it's too small compared to the the console market.
Oh, what console will you be aiming at? If you're going for the Xbox, MS is already trying to make it one stop development for Windows and their console. Why not release for both? If it's the PS3, well, if your code is written well to start with and you want the possibility of going to the Wii as well, then Windows and the Mac are easy targets. Why not grab the low hanging fruit?
There a reason so many MMORPGs are being made for the PC. It's the only "genre" that can't be done well on consoles (no keyboard), and it's the only genre that makes piracy impossible.
Bah! Piracy is as big a problem on consoles as it is PCs. Games are developed for PCs and Macs because their is a market and money to be had. Anyone who ignores that market loses out. Blizzard has a clue with the top selling game of last year that just happens to target both the Mac and PC simultaneously and with semi-official support for Linux. People have been claiming the gaming market would move to consoles for over a decade and it never does, because PCs simply have more capabilities and room for innovation and because people need PCs for some tasks and want gaming in the same package. It is not going away anytime soon and with Sony's moves towards open and portable OpenGL models, it is getting easier than ever to target multiple platforms.
I'm guessing they'd have to drop EA first...
I doubt it. Mythic seems like a DirectX shop, but EA is not. Ever heard of "The Sims?" I'm pretty sure the numbers they have on mac sales of the Sims 2, which just happens to have phenomenal sales on the Mac (as well as PC) making it into one of the top selling games of all time. I doubt EA is about to ignore the mac market now. I doubt any big established developer not owned by Microsoft can be so clueless as to ignore the mac after doing any market research. Half the best selling games last year were simultaneous Mac/PC launches.
I'm guessing that either OS would have to attain more than 5% market share.
Take a look at the top 10 games of last year. Notice anything about their Mac support? 9/10 support the mac today. 5/10 supported the mac with the initial release, including all of the top 3. Whether this is causative or simply correlative to some other factor, it does not bode well for this Warhammer game. A lot of people look at the mac and dismiss said market as insignificant. If you think "5% of sales why bother?" maybe you need to rethink. 5% of sales is not 5% of installed machines. Macs pick up a few percent by having 1-2 year longer average lifespan. Then if you discount all the Windows boxes installed in offices that will never get games, you're looking at an even bigger chunk of your potential sales. Then if you look at the relative disposable income of the purchasers you start to get even more nervous. If you estimate how many games those mac users will buy, and then notice how much less competition there is on that platform, you're looking at even more sales. And then if you are selling a MMORPG that has an interoperability component and you realize you can lose 10 sales because one person in a group has a mac and they want to game as a group, well that quick evaluation of 5% may have just knocked your game out of the running for being a blockbuster.
A lot of people who consider themselves part of the gamer community do not realize that "hardcore" gamers are not most of the market. Casual gamers are the moneymakers, which is why the various Sims games and expansions account for 4 of the top 10 games in sales last year. There are a few kinds of companies that ignore that mac game market. Small companies without the capital to invest in cross-platform up front, MS owned companies that strategically avoid the mac, and companies dominated DirectX developers that for one reason or another can't manage the move. Mythic is now owned by EA, and they certainly don't neglect the Mac in general. So we'll see what happens with their future titles, but I suspect at least for now, they are in this last category and it will hurt them.
That's an exaggeration. Microsoft has at least 3 competitors: Linux, Mac and Pirated Windows (TM)
The number of Linux licensed sold or pre-installed for the desktop is tiny. It is not enough to significantly influence the market in any way. Maybe if Walmart decides to push it it can be. Mac OS X does not compete with Windows. Apple maintains a separate vertical chain and competes with Dell and other PC vendors. It does not sell OS X to PC vendors and is thus in a completely different market. Pirated Windows does compete with them, but more than anything it severs to kill the low end market where MS will not legally profit and where competitors might gain a foothold. For the most part, this is a win for MS.
From an economic perspective, their is no significant competition for Windows. That is not to say the price is not regulated by the market, it is set at what they think will maximize profit though, not what will allow them to beat the competition. It is, thus, much higher than it would be in a competitive market and slowly climbing as they embrace more and and more markets and add that cost into the whole.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps it's not that developers are dumb, but instead it's that it's not quite as straightforward as you make out?
