3 ms·

Locking your software onto someone else's platform is short sighted. I appreciate that indie game devs have limited resources, but a planning your game platfor

Locking your software onto someone else's platform is short sighted. I appreciate that indie game devs have limited resources, but a planning your game platform neutral from the outset will put you in a better opportunity to exploit other opportunities.

munk-a 7y ago
The tech here isn't great, Unity is sort of the banner of a decent cross-platform engine for building on top of but it has it's issues... for a game like this my guess is that the graphical rendering is very closely coupled with the game logic in an effort to save cycles. Your game being unperformant out the gate is a death sentence, your game being only available on windows means <1% of your market is disappointed. I wish games had better cross platform support, but the motivation just isn't there monetarily and these guys tend to be financially strained as is.
jbattle 7y ago
Short sighted? Games have been developed for windows first (or X-console-first) for going on 25 years. Seems like game developers have done OK with that strategy. The fact that windows-only is a poor business decision isn't obvious to me.
- loudmax 7y ago
  Maybe beneficial to the small game dev to focus on a single platform at expense of the ecosystem, not beneficial to the ecosystem. These devs have got bills to pay, and individually it's hard to push against the current, so it's an understandable trade off. This is the tragedy of the commons.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
I'm guessing that your not an indie dev :)
- loudmax 7y ago
  Nope. But if I were, I still wouldn't develop exclusively for a proprietary monopoly. We all have our own trade-offs to make. I don't blame anyone for focusing on where the money is. In the long run though, we'd all be better off with a competitive market than stuck with a single dominant platform.

3 ms·

Locking your software onto someone else's platform is short sighted. I appreciate that indie game devs have limited resources, but a planning your game platfor

by loudmax 7y ago

munk-a 7y ago
The tech here isn't great, Unity is sort of the banner of a decent cross-platform engine for building on top of but it has it's issues... for a game like this my guess is that the graphical rendering is very closely coupled with the game logic in an effort to save cycles. Your game being unperformant out the gate is a death sentence, your game being only available on windows means <1% of your market is disappointed. I wish games had better cross platform support, but the motivation just isn't there monetarily and these guys tend to be financially strained as is.
jbattle 7y ago
Short sighted? Games have been developed for windows first (or X-console-first) for going on 25 years. Seems like game developers have done OK with that strategy. The fact that windows-only is a poor business decision isn't obvious to me.
- loudmax 7y ago
  Maybe beneficial to the small game dev to focus on a single platform at expense of the ecosystem, not beneficial to the ecosystem. These devs have got bills to pay, and individually it's hard to push against the current, so it's an understandable trade off. This is the tragedy of the commons.
NicoJuicy 7y ago
I'm guessing that your not an indie dev :)
- loudmax 7y ago
  Nope. But if I were, I still wouldn't develop exclusively for a proprietary monopoly. We all have our own trade-offs to make. I don't blame anyone for focusing on where the money is. In the long run though, we'd all be better off with a competitive market than stuck with a single dominant platform.