gamedevlists-general — List for discussing general game development issues

[GD-General] Re: [Algorithms] Physics engine

[Brian H. <ho...@py...>]

Gentle reminder that this is off-topic.  Please move this to the 
gamedevlists-general list.

On Mon, 17 May 2004 17:52:26 -0400, Andrey Iones wrote:
> Gents,
>
> Any thoughts on "what's the best physics engine is out there"? We
> are currently trying to choose between Havok and NovodeX. Do you
> have any experience
> with the latter? How usable it is for actual game development?

[GD-General] Re: VC Profiling Error

[yogiwp <yo...@gm...>]

Apologies... sent to the wrong list. Please ignore.


Yogi Wahyu Prasidha
www.inspiritarena.com

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "yogiwp" <yo...@gm...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 7:26 PM
Subject: VC Profiling Error


> [VC6, WinXP]
> 
> Usually this works: enable "Enable profiling" and "Generate mapfile" checkbox in project settings,
> and launch profile from the IDE.
> But it is not working anymore; after the app exits, it gives me this error:
> "PREP : fatal error PRF1011: cannot open file d:\_projects\inspirit\bin\inspiritclient\inspiritclient.pbo"
> (Verified that the .pbo file does not exist in that directory or anywhere else on my harddrive).
> 
> Any clue?
> Google doesn't give any useful info on this :(
> 
> 
> Yogi Wahyu Prasidha
> www.inspiritarena.com
> 

[GD-General] VC Profiling Error

[yogiwp <yo...@gm...>]

[VC6, WinXP]

Usually this works: enable "Enable profiling" and "Generate mapfile" checkbox in project settings,
and launch profile from the IDE.
But it is not working anymore; after the app exits, it gives me this error:
"PREP : fatal error PRF1011: cannot open file d:\_projects\inspirit\bin\inspiritclient\inspiritclient.pbo"
(Verified that the .pbo file does not exist in that directory or anywhere else on my harddrive).

Any clue?
Google doesn't give any useful info on this :(


Yogi Wahyu Prasidha
www.inspiritarena.com

[GD-General] online distribution - was Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

cool article on the hollywood report about online distribution and it's=20
use in the game industry.  good read.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/columns/tech_reporter_display.jsp?vn=
u_content_id=3D1000501222

mike w

Brian Hook wrote:
>>www.esellerate.net
>=20
>=20
> I use esellerate.net for e-commerce and I've been very happy with them=20
> (especially after I went through a couple others with poor luck).
>=20
> Brian
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.Net email is sponsored by: Oracle 10g
> Get certified on the hottest thing ever to hit the market... Oracle 10g=
.=20
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>=20
>=20

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Brian H. <ho...@py...>]

> www.esellerate.net

I use esellerate.net for e-commerce and I've been very happy with them 
(especially after I went through a couple others with poor luck).

Brian

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

no prob, they've been our 'hidden secret' for a while ;}

i do agree about the idea of a portal for indie games though - this is 
what i was trying to do with a publishing arm of our company (basically 
a front end for a plimus storefront), but being a 2 person company, we 
had to prioritize - and we chose to focus on our game engine (seeing as 
it's our main revenue source at this point).

but i'd definitely say that the idea is a valid one judging from the 
responses we got when asking around about the feasibility of the project.

maybe once the E3 madness dies down around here i'll have a spare moment 
to finish up the portal idea i was workin on - we have the domain for 
the concept (www.gamingzone.ca) - just have to clone myself a few times 
so i can finish getting the games online

mike w
www.realityfactory.ca

Colin Fahey wrote:

> 
>>www.plimus.com
>>www.esellerate.net
> 
> 
> Fantastic!  This world is not all crazy!
> 
> Thanks, Mike, for pointing out those companies.  Honestly, just
> seeing these sites, and seeing your comment ("we've been selling
> our game engine through these sites for 10 months now have been 
> 100% rock-solid"), is like a breath of fresh air.
> 
> Wow, I kind of wish I spent the past four months trying to 
> bring a PC game to market instead of the BREW game with a
> giant question mark about whether or not I'll see a single
> penny for my efforts.
> 
> My next game will be for the PC, that's for sure...
> 
> Again, thank you for the links, Mike.  As you say,
> "no crap-ass publisher, no 'middle man'. the 10% ecommerce
> fee and that's it. no bs."  I'm amazed how closely those
> sites come to what I was imagining.
> 
> Awesome.  Not many things go in my anti-cynicism column,
> but this is definitely going to cancel out a lot of stuff
> in the other half of the karmic spreadsheet.
> 
> --- Colin
> 
> P.S.:
> 
> However, don't you find the "Realtime-Spy" product featured
> on the home page of http://www.plimus.com to be a little 
> creepy? :-)  I guess the product description proves that
> this site is not biased about products they carry:
> 
>     Spytech Realtime-Spy is the latest in cutting-edge
>     computer monitoring spy software technology that
>     allows you to monitor ANY PC from ANYWHERE.
>     Realtime-Spy is remotely deployable (no physical
>     installation needed), and its activity logs are
>     accessible from anywhere - regardless if the remote
>     PC is online or not. Realtime-Spy logs all keystrokes,
>     websites, applications ran, e-mails sent, and more.
> 
> Claims like these make me chuckle.  Why not just monitor
> the PCs of CEOs and make a killing on the stock market?
> 
> I'm waiting for the day when everyone just watches everyone
> else, and it just confirms that we are all human beings.
> The product might as well be called "Spy on Yourself!" --
> it would come with a mirror, an echo box so you would 
> hear your own speech repeated moments later ("Real Time!"),
> and would include software that would monitor your keystrokes
> and even highlight/underline spelling errors in red and
> grammatical errors in green, and pop up an "Assistant" to
> even help you compose a letter...No, dammit, I'm not writing
> a letter!  Go away!...Then you'll look in the supplied 
> mirror and laugh at your victim, who is totally being 
> spied upon, and being harassed and humiliated by automated
> spelling and grammar checking.  Poor fool -- I see and hear
> everything he (or she) does, and I have total access to 
> everything the guy (or girl) owns.
> 
> Hee, hee!
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

> www.plimus.com
> www.esellerate.net

Fantastic!  This world is not all crazy!

Thanks, Mike, for pointing out those companies.  Honestly, just
seeing these sites, and seeing your comment ("we've been selling
our game engine through these sites for 10 months now have been 
100% rock-solid"), is like a breath of fresh air.

Wow, I kind of wish I spent the past four months trying to 
bring a PC game to market instead of the BREW game with a
giant question mark about whether or not I'll see a single
penny for my efforts.

My next game will be for the PC, that's for sure...

Again, thank you for the links, Mike.  As you say,
"no crap-ass publisher, no 'middle man'. the 10% ecommerce
fee and that's it. no bs."  I'm amazed how closely those
sites come to what I was imagining.

Awesome.  Not many things go in my anti-cynicism column,
but this is definitely going to cancel out a lot of stuff
in the other half of the karmic spreadsheet.

--- Colin

P.S.:

However, don't you find the "Realtime-Spy" product featured
on the home page of http://www.plimus.com to be a little 
creepy? :-)  I guess the product description proves that
this site is not biased about products they carry:

    Spytech Realtime-Spy is the latest in cutting-edge
    computer monitoring spy software technology that
    allows you to monitor ANY PC from ANYWHERE.
    Realtime-Spy is remotely deployable (no physical
    installation needed), and its activity logs are
    accessible from anywhere - regardless if the remote
    PC is online or not. Realtime-Spy logs all keystrokes,
    websites, applications ran, e-mails sent, and more.

Claims like these make me chuckle.  Why not just monitor
the PCs of CEOs and make a killing on the stock market?

I'm waiting for the day when everyone just watches everyone
else, and it just confirms that we are all human beings.
The product might as well be called "Spy on Yourself!" --
it would come with a mirror, an echo box so you would 
hear your own speech repeated moments later ("Real Time!"),
and would include software that would monitor your keystrokes
and even highlight/underline spelling errors in red and
grammatical errors in green, and pop up an "Assistant" to
even help you compose a letter...No, dammit, I'm not writing
a letter!  Go away!...Then you'll look in the supplied 
mirror and laugh at your victim, who is totally being 
spied upon, and being harassed and humiliated by automated
spelling and grammar checking.  Poor fool -- I see and hear
everything he (or she) does, and I have total access to 
everything the guy (or girl) owns.

Hee, hee!