Actually, it is neither. Most big development houses do exactly what he said they should. Look at the top games of the last few years. They fall into 3 basic categories:
He says he doesn't understand the latter two categories, but that is because he's thinking in terms of development practices instead of business case. Category two is avoiding OpenGL because MS benefits more from promoting DirectX. Category three is a company that was uncertain if they were going to succeed so they kept their initial investment as small as possible by cutting corners and doing some things the quick and dirty way. They can pay someone to port it with proceeds, which won't make them as much cash, but they risked a lot less as well.
Not that there are not a few clueless companies out there that are on DirectX because it is all they know and they have too much momentum to hire better people. For the most part, however, the above categories describe the industry pretty well.
The reason why developers don't normally write a Linux or Mac version simultaneously is that it's actually a lot of work. And unless you can justify the extra time and money that you'll need to put in to doing it, it just doesn't make sense.
Doing it right does make sense if you're confident your game will be successful. If you're taking a shot in the dark, however, and might be making a flop, it doesn't make sense. It is a risk management situation though, not really a question of payoff.
Good luck dragging the guild away from Warcraft.
Yeah, I'm not a WoW addict, but of my friends who play 8 now use Macs. That probably accounts for at least thirty people total that take part in their weekly gaming night that won't be even trying Warhammer.
Making a project Free and/or Open Source doesn't automatically makes it better no matter what some zealots may say.
Actually, yes it does. Being Free/Open source is a feature. Your argument is like saying "adding support for other platforms doesn't make it better." Sure it does, although the end result of such additions will not necessarily be positive.
The advantage of MMORPGs in the form that we all know is that one or several servers are run by an entity/company by its rules and the server rules are stricytly controlled by them.
I think it is debatable as to whether that is an advantage or disadvantage, but how does open sourcing this project stop some company from running a game using it on their own servers with their own rules?
Open Source almost always equalös division and we will see millions of variations of modifications that will be incompatible with each other and that will bring down the quality of the game.
Actually, I think the gaming market is ready for open source, but not following the same business model as Tux Racer, rather more along the lines of Apache. I'd like to see several companies contribute to an open source gaming engine and system and each of them build commercial games on top of them, including copyrighted artwork and trademarked settings. That way both commercial enterprises and community games can collaborate and improve the base engine and everyone wins. Ideally, I'd like to see a gaming environment with an engine that takes plug in game modules that anyone can create and which can be downloaded or purchased from a network built into the game engine. For the most part it is not the engine or the graphics even that need improvement in games. It is the story and game play. If one or a consortium of companies maintained this base system we could have numerous game modules developed faster for less cost and with more shared code. Really, how many slightly modified copies of the unreal engine does the average person need on their computer?
And look where they are now...about a 2% marketshare of the PC market!
Actually that is about 5%, which is to say considerably more than they had before Jobs took over.
Could you imagine the Zune supporting MS? Cause the iPod seems to be the only thing keeping apple around
The iPod certainly makes Apple a significant amount of money, but they're making more money total than ever before, both from PC sales and other products. It's hard to argue with results, but I guess you prove, if you get your facts wrong, you can do even that.
The software that is released changes quicker than WINE improves. It's a catch-up game, and unfortunately, WINE is getting farther and farther behind... A few years ago, the situation was actually better, and you could count on WINE to at least have a fair chance to run at least half of your games. These days, that's not the case. Yes, WINE improves, but not as fast as new games evolve.
I'm not necessarily saying you're incorrect about your predictions, but there are a few points worth considering. A few years ago, OS X took off on the desktop and a whole slew of developers and geeks moved over. A lot of those people could run a significant number of games natively. Thus the demand for WINE decreased. Apple is still moving its user base to Intel and with it, WINE becomes useful to those people again and to a whole set of users that have never had a use for WINE. In addition to hobbyists, WINE has real commercial applications on OS X's greater desktop market. Already one company has written a toolset for quick ports of applications via WINE technologies and two more are selling WINE based virtualization environments. A lot of that work gets fed back into the WINE code base.
Also, Sony and some other big players are stepping up to the plate with regard to OpenGL. It is no secret that Microsoft plans to fight the console wars partly by using DirectX to Windows and Xbox as a one stop development model for targeting the PC and console. Sony has already started to respond, moving to open source, OpenGL based models for the PS3 and stepping up their involvement in the development. If Nintendo and Apple see the threat as well and step in, we could see OpenGL based development suites targeting Windows, OS X, PS3, Wii, and possibly Linux as an alternative one-stop that will clobber DirectX. That's not to say it will happen, but the potential for a real alliance is there and I believe they are all members of the Kronos Group now in charge of OpenGL.
