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December/January 1996 december/january 1996 GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE GGAMEAEM GAME PLAN Spare a Quarter for Microsoft? Editor Alex Dunne irst, it conquered the desktop. of the game. This kind of work could be [email protected] Then it set its sights on the done by one or two developers familiar Managing Editor Tor Berg [email protected] Internet. Now Microsoft is tar- with the game engine, and perhaps a spe- Editorial Assistant Chris Minnick geting the arcade? That’s right. cialist in coin-op development. Market- [email protected] Microsoft is launching an ini- ing doesn’t take a very big bite out of Contributing Editors Larry O’Brien tiative to make Windows the your budget in the coin-op world, so [email protected] operating system for the next you’d save some money on that front. All Chris Hecker [email protected] generation of coin-op games. in all, you’re not looking at a tremendous David Sieks FUnveiled at Microsoft’s recent Judge- outlay to port a game to coin-op using [email protected] ment Day event (its second annual Win- Microsoft’s model. Web Site Manager Phil Keppeler dows 95 games showcase), the initiative That begs the question: What kind [email protected] is still in its early stages, but could turn of cash could you expect from a coin-op Cover Photography Carter Dow Photography the coin-op industry on its ear if it gains port of a Windows-based game? 4th enough momentum. Wave, a market research firm, worked up Publisher Veronica Costanza Basically the plan goes like this: A some numbers in an attempt to answer Group Director Katie Brennan number of hardware companies would that. 4th Wave assumed an installed base Special Projects Manager Nicole Freeman produce Windows-based coin-op of approximately 15,000 Windows-based [email protected] machines, which would probably be coin-op machines in the first year of Advertising Sales Staff powered by Pentium Pros or equivalently availability (starting in mid-1997) and Western Regional Sales Manager powerful processors. You, the game projected that each machine would run a Steve Nikkola (415) 905-2256 [email protected] developer, would ship games for the little over two games during that time- Western Account Manager coin-op market in the same manner that span, creating a market for about 32,000 Barbara Wren (415) 356-3362 you currently ship into the home market. title-units. If you assume a traditional [email protected] After telling the manufacturer of the distribution spread, then of the top 15 Eastern Sales game which standard controls your game games, one would sell about 9,600 units; John Travers (212) 615-2682 requires, and perhaps creating the jazzy four would sell about 3,100 units each; [email protected] artwork for the playfield and marquee, and ten would sell approximately 1,000 Marketing Manager Susan McDonald the manufacturer would just slap the units each. Assume conservatively that Marketing Graphic Designer Azriel Hayes proper components into place and ship your title is in the bottom 10—that’s Advertising Production Coordinator Denise Temple your game. 1,000 units sold at about $750 each, of Director of Production Andrew A. Mickus This is a big leap from today’s coin- which you, the publisher, get a fair chunk Vice President/Circulation Jerry M. Okabe op games, most of which require special- (probably around two-thirds). That’s Group Circulation Manager Mike Poplardo ized hardware under the hood. In many about a $500K return for your two or Assistant Circulation Manager Jamai Deuberry cases, this hardware acts as a form of three person porting effort. Granted, Subscription Marketing Manager Melina Kaplanis copy protection so that the game can’t be these are extremely rough numbers, but Newsstand Manager Eric Alekman pirated. Microsoft’s plan would remove it’s something to chew on. Reprints Stella Valdez (916) 729-3633 the need for game-specific hardware and Microsoft makes no bones about in its place use an as-yet-unspecified another aspect of this initiative that Chairman/CEO Marshall W. Freeman form of copy protection. benefits them greatly. A Windows-based President/COO Donald A. Pazour In terms of your resources as a game in an arcade is an advertisement for Senior Vice President/CFO Warren “Andy” Ambrose developer of PC games, it probably the home version of the game. That’s Senior Vice Presidents David Nussbaum, Darrell wouldn’t involve many additional per- great for you, because it could boost your Denny, Ted Bahr, Wini D. Ragus, Regina Ridley son-hours of time to tweak a game for sell-through to consumers. It’s great for Vice President/Production Andrew A. Mickus coin-op