Is .NET Relevant to Game Developers?

andrew stuart asks: "We've heard an awful lot about how .NET is the future and how .NET signals the end for COM based Windows development, but how far does this go? Is it really the end of COM? Will ALL Windows programming be done with .NET? What about games development? Will games be developed with .NET? If games aren't developed with .NET and Microsoft is killing COM, then what future for games development on Windows? Will there be DirectX for .NET?"

it went down like this

[b17bmbr]

Bill: Steve
Steve: yes
Bill: is windows secure and stable yet

It is stormy in the pacific northwest, rains and cold have been present for the past several days

Steve: (sick with the flu, congested, and tired from jumping) not yet
Bill: Dot Net, that's it. (picks up phone) "marketing, this is bill. we're going with dot net, steve says so."

Re:Yes

[mrAgreeable]

Nothing, after all, says "High Performace Game Engine" like interpreted bytecode.

Re:That Giant Sucking Sound...

[Surak]

Maybe it'll allow the player to enjoy games which are Office compatible or such, doesn't seem relevant.

Why not? Imagine playing Quake to create your next spreadsheet! "Quick! There's AA51! Where's my BFG9000 when I need it?" :)

Re:Dotnet won't rule the world.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've said it before and now I'm ready to beg. Enough with the carriage returns! Our browsers word wrap automatically just fine!

Re:Doubtful.

[kahei]

[chopsticks] were invented in America in the 1800s

I think that's probably the most easily-disproved wild assertion I've ever read, even on /.

There should be a special prize or something.

Re:I call bullshit

[RabidOverYou]

> they were invented by a Japanese American in this century.

Whoa, I could have sworn I saw them as far back as 1998.

Re:That Giant Sucking Sound...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's NOTHING like when people complained how slow java was"

Yeah. The difference for me was that the non-native Java gui on my Cyrix P-133+ with 16 MB of RAM was at least 4 times as slow as VB.Net on my P4 2.4 GHz with 512 MB RAM.

Sample game written in VB.net

[SoCalChris]

Haven't you people ever played Donkey.Net [microsoft.com]??? Nothing like driving your car arouns a small 3D area trying to run down donkeys.

Re:What exactly is the point of .NET?

[fgb]

"I can't see it being useful for cross-platform GUI apps because there's no guarantee that .NET really is cross-platform."

Of course it's cross-platform. It runs on 2000, XP and .NET Server!

NET .COM

[KjetilK]

No, but it has been said that .COM signalled the death of NET... :-)

Re:Doubtful.

[Hideyoshi]

Dude, it was meant to be a joke! Don't take everything so literally!

Re:Proper implementation would have saved this

[quantum bit]

I won't use .NET for game development, period. I guess I'm old fashioned, but I like my SDK's as simple as possible, something Microsoft doesn't seem to like making anymore.

But... How would you write efficient code if your functions didn't have helpful names like DDLockBufferAndBlitToSurfaceAndPrayThePointerIsVal id_u ?

.what?

[konputer]

first COM, then .NET, what's next? .ORG? .GOV (forced compliance with PATRIOT act) ..?