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

the beauty of these providers is that they have ZERO 
affiliation/partnership with the game industry

sure they provide services to the game industry (swiftcd fulfills cd's 
on demand for gamespy etc) but it is in their best interest to be 
'unbiased' in respect to selling software

i would definitely check out plimus at least - the storefront is 
customizeable and the whole system is VERY powerful.

integrates with armadillo copy-protection and other serial generators 
for those of you that use copy protection in your games.

mike w
www.realityfactory.ca

Mike Wuetherick wrote:

> www.plimus.com
> 
> www.esellerate.net
> 
> both do exactly what you want
> 
> www.swiftcd.com
> 
> print on-demand cd's as your customer orders them, no up-front fees.
> 
> it works for gamespy, we've been selling our game engine through these 
> sites for 10 months now have been 100% rock-solid.
> 
> no crap-ass publisher, no 'middle man'. the 10% ecommerce fee and that's 
> it. no bs.
> 
> cheers
> mike w
> www.realityfactory.ca
> 
> 
>> THE POSSIBILITY OF SELLING PC GAMES THROUGH A WEB PORTAL:
>> =========================================================
>>
>> Anyhow, I have had a long love for the PC, and I wrote a game
>> engine and game design documents.  It's just that piracy made
>> me wonder if I would even sell more than a single copy of a
>> game.  I wrote to a few independent game developers selling
>> their games online, wondering if they were making money, and
>> the few who I asked said that sales were really low (but
>> downloads of demos were high).
>>
>> I contacted a game sales portal associated with Prima Tech publishing 
>> (the publishers of the Andre LaMothe edited series of game programming 
>> books, like "Focus on SDL",
>> "Focus on AI", "Beginning OpenGL Programming", etc).
>> (Sorry if I am confused about the relation or non-relation
>> of the game sales portal with the book publisher.)
>> Anyhow, the portal handled credit card payments, and spared
>> developers from the hassle of being a business, which I
>> thought was fantastic.  But the web site wasn't very classy (goofy, 
>> cartoonish motif, if I remember correctly),
>> and I wasn't sure if I would be proud to direct people
>> to the site for the purchasing phase of getting my product.
>> Also, I was concerned about the site's ability to deliver
>> bandwidth when serving my game download.
>>
>> I have seen similar efforts that turned me off.
>>
>>
>> Here's what I would like to see:
>> ================================
>>
>>   A company that would handle credit card transactions
>>   and mail checks to developers on a monthly or quarterly
>>   basis.
>>
>>   The company would have a low-key domain name.
>>
>>   The only purpose of the company's web site is to:
>>
>>      (1) Present brief product information;
>>
>>      (2) Accept and verify credit card information;
>>
>>      (3) Handle the deployment of the application
>>            to the consumer by download and            installation 
>> verification;
>>
>>          (This requires having a reliable dedicated server
>>          in a high-speed data center and plenty of monthly
>>          bandwidth quote, on the order of 500 GB at least.)
>>
>>      (4) Accept and forward correspondance regarding
>>            product issues to the developer;
>>
>>   So, for example, I could describe the product in   detail on my OWN 
>> web site, and then, when a visitor
>>   is interested in buying the application, I have a
>>   link to this hypothetical company's web site.  This   hypothetical 
>> site would show a page with a brief   description of the application,
>>   sufficient for the consumer to verify that this is
>>   in fact the correct item, and then the consumer   advances to the 
>> payment information area.
>>
>>   Just as important as what the proposed company would do
>>   are the things the company would NOT do.  Here are some
>>   principles:
>>
>>
>>     (1) The proposed company will NEVER do any external marketing,
>>         or product promotion on the portal web site itself.
>>
>>           No marketing will be purchased by the proposed
>>           company on the behalf of developers (or on behalf
>>           of the company itself, despite its own potential
>>           benefit due to a percentage of sales).
>>
>>           The purpose of the site is not to
>>           elevate products relative to its peers on
>>           the same site.  This was the mistake of the
>>           Verizon "deck" concept.  No, let the burden
>>           of marketing and reputation fall entirely
>>           on developers, or alternate MARKETING web
>>           sites!  Let there be no "deck" concept that
>>           artificially prioritizes (and thus essentially
>>           influences) relative sales of products.
>>
>>           The web portal would not have a "latest games"
>>           section, or any sort of "Hot Titles" concept.
>>           All titles are simply titles in a catalog.
>>           Yes, "overwhelm" the customer with a million
>>           titles.  The point of the portal is not to
>>           teach consumers about what is available, but
>>           simply to connect an educated consumer's           money to 
>> a corresponding developer.
>>
>>
>>     (2) The proposed company will NEVER give/lend any money to
>>         developers to finance their projects.
>>
>>
>>           Financing projects necessarily means making           
>> choices about which projects are viable.
>>           Also, given that investing money is a risk,
>>           an investor typically wants a big return on
>>           the investment -- to more than cover the           other 
>> project investments that may have failed.
>>
>>           The fact that the proposed company would not
>>           finance projects is hardly an obstacle for           game 
>> developers interested in seeking financing.
>>           It's just not a function of the proposed company.
>>
>>           The benefit is that the portal company does not
>>           have any risk, and is not beholden to other           
>> creditors, and thus can promise a long existence
>>           and good terms for all clients (the developers).
>>
>>           Gathering Of Developers (GOD) offered relatively
>>           good royalty percentages back around the year
>>           1999 or 2000, but since GOD actually invested           
>> money in games, and some games flopped, ALL           clients of GOD 
>> suffered when the company essentially
>>           vanished.
>>
>>           So, to assure the long-term survival of the proposed
>>           company, and to maintain a low, flat percentage fee
>>           for the service of selling products, the proposed
>>           company would never invest in anything.
>>
>>
>>      (3) The proposed company will NEVER pay for any form of          
>> SELF-promotion (i.e., of the portal company itself).
>>
>>           Many portal-like services promote themselves.
>>           Although not entirely wacky, it does seem like
>>           it can be avoided.
>>
>>           If developers are responsible for maketing their
>>           games (and the portal can list possible marketing
>>           possibilities), then the portal has nothing to do
>>           but actually handle the credit card transactions
>>           and serve data.
>>
>>           Services like "Napster", "iTunes", "Amazon", etc,
>>           promote themselves because there is a large potential
>>           for casual browsing on the sites themselves, leading
>>           to spontaneous purchases.
>>
>>           In fact, the proposed company does not preclude a
>>           web site allowing casual browsing of games from
>>           being created!  The proposed company simply handles
>>           the payment and delivery phases.
>>
>>
>>       (4) The proposed company will NEVER impose any restrictions 
>>           on *content* that is legal.  (NOTE: I am referring to
>>           freedom of concepts, not freedom to offer applications
>>           that are buggy or violate privacy or security.)
>>
>>           Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Verizon all impose various
>>           guidelines about application content and functionality.
>>           For example, not that I'm complaining, but it is impossible
>>           to buy and download a pornographic application for a
>>           BREW phone with Verizon as the carrier.  For many that
>>           seems like a totally reasonable restriction, but other
>>           restrictions are more subjective.
>>
>>           Content restriction need not take the form of explicit
>>           guidelines.  For example, in the case of Verizon's           
>> "deck", it might just be that Verizon doesn't think a
>>           product is a "smash hit".  That's all it takes to make
>>           a game or application totally inaccessible to consumers!
>>           So, if you wanted an application with rather limited
>>           appeal, like a Klingon text translator, or a tiny           
>> symbolic math engine (like Mathematica on a cell phone),
>>           FORGET IT!  (...unless you have a J2ME phone!)
>>
>>           The proposed company is not itself concerned about
>>           its reputation as a brand or "publisher" any more than
>>           the phone company is worried about how "bad" phone           
