🚀 go-pugleaf

On 8 May 1995, John Marconi wrote:

> Why would you think that this is vaporware?  I have seen pictures of the 
> game about 4 or 5 months ago.  As of this point, all Win95 games have to 
> be vaporware because it would be silly to sell them before the OS is out. 

You contradict yourself -- first you ask why Win95 games are vaporware 
then you say that they _have_ to be vaporware because Win95 isn't released 
yet.

> And, in this case, there is only ONE OS/2 only game which is not vaporware 
> being GalCiv.  All of the others have pics or problematic betas.  So, tell 

There are others, but most are small.  Of course, there is SimCity 
Classic for OS/2, but it obviously isn't an OS/2-only game (and it's a 
dog besides).

> me all about the vast amounts of games coming to OS/2 when they arrive or 
> are anounced.

SDS has announced two to be released latter this year:  Avarice (with 
CSS) and Entrepeneur (sp?).  Both start betaing very soon.  You can get 
in on it, if you likd :-).

> How about any company that produces Windows games?  I am sure that they 
> will be very happy to move right on to programming Windows 95 games.  It 
> in fact will not be that hard to port old or new games to 95.  As for DOS 

>From what I understand, it is relatively hard to port from 16-bit code to
32-bit code.  It is much easier to port from 32-bit to 32-bit.  Therefore,
I would expect that a greater number of ISVs will be willing to port Win95
to OS/2 (and vice versa), so I suspect there will be a lot more apps
available for OS/2.  If a game developer writes a Win95 game, there will 
be little excuse not to port it to OS/2.

> games, sure they are still in production... companies are waiting to see 
> how good Win95 will be.  Companies have seen OS/2 for years and there are 
> barely any games to show for it.

Of course, that's because OS/2 was originally more business oriented and
IBM didn't consider game writing that important.  With the impact of
Galactic Civilizations, that has changed dramatically.  IBM has taken
notice.  Also, up until recently, it was very difficult to port from
16-bit Windows code to 32-bit OS/2 code.  With the advent of SMART
(promises 80% code conversion; says it reduces development time to 1/5th
of the original product) and the IBM/Lotus (at least I think it's Lotus,
anybody know?) Win95-to-OS/2 API mapping project in the works (suggesting
that Win95-to-OS/2 porting might be as simply as changing the parameters
of the compiler), there are more and more companies announcing ports to 
OS/2.  Why should games be any different?

> As long as Win95 dominates, I am willing to bet that Win95 games will 
> dominate.  And, as far as I can tell, it is going to be a good year for 
> Microsoft.  

You assume Win95 will dominate -- probably a pretty safe assumption, but 
I suspect it will not dominate to the extent that Win3.x does at the 
present time.  

> If the current state of OS/2 development of games does not change, Win95 
> will have a huge amount of games for it in the future.  Certainly in a few 
> years, no companies will develope for DOS anymore and I am sure that those 
> game companies will not just die out of business.  They will most likely 
> move on to Win95 if they haven't already.  There are hordes of people 

The current state of OS/2 development of games has already changed.  You 
have missed it.

And anything can happen in a few years.  I suspect Win95 will be
non-existent, as it is a technological dead-end.  In a few years,
MicroSoft will be convincing everybody to move to NT98 with a Win95-like
desktop.  As for the DOS programmers, they will be in a tough situation 
-- do they attempt to get a toe-hold in an blooted Windows market and 
most likely fail, or do they attempt to hedge their bets and develop 
simultaneously (or even solely) for OS/2 and be a bigger fish in a 
smaller pond?

> waiting to buy Win95 when it is released and there will be hordes of 
> companies attempting to get new games out for Win 95.

You also assume that there are a great many people waiting to buy Win95. 
The average user, I suspect, will be taking a wait and see attitude -- Joe
Blow computer user does not upgrade his operating system lightly (if,
indeed, he even has a clear understanding what the os is).  Most 
"upgrades" will probably come when the end user purchases a new computer 
with Win95 installed.

> Fine, now OS/2 is the best for games and I will agree with you.  But, to
> me at least, the future for OS/2 looks bleak.  I can't realistically see
> them gaining any sort of dominance in the market and don't think that
> there will be nearly as many OS/2 only games as Win95 games.  I don't 
> understand why a company would produce games for a lesser audience.

Sorry, we are not a "lesser" audience -- "smaller" yes :-).  And the 
reasons why a ISV might produce for OS/2 are simple:  7-10 million 
potential customers are nothing to sneeze at; fewer competitors, 
which helps market penetration; and it will be relatively easy to port 
between platforms.

JOHN

* John M. Martz:  Psychology Dept, UNC-CH  *                            *
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