> Again, you don't seem to understand how the industry works.
Economics work as usual here and gaming industry is no exception. If someone forces duplication of work on others, that increases costs, which ends up being passed to some party. And for the end user it can translate in lower availability, slower time to the market, higher prices and so on. So far you didn't manage to demonstrate that it somehow magically comes for free.
TL;DR: lock-in taxes the whole industry and slows down progress.
My whole point was to say how the industry works and that professional game developers, important word here professional not indie, don't care one little second about the point of view you are expressing.
I do not intend to demonstrate that something, whatever it might be, magically comes for free.
> My whole point was to say how the industry works and that professional game developers, important word here professional not indie, don't care one little second about the point of view you are expressing.
You made several mistakes in that statement.
1. You claimed that only publisher funded developers are professionals, while those who are self funded or backed by other means (like investors or crowdfunding), i.e. independent (=indie) developers are not professionals. That's an insult to many truly professional people. There is no dependency on publisher funding to be a professional.
2. You assumed that publisher funded production doesn't care about this issue. Do you think they don't have to balance their budgets? Just because they are publisher funded doesn't mean they have infinite resources and doesn't mean that those publishers are happy about extra costs.
I.e. everyone cares about it and nobody normal likes it. The only ones who like lock-in are those crooked vendors who push it on everyone else. Also, if someone doesn't care about the industry progressing - they can't be called professionals.
Those are mistakes on your point of view, not mine.
Of course there are production and development costs, like in any other business, however the industry doesn't get crazy about FOSS and stuff like that.
My point of view steams from having had the opportunity to get a glimpse how the AAA game development industry works.
Have you ever been there, instead of trying to advocate for everyone cares about costs and free mantra?!
Just go attend a GDC, ask around how many devs care about your point of view.
Based on my experience attending them, I bet the answer will be very few.
Term AAA is ambiguous. Please define it. If you mean publisher funded (a common meaning), then see above. If you mean big budget, then your remark about independent developers is invalid as well (there are independent studios with big budget games). Anyway, I don't see how any of that is related to professionalism. Funding method or budget size has nothing to do with it.
> Of course there are production and development costs, like in any other business
Yes, overcoming lock-in and duplication of effort add extra costs. That's exactly what I was saying above. It equally affects big and small budget projects, as well as publisher funded and independent studios. Saying they don't care about extra costs is simply ignoring the reality.
> How the AAA game development industry works.
Still ambiguous, but let's assume you mean AAA = publisher funded (since you contrasted it with independent studios before).
Simple example - most legacy publishers don't even release games for multiple APIs (such as OpenGL), because of costs. I.e. they are hostages of lock-in. That exactly demonstrates the issue above, and the fact that it has a direct impact.
So saying that no one cares about it (or no one is impacted by this tax on the indstry) is completely wrong.
> Simple example - most legacy publishers don't even release games for multiple APIs (such as OpenGL), because of costs. I.e. they are hostages of lock-in. That exactly demonstrates the issue above, and the fact that it has a direct impact.
It is not how it works in the industry.
They focus on one platform, because game programming is more than the graphics API, the hardware architecture and OS are also part of the whole equation, and what means being able to extract every single byte and ms for a few extra FPS.
The talks done by Naughty Dog are a good example of how much it matters to be an expert on a specific platform.
Then they leave the ports to other game studios that specialize in porting to specific platforms, which is another way how money flows inside the industry.
There is a whole industry specialized in game ports since the days of Atari ruled the world.
A publisher that targets PC, XBOX, PS4 and Nintendo has already by definition supported 4 graphical APIs, not counting the additional OS and hardware differences.
You can shout to the windmills how much bad lock-in and duplication of efforts are, like it happened to Don Quixote, no one will care until you change the speech to the language and mentality that reigns in the game industry.
What matters is IP, licenses and getting the games into the hands of users.
The technology used comes a few bullet points down in the priority list.
> They focus on one platform, because game programming is more than the graphics API, the hardware architecture and OS are also part of the whole equation, and what means being able to extract every single byte and ms for a few extra FPS.
Not according to experts who actually work on cross platform games.
> A publisher that targets PC, XBOX, PS4 and Nintendo has already by definition supported 4 graphical APIs
That's exactly the point. You can't claim they are happy about spending x4 times more on supporting their engine on each system and have a very limited ability to share code. It's always extra costs. They do it because vendors of those walled gardens limit developers' choice and artificially force incompatible APIs on them.
> you can shout to the windmills how much bad lock-in and duplication of efforts are
They are bad and everyone knows it.
> no one will care
Those who care more, work on breaking that lock-in. See what Oxide Games developers have to say about this lock-in idiocy, and don't claim they aren't professionals.
At the same time they strongly criticized DX12 for being MS only and said it's necessary to have a cross platform solution (i.e. Vulkan). Grasp the simple fact that no one likes lock-in except for crooks.
>They focus on one platform, because game programming is more than the graphics API, the hardware architecture and OS are also part of the whole equation, and what means being able to extract every single byte and ms for a few extra FPS.
^ That is how I know you're BSing. I can assure you, while reading between the lines you seem to be very concerned with promoting Microsoft.. if you think game devs are extracting "every single byte and ms for a few FPS".. given the buggy, unoptimized nature of many games, you are quite the comedian.
Just walk around the corridors at GDC or attend a few IGDA meetings, and then you will see who is right.
I have done it several times and still have the badges, did you?