Game Development On Android 211
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Soulskill
from the pong-on-a-positronic-net dept.
from the pong-on-a-positronic-net dept.
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."
Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:1, Insightful)
The way the section quoted in the summary plays up the "wide-open field" of Android just strikes me as very silly. If you replaced "Android" with "Mac" and "iPhone" with "Windows," you'd have a pretty good approximation of the marketshare situation in the PC game market...and no one's suggesting that writing games for Mac is smarter than writing games for Windows due to massive overcrowding of the Windows games market.
(Apologies for any incoherence. Please blame posting before fully waking up.)
Dan Aris
Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:3, Insightful)
They have many more carrier deals than the iPhone has, and already more devices. Expect the tables to turn in 1-2 years. Apple will become the niche and Android will be everywhere.
iPhone and Android are in different kinds of market. iPhone's disadvantage *is not* that it only has one device on the market; it's an advantage for Apple, since it's the exact same phone for the whole platform, while in Android (and Symbian/Windows Mobile and so on) developers have to count all different kinds of devices and make separate apps for every phone. However, for Android it's also their advantage that they will have more models on the market.
They do not necessarily have to fight with each other. Both PC and Consoles have been for long in the same gaming market and both are still doing good. And iPhone and Android are even more far away from each other.
Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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:PC vs Console (Score:3, Insightful)
I just don't see it.
Re:Trendy (Score:3, Insightful)
You can use logic all you want to show the advantages Android phones have, but until the shine wears off for the iPhone fans and people realize just how tied their hands are, it will remain the dominant phone.
You're half right, the other part of the shine equation is eventually, the air of exclusivity will wear off and apple will become the next burberry and chavs will have them and then no one will want one.
Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:1, Insightful)
I think you are underestimating the iPhone ecosystem. It is big, bold and in your face. Even my folks know about the app-store. When the "We've got an app for that" parodies got out there, you know the clock was ticking for Android. The G1's been out for a year, and I don't know anyone with one. All I can say, disappointing...
Re:PC vs Console (Score:0, Insightful)
A variation in hardware requirements creates innovation in 3 ways- overcoming variations in hardware to deliver the same experience, pushing the envelope of more advanced hardware, delivering new experiences to those without advanced hardware.
In the first case, a PC made game is much more likely to be "scalable" in graphics, difficulty, AI, etc. The engines are much more robust because they must deal with many different levels of hardware and still deliver a bare minimum experience to the end user. Bloated code obviously still happens, but when you know that half your potential market may not be able to play your game, you are more likely to optimize. Contrast this to a console where you know exactly what the audience has. You don't bother to innovate in how you compress, store, display, program your code unless you have to. Knowing ahead of time that all hardware is equal, you are less apt to innovate.
PC's traditionally break away from consoles fairly quickly in graphics and computing power each generation. While little is done with all this extra power, a few games per year can be seen pushing the envelope of what can be done with the PC. Similarly, innovation comes not only from graphics but from AI. PC games are more likely to be programed with AI /physics, etc, that once again scale to the user's hardware. While on a console that AI only needs to be stagnant, a PC games AI may be able to react faster, smarter, etc on a more powerful system. Again, not all games do this, but some games are innovative enough to scale with the growth of your own machine, providing a better experience to those who shelled out the money.
Third is the opposite of my second point. Not everyone has an awesome PC. Just as some companies are trying to push the graphics and AI envelope, some companies are trying to appeal to the lower end of the spectrum. Companies may, and have tried to create new types of games or new games that cater to people who can only run the barest of systems.
Good examples of a games that could not exist on a console system are dwarf fortress and battle for westnoth.
The first for it's portability and scaleability. The innovation is that you can play DF anywhere of a thumbdrive, and it will scale to your hardware last time I checked.
Second, games like westnoth rely entirely upon the user community after release. The closest thing on a console is Little Big Planet, but last time I checked you can't package your own artwork, items, models, etc. into the game. Westnoth grows because it is open to the community. This allows it to scale to different hardware very well and at the same time the non-locked-out hardware of the PC allows anyone to create anything they'd like for the game (art, missions, items, characters, cutscenes, UI, etc..)
Give us C++ (Score:2, Insightful)
Java may appeal to some, but many of us just want C/C++ (Objective-C, allows that).
Games on consoles and PC are normally not developed in Java for many good reasons. Game developers that want to transition to phones are likely to prefer to stay with C++ where they can use their tools of choice, such as Visual Studio.
In fact, I think that a few people out there already develop C++ on PC and keep the actual iPhone/XCode build on the side. This is a big plus for those that are already making games and would like to try to use their knowledge and tools for a cell phone game..
Re:Java??!!?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Any programmer who prefers Java to Objective C or C is an idiot.
But I say that because I think Java is the worst language to be created since C++.
Re:Trendy (Score:3, Insightful)
You're half right, the other part of the shine equation is eventually, the air of exclusivity will wear off and apple will become the next burberry and chavs will have them and then no one will want one.
Don't assume that everyone picks a phone based on who else uses it or whether it is trendy.
