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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: qwerty823]
#36381
12/18/04 07:51
12/18/04 07:51
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
myrlyn68
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
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Quote:
All file formats are platform agnositc, as long as you have code that can read them.
Which was the entire point of my post. MED would not have any major changes (other than switching from a DirectX display to an OpenGL display...and most would agree that OpenGL is much easier for toolsets anyway), nor would the MDL format. Same goes for WED and SED. So Wladimir Stolipin and Gustav Nordvall would not really have any change in their work (other than the DirectX to OpenGL switch).
Physics is physics, and by and large does not have any direct dependancies on DirectX or OpenGL. There are some optimizations to be made, but by and large it will be a simple switch (especially when you take into account that there are a lot of apps using ODE and OpenGL already). The map compiler may prove problematic depending on how it is written - but there is a good chance that it could already be compiled as is to run on Linux or OSX (with the exception mainly of GUI aspects). So Marco's workload should be impacted only slightly.
C-Script need not have any changes done at all since it hooks to the engine. Doug can therefore keep plugin along on template scripts.
The engine and the Script compiler, JCL and Volker Kleipa respectively, are the only things which I could foresee needing major rewrites. And if done properly the changes can be totally transparent to the user base (for that matter they could release A7 as an OpenGL based engine).
Quote:
While pre-selling a Mac version of the software might sound like a good idea, it enters the whole world of "vaporware". Conitec fought hard against even having a "Forecast" list. It would be very hard to convince us to take money for a software product we haven't even started on...
That opinion in my mind would make me leary of putting $50K up for development costs. If you are not willing to take $1000 from 50 customers who are interested in a cross platform engine, why would it be any easy to take $50K from a single individual (company or otherwise)? Also in finding 50 willing participants it would seem to me to be a better indicator of the potential market than a single development house.
With 3DGS's apparent user base it would seem like the way to go. As opposed to waiting for a single user that is.
Quote:
Also, think of it from the indie perspective. If I'm going to spend my time and money on a product, do I want to deploy it on a computer system that has maybe 1% of the audience that windows has? Take Action Bird and Biyu Biyu...after all the time and sweat and money invested in it and for as excellent as those games look, if deployed on a mac it's exposure would be minimal and that would be a shame.
From the developers stand point Macs are actually the better market, however from Conitec's position I think it would be a hard sell. Due to the limited market of Macs very few games ever actually make it to the Mac - so you have much less competition...even from AAA titles. Where there might be 500+ adventure games released each year for Windows you might have 10 for Macs - so it is much easier to get the front page exposure than it would be when competing against those 500+ games. That and if you have a cross platform engine you will get to compete against the 500+ Windows only games as well as the 10 or so Mac games.
The bigger question though is not how it pans out for us, the developers, but for Conitec since for them it is not really a matter of how many games will be sold but how many Mac users they will pick up in porting the engine.
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: myrlyn68]
#36384
12/18/04 08:25
12/18/04 08:25
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,258
Virginia, USA
qwerty823
Senior Developer
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Senior Developer
Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 1,258
Virginia, USA
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Personally, I dont think the mac market is big enough to justify conitec doing the work. Im not saying its not there, just that its not justifiable. Im not here to refute that there is a mac market. I *know* there is one. I have a mac (G3 iBook) and i have torque, and have used it on it.
I think conitec is going the right route, work towards being portable, without going out of their way in doing so. Spliting things so that switching to opengl, and changing other parts can be done without impact (as much) to the rest.
While the toolset (WED,SED,MED) cant quite just be ported by changing to opengl (hello? MFC for the mac? I think we need to rewrite the GUI part, unless its done in something like wxWidgets). I know there are dev enviroments that wrapper common windows libs to make porting easier, but they cost money, and are slower in comparison to a true port.
Personally, I would rather see a renderless server version for linux then i would a mac port any way. Im sure that would require *a lot* less time and effort for them then trying to port the engine, tools, etc over to OSX/Carbon/OpenGL/OpenAL/etc.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: qwerty823]
#36385
12/18/04 08:43
12/18/04 08:43
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
myrlyn68
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
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As noted in my post regarding the Map compiler...I forgot to mention it when refering to WED, SED, and MED. That and I have been using Qt for GUIs for so long that MFC has become an after thought for me most of the time.
Anywho, rewrites of the editors are one of those things which I would be interested in (needed for the Mac version - might as well build one that will run on both Mac and Windows). Qt is not free - but it will run on Linux, OSX, Windows...and I have not noticed any appreciable difference in speed.
The renderless server is another feature which would be nice...that and getting rid of DirectPlay altogether. Again it is another thing that you might as well make it work on both (maybe include Linux too...) at once.
Virtual Worlds - Rebuilding the Universe one Pixel at a Time.
Take a look - daily news and weekly content updates.
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: Red Ocktober]
#36386
12/18/04 09:22
12/18/04 09:22
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
Doug
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
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Quote:
Quote:
a small pond just doesn't have that much food
you might wanna stop and take a look at the numbers first, before you jump to that conclusion... about the small pond of Mac users eager to see, and more importantly, to license, not only some of these games... but some of these game dev tools...
As I said in a previous post, I *want* to take a look at the numbers!  But does anybody have some hard numbers for me to look at?