>> calls might make you think badly of telephone service.
>>           An Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not build a
>>           reputation on content of the Internet as a whole.
>>           (Although it is true that AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and           
>> Google, profit on organizing access to the Internet,
>>           and thus suffer the consequences of making the promise
>>           of a sanitized or fair-and-balanced view of the           
>> Internet.)
>>
>>           Just as routers on the Internet don't judge data
>>           content (in any high-level human sense), the proposed
>>           company will almost be a non-entity -- just a bridge
>>           linking a consumer to a product.
>>
>>
>>      (5) The proposed company will NEVER send any e-mails to
>>          customers (except optional receipts of purchases).
>>
>>           The customer transaction begins and ends with
>>           a single visit to the portal.
>>
>>           Customer information can *optionally* be           put on 
>> file to make future purchasing easier.
>>
>>           No data mining will be conducted on user data
>>           to find correlations of purchases.  I like the
>>           efforts of Amazon to propose other products I
>>           may be interested in -- but browsing and           
>> suggesting is not the role of the proposed           company and 
>> associated portal.  Other sites
>>           can make these associations, inferences, and
>>           suggestions.
>>
>>
>>      (6)  The proposed company will NEVER partner with other
>>           companies.
>>
>>           A partnership either involves compromises or
>>           is not balanced and mutually-beneficial.
>>
>>           Corporate acquisitions almost always compromise the
>>           vision and ideals of the acquired companies --
>>           otherwise, why not preserve the independence of
>>           the companies?
>>
>>           An agreement between companies limits the freedom
>>           of each participant company.
>>
>>           To maintain the integrity and principles of the           
>> proposed company, it will not be formed with           partners and 
>> will never accept partners.
>>
>>
>>       (7) The proposed company will not use any form of
>>           Digital Rights Management (DRM).
>>
>>
>>       (8) Refunds on all purchases limited to 30 days.
>>
>>           Most software stores do not offer refunds on
>>           ANY purchases.  Only exchanges for the identical
>>           product is allowed in most cases (assuming the
>>           CD/DVD is defective).
>>
>>           Offering a refund period frees the portal from
>>           complaint in the event software doesn't work on
>>           someone's computer, or has unacceptable           
>> performance or bugs.
>>
>>           By limiting the refund period, cash can be           given 
>> to the developer on a monthly basis without
>>           putting the portal company at risk of having
>>           to pay refunds on its own.
>>
>>                     It's tricky to differentiate between refund 
>>           requests based on actual technical and quality
>>           complaints, and refund requests made in an
>>           effort to acquire software for free.  Perhaps
>>           statistics for each product will be kept
>>           for number of purchases and number of returns
>>           and reasons for return (with checkbox for           
>> platform).  Perhaps customers will have stats
>>           for number of purchases and number of returns.
>>           One wants to avoid recording specific purchases,
>>           and automatic banning from making future purchases
>>           (given a streak of refund requests).  It's a
>>           tricky problem, where some fraction of unethical
>>           consumers gets jumbled with some fraction of           
>> products with compatibility problems.
>>
>>
>>       (9) The proposed company will not accept products           from 
>> developers without working mailing addresses,
>>           e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.
>>
>>           Each application offered by the portal will           have a 
>> developer name associated with it.
>>           (If a developer changes names on a per-product           
>> basis, all names and a link to a common developer
>>           history and reputation will be provided.)
>>
>>           If an application is discovered to just be spyware,
>>           or other form of virus, or just plain bad quality,
>>           the developer can be held accountable.
>>
>>           The portal is not RESPONSIBLE for such things, and
>>           does not PROMISE protection from malicious or buggy
>>           applications.  But a conscientious effort to           stop 
>> the distribution of an application that has
>>           been established as being malicious or very broken
>>           is, I think, acceptable.
>>
>>
>>   I was tempted to launch a company and corresponding
>>   web site to do all of this, since I think that   it's difficult for 
>> most people to attain the kind
>>   of simplicity and integrity I am seeking.  Even   large, reputable 
>> companies have banner ads and   pop-up windows!  Many companies 
>> require Flash or
>>   scripting to make their web pages work, and then
>>   there is the temptation to make everything look cool.
>>   No!  The point is only to accept the credit card
>>   information, verify, and handle the download.
>>   Things like FilePlanet, etc, are really annoying
>>   sites.
>>
>>
>> CROSBIE'S "DIGITAL ARTS AUCTION" SITE:
>> ======================================
>>
>>
>>>>> www.digitalartauction.com
>>
>>
>>
>>   I wish you luck with your site, Crosbie, however the
>>   mission of your site is too broad to appeal to me.
>>   Also, the demeanor of your writing style is too informal
>>   for a site to which I would submit credit card numbers
>>   and personal information.
>>
>>
>> GENERAL THOUGHTS ON GAME SALES PORTAL:
>> ======================================
>>
>>   A corporation and a corresponding site that simply   delivered on 
>> its core promises, and was largely without
>>   its own character to interfere with the branding and
>>   motifs of its various developer clients, would be
>>   great -- and would generate its own following.
>>
>>   We don't hear about all of the companies that support
>>   the infrastructure necessary for the conveniences of
>>   daily life (for example, telephone bills don't have
>>   logos of fiber optic and transistor manufacturers   all over them).  
>> A pizza parlor doesn't have a giant
>>   "Powered by NCR Point-Of-Sale Systems!" sign in the   window.
>>
>>     Maybe there's an opportunity here.   Perhaps the design of the 
>> company could in a sense be
>>   "open source", such that people edit a mission statement
>>   and list of policies in an open fashion, like a virtual
>>   board of directors.  Thus, the company would be founded
>>   on principals and an integrity that appealed to the
>>   very people who would be interested in becoming clients.
>>   I know Debian Linux has a mission statement that is
>>   voted upon by developers according to some sort of   reputation system.
>>
>>   I think it's very important to be very up front about
>>   all aspects of the company operation, like: (1) Who
>>   is doing the data hosting? (2) Who is handling credit
>>   card transactions? (3) How is customer data stored and
>>   handled? (4) Who is running the company? (5) What are the
>>   sales figures? (6) Having largely-unmoderated forums for
>>   customer feedback (moderation only to eliminate spam
>>   and to demote off-topic threads).
>>
>>   Creating a portal would be a win-win situation,   generating some 
>> income for the portal manager, and creating
>>   income for independent developers who are not interested in
>>   starting businesses and who are not capable of handling
>>   credit card transactions and managing customer data.
>>
>>   One big bullet-point for the portal: Software acquired
>>   from the portal comes directly from developers and is
>>   thus far less likely to contain viruses -- unlike   cracked or 
>> hacked versions floating around on KaZaA,
>>   DC, and other P2P file-sharing apps.  Also, a portal
>>   formalizes a method for rewarding software developers,
>>   as opposed to random donations (via PayPal or micro-
>>   payment methods).
>>
>>
>> MY IGNORANCE; PORTAL MAY EXIST ALREADY:
>> =======================================
>>
>>   For all I know I am describing an existing service,
>>   like "iTunes", but for games.  I'd actually be surprised
>>   if something very close to what I want didn't already
>>   exist -- but not extremely surprised, since there are
>>   many ways to screw up the execution.  Even little things,
>>   like having a banner ad, greatly adulterate the web
>>   experience in my mind...  Anyhow, I'm just ignorant,
>>   listing principles I'd like to see in such a service.
>>
>>   It's tempting to create the proposed portal company,
>>   but it's also tempting to avoid distractions from the
>>   fun of computer programming!
>>
>> --- Colin
>>
>>
>>  
>>
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> 
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Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

