My views on GarageGames,XNA, and C#

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Marcus   (Sep 01, 2006 at 02:31 GMT)

I really don't think their prices are out of range of the Indie dev. Just my opinion.

Brandon Maness   (Sep 01, 2006 at 02:51 GMT)

Good read. I agree with Foster about languages. I would learn as much about each one that applies to the projects you are working on. I usually end up using at least 2 languages (not including scripting) almost everyday at work, so become proficient with as many as is applicable (in my opinion).

As for pricing, I was glad to see the new changes. They have still left an avenue for the hobbyist at $100, but priced the source at a reasonable $250. Most people who will actually end up making source code changes will not have a problem spending $250, as it would more than likely be the cheapest tool in their arsenal. I think raising the prices is a good thing; it attracts a more competent group, increases the effectiveness of GG by increased revenue, will thin out some of the clueless people that should be learning the basics of coding first anyway, and will result in a more professional user base. I'm overstating it a bit, and surely there are exceptions and a few talented people who can't afford the new prices, but as for the majority, I think it fits pretty well. This is really business 101 which boils down to profit maximizing and finding price equilibrium relative to elasticity. Basic business decisions in my opinion, and it is good to see GG making them; makes me feel confident that GG will be around for years to come.

Just my personal 10 cents
Brandon

Jacob Fike   (Sep 01, 2006 at 03:02 GMT)

Don't take this the wrong way, but why is cross-platform capability important to you? Look at any market share analysis and Mac/Linux together are less than 10%, when it comes to games they probably have even less presence. Is it really worth the trouble to port your game to mac/linux for such a small audience?

XNA will be amazing because it will allow you to write one game that will work on both PCs and X360, at last giving indies a path into the console market. It will also allow people to get into game programming easier because C# and managed code are easier to learn and use, even if there might be performance drawbacks (which I don't think there will be once they finish optimizing everything). And GG has said that TorqueX will be $99 (and XNA is free to download) which will make it the best deal around once it is finished.

Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs   (Sep 01, 2006 at 03:05 GMT)

Quote:

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They've been straying farther and farther away from Cross-Platform support, which was one of the deciding factors for me when I bought TGE (As well as TGB).

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This has been a concern of mine recently, too. The only reason I have torque licenses is that torque builds and runs on the machines I own; notably linux and mac.

As a hobbyist rather than a "real" game developer, I have no interest in products that will allow me to reach greater heights hocking products to publishers; I wanna play with game stuff on my personal time and machines, maybe one day releasing a game and making millions. And I wanna do it on the platforms that I like to work on.

I'm going on the fact that if they pull the plug on everything I'm using torque for, I still have a torque license that works for what I want to do. If anything new that GG builds doesn't satisfy my requirements or they put the kaibosh on what I'm achieving now, I'll just not purchase the new products or move my current work onto other engines.

I don't think that GG's prices are out of reach of "indies" at all. I think that they're leaving the reach of hobbyists, though, which is probably what you really meant.

Gary (-;

Gary "ChunkyKs" Briggs   (Sep 01, 2006 at 03:14 GMT)

Quote:

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Don't take this the wrong way, but why is cross-platform capability important to you? Look at any market share analysis and Mac/Linux together are less than 10%, when it comes to games they probably have even less presence. Is it really worth the trouble to port your game to mac/linux for such a small audience?

---

Because as a hobbyist, I don't care what the market is. And as a hardcore linux and mac developer without a windows machine, if I want to play with writing a game and eventually release one, I need cross platform toolkits to do it.

It's the same as people feel about languages; work with what makes you happy. Using windows makes me want to pound nails into my face, so doing primary development on windows isn't really fun for me.

Gary (-;

PS On the topic of languages, use whatever. All imperative languages are the same, and they all suck equally. Currently I'm using C++, C, perl, php, and torquescript on a daily basis. Learn a dozen languages and pick the one that works best for you, with your other tools of choice [you'll need to be using C++ if you want to program Torque internals. In the name of all that is good in the world, don't use C++ for web development].

David Blake   (Sep 01, 2006 at 03:21 GMT)

The mac market is rather starved for games and an excellent niche to targetl. It doesn't make much sense for EA to extend their huge budgets for non-existent shelfspace, but in an electronic delivery medium it makes good sense. Of course, I also agree with Jeff T on his analysis of Apple's game support recently.