Many people pick phones based on how it works and what it does - I certainly chose an iPhone on that basis, because the UI was the first one which felt like it was actually designed with a user in mind. The UI on the iPhone is good in my opinion, much better than what came before. It's quite a good phone (*if* your telephone service is good), the software is updated regularly, and in spite of Apple's control freak tendencies on their store, and the crapflood which is the app store listings, it has a lot of games and a lot of interesting other apps.
Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:4, Insightful)
name a market segment that cares about *any* of that then get back to me.
Not innovation, but development (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest strength the iPhone platform has is that the screen sizes are all the same, which makes game development much easier. You can optimize for that resolution and the standard set of inputs, instead of having to accommodate some people without multi-touch, some people with a keyboard and some without, all with different screen sizes that may affect the playing field.
The iPhone game developer does have the same issues as far as 3D power though, because the 3Gs and newer Touch devices support a more advanced version of OpenGL than does the original 3G platform (and remember, those are still being sold new!). So you have to decide if you want to support just one platform or program to allow for downgraded capability on some devices (which Apple makes about as easy as it can be I think, but it's still some work).
Re:Java??!!?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Let me guess, you've never written a web app. Ever.
Re:Java??!!?? (Score:1, Insightful)
[nil setPreferredLanguage: Objective_C]; //OK
I feel sorry for any programmer that have language preferences without taking in account what kind of problems he needs to solve. Go write yourself distributed web application with load-balancing in Ojbective-C.
Cheers.
Re:Java??!!?? (Score:1, Insightful)
But I say that because I think Java is the worst language to be created since C++.
Maybe you have to put this in different prospective: e.g. you are the worst Java programmer since Java has been created.
Re:Seems a trifle disingenuous to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people want a phone that looks cool, plays good games, has good music playing capability and is fun to use.
Class, notice that people do not want a phone that can make calls. That is why the iPhone does well while its phone capabilities are lacking.
The stats say it all (Score:3, Insightful)
While 90k+ apps & over 2bln downloads makes it harder to get noticed, those numbers say it all.
I've used a few Android phones and I like them. But the thing that makes the iPhone great to develop for (after you get past obj-c hurdle, the api's are actually really good) is that it's *standard*. One form factor, end of story. I can't help but think Android is gonna fall into the same hole that J2ME did when it tried to support everything. Already developers are maintaining separate branches for separate devices for Android. I've developed J2ME apps before and they are a f-ing nightmare. That platform never took off for a reason, because there's *too much* choice and diversity. Everything to all people; good luck.
There are also no where near as many Android users as iPhone and so developing for that platform with the intent to make some money on your app is not very plausible at this point. Maybe in a few years, maybe not. (Plus I hate Eclipse, so much unnecessary bloat, just like Java. I want tools that are fast and that don't require 5mil downloads of some frameworks I'll never use. But the Eclipse thing is only my hang up and I'm sure most Android devs won't care.)
So as a developer what makes more sense? 5 code bases for 5 Android phones - all with different form factors / features - and relatively little money for all your toil? Or one platform and the chance to hit it big? It's the same argument on a PC; develop for the huge Windows market, or everyone else?
Re:PC vs Console (Score:1, Insightful)
The jump from, say, Doom to Quake was entirely driven by uptake of hardware 3d acceleration. If you decide to "not see" those as innovation, well, that's your choice.
Wrong. Quake was software rendered. Quake II encouraged hardware rendering but was still software rendered for many people (Unreal did the same). It wasn't until the time of Quake 3 that hardware 3d acceleration really took off.
Re:PC vs Console (Score:3, Insightful)
1). I don't really care about innovations done for "scalability" done for PCs. With a console, you know exactly what everyone has, therefore you can optimize your art assets, audio assets, and your engine to run on that specific hardware. With a PC, you're wasting time trying to figure out how to dynamically determine if this player has obscure graphics feature C and dealing with turning it on or off. That's time that could be spent on real innovations, such as gameplay, that the "market" (players) actually care about.
2). Console generations are typically longer, than graphics card generations. This gives the developers more time and experience with the hardware, and the ability to do amazing things on it a few years after its launch that no one thought possible at launch. And these innovations are available to everyone who bought the console, not just those that decided they have the money to spend on 8 nVidia cards running at once.
3). There are plenty of "low-end" systems out there; they are called handhelds, and there is some terrific innovation going on there in trying to get more graphics power from their already limited processors. Take Square-Enix, for example. When they ported Final Fantasy III to the DS, they wanted to include some FMV cutscenes. Unfortunately, the processor for the top screen wasn't powerful enough to draw it alone. So they innovated, and brought in the processor for the bottom screen to help.
First you say that Dwarf Fortress couldn't not exist on a console, then you laud it for its portability. Wouldn't that portability lend itself to being ported to a console?
About the only point that still stands is the modability of PC games, which I will concede. Most developers are quite good at packaging the same tools they used to create the game, and giving them to the community at release or shortly after.
Re:opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
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
:-), but if it helps some people overcome their mental blocks, then it is probably a big deal for them.
[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