>        (8) Refunds on all purchases limited to 30 days.

hate to tell you but for online credit card purchases it is IMPOSSIBLE 
to prevent chargebacks.  the billing company will NEVER side with you.

they can't afford to or they lose their 'in' with visa/mastercard.

most billing companies force you to pay the bs 'visa tax' that was 
recently imposed (as a result of the adult industry's abuse of credit 
card billing), but both plimus.com and esellerate.net do not charge you 
the $750 USD/year that other billing companies do and are very legit.

>        (9) The proposed company will not accept products 
>           from developers without working mailing addresses,
>           e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.

how would you propose getting your monthly check then?  either way the 
billing companies i've mentioned will let you sign up and start taking 
purchases from day one, no bs.

enjoy ;}

mike w
www.realityfactory.ca

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

www.plimus.com

www.esellerate.net

both do exactly what you want

www.swiftcd.com

print on-demand cd's as your customer orders them, no up-front fees.

it works for gamespy, we've been selling our game engine through these 
sites for 10 months now have been 100% rock-solid.

no crap-ass publisher, no 'middle man'. the 10% ecommerce fee and that's 
it. no bs.

cheers
mike w
www.realityfactory.ca


> THE POSSIBILITY OF SELLING PC GAMES THROUGH A WEB PORTAL:
> =========================================================
> 
> Anyhow, I have had a long love for the PC, and I wrote a game
> engine and game design documents.  It's just that piracy made
> me wonder if I would even sell more than a single copy of a
> game.  I wrote to a few independent game developers selling
> their games online, wondering if they were making money, and
> the few who I asked said that sales were really low (but
> downloads of demos were high).
> 
> I contacted a game sales portal associated with 
> Prima Tech publishing (the publishers of the Andre LaMothe 
> edited series of game programming books, like "Focus on SDL",
> "Focus on AI", "Beginning OpenGL Programming", etc).
> (Sorry if I am confused about the relation or non-relation
> of the game sales portal with the book publisher.)
> Anyhow, the portal handled credit card payments, and spared
> developers from the hassle of being a business, which I
> thought was fantastic.  But the web site wasn't very 
> classy (goofy, cartoonish motif, if I remember correctly),
> and I wasn't sure if I would be proud to direct people
> to the site for the purchasing phase of getting my product.
> Also, I was concerned about the site's ability to deliver
> bandwidth when serving my game download.
> 
> I have seen similar efforts that turned me off.
> 
> 
> Here's what I would like to see:
> ================================
> 
>   A company that would handle credit card transactions
>   and mail checks to developers on a monthly or quarterly
>   basis.
> 
>   The company would have a low-key domain name.
> 
>   The only purpose of the company's web site is to:
> 
>      (1) Present brief product information;
> 
>      (2) Accept and verify credit card information;
> 
>      (3) Handle the deployment of the application
>            to the consumer by download and 
>            installation verification;
> 
>          (This requires having a reliable dedicated server
>          in a high-speed data center and plenty of monthly
>          bandwidth quote, on the order of 500 GB at least.)
> 
>      (4) Accept and forward correspondance regarding
>            product issues to the developer;
> 
>   So, for example, I could describe the product in 
>   detail on my OWN web site, and then, when a visitor
>   is interested in buying the application, I have a
>   link to this hypothetical company's web site.  This 
>   hypothetical site would show a page with a brief 
>   description of the application,
>   sufficient for the consumer to verify that this is
>   in fact the correct item, and then the consumer 
>   advances to the payment information area.
> 
>   Just as important as what the proposed company would do
>   are the things the company would NOT do.  Here are some
>   principles:
> 
> 
>     (1) The proposed company will NEVER do any external marketing,
>         or product promotion on the portal web site itself.
> 
>           No marketing will be purchased by the proposed
>           company on the behalf of developers (or on behalf
>           of the company itself, despite its own potential
>           benefit due to a percentage of sales).
> 
>           The purpose of the site is not to
>           elevate products relative to its peers on
>           the same site.  This was the mistake of the
>           Verizon "deck" concept.  No, let the burden
>           of marketing and reputation fall entirely
>           on developers, or alternate MARKETING web
>           sites!  Let there be no "deck" concept that
>           artificially prioritizes (and thus essentially
>           influences) relative sales of products.
> 
>           The web portal would not have a "latest games"
>           section, or any sort of "Hot Titles" concept.
>           All titles are simply titles in a catalog.
>           Yes, "overwhelm" the customer with a million
>           titles.  The point of the portal is not to
>           teach consumers about what is available, but
>           simply to connect an educated consumer's 
>           money to a corresponding developer.
> 
> 
>     (2) The proposed company will NEVER give/lend any money to
>         developers to finance their projects.
> 
> 
>           Financing projects necessarily means making 
>           choices about which projects are viable.
>           Also, given that investing money is a risk,
>           an investor typically wants a big return on
>           the investment -- to more than cover the 
>           other project investments that may have failed.
> 
>           The fact that the proposed company would not
>           finance projects is hardly an obstacle for 
>           game developers interested in seeking financing.
>           It's just not a function of the proposed company.
> 
>           The benefit is that the portal company does not
>           have any risk, and is not beholden to other 
>           creditors, and thus can promise a long existence
>           and good terms for all clients (the developers).
> 
>           Gathering Of Developers (GOD) offered relatively
>           good royalty percentages back around the year
>           1999 or 2000, but since GOD actually invested 
>           money in games, and some games flopped, ALL 
>           clients of GOD suffered when the company essentially
>           vanished.
> 
>           So, to assure the long-term survival of the proposed
>           company, and to maintain a low, flat percentage fee
>           for the service of selling products, the proposed
>           company would never invest in anything.
> 
> 
>      (3) The proposed company will NEVER pay for any form of 
>          SELF-promotion (i.e., of the portal company itself).
> 
>           Many portal-like services promote themselves.
>           Although not entirely wacky, it does seem like
>           it can be avoided.
> 
>           If developers are responsible for maketing their
>           games (and the portal can list possible marketing
>           possibilities), then the portal has nothing to do
>           but actually handle the credit card transactions
>           and serve data.
> 
>           Services like "Napster", "iTunes", "Amazon", etc,
>           promote themselves because there is a large potential
>           for casual browsing on the sites themselves, leading
>           to spontaneous purchases.
> 
>           In fact, the proposed company does not preclude a
>           web site allowing casual browsing of games from
>           being created!  The proposed company simply handles
>           the payment and delivery phases.
> 
> 
>       (4) The proposed company will NEVER impose any restrictions 
>           on *content* that is legal.  (NOTE: I am referring to
>           freedom of concepts, not freedom to offer applications
>           that are buggy or violate privacy or security.)
> 
>           Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Verizon all impose various
>           guidelines about application content and functionality.
>           For example, not that I'm complaining, but it is impossible
>           to buy and download a pornographic application for a
>           BREW phone with Verizon as the carrier.  For many that
>           seems like a totally reasonable restriction, but other
>           restrictions are more subjective.
> 
>           Content restriction need not take the form of explicit
>           guidelines.  For example, in the case of Verizon's 
>           "deck", it might just be that Verizon doesn't think a
>           product is a "smash hit".  That's all it takes to make
>           a game or application totally inaccessible to consumers!
>           So, if you wanted an application with rather limited
>           appeal, like a Klingon text translator, or a tiny 
>           symbolic math engine (like Mathematica on a cell phone),
>           FORGET IT!  (...unless you have a J2ME phone!)
> 
>           The proposed company is not itself concerned about
>           its reputation as a brand or "publisher" any more than
>           the phone company is worried about how "bad" phone 
>           calls might make you think badly of telephone service.
>           An Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not build a
>           reputation on content of the Internet as a whole.
>           (Although it is true that AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and 
>           Google, profit on organizing access to the Internet,
>           and thus suffer the consequences of making the promise
>           of a sanitized or fair-and-balanced view of the 
>           Internet.)
> 
>           Just as routers on the Internet don't judge data
>           content (in any high-level human sense), the proposed
>           company will almost be a non-entity -- just a bridge
>           linking a consumer to a product.
> 
> 
>      (5) The proposed company will NEVER send any e-mails to
>          customers (except optional receipts of purchases).
> 
>           The customer transaction begins and ends with
>           a single visit to the portal.
> 
>           Customer information can *optionally* be 
>           put on file to make future purchasing easier.
> 
>           No data mining will be conducted on user data
>           to find correlations of purchases.  I like the
>           efforts of Amazon to propose other products I
>           may be interested in -- but browsing and 
>           suggesting is not the role of the proposed 
>           company and associated portal.  Other sites
>           can make these associations, inferences, and
>           suggestions.
> 
> 
>      (6)  The proposed company will NEVER partner with other
>           companies.
> 
>           A partnership either involves compromises or
>           is not balanced and mutually-beneficial.
> 
>           Corporate acquisitions almost always compromise the
>           vision and ideals of the acquired companies --
>           otherwise, why not preserve the independence of
>           the companies?
> 
>           An agreement between companies limits the freedom
>           of each participant company.
> 
>           To maintain the integrity and principles of the 
>           proposed company, it will not be formed with 
>           partners and will never accept partners.
> 
> 
>       (7) The proposed company will not use any form of
>           Digital Rights Management (DRM).
> 
> 
>       (8) Refunds on all purchases limited to 30 days.
> 
>           Most software stores do not offer refunds on
>           ANY purchases.  Only exchanges for the identical
>           product is allowed in most cases (assuming the
>           CD/DVD is defective).
> 
>           Offering a refund period frees the portal from
>           complaint in the event software doesn't work on
>           someone's computer, or has unacceptable 
>           performance or bugs.
> 
>           By limiting the refund period, cash can be 
>           given to the developer on a monthly basis without
>           putting the portal company at risk of having
>           to pay refunds on its own.
> 
>           
>           It's tricky to differentiate between refund 
>           requests based on actual technical and quality
>           complaints, and refund requests made in an
>           effort to acquire software for free.  Perhaps
>           statistics for each product will be kept
>           for number of purchases and number of returns
>           and reasons for return (with checkbox for 
>           platform).  Perhaps customers will have stats
>           for number of purchases and number of returns.
>           One wants to avoid recording specific purchases,
>           and automatic banning from making future purchases
>           (given a streak of refund requests).  It's a
>           tricky problem, where some fraction of unethical
>           consumers gets jumbled with some fraction of 
>           products with compatibility problems.
> 
> 
>       (9) The proposed company will not accept products 
>           from developers without working mailing addresses,
>           e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.
> 
>           Each application offered by the portal will 
>           have a developer name associated with it.
>           (If a developer changes names on a per-product 
>           basis, all names and a link to a common developer
>           history and reputation will be provided.)
> 
>           If an application is discovered to just be spyware,
>           or other form of virus, or just plain bad quality,
>           the developer can be held accountable.
> 
>           The portal is not RESPONSIBLE for such things, and
>           does not PROMISE protection from malicious or buggy
>           applications.  But a conscientious effort to 
>           stop the distribution of an application that has
>           been established as being malicious or very broken
>           is, I think, acceptable.
> 
> 
>   I was tempted to launch a company and corresponding
>   web site to do all of this, since I think that 
>   it's difficult for most people to attain the kind
>   of simplicity and integrity I am seeking.  Even 
>   large, reputable companies have banner ads and 
>   pop-up windows!  Many companies require Flash or
>   scripting to make their web pages work, and then
>   there is the temptation to make everything look cool.
>   No!  The point is only to accept the credit card
>   information, verify, and handle the download.
>   Things like FilePlanet, etc, are really annoying
>   sites.
> 
> 
> CROSBIE'S "DIGITAL ARTS AUCTION" SITE:
> ======================================
> 
> 
>>>>www.digitalartauction.com
> 
> 
>   I wish you luck with your site, Crosbie, however the
>   mission of your site is too broad to appeal to me.
>   Also, the demeanor of your writing style is too informal
>   for a site to which I would submit credit card numbers
>   and personal information.
> 
> 
> GENERAL THOUGHTS ON GAME SALES PORTAL:
> ======================================
> 
>   A corporation and a corresponding site that simply 
>   delivered on its core promises, and was largely without
>   its own character to interfere with the branding and
>   motifs of its various developer clients, would be
>   great -- and would generate its own following.
> 
>   We don't hear about all of the companies that support
>   the infrastructure necessary for the conveniences of
>   daily life (for example, telephone bills don't have
>   logos of fiber optic and transistor manufacturers 
>   all over them).  A pizza parlor doesn't have a giant
>   "Powered by NCR Point-Of-Sale Systems!" sign in the 
>   window.
> 
>   
>   Maybe there's an opportunity here. 
>   Perhaps the design of the company could in a sense be
>   "open source", such that people edit a mission statement
>   and list of policies in an open fashion, like a virtual
>   board of directors.  Thus, the company would be founded
>   on principals and an integrity that appealed to the
>   very people who would be interested in becoming clients.
>   I know Debian Linux has a mission statement that is
>   voted upon by developers according to some sort of 
>   reputation system.
> 
>   I think it's very important to be very up front about
>   all aspects of the company operation, like: (1) Who
>   is doing the data hosting? (2) Who is handling credit
>   card transactions? (3) How is customer data stored and
>   handled? (4) Who is running the company? (5) What are the
>   sales figures? (6) Having largely-unmoderated forums for
>   customer feedback (moderation only to eliminate spam
>   and to demote off-topic threads).
> 
>   Creating a portal would be a win-win situation, 
>   generating some income for the portal manager, and creating
>   income for independent developers who are not interested in
>   starting businesses and who are not capable of handling
>   credit card transactions and managing customer data.
> 
>   One big bullet-point for the portal: Software acquired
>   from the portal comes directly from developers and is
>   thus far less likely to contain viruses -- unlike 
>   cracked or hacked versions floating around on KaZaA,
>   DC, and other P2P file-sharing apps.  Also, a portal
>   formalizes a method for rewarding software developers,
>   as opposed to random donations (via PayPal or micro-
>   payment methods).
> 
> 
> MY IGNORANCE; PORTAL MAY EXIST ALREADY:
> =======================================
> 
>   For all I know I am describing an existing service,
>   like "iTunes", but for games.  I'd actually be surprised
>   if something very close to what I want didn't already
>   exist -- but not extremely surprised, since there are
>   many ways to screw up the execution.  Even little things,
>   like having a banner ad, greatly adulterate the web
>   experience in my mind...  Anyhow, I'm just ignorant,
>   listing principles I'd like to see in such a service.
> 
>   It's tempting to create the proposed portal company,
>   but it's also tempting to avoid distractions from the
>   fun of computer programming!
> 
> --- Colin
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
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> 

