Do you think that's because of the language itself, or the IDEs in use? I remember at my uni, all first year programming was done in C++, so that was my introduction. Later years would have you look at other languages depending on what you were doing, so we learned C in Operating Systems and Graphics, and Java for OO and languages in general.

What I remember most about going from C++ in first year to Java in second was being introduced to Eclipse, and all the fancy things it does for you to make life easier. We were never given any such stuff for C++. I'm not sure if that's because it doesn't exist (being a compiled rather than interpreted) or because we were intentionally not exposed to anything that was available. Overall though, IDE aside, I found the languages about as easy as each other - at least for the assignments we were given.

But then, that was a while ago now, and I've not really touched code beyond web scripting since then.

In Reply To #16

Well for the first semester they taught Java using this awful 'IDE' called BluJ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueJ) which just confused most people because it tries to abstract really important stuff away, so the switch to proper IDEs (Netbeans was the recommended one, and was fairly decent) was pretty jarring for most people. But when we worked in C++, we used Visual Studio (2005) which personally I find to be much superior to any of the Java IDEs I've used, or any other IDE, for that matter. On the other hand, if you were using something like Borland C++ Builder to learn C++, I can see that it would be quite a hinderance in comparison to Eclipse.

But I think it was because of the amount of stuff Java does for you. Going from Java to C++, you're suddenly required to understand pointers (I've met professional C++ developers who clearly still don't understand what a pointer is), do your own memory management and generally think about things that you can be totally ignorant of with Java. Hardflip would be the person to ask, mind, as he was one of the afore-mentioned people one my course who hadn't done any programming before.

In some ways I do think it makes sense to teach people C++ before Java, partly because they'll learn more and partly because you're not trying to run before you can walk. But like I said, there are more jobs for Java developers around, so I suspect that's as much an influence as relative ease.

I never understood how people could find pointers confusing, it's just another data type(like int, float, bool, etc.) that holds a memory address. Now if we're talking about C++ class method pointers...those can burn in hell. Even multiple inheritance is less cryptic and less of a pain.

I guess they really just hate the 'delete' keyword, but then again, I hate Garbage Collection because I usually have little to no influence over it in most environments, to it becomes a battle of trying to design things where I hope GC doesn't start going ape shit at the wrong time and slow stuff down. Here's a tip someone taught me for using 'delete', the moment you write 'new', immediately go to the place where it's supposed to be deleted and write that in. It's not always possible if what your writing isn't going to be responsible for freeing the memory(usually a red flag something's wrong with the code base design, but again, not always), but it's a good rule to consider nonetheless.

Java and C# rather drive me nuts sometimes with the massive use of 'new' during run-time, at least a lot of the code I've seen written both in 'production' and teaching I feel over use it. But there are certainly things I love about C# that make life a bit easier too.

Part of it is the indie people are the only people not doing this silly waiting game.

All the big guys seem to effectively have decided to end this generation in next Summer and so there's this tremendously short roster of interesting titles right now because there's a lot of people doing something that they can't announce until Microsoft and/or Sony decide to take the wraps off of Durango and Orbis (Xbox 3 and PS4).

Like when you look back to the early days of this generation there were tons of big exciting new IPs. 2006-2009 saw the launch of Gears of War, Assasin's Creed, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Uncharted along with the reinvigoration of brands like Fallout and Rainbow Six with some pretty new ways of doing things along with new tech.

I have to think that the relatively slow period we've seen in the last few years from the big publishers is a result of this console generation going on so long, longer than they originally planned. I mean according to the leaks there was a possibility of us having a next Xbox by now but Microsoft canned it because Kinnect was so successful and it gave the machine new legs at reaching more people. I've got to believe that the extra length of time, combined with the limitations that were put on the online services at the launch of the xbox 360 are a large part of why all the exciting stuff right now seems to be mostly happening on PC and iOS.

The Kickstarter trend really annoys the heck out of me. Kickstarter is the biggest scam I've ever seen. They want the public to take all the risks of investment, with none of the rewards of investment. I think that's a little bit bullshit to take people's money with no possibility of them gaining anything for it.

Sure I'll talk some Blizzard. Are they guilty of milking their WoW-addicts of which I am one. Yes, of course they are. Was there any alternative universe where it made sense to do anything else? No, I don't think so. Also they've been remarkably good as milking goes. Everquest has had 18 expansions in 13 years. In 8 years WoW had four and at least three of them were pretty universally praised. I think with some time to separate us from some of its failures people will come around on Cataclysm because well the revamped 1-60 experience is a winner.