J.C. Smith   (Sep 01, 2006 at 04:28 GMT)

With regards to engine pricing, it was inevitable. TGE came out 4 1/2 years ago and the price has always been the same $100. When it originally came out it was $100 + 50% royalties if you published at GarageGames. Those regulations later were removed and it just became $100, and then 4 years go by and it remains the same. The price of gas has more than doubled, most things are more expensive now. Meanwhile TGE has stayed the same price and offered free upgrades this whole time.

With regards to the OpenGL/Linux support though I do think it is important. Linux support for dedicated servers in particular on TSE is important. OpenGL support for mac portability is also somewhat important. But I can also understand that Windows and the platforms are were the money is at, and in the end that is where the most attention must be spent.

John Rockefeller   (Sep 01, 2006 at 04:52 GMT)

Don't forget, too, that they have always stated cross-platform support is planned. They are running a business, guys, they can't afford to have a completed section collecting dust while they work on the Linux and Mac versions (which someone earlier said is less than 10% of the market). Better to make some money now by releasing the Windows toolkits and then work on porting them over after (while the cash is flowing in).

Dreamer   (Sep 01, 2006 at 04:52 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

My personal opinion is that GG should start a community initiative to get these ports going, or give the community permission to do it themselves if they(gg) are not going to focus on Mac/Linux, or leave us so far behind that porting just becomes a "not worth it" proposition.
I have plenty of SVN space to donate if the community would like to get these ports going and GG would just give us the nod.
Regards,
Dreamer

Jeff "Reno" Raab   (Sep 01, 2006 at 05:03 GMT)

I really cant see where you people are getting the impression GG will pull crossplatform support.
Mac and Linux make a *huge* percentage of the casual games market, which is where most indie devs fit in, and it wasnt that long ago where PC games took less that 30% of GG's sales.
Saying they arent viable to develop for is only if your shooting for a spot on walmart's shelf and cant worry about the costs to develop for everything else. If you're doing a casual game, or intend to go with a digital distribution, i cant see how supporting the other platforms is bad. I mean, just becuase they take less than 10%(even though i know that isnt right) of the game market, why shy over them? That's just stupid.If you release a hit game on mac and linux, platforms nigh-starved for high-end games, they will buy it. it is that simple.
As for the actual cross platform support. I cannot even begin to conceive how you see TorqueX mattering when it comes to crossplatform. That just baffles my mind. TXE will never have cross platform support. Want to know why? Because you develop it on a freaking console. There is no point in cross platforming that system. That's just stupid.
As for TSE, i dont remembering seeing a post anywhere where GG laughed at everyone and said they where never going to put OGL in, so i'm pretty sure they intend to add it, even though they stated that it wouldnt be ready for 1.0. I can attest first hand trying to abstract both platforms is hard, so it's no suprise they opted to get it feature complete before trying to port everything, instead of gonig back over and over again.
If you're that skiddish that GG is out to screw you over, you really need to take a look at the history of this place.
As for the pricing, as others have said, to get such a low price for years, and free upgrades, it's not a huge suprise that they'd finally up the price alittle. And no, TSE wont cost you a huge amount. Final release will be priced at 295 for indies.
So TGE is 100, TGB + source(i'll touch on this in a minute) = $250, and TSE = $295. I'm pretty sure they all still sit within an indie's reach.
As for the pricing on TGB being 'high' lets consider for a moment why the pricing difference for the source and just TGB. TGB is designed to, without engine changes, to let you make a game, start to finish. It's designed so that you can make a WHOLE game through script, without the need of the source. *IF* you need the source to do something, that's above and beyond what the base product was built for, so it logically costs alittle bit more for the added flexibility. But ultimately, it's not a big deal, most people who use TGB probably dont need much in the way of engine changes anyways.

Concluding: Is crossplatform support important? Dang straight it is. But just because GG isnt handing it to you this second doesnt mean you need to write it off.

Jeff Tunnell   (Sep 01, 2006 at 06:22 GMT)

Quote:

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To me this all seems to me like GarageGames is slowly screwing a group of its customers over, group by group.

