IMG: As a programmer, how do you keep up-to-date with new code, languages, libraries and programming techniques as they come out? BO: I don't know how I keep up to date - luck, I guess. ;-) I try to keep my eyes open for articles in Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra or other web sites. The Apple-sponsored development lists are also good to watch. Finally, listening to what the other Mac developers are talking about is good. IMG: What other resources would you recommend to up-and-coming programmers out there? BO: That's hard to answer because there are so many. iDevGames is a good site to use as a launching point for game development. My only other suggestion is to download source code for any number of open-source projects that might catch your eye and try to figure out how they work and go from there. Getting your hands dirty with other peoples' working code is a good way to jumpstart your learning.IMG: How's MacMAME going? Are you getting the chance to work on it these days? BO: No, not really. Fortunately, the next PC release has taken longer than usual, which is fine for me at the moment. :-) IMG: As an aside, I played your Heretic port back in 2000, and the game was a good, solid port. Why Heretic? Have you worked on other similar projects "on the side" since? Are there other older PC games you'd like to port, or at least see ported over to the Mac? BO: I did Heretic because I enjoyed Hexen and thought it really sucked that Mac users missed out. The Doom-engine games were some of my favorites, so I enjoyed a chance to get a look at it from the inside while doing the port. I started a port of "Sarien", the Sierra AGI interpreter some time ago. It was actually the very first app I did that was OSX-native from the get-go. I ran out of time to finish it up, so I never released it. IMG: As an insider, what are your insights into up and coming trends in computer games? In your opinion, will consoles ever completely replace PC games? BO: I'm not really too much of a visionary. I see phones and PDAs merging, but I don't see consoles and PCs converging in the near future. For starters, it would be difficult to play a game like Civ3 or Age2 on a console. Second, the resolution of a TV, even HDTV, is less than what you'd typically get on a PC. On the other hand, consoles enjoy more stability and hassle-free operation. I don't know that either console or PC gaming will go away soon. IMG: As games are getting more and more complex, we're seeing more and more aspects of a game's code being written by third-party programmers who then license that code out to game developers. For example, you can license a game engine (UT, Quake), a sound system (Miles Sound System), movie playback code (Bink Video), physics engines, anti-cheating software, and even networking code. There's even a service out there now that will run your game on their servers so you don't have to worry about running your own game servers! The hook to all this specialized code is that it allows a developer to concentrate on gameplay and design issues while not having to worry about coding a good physics, graphics engine, and so on. Do you see specialized third-party code playing a greater role in games in the future? BO: It's definitely leaning that way. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. Personally, I like the notion of a game engine being written from the ground up rather than licensed, although this would complicate a potential port to the Mac. I think that the process of designing an engine to fit a game results in a better end product and also promotes innovation. IMG: Overall, it appears that the third-party specialized codes are usually ported to different platforms by the original programmers. How does this affect the porting business? BO: Not much, if they do a good job of it. :-) If a Mac port of one of these libraries is buggy or half-assed, then we have to make hard choices as to if we go ahead and use the buggy library or try to fashion our own workaround. IMG: More developers now seem to want to do their own ports in-house. Do you see a future where porting houses become unnecessary? BO: Actually, I think the trend is the opposite - a number of Mac ports used to be done in-house and now that number is very small. If you look at Mac gaming in the early to mid 90's, a lot less were done by porting houses compared to today. There will probably always be a need for porting houses - there will always be those developers who really don't care about or even like the Mac. If the Mac market share grows high enough, then the role of a company like Westlake in porting games to the Mac should decrease as formerly non-Mac developers look to cash in on the Mac. I don't see Mac market share growing enough in the near future to make that a reality though.
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