RTS games--I think both Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 were both really impressive games. They took the time to tell a pretty cool story. One of the things I loved about Starcraft was the campaign wasn't just training for the multiplayer as per ususal in an RTS campaign. It had all sorts of weird permutations of missions and things that they could only do by having a long 30 mission campaign. Also I think some of the training mode stuff that teaches you how to micro was really amazing. They also had learned a lot about how to do a ladder in SC2 that they hadn't known about in WC3. It was much more competitive in Bronze than bad WC3 players ever got to experience.

Diablo 3 was kind of what I predicted it was. It was an enjoyable filler but frankly it is a kind of game that doesn't make a lot of sense in a world in which there are big solo-able to end game MMOs. World of Warcraft--especially the WoW that exsisted after Wrath of the Lich King where you could play from 1-level cap without ever dealing with another player if you wanted to , totally disarmed what made D2 into the multiplayer game that I played for months and months at a time.

I always hear about people who played D2 single player; and I for one don't really understand the appeal of something like that. For another thing I don't really understand what's different about that than say playing Warcraft solo. Like everything about that experience is pretty much just like Wow or TOR or Rift, or LOTRO except not as interesting. Like people talk about MMOs being repetitive but Diablo is vastly vastly more repetitive than WoW. Like the fact that you keep doing the same few dozen quests and find the same fucking audiologs and watch the same utterly terrible storyline just undoes me. And I've grinded out several max level characters in WoW and have a pretty high bar for repetition.

I don't see this problem. If the project doesn't meet it's funding goal, then it doesn't go ahead and people don't lose any money.

Once funded, you can choose to donate a little or a lot. Looking at Star Citizen and Project Eternity as two examples (simply because I have heard of them), non-trivial donations of $20+ get you a copy of the game once it's done, plus other in-game content or merchandise which increases as you donate more. That sounds like a return on investment to me - though how much you value that stuff is up to you. Mind you, if you don't value it, you can always donate less (or not at all).

The main risks are the project imploding after the funding has been secured, or the game being crap when it is released. The former should be unlikely, if you only donate to game projects that already look to have a solid foundation when they begin their Kickstarter campaign. The latter is the main risk I'd be concerned over, but that's hardly "taking people's money with no possibility of them gaining anything for it." It's also unavoidable in any funding model.

In Reply To #20

Well i mean if you go the traditional route and go get VC money, you sell part of the company to people who you raise the money from.

If you go the Kickstarter route you get a bunch of money from people who play the same role as VCs, but they don't get any equity.

So you bear all the risk of the money going down the tubes on a failure, but if it's a huge success you get nothing more than a preorder.

It's a much smaller amount of money, though. And generally most projects at least try to offer something with more perceived value than just a pre-order.

On the other hand, I do have an issue with people backing stuff and then thinking of it as a pre-order rather than an investment, because there will be a massive backlash if projects start to collapse. Which is kind of unfair, because kickstarter is pretty explicit in stating that there are risks to all projects, and any project which is well run should be up-front about that too.

I do think it's potentially an issue that people with little to no prior experiece in any sort of commercial project/environment can get funding, when realistically they're not likely to have the skillset or experience required to manage the project. Although again it should be up to the backer to take that into consideration, it's not really something Kickstarter or many projects seem to mention. But then, I imagine that people are aware of it and it's part of the reason mid-sized developers who have previous followings are able to attract much more funding.

It'll be hard to tell if Kickstarter is a good thing or not until more projects either finish and are released or collapse. I suspect it'll be a mixed bag, and people will become more discerning in their choice of projects to back over time.

I think the length of the current console generation (which I'm not really complaining about, I think it's healthier for the game industry if generations are as long as possible - just as it's healthier for the PC industry if people aren't having to up-tech every 3 years) has a lot more to do with the financial downturn than anything else.

Neither Sony nor Microsoft can afford to release the 'worst selling new console ever', which is what will happen if they launch in the middle of a global recession.

In Reply To #23
I sort of agree with that health issue, but here's the problem in the later years of a console generation fewer and fewer new things come out. A lot of the publishers get hyperconservative and we get something like this year's E3, no surprises, nothing new so much more of the same from the people making top dollar console games that everything ends up boring.

We don't need a new console because the current ones are broken and need replacing. We need a new console because that marketplace reset spurs on a bunch of new franchises and ideas.

I've heard people on podcasts and saw a leaked document which said thought that Microsoft was seriously considering launching an Xbox 3 sometime before now and it got a reprieve because Kinnect was a huge hit and allowed them to find a secondary market.

In Reply To #24

Definitely agree on the hyperconservative front - it's a shame, because the end of a generation is usually when developers know the hardware inside-out and can really produce some impressive results despite the ageing equipment (plus we know that when the new generation launches we'll have to deal with unambitious and buggy releases at first, as developers start familiarising themselves with its limitations)

(but we won't see many impressive games, because - as you point out - few developers will risk releasing something on a console which is about to be supplanted)

I too have seen MS releases and 'leaks' using Kinect as the reason for no next-generation, I just think they're gilding the lily somewhat.

