Hi Charles: First, I think we should make a distinction between commercial and non-commercial game developers here.
Jim Kitchen is a non-commercial game developer and does not take any money for the games he creates. Therefore he is not obligated to any customers to continue supporting new operating systems, new APIs, or offer customer support in any way, shape, or form. His games are offered for free, as is, with no warranty or guarantees of compatibility. So he can pretty much do whatever he wants because he is giving the games away for free and has not taken any money for his software. As such should not be held to the same standard as someone who is selling his games. A commercial game developer like myself comes with a whole bunch of extra responsibilities that does not apply to a non-commercial developer. I believe one of those responsibilities is to make the software as stable and error free as possible, to support my products, and to insure that they work on the latest hardware and software available at the time of purchase. Sometimes in order to do that I have to choose to go with whatever happens to be the latest technology to best support the new operating system, and if it isn't compatible with an older operating system like XP that is just the way things are and no amount of arguing about it will change the facts of the matter which brings me to your other point. You said, "Many people in the blind gaming community still use XP, yet you push us to switch to 7 or above. So much for the third point." Well, it is obvious to me you still don't understand the technical issues involved, and perhaps you just don't care to hear them. However, my third point was that a game developer does not have to sell 64-bit software and games exclusively because there are plenty of 32-bit computers running Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 out there. That is a totally different issue from supporting an older operating system like XP, because there is a huge difference in difficulty involved here. To support 32-bit and 64-bit all that is involved is simply recompiling the program and changing the target flags in the Visual Studio project file from x86 to x64, perhaps select the 64-bit libraries, and voila. A developer can make a brand new build in less than 10 minutes and support both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions with very little difficulty. Supporting XP and Windows 7 can in some cases be far more extensive requiring a major rewrite of the game or software depending on which APIs and libraries are used, and how dependent the game or software is on the newer libraries. Instead of a matter of minutes we are looking a job that could take hours perhaps a few days to make a special XP build if the software wasn't designed with XP specifically in mind. So in response to your comment no I have not invalided my point about upgrading to Windows 7 and above by stating that developers don't need to make 64-bit specific builds exclusively yet. I do think a game developer might be wise to make both a 32-bit and 64-bit version available, but it would be unwise to make only 64-bit Windows software right now given the ratio of 32-bit systems to 64-bit systems and it is not difficult to support both. Cheers! On 12/24/13, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > Many people in the blind gaming community still use XP, yet you push us to > switch tu 7 or above. So much for the third point. > > As to the second, should Jim Kitchen stop using what he is comfortable using > > to create games, cutting those with older systems out as far as being able > to access his games? Should he learn a newer language in order to cater to > > the new while losing the old? I don't think so. > > --- > Be positive! When it comes to being defeated, if you think you're finished, > > you! really! are! finished! --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