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

2004 April 29th
Thursday

Okay, I'm not psychic, but I wrote this sentence after having
written all sentences below, so I KNOW this post is long --
and potentially boring.

COMMENTS ON MY BREW EXPERIENCE:
===============================

>>> So, use the free PC market because it has: [...]

My project (which still might turn out okay) is designed to
profit based on the novelty of being able to access a 
particular kind of application on a cell phone.  The unusual
platform and the unusual scope of the application compared 
to most others in the market were two reasons I believed the
product would ultimately be a big success, and this confidence
motivated me to put my time and energy in to the project.

J2ME could be a good platform choice, but it seemed
easier to get it to work with BREW.  One tricky obstacle with
J2ME is the limit on JAR file sizes imposed by the carrier and
imposed by the different devices.  Meanwhile, the apparent
simplicity of deploying my app with BREW, and collecting
money, all without the piracy levels found with J2ME, made
BREW seem like a good first platform choice.

The fact that my application is really only for a certain
demographic of people in the USA, and the fact that Verizon
covers a large fraction of the intended market, means the
choice to use BREW isn't based on technology and logistics alone.

I have yet to present my application to the one potential
corporate partner whose brand makes sense for my application.
Maybe this project won't be a total failure.  But when I 
learned that Verizon wouldn't just automatically approve my
application (given that my application doesn't violate any 
content guidelines and has some promise of selling okay) and
in fact required a big corporate brand to give the product more 
credibility or consumer appeal, I was really depressed.
How in the world am I going to get my product "branded"?
How long will that take?  How much more profit loss must I
suffer?  What other products will enter the market by the
time I finish getting branded?  What's to stop a potential
corporate partner from cloning my application (which, 
arguably, has fairly obvious features)?  What guarantee do
I have that Verizon will put my product on their "deck"
even with a brand?  If it takes time to build up the buzz
about my product, will Verizon pull the product from their
"deck" to make room for something stupid but with very
reliable, short-term profit, like "The Olsen Twins Pepsi
Pokemon Survivor 'You're Fired!' Idol Movie Spin-Off Game"?
So many risks!  Therefore, unless the reward is something
crazy, like a million dollars, why even bother?  It's 
definitely not a viable business model for an independent
game developer.


THE POSSIBILITY OF SELLING PC GAMES THROUGH A WEB PORTAL:
=========================================================

Anyhow, I have had a long love for the PC, and I wrote a game
engine and game design documents.  It's just that piracy made
me wonder if I would even sell more than a single copy of a
game.  I wrote to a few independent game developers selling
their games online, wondering if they were making money, and
the few who I asked said that sales were really low (but
downloads of demos were high).

I contacted a game sales portal associated with 
Prima Tech publishing (the publishers of the Andre LaMothe 
edited series of game programming books, like "Focus on SDL",
"Focus on AI", "Beginning OpenGL Programming", etc).
(Sorry if I am confused about the relation or non-relation
of the game sales portal with the book publisher.)
Anyhow, the portal handled credit card payments, and spared
developers from the hassle of being a business, which I
thought was fantastic.  But the web site wasn't very 
classy (goofy, cartoonish motif, if I remember correctly),
and I wasn't sure if I would be proud to direct people
to the site for the purchasing phase of getting my product.
Also, I was concerned about the site's ability to deliver
bandwidth when serving my game download.

I have seen similar efforts that turned me off.


Here's what I would like to see:
================================

  A company that would handle credit card transactions
  and mail checks to developers on a monthly or quarterly
  basis.

  The company would have a low-key domain name.

  The only purpose of the company's web site is to:

     (1) Present brief product information;

     (2) Accept and verify credit card information;

     (3) Handle the deployment of the application
           to the consumer by download and 
           installation verification;

         (This requires having a reliable dedicated server
         in a high-speed data center and plenty of monthly
         bandwidth quote, on the order of 500 GB at least.)

     (4) Accept and forward correspondance regarding
           product issues to the developer;

  So, for example, I could describe the product in 
  detail on my OWN web site, and then, when a visitor
  is interested in buying the application, I have a
  link to this hypothetical company's web site.  This 
  hypothetical site would show a page with a brief 
  description of the application,
  sufficient for the consumer to verify that this is
  in fact the correct item, and then the consumer 
  advances to the payment information area.

  Just as important as what the proposed company would do
  are the things the company would NOT do.  Here are some
  principles:


    (1) The proposed company will NEVER do any external marketing,
        or product promotion on the portal web site itself.

          No marketing will be purchased by the proposed
          company on the behalf of developers (or on behalf
          of the company itself, despite its own potential
          benefit due to a percentage of sales).

          The purpose of the site is not to
          elevate products relative to its peers on
          the same site.  This was the mistake of the
          Verizon "deck" concept.  No, let the burden
          of marketing and reputation fall entirely
          on developers, or alternate MARKETING web
          sites!  Let there be no "deck" concept that
          artificially prioritizes (and thus essentially
          influences) relative sales of products.

          The web portal would not have a "latest games"
          section, or any sort of "Hot Titles" concept.
          All titles are simply titles in a catalog.
          Yes, "overwhelm" the customer with a million
          titles.  The point of the portal is not to
          teach consumers about what is available, but
          simply to connect an educated consumer's 
          money to a corresponding developer.