Kinect was much more successful than I expected it to be (I thought it would die on its arse) - but most of its success was right off the bat, where it broke sales records at release.

And then didn't really sell any more.

I don't think that's successful enough to dictate (or even delay) Microsoft's future console strategy - only around 1-in-4 360 owners purchased a Kinect in the end.

More importantly, it's not such a game-changer that it would dictate Sony's console strategy.

I think both MS and Sony have each got to be well aware that they got absolutely hammered by Nintendo, despite the latter having a markedly inferior console, minimal online focus and much shittier games.

This by itself would dictate a cautious, well-thought-out marketing strategy - couple it with the current economic situation in their core markets and I think that explains their slowly-slowly approach much more than anything they're actually saying.

Microsoft and Sony could equally look at Nintendo and draw the conclusion that it was Nintendo who miscalculated this generation, though. Sure, they sold a metric crapton of Wiis at first, but it turned out to be more of a fad than a revolution, and because they decided to completely ignore the core 'gamer' market, the Wii no longer has a dedicated following.

Sony and Microsoft can look at the next generation and know who they're going to sell consoles too, Nintendo don't really have that luxury, and the Wii U doesn't seem to be garnering much interest as far as I can see.

Plus, nothing Nintendo has done since the Wii has had anything like the same impact, and their other big market, handhelds, has been massively eaten into by smartphones and tablets. I generally think the "mobile and social are going to kill the traditional gaming market" type statements are nonsense, but Nintendo have left themselves exposed by straying away from traditional games towards casual gaming, but aren't as casual or convenient as mobile/social games. It'll be interesting to see where they go with (and after) the Wii U.

As for the next Sony and Microsoft consoles, I imagine they're mostly holding off because they can't afford to launch in the middle of a global recession. But I don't think it's a bad thing really, because I don't think most developers and publishers would be able to cope with the amount of resource demands required to make even bigger, more detailed games than they make now. As other people have noted, development has gotten too expensive and it's leading to good developers being shut down for making 'merely' successful games. Hopefully the current pause in hardware will allow people to work out how to make development a bit more efficient.

The industry's in a really weird place right now where there's no middle ground. You're either a Fez or you're a Call of Duty. The former's a success despite not having massive sales, because it's a well received indie darling by a two man team, and the latter ... well, you know.

Games like Darksiders II are considered failures with NPD figures of 1.4 million (despite the fact that the NPD doesn't count digital sales).

Is that fair? I dunno. I mean, I bet it's tough on those studios, Darksiders II has great production values and what has to be a fairly large development team, and they delivered a mostly solid game, with good reviews, loads of marketing, and yet "disappointing" sales.

I think things will improve as development processes evolve. The current state of Unity and UDK are already helping "small" studios to break free from the indie glut of 2D sprite games.

That is until Unity gets bought by Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft/largepublisher or until they decide that their customer base is large enough to quadruple their licensing prices. The problem is that all Unity studios I know have their know-how extensively invested in Unity. ie, if Unity were to disappear they would seriously be FUBAR'd.

Not to mention that having a lightweigh production process also means that you have more teams suiciding on whatever the current fad is, like F2P gaming. (Or gameplay-wise; Minecraft clone #798)

The real problem is in sustainability. Even when the economy was fine we saw studios close down because they couldn't find a new project within 6 months after the release (or in some cases; immediately after the release. Remember Troika Games? Of VTM: Bloodlines?). Unless studios find a way to sustain themselves indefinitely and only use publisher cost/investment money to scale up production we'll start seeing mid-tier level games again. (The problem with that, however, is that development cost would rise because you can't offer the majority of the production workers a secure job, they'll want compensation for that).

Alternatively, from the publisher's point of view: support multiple smaller projects with smaller budgets and a smaller pricepoint (ie, NS2 and all other <€30 games). (see: Hollywood shotgun approach). That used to be a total no-no because publishers assumed (and they were right) that having €30 games would diminish the value of €60 games (much how iOS games value have diminished), except that now they should find a way for that to work (which, in the age of downloadable content, indie games and crowdsourcing) shouldn't be too hard to have a separate €30 category AND not have it compete amongst their higher tier products.

Unity's just a start, there'll be other platforms. It was just an example really, what I mean is that the tools are radically improving to the point that relatively complex development is open to almost anyone.

Meanwhile, CCP Games, after some troubled years and intense soul searching, is back to being a kickass developer making the kickass hypercapitalist griefing simulator known as Eve Online. And they seem to be doing well on their development of Dust 514 which may turn out to be quite interesting indeed.