The IGF finalists are 10% java

An interesting thing about the 2005 Independent Games Festival finalists is that 10% of them are written in java. I am keenly aware (in a good way) that my game Lux uses java. The other java game that I saw is War! Age of Imperialism. So out of the 20 different games there are 2 written in java. This gives a pretty solid 10 percent.

In my view the independent scene is where java stands to make the most inroads in game development. All the big established game dev houses have a commitment to C++ in the form of their existing code, the associated tools and the accumulated experience of their coders. There is no way that they are going to ditch that investment by moving to a new platform.

The place where java can compete on a level playing field is with startup studios. These guys don't have a big investment in C++. Their choice of platform will be made based on the actual cost/benefit of starting from scratch with either language. In this situation java has a much better chance of being used.

Anyway, I am going to use this nomination as an opportunity to submit my game to java.com again. Maybe this time I will get a reply. They do say "the third time's the charm".

Posted by dustin on December 13, 2004 with category tags of java awards Lux shareware games