When you combine those two factors, there is more than a little doubt as to the fate of WINE and whether it will decline and keep losing ground or take off with new life. I've never before had a lot of interest in WINE, but my company has a few hundred bucks ready for Crossover if they get certain apps running properly, and at a net savings to us. How many other companies are in the same boat. Anything cheaper than the cost of a Windows license and emulator is savings for us. That's a lot of cash for the commercial entity that puts it together. Cash = incentive = code = better WINE.
Am I the only one less than shocked by the implication that Vista's UI is going to be a mess, just like every other version of Windows? I mean I thought it was pretty obvious that somewhere early on in the formation of MS, they hired people that don't know how to do good usability testing and have never corrected the problem. Or maybe it is just that people in marketing or somewhere else have more say in the matter and end up overriding the right decisions.
Now I don't agree with all the quick and dirty second guessing. I think a lot of people want to have their Windows box shut down, closing all their apps and restart with a "fresh slate" while they go to the bathroom or something. But I also doubt that the existing UI described was the result of good user testing. The UI could be greatly simplified. Anyone, however, who was expecting this to happen has never paid attention to a Windows upgrade before or was privy to something I was not. The Windows UI will suck right up until it starts costing MS real money. Until then, users will just have to deal with it.
Having said that, one of the reasons I originally opted to get into World of Warcraft was that I was bored, I wanted a game to get into, and I didn't own a Windows box - which pre-empts me from owning the vast majority of top-tier PC titles.
The mac platform outperforms most estimates based solely upon market share for several reasons. They include: less competition, larger install share than market share, less piracy, macs are concentrated among those with disposable income, most office systems are Windows and do not get games while most macs are home machines.
I recall hearing from a videogame podcast at some point where an expansion pack for The Sims for the Mac had momentarily broke into the top 10 selling games of the week for any platform. That may speak to something about the general interests of people who run OS X, that they're more interested in The Sims than Half-Life...
Well, since half-life has never made it to the Mac this does not speak to the interest of the users, but to the popularity of what is available. Half-life is actually an exception to the rule in that it is a major, popular game, not made by a MS owned shop that has not been ported to the Mac. There are a few others like this, but not many of the super popular games.
Of course, in the case of World of Warcraft, the time spent to port the game may be worth it on profit for the fact that the game continues to pay the company every month as opposed to just a "1000 copies for $50" equation.
True. For multiplayer, community type games there is also the benefit of interoperability. You might lose 20 players on such a system if 2 of them have macs and the group is looking for something everyone can play (especially when one of those 20 is a cute college girl half the players are sweet on). I've seen it happen first hand.
It's also worth noting that some companies hire out-of-house programmers to port their work to OS X, but end up with buggy or otherwise lesser quality products as a result (see: Civilization IV).
This is true, and may get worse as quick and dirty ports using re-implementations of the Windows APIs become viable solutions. At least one company is already targeting the quick and cheap porting market using WINE based technology.
I know most people think it is a crazy idea, but I think it is long past time for games to go open source. Really, the open source model lends itself almost ideally to gaming and there is a lot of money to be made by the early adopter.
Already some games are carried to success by the mod community. Really there are several components to a successful game. Artwork, story, and gameplay. Of those, only the gameplay is at risk of being copied by competitors if a game is open sourced. Gameplay relies upon the engine (which most companies license from someone anyway), the UI, and the scripting and glue. So most companies would benefit from having an open source engine to use as it would save them licensing fees and let them benefit from the work of other companies and the community. The UI is partially graphics (which need not be open). So really all they are opening up is some of the UI and the glue. The scripting is part of the story and can remain closed.
Here's what I envision. Build an open source virtual game console. Included in this are one or more game engines, some public domain graphics, some free development tools, a basic UI, and online component for discovery of new games. Build it to accept modules which can be open or closed. Build at least one free game module, including public domain graphics, but containing trademarked characters. Build your own closed source professional dev tools. Get this game/setup as widely distributed as possible. Make it free as in beer and get desktop Linux distros to include it. Get Dell to include it. Get Apple to include it.
