[casual_games] languages... (that's an 's' at the end!)

[Donavon Keithley]

Just to throw a data point out there, I checked the RealArcade top 10 list a
couple weeks ago and the average download size was 8.6MB -- about 20-30
minutes of download time for modem users.

As cool as .NET is, yeah, it's just way too heavy for that market.

Another option for us .NET junkies is targeting the Mono runtime.  Out of
the box, without making any code changes, you'll need about 7 DLLs for a
minimal package.  7-Zip will compress these down to 1.3MB (versus 2.7 with
zip) -- not an unreasonable burden for a casual game.  And you don't have to
subject the user to a funky install procedure.

That gets you the runtime and the core class library (mscorlib) but excludes
assemblies like System.Windows.Forms and System.Drawing.

You can forget about using Managed DirectX since Mono doesn't (yet) support
mixed-mode (Managed C++) assemblies.  But since MDX wraps DX9, I wouldn't
consider it a viable option for casual games anyway.

Something to consider.

Donavon Keithley


> -----Original Message-----
> From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
> On Behalf Of Phil Steinmeyer
> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 11:39 AM
> To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [casual_games] languages... (that's an 's' at the end!)
> 
> Right now, requiring a 25MB .NET framework download would be commercial
> suicide in the 'traditional' casual games distribution channels
> (RealArcade,
> Yahoo, MSN, Pogo etc).
> 
> Perhaps that will change at some point in the future, but I think that
> point
> is AT LEAST two years away.
> 
> Of course, for retail (on-disk) distribution, and possibly other
> alternative
> channels (including marketing of niche games, marketing of an entire games
> 'platform', etc), this may not be as much of a problem.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lionel barret De Nazaris" <lionel.bdn at free.fr>
> To: "IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List" <casual_games at igda.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 11:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [casual_games] languages... (that's an 's' at the end!)
> 
> 
> >I don't like it but you're damn right. I can feel it in my bones ;)
> > Lionel.
> >
> > Jim Buck wrote:
> >> I think even 80% is a very high guess. If you want to target "casual
> >> people" with "casual game", I would think that targeting Windows 98
> >> (*maybe* SE) is the sweet spot.
> >>
> >>
> >> At 08:58 AM 10/6/2005, Lionel barret De Nazaris wrote:
> >>> got that : http://www.wininsider.com/news/?8359.
> >>> the bottom line (according to the source) :  "That means Microsoft
> >>> distributed 58.8 percent as many copies of SP2 as of Windows XP."
> >>> Even if  XP has 80 % (a wild guess) of the windows installed PCs, it's
> >>> not very encouraging ...
> >>> Maybe in one year....
> >>>
> >>> L.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Charles Parcell wrote:
> >>>> I believe that I saw somewhere that Windows XP has a 65% penetration
> at
> >>>> the moment. I don't think that it made a distinction between SP
> >>>> versions though.
> >>>>
> >>>> Charles P.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Lionel barret De Nazaris wrote:
> >>>>> Jonas Beckeman wrote:
> >>>>>> Seems I'm the only one who's gonna stand up for .NET here, so I'd
> >>>>>> better do
> >>>>>> it tall...
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Before I get off on how great it is, let me state some problems
> that
> >>>>>> may be
> >>>>>> enough to make you look in other directions:
> >>>>>> * .NET games need the .NET framework. The 2.0 beta is 25 MB.
> >>>>>> * You'll probably want to use Managed DirectX. The distribution
> model
> >>>>>> is
> >>>>>> still very unclear to me, I don't know myself how large the add-on
> >>>>>> is, or
> >>>>>> even how to obtain it without downloading the DirectX SDK
> >>>>> A friend told me that the .Net Framework is included in the XP
> Service
> >>>>> Pack 2, if so, the problem of the huge download could be avoided.
> >>>>> Does anybody could confirm this ? And do we have numbers about the %
> >>>>> of penetration of XP Service Pack 2 on the machine of the potential
> >>>>> players ? Well, a percentage of machine with XP Service Pack 2 on
> the
> >>>>> global number of windows anyway.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Lionel
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> Casual_Games mailing list
> >>>>> Casual_Games at igda.org
> >>>>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Casual_Games mailing list
> >>>> Casual_Games at igda.org
> >>>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> Casual_Games mailing list
> >>> Casual_Games at igda.org
> >>> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----------------------------------------------------
> >> Jim Buck
> >> game developer
> >> Twitchy Thumbs Entertainment, Inc.
> >> email: jbuck at twitchythumbs.com
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Casual_Games mailing list
> >> Casual_Games at igda.org
> >> http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Casual_Games mailing list
> > Casual_Games at igda.org
> > http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/casual_games
> >
> 
> 
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