I really think it's just stigma. The joke goes: Knock knock! Who's there? ... ... Java! Of course today the performance of Java is fine, even comparable t

I really think it's just stigma. The joke goes: Knock knock! Who's there? ... ... Java! Of course today the performance of Java is fine, even comparable to C/C++ in some cases. Java2D is accelerated, the JDK comes with OpenGL/OpenAL, and there are all sorts of other libs like LWJGL and Slick. It might even be up there with XNA for desktop game development now, but I haven't done anything in-depth.