    (2) The proposed company will NEVER give/lend any money to
        developers to finance their projects.


          Financing projects necessarily means making 
          choices about which projects are viable.
          Also, given that investing money is a risk,
          an investor typically wants a big return on
          the investment -- to more than cover the 
          other project investments that may have failed.

          The fact that the proposed company would not
          finance projects is hardly an obstacle for 
          game developers interested in seeking financing.
          It's just not a function of the proposed company.

          The benefit is that the portal company does not
          have any risk, and is not beholden to other 
          creditors, and thus can promise a long existence
          and good terms for all clients (the developers).

          Gathering Of Developers (GOD) offered relatively
          good royalty percentages back around the year
          1999 or 2000, but since GOD actually invested 
          money in games, and some games flopped, ALL 
          clients of GOD suffered when the company essentially
          vanished.

          So, to assure the long-term survival of the proposed
          company, and to maintain a low, flat percentage fee
          for the service of selling products, the proposed
          company would never invest in anything.


     (3) The proposed company will NEVER pay for any form of 
         SELF-promotion (i.e., of the portal company itself).

          Many portal-like services promote themselves.
          Although not entirely wacky, it does seem like
          it can be avoided.

          If developers are responsible for maketing their
          games (and the portal can list possible marketing
          possibilities), then the portal has nothing to do
          but actually handle the credit card transactions
          and serve data.

          Services like "Napster", "iTunes", "Amazon", etc,
          promote themselves because there is a large potential
          for casual browsing on the sites themselves, leading
          to spontaneous purchases.

          In fact, the proposed company does not preclude a
          web site allowing casual browsing of games from
          being created!  The proposed company simply handles
          the payment and delivery phases.


      (4) The proposed company will NEVER impose any restrictions 
          on *content* that is legal.  (NOTE: I am referring to
          freedom of concepts, not freedom to offer applications
          that are buggy or violate privacy or security.)

          Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Verizon all impose various
          guidelines about application content and functionality.
          For example, not that I'm complaining, but it is impossible
          to buy and download a pornographic application for a
          BREW phone with Verizon as the carrier.  For many that
          seems like a totally reasonable restriction, but other
          restrictions are more subjective.

          Content restriction need not take the form of explicit
          guidelines.  For example, in the case of Verizon's 
          "deck", it might just be that Verizon doesn't think a
          product is a "smash hit".  That's all it takes to make
          a game or application totally inaccessible to consumers!
          So, if you wanted an application with rather limited
          appeal, like a Klingon text translator, or a tiny 
          symbolic math engine (like Mathematica on a cell phone),
          FORGET IT!  (...unless you have a J2ME phone!)

          The proposed company is not itself concerned about
          its reputation as a brand or "publisher" any more than
          the phone company is worried about how "bad" phone 
          calls might make you think badly of telephone service.
          An Internet Service Provider (ISP) does not build a
          reputation on content of the Internet as a whole.
          (Although it is true that AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, and 
          Google, profit on organizing access to the Internet,
          and thus suffer the consequences of making the promise
          of a sanitized or fair-and-balanced view of the 
          Internet.)

          Just as routers on the Internet don't judge data
          content (in any high-level human sense), the proposed
          company will almost be a non-entity -- just a bridge
          linking a consumer to a product.


     (5) The proposed company will NEVER send any e-mails to
         customers (except optional receipts of purchases).

          The customer transaction begins and ends with
          a single visit to the portal.

          Customer information can *optionally* be 
          put on file to make future purchasing easier.

          No data mining will be conducted on user data
          to find correlations of purchases.  I like the
          efforts of Amazon to propose other products I
          may be interested in -- but browsing and 
          suggesting is not the role of the proposed 
          company and associated portal.  Other sites
          can make these associations, inferences, and
          suggestions.


     (6)  The proposed company will NEVER partner with other
          companies.

          A partnership either involves compromises or
          is not balanced and mutually-beneficial.

          Corporate acquisitions almost always compromise the
          vision and ideals of the acquired companies --
          otherwise, why not preserve the independence of
          the companies?

          An agreement between companies limits the freedom
          of each participant company.

          To maintain the integrity and principles of the 
          proposed company, it will not be formed with 
          partners and will never accept partners.


      (7) The proposed company will not use any form of
          Digital Rights Management (DRM).


      (8) Refunds on all purchases limited to 30 days.

          Most software stores do not offer refunds on
          ANY purchases.  Only exchanges for the identical
          product is allowed in most cases (assuming the
          CD/DVD is defective).

          Offering a refund period frees the portal from
          complaint in the event software doesn't work on
          someone's computer, or has unacceptable 
          performance or bugs.

          By limiting the refund period, cash can be 
          given to the developer on a monthly basis without
          putting the portal company at risk of having
          to pay refunds on its own.

          
          It's tricky to differentiate between refund 
          requests based on actual technical and quality
          complaints, and refund requests made in an
          effort to acquire software for free.  Perhaps
          statistics for each product will be kept
          for number of purchases and number of returns
          and reasons for return (with checkbox for 
          platform).  Perhaps customers will have stats
          for number of purchases and number of returns.
          One wants to avoid recording specific purchases,
          and automatic banning from making future purchases
          (given a streak of refund requests).  It's a
          tricky problem, where some fraction of unethical
          consumers gets jumbled with some fraction of 
          products with compatibility problems.


      (9) The proposed company will not accept products 
          from developers without working mailing addresses,
          e-mail addresses, and phone numbers.

          Each application offered by the portal will 
          have a developer name associated with it.
          (If a developer changes names on a per-product 
          basis, all names and a link to a common developer
          history and reputation will be provided.)

          If an application is discovered to just be spyware,
          or other form of virus, or just plain bad quality,
          the developer can be held accountable.

          The portal is not RESPONSIBLE for such things, and
          does not PROMISE protection from malicious or buggy
          applications.  But a conscientious effort to 
          stop the distribution of an application that has
          been established as being malicious or very broken
          is, I think, acceptable.


  I was tempted to launch a company and corresponding
  web site to do all of this, since I think that 
  it's difficult for most people to attain the kind
  of simplicity and integrity I am seeking.  Even 
  large, reputable companies have banner ads and 
  pop-up windows!  Many companies require Flash or
  scripting to make their web pages work, and then
  there is the temptation to make everything look cool.
  No!  The point is only to accept the credit card
  information, verify, and handle the download.
  Things like FilePlanet, etc, are really annoying
  sites.


CROSBIE'S "DIGITAL ARTS AUCTION" SITE:
======================================

>>> www.digitalartauction.com

  I wish you luck with your site, Crosbie, however the
  mission of your site is too broad to appeal to me.
  Also, the demeanor of your writing style is too informal
  for a site to which I would submit credit card numbers
  and personal information.


GENERAL THOUGHTS ON GAME SALES PORTAL:
======================================

  A corporation and a corresponding site that simply 
  delivered on its core promises, and was largely without
  its own character to interfere with the branding and
  motifs of its various developer clients, would be
  great -- and would generate its own following.

  We don't hear about all of the companies that support
  the infrastructure necessary for the conveniences of
  daily life (for example, telephone bills don't have
  logos of fiber optic and transistor manufacturers 
  all over them).  A pizza parlor doesn't have a giant
  "Powered by NCR Point-Of-Sale Systems!" sign in the 
  window.

  
  Maybe there's an opportunity here. 
  Perhaps the design of the company could in a sense be
  "open source", such that people edit a mission statement
  and list of policies in an open fashion, like a virtual
  board of directors.  Thus, the company would be founded
  on principals and an integrity that appealed to the
  very people who would be interested in becoming clients.
  I know Debian Linux has a mission statement that is
  voted upon by developers according to some sort of 
  reputation system.

  I think it's very important to be very up front about
  all aspects of the company operation, like: (1) Who
  is doing the data hosting? (2) Who is handling credit
  card transactions? (3) How is customer data stored and
  handled? (4) Who is running the company? (5) What are the
  sales figures? (6) Having largely-unmoderated forums for
  customer feedback (moderation only to eliminate spam
  and to demote off-topic threads).

  Creating a portal would be a win-win situation, 
  generating some income for the portal manager, and creating
  income for independent developers who are not interested in
  starting businesses and who are not capable of handling
  credit card transactions and managing customer data.

  One big bullet-point for the portal: Software acquired
  from the portal comes directly from developers and is
  thus far less likely to contain viruses -- unlike 
  cracked or hacked versions floating around on KaZaA,
  DC, and other P2P file-sharing apps.  Also, a portal
  formalizes a method for rewarding software developers,
  as opposed to random donations (via PayPal or micro-
  payment methods).


