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Let me tell you that the future of game development is in developing games, and any particular language has nothing to do with it. Does anyone care what langua

by lstodd 6y ago

Let me tell you that the future of game development is in developing games, and any particular language has nothing to do with it. Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? No. Never.

Pfhreak 6y ago
I agree with you, but there are plenty of poorly educated gamers who think that 'developed in Unity' or Gamemaker means the game can't possibly be good. (All evidence to the contrary.)
- emsy 6y ago
  I have heard complaints about Unity games performing badly, which, for a lot of games, is actually the case.
St_Alfonzo 6y ago
Minecraft is a good example where people talk about the programming language. The portability of Java was a benefit for both Server and Client. But it was also critized because of the inefficiency of Java. I dont know if all this would have been better in Rust or other languages.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  Microsoft now has a second parallel implementation of Minecraft in C++. They've ported this to numerous platforms, but notably not MacOS or Linux desktops. (It's also substantially faster, but comparing it to Java edition is sort of unfair because there are a myriad of differences between the two in game mechanics, with many of the differences probably being relevant to performance.)
- gmueckl 6y ago
  I don't know for certain, but Java might be one of the reasons for Minecraft being as good as it is as a game. The comparatively minimalistic high level nature of that language leaves few possibilities to get lost in system level optimizations. And iterating in Java is a lot quicker than in C++ or Rust. It is an environment that helps focussing on game logic.
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  Eventually Microsoft rewrote it in C++ so they could run it effectively on things like iOS and Android. It took them a while to reach feature parity and some level of compatibility between them. The C++ one didn't have all the same features as the Java one for a while, but it ran fine on weaker hardware than the Java version needed.
  - boogies 6y ago
    IIUC the C++ Bedrock Edition evolved from the Pocket Edition, which was announced in 2011, ~3 years before the MS acquisition in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#Bedrock_Edition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#Bedrock_Edition.
- young_unixer 6y ago
  Java was the language that Notch felt comfortable in. If he had started to second guess the programming language, Minecraft probably wouldn't exist as we know it.
Jaxan 6y ago
It is important: I have very good memories of flash games. But those are now unplayable. (Well, I guess you can still run flash. But it doesn’t work out of the box.) The technology in which a game is made does matter a bit.
- taeric 6y ago
  Rust likey won't help here. Will just be in a place where things won't compile in the future despite being the same language. This is something our industry seems bent on doing. To hell with stability at the foundational level. Progress is measured in features. And those have gotten pushed to the foundation.
- cogman10 6y ago
  I think this is actually a key to why Rust will do well in the (possibly distant) future. Rust has one of the best Lang->WASM stories out there. The thing that made Flash games so popular was the "You just load up the page in your browser". I see rust fitting very well into that role in the future. Further, because WASM is a part of the web standard, I don't see it going away anytime soon. Those WASM games will work for a long time into the future.
modo_mario 6y ago
Is it me or are you bringing up something completely unrelated there? because it baffles me why I don't think the writer was talking about the the language somehow directly being related to a gamers experience. He's talking about building complex game engines and the like and the benefits he thinks Rust provides there...
ThePadawan 6y ago
> Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? > No. Never. I certainly remember games more that still have an active modding community, which is (somewhat) enabled by the choice of programming language. I doubt Rimworld or Minecraft would have the thousands of mods they do if modders had to write OCaml instead of Java or C#.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  Thanks to Unity Mod Manager and Harmony (C# Monkey patching Framework), unity games even get mods pretty much for free without the devs doing anything to support them.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  We were already doing mods back in the MS-DOS days, and sharing them over BBS and Usenet, before any of those languages were invented.
Shared404 6y ago
> Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? Roller Coaster Tycoon was in assembly.
kbenson 6y ago
> Let me tell you that the future of game development ... > Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed That seems to be a non-sequitur to me. What does what people play have to do with what developers are using to create? That's like asking if users care what language serves the web pages at Facebook. The users don't care, but people that make web sites/applications (the developers) might. Do you know what brand of guitar/piano/keyboard etc your favorite musicians use? I bet other musicians care about that.

by lstodd 6y ago

Pfhreak 6y ago

I agree with you, but there are plenty of poorly educated gamers who think that 'developed in Unity' or Gamemaker means the game can't possibly be good. (All evidence to the contrary.)

emsy 6y ago
I have heard complaints about Unity games performing badly, which, for a lot of games, is actually the case.

