Still no presence in mainstream desktop game development

[princec]

Sweet. Gentlemen, refactor your engines!

Cas

[kevglass]

Sweet. Gentlemen, refactor your engines!

Admit it, you've been waiting for that one.

Kev

[princec]

At least I can edit the typo in my own post, bah!

Cas

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[blahblahblahh]

IMHO, I think that with the great engine technology that is written in C++ (Unreal Engine 3, Natural Motion, Havok, Ageia, Kynogon, Trinigy, etc.), Java has no way to compete (make it into the mainstream) unless we (Java game developers) create great engines. 

That implies that you can do what most commercial games companies have decided they cannot, even with up to 25 full-time staff devoted to doing so. There's several reasons why Unreal3 is appearing in so very many games right now, one of which is that most studios realised they cannot compete directly with it.

The story in the games industry is always the same: it's the games that prove the tech, not the other way around. For instance, many people believed Renderware was unusable for a major game and refused to use it despite Burnout's showing what technically could be done ... until GTA3 came out.

[zendar]

We use Java in an mmo (http://www.darkfallonline.com) we are developing. The rendering engine, physics and networking are done natively in C++, but most of everything else is handled in Java, including game logic and worldbuilding tools. Back when we started development pure Java wasn't an option, and we were a bit worried about the performance of the Java/Native interfacing, but as the development tools and Java language have evolved over the last few years the decision to use Java has turned out to be a good one.

I think Java's biggest problem is its image. The old "Java is slow" adage is still hanging around and the older guys who program games in C++ rarely advise anyone to make a game in Java if they ask what language to use. It reminds me of the situation for newbie Linux programmers in the 90's, where people would be told to use C instead of C++, because C++ was so much slower than C. This has started to change in the Linux developer community, and hopefully it will change for Java too. I guess someone needs to break the mould and show that it can be done.

-R

[BloodRain]

I'm impressed  . I just love the creatures in the screenshots and the site is brilliant . You also have some community sites that look very nice . The game is actually one of the biggest games using java .

PS:Good luck and keep on the good work. Hope the game will be a bestseller !