MY IGNORANCE; PORTAL MAY EXIST ALREADY:
=======================================

  For all I know I am describing an existing service,
  like "iTunes", but for games.  I'd actually be surprised
  if something very close to what I want didn't already
  exist -- but not extremely surprised, since there are
  many ways to screw up the execution.  Even little things,
  like having a banner ad, greatly adulterate the web
  experience in my mind...  Anyhow, I'm just ignorant,
  listing principles I'd like to see in such a service.

  It's tempting to create the proposed portal company,
  but it's also tempting to avoid distractions from the
  fun of computer programming!

--- Colin


  

RE: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Crosbie F. <cr...@cy...>]

> From: Colin Fahey
> It seems like the PC is the only real
> free market, especially thanks to the free(*) distribution
> channel of the Internet, but piracy is terrible (unless
> your target demographic is typically marked by honor
> and disposable income).  (*...By "free" I mean that one
> does not beg a gatekeeper to make the product available
> to consumers, and there is no percentage of profits
> demanded for the privilege of access to consumers.
> Sure, there's credit card overhead, and bandwidth cost,
> but somehow such expenses seem insignificant relative
> to dealing with any gatekeeper/publisher.)

So, use the free PC market because it has:

1) A free distribution channel
2) No gatekeeper, no restrictions
3) An open platform
4) Tons of open source, freeware, and freely redistributable proprietary =
s/w

What are its problems?

Piracy????

So abandon the ridiculous idea that you can prevent players copying your =
game, that the Internet, the world's greatest diffuser of digital =
content ever known, is somehow going to refuse to diffuse your game.

Too much choice?

Marketing is your problem. Create a web site. Foster word-of-mouth/viral =
marketing.

Piracy?

You're still stumped by that one. I can tell.

So build you audience. Perhaps you need to give some stuff away first, =
even if just demos. Anyway, eventually you should be able to tell your =
audience that you can't go on like this, that you have to pay your =
bills, that the next game they will have to pay for or they don't get =
it. There is no honour involved here. Either they pay and get, or don't =
pay and don't get. You can say "I will not release this game unless you =
all club together and pay me 10k". The deal is so clear a kid could =
understand it.

And it's immune from piracy.

And you can make your game out of open source components.

And you still get 10k for it - or whatever the market will bear.

It's a solution that I'm working on:
www.digitalartauction.com

And I've written about it here:
http://www.digitalartauction.com/history/bcbm.htm

Believe me, I feel the pain of the Indie development community. Stories =
like Brian's and yours spur me on, reminding me that this solution is =
sorely needed.

Re: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

2004 April 28th
Wednesday

The circumstances you describe in your Pyrogon article
seem very familiar to me, Brian.

It's sad that publishers and gatekeepers interfere with
the success of an independent developer.  Why can't a
person or small company with a great idea and the 
capacity to successfully implement the idea enjoy the
rewards of original thinking and hard work?  I know that
greedy publishers accounted for only part of the cash
flow problem for Pyrogon, but I think this issue is 
very significant.  The fact is that if independent 
developers received a much higher percentage of income
from selling their products, such developers would have
the opportunity to develop future products.  As it is now,
independent developers do not have the ability to
survive based on the proven market success of their own
products -- which is an insane condition.

The high percentages demanded by gateways (web sites,
BREW decks, game console publishers, store shelves), often
50% or higher of gross income, makes it nearly impossible
for independent developers to sustain themselves, and, as
a consequence, leads to a glut of mediocre, unimaginative
products, and corresponding impoverished developers.

What a crazy situation:  A developer needs to make a deal
with a party that controls access to consumers.  All the
gatekeeper does is block developers from an otherwise
free market, and for this the gatekeeper is rewarded with
most of the income!

Many things determine the financial reward that comes from
being an independent game developer, including the merits
of the product concept and the quality of the implementation
of the concept.  When gatekeepers with their high 
profit demands AND their often capricious requirements
(extensive product certification, content restrictions,
requiring branding/licensed characters/franchises, etc)
are involved, the success of the developer has little to do
with actual product value or market demand.

I am currently in a situation that might very well end in
total loss, for no good reason.  I spent four months 
developing an original game for the BREW platform.
I thought that Qualcomm testing was the only thing that
stood between me and making my product available to 
Verizon customers.  Furthermore, I was convinced, despite
being a "no-name" and giving Verizon 40% and Qualcomm 20%,
that I could become rich, based on the merits of my 
product and the lack of credible competition.  Well, 
Verizon artificially limits the total number of accessible
products to what one can see on their "deck" -- "to
avoid overwhelming the consumer with choices".  This is
like having limited "shelf space", but such a concept 
does not make sense in a virtual store!  I wrote an e-mail
to Verizon saying I'd be glad to help them implement a
link to a page that allowed consumers to enter an 
arbitrary product ID, permitting an essentially infinite
selection of BREW products, just like DoCoMo does in Japan
with their huge catalogs of stuff.  All I want to do is 
compete in a market.  I'll pay Verizon and Qualcomm their
"tribute", but I want customers to have access to my product.
I can promote it myself.  I can give people the product ID
just like movie posters, television ads, newspaper ads, etc,
feature web addresses for films, companies, and products.
If Verizon doesn't allow my product on their "deck", and
if they don't expand their "deck" system in the simple
way I proposed, then I will have TOTALLY WASTED hundreds
of hours.

After reviewing my product, one of Verizon's suggestions
to have a better shot at getting on their "deck" was to
get my product branded by a large corporation.  I am 
pursuing this now, but in the event that I actually 
succeed, this is just more profit loss for me.  (Still,
this scenario would be a miracle; it's sad that I'm even
thinking in this desperate way.  I just don't want my
work to actually be worth zero at this point, so even
being totally exploited seems like a blessing.  Ugh!)

I mention my own story just to reinforce the idea that 
gatekeepers, especially those who make it very difficult
to link developers with eager consumers, hurt and 
discourage independent developers, and, on a 
larger scale, reduces the profit for all parties in the
entire industry.  Yes, I think that there is a point when 
demanding too much of a toll when linking consumers to
products actually hurts the gatekeeper's bottom line
in a big way.

What a nightmare it is to develop an original product.
I never would have started if the first page of the 
$49.95 book "Wireless Game Development in C/C++ with
BREW" said: "Don't buy this book unless you already
have a contract to develop a game based on licensed
characters or a major franchise, and your employer
has published several games with Verizon already."
In fact, that should be the TITLE of the book.  Instead,
Qualcomm's easy download of their BREW SDK, and the
fun, enticing nature of this book, lures people in to
the trap of believing that they can actually succeed
at something.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I read the article in
the April, 2004, Game Developer Magazine, "The Wireless
Gold Rush", when it was pointed out that while DoCoMo
offered thousands of games (even printing listings in
catalogs), Verizon was seeking to reduce the size of
their "deck" from 300 games down to around 100.
Okay, so Verizon wants to reduce the clutter of their
product menu tree; that's fine.  But why limit the
selection to what the user can easily navigate with
the phone-web interface?  Okay, so Verizon wants 
BREW to be synonymous with "awesome quality" and 
"hit titles".  All I'm asking is for an alternate link
to select arbitrary products for educated consumers
with a different set of priorities.  Britney Spears,
The Incredible Hulk, 50 Cent, Paris Hilton, Will Hung,
American Idol, Survivor, MTV, etc, don't need to 
endorse every product to make it viable.  (For a
certain demographic such endorsements would be a big
plus, but sooner or later people seek qualities 
beyond the brands.)

I'm sure there are thousands of stories about developers
being run in to the ground, and the thing that upsets
me most is the fact that moderate concessions on the part
of gatekeepers would have been just what was needed to
sustain independent developers and ultimately help 
everyone in the industry.

Anyhow, I wish you the best of luck on your future 
projects, Brian.  It seems like the PC is the only real
free market, especially thanks to the free(*) distribution
channel of the Internet, but piracy is terrible (unless
your target demographic is typically marked by honor
and disposable income).  (*...By "free" I mean that one
does not beg a gatekeeper to make the product available
to consumers, and there is no percentage of profits
demanded for the privilege of access to consumers.
Sure, there's credit card overhead, and bandwidth cost,
but somehow such expenses seem insignificant relative
to dealing with any gatekeeper/publisher.)

--- Colin

cp...@ea...



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brian Hook" <ho...@py...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 5:38 PM
Subject: [GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem


For those curious or interested, I did a little postmortem on Pyrogon:

http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html

Re: [GD-General] Re: Pyrogon Postmortem

[Mike W. <mi...@ge...>]

indeed, this is a great read.

i like the part about having to be independently wealthy before 
bothering to create a startup.  so sad but true it seems.

good luck with the new projects...

mike w
www.gekidodesigns.com

Enno Rehling wrote:

> Brian Hook wrote:
> 
>> For those curious or interested, I did a little postmortem on Pyrogon:
>>
>> http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html
> 
> 
> Thank you, Brian. That was a very interesting read. Sorry that it didn't 
> work out, but good to hear you broke even and have the chance to give it 
> another shot.
> 
> Enno.