So everyone has a free game and your brand is out there and you're out a lot of money. Where's the profit? The profit is in making additional games, which players of the first game see advertised for free when they start up the first game. The profit is in contract work to make other games and in licensing fees for the dev tools or contracts to work on the engine. Basically game manufacturers get greatly reduced development time, easy portability, and cheaper development. You get established as the primary experts on the new system, control of the initial distribution servers, and first mover advantage. Everyone in this picture wins, except those still using a closed system. Even open source zealots will not argue too hard about a closed game module that runs within an open source sandbox and is only a game (mostly data). And since you still have copyright on artwork and story and trademarks on names and branding, you don't have much to worry about copycats undercutting you.
This is, of course, not the solution to all problems, but it is a big step forward. A lot of the work is already done by open source gaming projects and most of them would welcome a commercial backer and the benefits a few good full-time coders can bring. If I had the time and was confident in my management abilities I'd be on the ground floor of this startup right now. I just hope someone does it so we can move gaming forward.
Except the point is that the cost isn't worth it.
The assertion is that the cost isn't worth it. Realistically, pretty much all of the really successful games not developed by a shop MS owns, eventually get ported to the Mac and that has meant away from DirectX. Of course now that there are WINE re-implementation options that will not necessarily be the case. Still, while arguing against maintaining a non-DirectX solution you might want to look at companies like Blizzard. They seem to be doing pretty well, don't you think?
Keeping code portable opens up the Mac platform, the Linux platform, and the console market. If your game isn't a flop maintaining portability is profitable. Of the top 10 best selling games last year, I think 9 are now cross platform. I think 5 were cross-platorm when released.
Making a game cross platform is a gamble, just like making a game in the first place. If you don't know if your game will be successful, you can cut your investment costs by aiming only at one console or Windows and hiring people that only know that target. If you're successful, you can still port, but you lost potential revenue by making that port harder with your initial decisions. If you know your game will be successful, you're almost certainly going to code with cross-platform issues in mind, or you've screwed up.
Bioware in the past has tried to take a middle road, by hiring some people that are more versatile and trying to address cross-platform issues, but in a half-assed sort of way. They made big promises but did not carry through, alienating much of their potential market. They ported parts of their games, but not all and charged more for the partial game on a different platform. Basically, they have been incompetent at a management level and it shows and hurts them.
I think the unfortunante reality is that in today's gaming market, you find that fewer people are willing to take a chance on the sales for these smaller markets -- too hard to predict revenue, and too hard to (some would say) to do the porting.
The really smart gaming houses that know their titles will be successful (look at Id and Blizzard) also know that coding their titles to be portable is the way to go, even if they don't want to target other platforms. It encourages good coding practices and makes a better program. Most of them rely heavily on OpenGL and do plan to port their games at least to the mac as part of their original strategy. If your game is almost finished and you're just now considering portability and other platforms, you screwed up. You might as well wait till it is out and see how popular it is before going after other platforms.
Some might say the Mac or Linux markets are insignificant, but the truth is a lot of companies make good money from the Mac market. Lets not forget to include consoles as well when considering portability. I've seen some companies cite the practices of MS owned gaming houses as reason not to make games portable, but that is pretty laughable when you consider it. Also, I've seen some people point to horribly botched porting projects as reason to avoid it. Instances where a Linux port came out a year and a half after the Windows version, was buggy, was a game that required a community, and where the port was more expensive than the Windows version and was more buggy than using the Windows version in WINE. That too is pretty sad.
Coding for portability and aiming at Windows, the mac, and one or more consoles can seriously increase the revenue from a game, but it has to be part of the original game plan and you have to code with that in mind. Porting after the fact can make money, and if you have a very successful title outsourcing the port can make some pretty safe money, but not nearly as much of it. I don't see a reason for any big publisher (not owned by MS) to not target multiple platforms from the outset. Anyone want to bet the MMORPG that topples WoW's supremacy is another simultaneous cross-platfomr release?
It's the same concept here. Now, not only does this guy get put away for 20 years or whatever for soliciting sexual acts, but he gets another few for doing it over the internet. Furthermore, I suppose, it could be a way to get around double jeopardy. So if you couldn't nail the guy for soliciting sexual acts, you could try again for soliciting sexual acts over the internet.
And you think that's a good thing? The concept of double jeopardy exists for reason. If robbery should be punishable by 20 years, change the law to make it punishable by 20 years, not by 10 years for robbery and 10 years for robbery using a banana. Trying to get around fundamental concepts of our justice system or pandering to the hysterics of those who fear random new things is stupid and unethical.