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I'm trying to be nice here. Could you please explain this to me and the rest of the people working here at GarageGames. I simply am having a very hard time understanding what you mean with this statement.

-Jeff Tunnell, Co-Founder, GarageGames

edit: sp
Edited on Sep 01, 2006 06:51 GMT

Mincetro   (Sep 01, 2006 at 06:43 GMT)

I was puzzled by that too. And all the question-talk statements... and just about eveyrthing else... What are people ranting about?

Travis Hamersley   (Sep 01, 2006 at 08:06 GMT)

Its is a bit odd. Name one other group of indie tools that supports Mac, Linux, PC and XBox 360! TSE is going to add linux and Mac support.
Torque X opens up a platform that was closed to indies before now. I remember reading somewhere that if you develop a game on TGB it should port over to Torque X without much work.
That there gives you the largest range of platforms anyone is offereing short of the $100k+ top end engines.

Anton Bursch   (Sep 01, 2006 at 08:20 GMT)

Try Unity for making games on the mac. Until the average mac user has a mac with an intel chip and can run windows.

As for linux games.. it looks like a door has just opened up for a new game engine for linus. Get cracking linux guys. make a new game engine for linux. you guys are all hard core coders or you wouldn't be using linux. so make the next great linux game engine. you can do it. seriously. if i can make a game engine by myself for the company i work for... you guys can work together and make one. then YOU become the guys selling the indie game engine solution for linux. that a opportunity right there, i think.

Greg Ellwood   (Sep 01, 2006 at 08:25 GMT)

Screwing their customers? I almost feel guilty at purchasing the GG products at such cheap prices. I can't understand how anyone can complain that they are too expensive.

Not everyone needs to buy everything GG release. If GG wanted they could just bundle everything up together and call it the Torque toolkit, charge $2000 and never update it. It would still sell and be great value for money but instead they give us a choice to purchase only the things we need and constantly work to improve the products with free updates.

Have you even considered how much effort has gone into making these products and how long it would take you to create them from scratch?

-Greg.

Tom Bampton   (Sep 01, 2006 at 08:56 GMT)

Hey Ben,

It was me that said about the language thing, and yeh I was using Fosters as a nick at the time. Here is a translation of what I was too drunk to express non-sarcasticly on IRC ;-)

On the pricing thing ...

When you are at school your income is usually either non existent or very small. This makes $250 seem like a lot more then it actually is. When you are actually out working all week and earning a wage, $250 is not so much. So I wonder, are you coming from the point of view that it's too steep for indies or too steep for indies that are still in school ?

On the OpenGL thing ...

Try looking at it from GG's point of view. TSE is a huge chunk of work. When you get close to shipping, features get cut for the version that is currently shipping in order to allow more time to actually finish what is already there and other higher priority things. It does not mean that said features are cut entirely, it's just that they get pushed back to a future version. Writing a new renderer is no small task, and getting that running and as stable/reliable as would be needed for shipping 1.0 would push the release date back months.

Considering how often people in the community complain about TSE not shipping yet, if you were in GG's place, what would you do ?

On the XNA thing ...

XNA is for Windows / XBox 360. It's made by Microsoft. Why would it run on a non-Microsoft OS ? It is still a great opportunity. As has been stated elsewhere, Torque X is an additional engine ... it's not replacing the existing C++ engines.

One thing to consider is that GG can only announce so much at once. It just so happens that the majority of current announcements have been mostly Microsoft specific. That doesn't mean anything other then it's the turn of TSE and XNA to get announced. It seems that people forget everything that's unrelated to the current set of announcements and get all doom-saying if they don't like the current ones ;-)

If that's not enough ... GG has a full time Mac guy. Why would they employ someone full time for Mac stuff if they were dropping cross platform support ? Also, Constructor runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. It is significant work to support all 3, why would they do that if they were dropping non-Microsoft platforms ?

T.

Matthew Langley   (Sep 01, 2006 at 08:58 GMT)

I find your perspective and views interesting and think everyone has a right to express them.

"They've been straying farther and farther away from Cross-Platform support"

This really baffled me since XNA is all about cross-platform... just because it doesn't involve a Mac doesn't mean it isn't a valid platform. The view of that reminds me of Mac users not caring about the Windows platform, or Windows users not caring about the Mac platform, or Linux users not caring about either. The truth is XNA is all about opening up platforms, whether they're platforms you like or not there are a lot of people that do and that's what we are all about here at GG, spreading our tech accross many useful platforms that pose an opportunity for Indies.

