{"id":225,"date":"2009-10-19T08:16:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-18T22:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/?p=225"},"modified":"2009-10-19T08:16:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T22:16:00","slug":"what-platform-should-you-develop-your-next-game-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/what-platform-should-you-develop-your-next-game-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What Platform Should You Develop Your Next Game For?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/images\/blog\/platforms.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Game Platforms\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/images\/blog\/platforms.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"114\" height=\"111\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;ve been talking with a number of Indie game developer friends about what platform they should develop their next game for.\u00a0 There are a number of great platforms available to game developers and this choice of platform is critical to the success of your game.\u00a0 Many people have a game idea, but aren&#8217;t sure what platform is best for them, this article will help you in making that decision.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So, Which Platform!?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The short answer is, it depends.\u00a0 There&#8217;s no silver bullet when it comes to platforms.\u00a0 Each has its strengths and weaknesses and the choice depends on the game you are creating.\u00a0 I have a set of questions below, move the sliders to represent your situation and see the recommendation for platforms.\u00a0 The further to the right the platform, the better it fits with your situation.\u00a0 If there&#8217;s a platform I&#8217;m missing you&#8217;d like added, please add a comment.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/platform\/platform.html\" width=\"100%\" height=\"850\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now that you have your recommended platforms, I&#8217;ll give some more info on my thoughts on developer for each platform.<\/p>\n<p><strong>iPhone<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The iPhone market is saturated with games and is getting worse every month.\u00a0 It seems nearly every indie game developer I know is making an iPhone game.\u00a0 My biggest recommendation is to make something small that stands out.\u00a0 The sales are very top heavy which means you&#8217;ll either make nothing or massive sales.\u00a0 The biggest issue is that the only real way to get in front of people is to be in the top 50 applications which is extremely difficult due to the market saturation.<\/p>\n<p>The other gotcha is the requirement for both a Mac and learning Objective-C.\u00a0 There are a number of great engines out there (eg <a href=\"http:\/\/unity3d.com\/\">Unity<\/a>) which I&#8217;d recommend using to speed up development.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Console<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Unless you have funding, full version console games are almost impossible for an Indie to develop for.\u00a0 It&#8217;s really hard to get your game accepted by a console manufacturer (Microsoft, Sony, etc) and the certification process can be a nightmare.<\/p>\n<p><strong>PC<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PC development is the most open and an easy to break into.\u00a0 There are many distribution methods (Steam, Impulse, self-publishing) to suit your games needs.\u00a0 Piracy is one of the biggest threats to your game and building a game that takes piracy into account is a good step forward.\u00a0 Something as simple as requiring users to login to a central server can help reduce piracy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Web-Based<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Web based games are the best place to get started, particularly if you just want to get a game &#8220;under your belt&#8221;.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a great way of reaching a wide audience quickly, however don&#8217;t expect too much in either money or respect.\u00a0 Web-based games are one of the hardest ways to make money from games (at this stage) and tends to have one of the most immature communities of all platforms.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/lostgarden.com\/2009\/07\/flash-love-letter-2009-part-1.html\">Lost Garden<\/a> has a great set of articles that discusses generating real money for web-based (primarily flash) games.<\/p>\n<p><strong>XBox Live Arcade<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>XBLA games are like a cut-down version of a console release.\u00a0 It&#8217;s much easier to get accepted and get through certification.\u00a0 There are also less rewards\/potential for your game compared to a full version console game.\u00a0 As the name suggests, XBLA is perfect for smaller &#8220;arcade&#8221; style games.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Multiple Platforms<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One recommendation I would make is to start small.\u00a0 Look at developing a smaller version (or prototype) of your game on one of the low-end platforms (flash or iPhone) to gauge the response to your game. \u00a0If it&#8217;s successful, then put the extra time and money into developing a larger version of your game on a higher-end platform.\u00a0 John Carmack has stated his belief in developing for low-end platforms first.\u00a0 This helps you focus on the core fun of a game, rather than flashy graphics or other &#8220;next-gen&#8221; features that don&#8217;t necessarily make the game better.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You should now have a better idea of what platform to develop your next game for.\u00a0 If there&#8217;s a platform I haven&#8217;t discussed that you &#8216;d like to hear about, leave a comment and I&#8217;ll add it to the list.\u00a0 The important thing to remember is that no platform is perfect.\u00a0 They each have their own strengths and weaknesses and it&#8217;s critical that you chose the platform that best fits with your game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been talking with a number of Indie game developer friends about what platform they should develop their next game for.\u00a0 There are a number of great platforms available to game developers and this choice of platform is critical to the success of your game.\u00a0 Many people have a game idea, but aren&#8217;t sure what <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/what-platform-should-you-develop-your-next-game-for\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,48,79,82],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-game-development","tag-microsoft","tag-valve","tag-xbox-360"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgEc5-3D","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doolwind.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}