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: Doug]
#36387
12/18/04 09:54
12/18/04 09:54
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Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,835
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Nardulus
Serious User
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Serious User
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 1,835
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
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What kind of numbers you are looking for.
I.E. Number of Mac Director Users (at least 50,000), Number of Mac 3D Capable Machines (?), Number of educational games released for the Mac Last year (?), number of Marble Blast users(?), how many MAC's is Marble Blast bundled on (alot, what a great deal for an indie), how many 3DGS users will purcahse a MAC 3DGS version (more than 3), Torque sales based on MAC capability (not sure, seems like there is alot of MAC Torque users active in their forum).
What numbers will help?
As far as resources being diverted to MAC development effecting 3DGS Windows development, I say phish, its part of the landscape of this business. The current changes in 3DGS regarding Direct X has had adverse effects for some users in this community, and others a benefical one. For example the Requirement for DX 9.0C did not sit well with my publisher. I either had to refund my advance or find another engine. I got the crap end of the stick on this decision.
Two things about the MAC port; IMHO
1) The port will be an oppurtunity to clean-up and organize many years of code.
2) New customers will be interested in 3DGS because of its ability to reach a fertile indie MAC market.
Myrlyn has been expressing my thoughts very well, thanks ole man....
Ken
Last edited by Nardulus; 12/18/04 09:58.
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: Doug]
#36388
12/18/04 10:09
12/18/04 10:09
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
myrlyn68
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,826
Margaritaville (Redneck Rivier...
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I should have some of the market reports still saved, what numbers are you looking for exactly in order to make your pitch? Number of Mac users, number of Mac users who play games, number of Mac users who want to develop games (probably don't have any hard data on that), number of Mac users who would by 3DGS if it was offered  ?
A lot of the data I have is not freely available and has to be obtained through polling and research firms like eTForecasts, Forrester Research Group or eMarketer (I have used eMarketer and Forrester Group - but eTForecasts comes highly recomended from others). Other bits of info can be found on Apple's quarterly reports (great stock to own right now BTW). Here is the Q4 financial results announced by Apple in October 2004:
• Revenue for the quarter was $2.35 billion, up 37 percent from the year-ago quarter
• 106 million profit or $.26 per diluted share
• Apple retail had $376 million in revenue, up 95%
• $18 million profit in retail segment
• For the year, Apple reported net income of $276 million on revenue of $8.28 billion compared to net income of $69 million on revenue of $6.21 billion in 2003.
• 7.8 million visitors to all retail stores in quarter, up from 5.3 million last year
• Apple shipped 836,00 Macintosh units during the quarter
• Apple sold 213,000 PowerBooks, 238,000 iBooks, 156,00 Power Macs and 229,000 iMacs in the quarter.
If you feel like finding a reason to commit suicide you can read through the quarterly reports going back a long time...but they are extremely long and dry reading if you are not intending on investing in them...and I get the summaries for free from my broker.
Other info that might be useful:
• 83% of graphic designers use Macs.
• 77% of corporate design departments use Macs.
• 65% of ad agencies use Macs.
• 26% of U.S. broadcast stations and cable systems use Apple computers as their primary system for editing/production workstations.
According to Apple they have over 25 million users worldwide (note that is according to Apple). They also claim to account for 8-12% of computers used in homes (however most other research not from Apple contradicts this).
Virtual Worlds - Rebuilding the Universe one Pixel at a Time.
Take a look - daily news and weekly content updates.
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Re: GameStudio for Mac?
[Re: myrlyn68]
#36389
12/18/04 10:22
12/18/04 10:22
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
Doug
Senior Expert
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Senior Expert
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 8,973
Bay Area
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Quote:
If you are not willing to take $1000 from 50 customers who are interested in a cross platform engine, why would it be any easy to take $50K from a single individual (company or otherwise)?
I knew somebody would bring this up. The short answer is: Contract work is very different then selling "vaporware vouchers".
With contract work you are normally dealing with a single client. The client tells you what he/she wants done and you set a price. You enter into an actual contract with this person ("I will do XYZ for the payment of $$$") so, if you've done everything right, there is no legal ambiguity.
In order to sell vaporware you have "create" (read: "make up") a list of features that is so amazing that you can attract "dev_cost/unit_price" number of clients (in your example, 50 people). The collective needs of 50 clients will be much greater then those of one. For example, I think originally we were only talking about porting the engine, not all the development tools! As somebody pointed out, it isn't trivial to port MFC code to other platforms
Add to that the uncertainty of having a "contract" with 50 clients. Do they pay up front? What happens if we only get 20 users? What if 20% of the clients don't like the finished product? Etc.
I'm taking too much time with this post as is, but I hope I've made it clear why I think contract work is much better then selling vaporware.
Again, I must point out that this is my opinion as an employee *not* as a policy maker (see my disclaimer above).
---------
Re-reading your question: Are you talking about 50 people pooling their money to fund a single contract? I'm not sure how that would work without getting into the whole vaporware thing, but if you could somehow convince that many people to fund a single project, then we might be able to do something with that...
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). With enough serious interest it would become more likely to happen...and I just don't foresee serious interest being generated by the current crowd (I myself am more interested in what it will do for various aspects of the Windows version due to the type of work I use 3DGS - a Mac version is just a means to an end).