St_Alfonzo 6y ago

Minecraft is a good example where people talk about the programming language. The portability of Java was a benefit for both Server and Client. But it was also critized because of the inefficiency of Java. I dont know if all this would have been better in Rust or other languages.

bigbubba 6y ago
Microsoft now has a second parallel implementation of Minecraft in C++. They've ported this to numerous platforms, but notably not MacOS or Linux desktops. (It's also substantially faster, but comparing it to Java edition is sort of unfair because there are a myriad of differences between the two in game mechanics, with many of the differences probably being relevant to performance.)
gmueckl 6y ago
I don't know for certain, but Java might be one of the reasons for Minecraft being as good as it is as a game. The comparatively minimalistic high level nature of that language leaves few possibilities to get lost in system level optimizations. And iterating in Java is a lot quicker than in C++ or Rust. It is an environment that helps focussing on game logic.
0xCMP 6y ago
Eventually Microsoft rewrote it in C++ so they could run it effectively on things like iOS and Android. It took them a while to reach feature parity and some level of compatibility between them. The C++ one didn't have all the same features as the Java one for a while, but it ran fine on weaker hardware than the Java version needed.
- boogies 6y ago
  IIUC the C++ Bedrock Edition evolved from the Pocket Edition, which was announced in 2011, ~3 years before the MS acquisition in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#Bedrock_Edition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#Bedrock_Edition.
young_unixer 6y ago
Java was the language that Notch felt comfortable in. If he had started to second guess the programming language, Minecraft probably wouldn't exist as we know it.

Jaxan 6y ago

It is important: I have very good memories of flash games. But those are now unplayable. (Well, I guess you can still run flash. But it doesn’t work out of the box.) The technology in which a game is made does matter a bit.

taeric 6y ago
Rust likey won't help here. Will just be in a place where things won't compile in the future despite being the same language. This is something our industry seems bent on doing. To hell with stability at the foundational level. Progress is measured in features. And those have gotten pushed to the foundation.
cogman10 6y ago
I think this is actually a key to why Rust will do well in the (possibly distant) future. Rust has one of the best Lang->WASM stories out there. The thing that made Flash games so popular was the "You just load up the page in your browser". I see rust fitting very well into that role in the future. Further, because WASM is a part of the web standard, I don't see it going away anytime soon. Those WASM games will work for a long time into the future.

modo_mario 6y ago

Is it me or are you bringing up something completely unrelated there? because it baffles me why I don't think the writer was talking about the the language somehow directly being related to a gamers experience. He's talking about building complex game engines and the like and the benefits he thinks Rust provides there...

ThePadawan 6y ago

> Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? > No. Never. I certainly remember games more that still have an active modding community, which is (somewhat) enabled by the choice of programming language. I doubt Rimworld or Minecraft would have the thousands of mods they do if modders had to write OCaml instead of Java or C#.

Semaphor 6y ago
Thanks to Unity Mod Manager and Harmony (C# Monkey patching Framework), unity games even get mods pretty much for free without the devs doing anything to support them.
pjmlp 6y ago
We were already doing mods back in the MS-DOS days, and sharing them over BBS and Usenet, before any of those languages were invented.

Shared404 6y ago

> Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? Roller Coaster Tycoon was in assembly.

kbenson 6y ago

> Let me tell you that the future of game development ... > Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed That seems to be a non-sequitur to me. What does what people play have to do with what developers are using to create? That's like asking if users care what language serves the web pages at Facebook. The users don't care, but people that make web sites/applications (the developers) might. Do you know what brand of guitar/piano/keyboard etc your favorite musicians use? I bet other musicians care about that.