Martin Schultz   (Sep 01, 2006 at 09:22 GMT)

Even if I would watch my game development as hobby, it would be by far the cheapest hobby I ever had.

In the 5 years that I'm here now I bought TGE, TSE, TGB and some content packs. Maybe a value of around 500 US$. That makes an average of 100 US$ per year. Usually when I buy a tech book, it costs around 40-50 US$. So all the engines and stuff I bought is the equivalent of 2 (!) computer books a year. Let me re-cap: This is a montly cost of 8,33 US$ for me. This is less than one (!) good meal actually! If I break this down to daily costs, it is less than 0,28 US$ per day. Honestly, my daily newspaper costs even twice this money!

I don't want to flame here or attack someone's opinion or get too "numerical". I just wanted to show a different view (my view) on the costs of the engines. Yes, paying 100 US$ at once for an engine may sound much if you want to buy it, but if you see it through my eyes and over the last 5 years, the GG stuff is amazingly cheap. Ah, wait, I forgot to say I always bought the early adopter versions and saved some money so (except TGE).

Personally I wonder how these guys at GG survived over the years with so less money they want from us. Even my wife told me that this is by far the cheapest "hobby" I ever had. Could life be any better as having an absolution from my wife to buy GG products? Life is great... :-)

edit=typo
Edited on Sep 01, 2006 09:23 GMT

Thijs Sloesen   (Sep 01, 2006 at 11:41 GMT)

Hi Ben,

I must agree with Tom. Are we talking about the real indie business? Or hobby/school indies? GG is a business and made it's mission to help other indie businesses to reach their goals. Or if you want to put it in other words, to help people make their dream of becoming a successfull indie (business) come true. Now in that regard, you have to view GG's activities as business. First off, a business needs to make money. GG has grown in the past few years and now employs a lot of talent that are working each and every day to bring us the best tools they can to realize our indie dream. But they need to eat. Second, in the regard of the bussiness perspective, $250 for a complete game solution is a very low investment (apart from the fact that there is the non-source version, which is even cheaper (do you really need the source?)) considering the total cost of developing a game. And if your game will sell only reasonable well, you will have earned that money back in no-time.

Bottom-line: I think GG is a great partner for the serious indie developer. If you're serious about being an indie, please check "the whole package", and I'm sure you'll agree with me :)

AcidFaucet   (Sep 01, 2006 at 13:05 GMT)

Quote:

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To me this all seems to me like GarageGames is slowly screwing a group of its customers over, group by group.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I think he's referring to the first group being TSE without OpenGL (which alienates mac and linux) and the second group being cheapskates. I can also see a third abused group, but I'll keep my mouth shut.

Grant it $250 is a bit nuts for TGB (but then I've never even tried the demo, so maybe there's more to it than screenshots can tell), but w/e, ALMOST always have the freedom of choosing what not to buy in any market.

EDIT: I should probably clarify that TGB is the only place I disagree with any of the prices. TSE is worth the money even without OpenGL and Torque X is worth just as much (well worth nothing to me, xbox360 = unneeded piece of poo, though if the chance came to publish on xbox arcade or w/e it's called, I'd take it)
Edited on Sep 01, 2006 13:09 GMT

Keith Frampton   (Sep 01, 2006 at 13:23 GMT)

Quote:

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you guys are all hard core coders or you wouldn't be using linux.

---

@Anton:

That's the most rediculous thing I've heard in some time now. Go see if the average user running Linspire knows the first thing about coding. Linux isn't just for hard-core geeks anymore.

Ben Ewing   (Sep 01, 2006 at 14:07 GMT)

Thanks for the replies, I guess there are lots of things I havent taken into consideration:

1. I guess Ive been expecting way too much of GarageGames, and forgotten that they too are people.

2. I am a student, and so I am a tad bit short on money, so I guess I have once again forgotten the
finacial needs of GarageGames

3.In regards to "GarageGames is slowly screwing a group of its customers over"
I guess I was ignoring the above two statements, and that you guys are probably under much stress
from the community to finish TSE, Constructor, and now TorqueX

4.I guess I also forgot, that TGB games can be ported to TorqeX, so they could be released on
Mac,Linux, etc....