using this model. You’d want to Microsoft because people have to buy Vice President/Circulation Jerry Okabe simplify your game for the arcade ver- copies of Windows 95 to play your game. Senior Vice President/ sion, and tune it up to get as much speed That demon seems to lurk behind every- Software Development Division Regina Starr Ridley out of it as you could. You would also thing they do, doesn’t it? ■ want to change your levels around so that Alex Dunne Miller Freeman they weren’t identical your home version Editor A United News & Media publication 6 GAME DEVELOPER • DECEMBER 1996/JANUARY 1997 http://www.gdmag.com/ SEZ U! WHICH WAY DO I GO? worked. I originally tested the code in the article Developer. He touched upon many key points Dear Editor: on both IPX and modem servers, but I admit that I was pleased to read about. ould you recommend developing that the DirectX 1.0 DirectPlay implementation I ordered 3D Studio Max and am happier with games for DOS using Watcom C/C++ acted a little flaky at times. this investment having read such a review from W10.6 with DOS/4GW, or games that someone who clearly knows what constitutes an run on Win32s using Visual C++ 4.1 and the BENCHMARKING COMPILERS outstanding program. DirectX 2 SDK? Dear Editor: Anonymous Dan Mintz read Chris Hecker’s article “More Compiler Via Internet Via Internet Results, and What To Do About It” in the IAugust/September 1996 issue and have a DELAY OF GAME Chris Hecker replies: question. Dear Editor: It actually doesn’t matter. The important parts How were the timings measured? Did he read Dan Teven and Vincent Lee’s article of game programming, such as mathematics, count clock cycles from the assembler code, or “Optimizing CD-ROM Performance under user interface, gameplay tuning, artificial intel- did he run timed benchmarks? If he ran timed IDOS/4GW” (August/September 1996). We ligence, and so on, are totally platform indepen- benchmarks, what operating systems were used play all of our game’s music off of CD audio dent. I’d say start with whatever is easiest or for each test? tracks, and when I use the STOP and PLAY com- cheapest, and learn to write good code. If you Also, his Macintosh bias needn’t have been mands, there’s a long delay (the game stops for do that, you can write for whatever platform included in the article. The PowerPC 604 is not a period of one to two seconds). MSCDEX docu- you’d like. “a pretty fair comparison” to a Pentium. Every- mentation states that these two functions one (except Hecker apparently) gives the “fair should return immediately, but that isn’t hap- DIRECTPLAY DIFFICULTY comparison” nod to the PowerPC 604 vs. the pening. Any ideas? Dear Editor: Pentium Pro at similar clock speeds. I would be Pablo Testa enjoyed Michael Morrison’s article “Network- interested in those results. Via Internet ing Your Game Using DirectPlay” (June/July Randy Rynkewicz I1996). I used it as a tutorial for learning Via Internet Dan Teven replies: DirectPlay. I discovered a problem when running Although you’re working with the CD audio calls the TicTacToe game in conjunction with the TCP Chris Hecker replies: and not using the “seek” call, this problem and IPX service providers. Morrison’s code was I timed the functions by doing a bunch of loops sounds very similar to one Vince Lee and I men- failing in the IDirectPlay::EnumPlayers call. I and using Microseconds on the Mac and tioned in our article. Because the MSCDEX notice he calls IDirectPlay::Open prior to call- QueryPerformanceCounter on Windows 95. I interface is synchronous and some calls may ing EnumPlayers, which the DirectPlay docu- timed the non-Windows 95 compilers’ outputs not return quickly, you need to use a multi- mentation warns against. I modified the code to by linking in their object modules into my Win- threaded architecture if you want to keep these delay calling Open until after EnumPlayers was dows 95 timing program. Most of the compilers calls from slowing down your game. Whenever called, and everything worked fine (at least in output COFF objects, and I converted the others. you want to stop a track or play a new one, your the TCP and IPX worlds). I assume Morrison’s I’ve never been accused of having a Macin- program should create a new thread to issue code worked as published when using the tosh bias before. By “a pretty fair comparison,” the MSCDEX call. Meanwhile, the rest of your modem server provider. Why is that? I meant my 132Mhz PPC and the 133Mhz Pen- program can continue to execute. Matt D’Ercole tium were similar systems from a clock-rate Windows 95 features multithreading support. Via Internet and memory standpoint.
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