Edit: In other words, Ive been a bit selfish....

-Ben
Edited on Sep 01, 2006 14:32 GMT

Sebastien Bourgon   (Sep 01, 2006 at 15:03 GMT)

For the record, Microsoft is actually willing to license out XNA to other consoles, including Sony. I imagine if Apple was interested they could get in on it too. The odds of the other console manufacturers jumping on board are next to nil, or apple for that matter. (I think Linux is out of the question based on the fact theres not just 1 linux company to license it)

Jonathon Stevens   (Sep 01, 2006 at 15:51 GMT)

Do people still USE macs? *hides in a corner and pulls up the flame-retardant blanket*

AcidFaucet   (Sep 01, 2006 at 16:34 GMT)

They're a dead breed. They're still walking, but most definitely dead. <-- In regards to macs

Their only possible salvation is if some dictator took over the world and expunged the M$ regime.

David .NfoCipher. Bunt   (Sep 01, 2006 at 16:52 GMT)

Oh yeah, they're dead alright.

Jonathon Stevens   (Sep 01, 2006 at 16:57 GMT)

Quote:

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Like IDC, Gartner has the top four players in the U.S. PC market as Dell (32 percent), HP (18.9 percent), Gateway (6.2 percent) and Apple (4.6 percent).

---

I have nothing against Mac at all, I just like poking fun at Macaholics. It truely is sad that they can't even sell as much as one of the worst PC manufacturers on the planet (Gateway).

Brandon Maness   (Sep 01, 2006 at 17:13 GMT)

I had a chance to sit down and play with a new Mac for the first time the other day. While I'm not a big fan of any OS; they all have their pros and cons, I didn't see what the big deal about them was. This of course comes from someone who makes a living using them, so to me a computer is analogous to a shovel; just a tool to get the job done.

I do like the new Mac commercials making fun of windows, although they were a little late coming as they would have been more accurate back in the Win95 days.

Alan Hembra   (Sep 01, 2006 at 17:26 GMT)

Personally Ben I think your perspective is off. I'm a hobbyist myself (but in the PC side). Working full time, 2 kids, wife, etc does not give me much time to dedicate so I tend to mostly mess with small things. Especially after last years failed launch.

GG has always been great. Questions I have had were always answered quickly either by an employee or an associate. They are realeasing more stuff now than ever before and it is breath taking! Linux and Mac are niche and TGE is still viable.

I will be buying Torque X and shall make sweet love to ... err... I mean continue learning about game design and programming. I may even have to buy an Xbox if I ever get anything worthy of release.

Alex Swanson   (Sep 01, 2006 at 17:45 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Saying that Apple is dead because of lack of market share shows a decided lack of business insight. Apple is very profitable. Apple has a higher profit margin per sale than Gateway - and their prices scare off a lot of customers. However, they need their prices to be high to maintain their elite image. If everyone could afford a mac, it wouldn't be as cool to have one. It is as much a status symbol as a computer.

It is unfortunate that they aren't as cheap as Gateway, because I am sure most Gateway users would have an easier time with a mac, but what can you do?

The mac platform is still a fantastic opportunity for Indie developers - but you really shouldn't be worrying about TSE support. Why? Look at Apple's recent consumer lineup - all equipped with shared-memory onboard intel graphics "accelerators". You will not be able to run most shader games on these cards. If you want to target the mac market, target the majority of the users - the ones with consumer machines. This means using TGE or TGB, until Apple decides to give their customers the ability to run shader based games.

We will of course still be bringing GL support to TSE, but even then, it might be wiser not to use it for most Mac games if you are really looking to get a lot of sales on the platform.

Jonathon Stevens   (Sep 01, 2006 at 18:08 GMT)

Quote:

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Apple has a higher profit margin per sale than Gateway - and their prices scare off a lot of customers. However, they need their prices to be high to maintain their elite image. If everyone could afford a mac, it wouldn't be as cool to have one. It is as much a status symbol as a computer.

---

I'd strongly disagree here Alex. People don't buy Mac because "it's a mac", they buy it because they TRUELY think mac's are superior. I admit, at one time, Mac was superior, but not in today's world. This is starting to turn into a PC vs Mac thread.. *gasp*

Prairie Games   (Sep 01, 2006 at 18:27 GMT)

Apple charges $150+ for OS "upgrades" which means users are running a variety of versions and are slow to adopt... Between 10.3.9 incompatibilities with 10.4 (really looking forward to whatever 10.5 breaks), G4/G5/Intel processor incompatibilities, and having to buy different machines with different architectures to test the platform, OSX is NOT a fun platform to support. It pretty much blows.

My opinion of Apple has been on a downward spiral for the last few years. If they would have switched to intel at the time OSX was launch and avoided many of the performance and development issues of the platform, I could MAYBE believe that someone has their head out of their ass and was a "visionary".
Edited on Sep 01, 2006 18:33 GMT

Jay Barnson   (Sep 01, 2006 at 19:08 GMT)

What's your definition of indie? There's the hobbyist indie (which probably represents 90% of the community here) that is focused on learning to create games and "playing" with making their own games. It's a great hobby, and $100 for a one-time fee for that market is pretty cheap (compare that to the cost of, say, a video card). Now, if you are talking the hobbyist market, then yeah... going up from $100 is kinda painful, but still not too extreme as a one-time cost. However, I think TGB is aimed directly at the hobbyist market with the non-sourcecode version. If you are just starting, and don't know what you are going to do, it's the right product.

TGE is a product that is priced to be very hobbyist-friendly, though as a product it needs a bit more work to be as friendly as it should be to that market. And GG has been making strides to improve it that way.

Then you've got the professional (or becoming-professional) indie. I'm sure many (but not all) of the hobbyist crowd aspire to this. Once you get to this point, you have to start thinking of costs and profit. And you have to start putting a dollar value on your time. A professional tool of this quality for $250 has to be compared to the amount of profit you are going to make on your product, as well as compared to how much time it would take you to do it yourself (possibly using some free libraries to start with, such as SDL). Even if you are just starting out, $250 is probably not too bad. You will likely more than make that up with a single (halfway decent) game.

Anton Bursch   (Sep 01, 2006 at 19:43 GMT)

@Keith Frampton

it was just a compliment to linux users. all of them that i knew 6 years ago were computer scientists. that's cool that it's more accessible to non-coders. i guess all the people i've known who make games and use linux are proud that they are hard core coders who do it all themselves... that's really the group I was talking to about making a linux game engine. and I hope that is what happens too. there's a niche. might as well take advantage of it. i know i am jumping on c# xna, which in the scheme of game development is much smaller than linux.

Bryan Stroebel   (Sep 01, 2006 at 20:08 GMT)   Resource Rating: 1

Only hippies use apple :)

Jonathon Stevens   (Sep 01, 2006 at 20:25 GMT)

Quote:

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Only hippies use apple :)

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ROFLOL. I think I broke a rib....

AcidFaucet   (Sep 01, 2006 at 21:31 GMT)

@David "NfoCipher" Bunt:

death throes can look like a comeback


Back onto real topic now:

It's a hell of a lot cheaper than doing it yourself to get to the basic functionality of TGE or TSE. From my eyes it took $250 to get to TSE (100 for TGE 150 for TSE), let's be unrealistic and say my time was worth $8 an hour, in 32 hours would I be able to reproduce TSE? Not a chance. If my time was of value equal to my hourly pay at work, then I'd have to reproduce TSE in less than a day to match the expense. And at what my time costs for a client I'd have to create TSE before my lunch break.

It's worth every penny and every headache.


As far as the screwing:

Where's the mead?

Paul Scott   (Sep 01, 2006 at 22:26 GMT)

@Josh Ritter: yeah, supporting 3+ major versions of an OS is a pain. But that's what I'm here for. If you have a specific problem, drop me a line, and I'll probably have a solution for you.

Mark McCoy   (Sep 02, 2006 at 03:57 GMT)

^ The man that proves with actions that the mac has not been abandoned at GG.

<shameless plug>And don't forget the recently released Intel Mac Compatible version of ThinkTanks </shamelessness>
Edited on Sep 02, 2006 03:58 GMT

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