[GD-General] Re: Pyrogon Postmortem

[Enno R. <en...@de...>]

Brian Hook wrote:

> For those curious or interested, I did a little postmortem on Pyrogon:
> 
> http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html

Thank you, Brian. That was a very interesting read. Sorry that it didn't 
work out, but good to hear you broke even and have the chance to give it 
another shot.

Enno.
-- 
The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference
between a mermaid and a seal.
                 -- Mark Twain

Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[<ma...@aw...>]

Well, if eof(0) returns -1, it means there was an error with file descriptor 0 (stdin) indicating that the stdin is not open. This tells us whether the program is being piped to or not. This is a simple non-blocking way to determine if the program can read from stdin or not.

You can verify this in MSVC help :)

Mark Webster

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 04:33:38PM -0400, tweety wrote:
> Just a shot in the dark here, but on windows wouldn't eof return true only
> then it encounters ^Z? 
> 
> ----------------------------------
> Peace and love,
> Tweety
> mi...@sy... - twe...@us...
> YahooID: tweety_04_01
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gam...@li...
> [mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of Mark
> Webster
> Sent: April 23, 2004 11:26 AM
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
> Windows
> 
> Ok, the solution appears to be to check _eof(0); - If it returns -1, there's
> nothing on stdin.
> 
> I *think* that's the answer you're looking for.
> 
> Mark Webster
> 
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Colin Fahey" <cp...@ea...>
> > To: <gam...@li...>
> > Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:31 PM
> > Subject: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
> > Windows
> >
> >
> > >
> > > 2004 April 22nd
> > > Friday
> > >
> > > Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
> > > searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
> > > finding any answers to the following:
> > >
> > > QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any
> > > characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?
> > >
> > > I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
> > > solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
> > > and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
> > > so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
> > > not there are characters available on the input stream.
> > > (Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)
> > >
> > > If I have a command line like the following:
> > >
> > >         testapp
> > >
> > > then the following code blocks indefinitely:
> > >
> > >         int c = cin.peek();
> > >
> > > but if the command line is as follows:
> > >
> > >         more textfile.txt | testapp
> > >
> > > then the application does not block.  But in both
> > > cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.
> > >
> > > How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
> > > above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
> > > involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
> > > know if the command line lacks the piping from
> > > another app, since this means I shouldn't wait
> > > forever for stdin data.
> > >
> > > I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
> > > problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
> > > thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
> > > worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
> > > fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
> > > I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
> > > go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.
> > >
> > > Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
> > > is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
> > > decision is not mine to make.
> > >
> > > --- Colin
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > -------------------------------------------------------
> > > This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> > > For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> > > or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
> > > http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> > > Gam...@li...
> > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> > > Archives:
> > > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> > >
> > >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
> http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
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> _______________________________________________
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> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> 

[GD-General] Pyrogon Postmortem

[Brian H. <ho...@py...>]

For those curious or interested, I did a little postmortem on Pyrogon:

http://www.bookofhook.com/Article/GameDevelopment/APyrogonPostmortem.html

RE: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[tweety <mi...@sy...>]

Just a shot in the dark here, but on windows wouldn't eof return true only
then it encounters ^Z? 

----------------------------------
Peace and love,
Tweety
mi...@sy... - twe...@us...
YahooID: tweety_04_01



-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of Mark
Webster
Sent: April 23, 2004 11:26 AM
To: gam...@li...
Subject: Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
Windows

Ok, the solution appears to be to check _eof(0); - If it returns -1, there's
nothing on stdin.

I *think* that's the answer you're looking for.

Mark Webster

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Colin Fahey" <cp...@ea...>
> To: <gam...@li...>
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:31 PM
> Subject: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
> Windows
>
>
> >
> > 2004 April 22nd
> > Friday
> >
> > Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
> > searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
> > finding any answers to the following:
> >
> > QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any
> > characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?
> >
> > I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
> > solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
> > and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
> > so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
> > not there are characters available on the input stream.
> > (Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)
> >
> > If I have a command line like the following:
> >
> >         testapp
> >
> > then the following code blocks indefinitely:
> >
> >         int c = cin.peek();
> >
> > but if the command line is as follows:
> >
> >         more textfile.txt | testapp
> >
> > then the application does not block.  But in both
> > cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.
> >
> > How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
> > above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
> > involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
> > know if the command line lacks the piping from
> > another app, since this means I shouldn't wait
> > forever for stdin data.
> >
> > I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
> > problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
> > thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
> > worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
> > fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
> > I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
> > go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.
> >
> > Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
> > is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
> > decision is not mine to make.
> >
> > --- Colin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> > For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> > or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
> > http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
> > _______________________________________________
> > Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> > Gam...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> > Archives:
> > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> >
> >
>



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
_______________________________________________
Gamedevlists-general mailing list
Gam...@li...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
Archives:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557

Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[Mark W. <ma...@aw...>]

Ok, the solution appears to be to check _eof(0); - If it returns -1, there's
nothing on stdin.

I *think* that's the answer you're looking for.

Mark Webster

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Colin Fahey" <cp...@ea...>
> To: <gam...@li...>
> Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:31 PM
> Subject: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
> Windows
>
>
> >
> > 2004 April 22nd
> > Friday
> >
> > Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
> > searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
> > finding any answers to the following:
> >
> > QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any
> > characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?
> >
> > I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
> > solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
> > and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
> > so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
> > not there are characters available on the input stream.
> > (Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)
> >
> > If I have a command line like the following:
> >
> >         testapp
> >
> > then the following code blocks indefinitely:
> >
> >         int c = cin.peek();
> >
> > but if the command line is as follows:
> >
> >         more textfile.txt | testapp
> >
> > then the application does not block.  But in both
> > cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.
> >
> > How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
> > above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
> > involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
> > know if the command line lacks the piping from
> > another app, since this means I shouldn't wait
> > forever for stdin data.
> >
> > I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
> > problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
> > thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
> > worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
> > fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
> > I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
> > go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.
> >
> > Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
> > is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
> > decision is not mine to make.
> >
> > --- Colin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------
> > This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> > For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> > or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
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> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
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> >
> >
>

Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[Mark W. <ma...@aw...>]

Oops, meant to reply off list. And I also realised I didn't read the
question properly.

sorry!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin Fahey" <cp...@ea...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:31 PM
Subject: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
Windows


>
> 2004 April 22nd
> Friday
>
> Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
> searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
> finding any answers to the following:
>
> QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any
> characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?
>
> I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
> solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
> and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
> so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
> not there are characters available on the input stream.
> (Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)
>
> If I have a command line like the following:
>
>         testapp
>
> then the following code blocks indefinitely:
>
>         int c = cin.peek();
>
> but if the command line is as follows:
>
>         more textfile.txt | testapp
>
> then the application does not block.  But in both
> cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.
>
> How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
> above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
> involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
> know if the command line lacks the piping from
> another app, since this means I shouldn't wait
> forever for stdin data.
>
> I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
> problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
> thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
> worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
> fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
> I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
> go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.
>
> Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
> is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
> decision is not mine to make.
>
> --- Colin
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
> http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
>
>

Re: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[Mark W. <ma...@aw...>]

I use the _read() function in VC to do this
eg:

decode.cpp:
------------
#include <io.h>
void main(){for (unsigned char
ch=0,i=0;_read(0,&ch,1);i=(i<<1)+ch)if((ch-='0')>1){_write(1,&i,1);i=ch=0;}_
write(1,&i,1);}

A 2-liner to convert a string of binary 1's and 0's into ASCII:
eg:

echo 01000001 01000010 01000011 | decode.exe

Hope that helps!

Mark Webster

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Colin Fahey" <cp...@ea...>
To: <gam...@li...>
Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 3:31 PM
Subject: [GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under
Windows


>
> 2004 April 22nd
> Friday
>
> Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
> searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
> finding any answers to the following:
>
> QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any
> characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?
>
> I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
> solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
> and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
> so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
> not there are characters available on the input stream.
> (Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)
>
> If I have a command line like the following:
>
>         testapp
>
> then the following code blocks indefinitely:
>
>         int c = cin.peek();
>
> but if the command line is as follows:
>
>         more textfile.txt | testapp
>
> then the application does not block.  But in both
> cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.
>
> How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
> above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
> involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
> know if the command line lacks the piping from
> another app, since this means I shouldn't wait
> forever for stdin data.
>
> I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
> problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
> thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
> worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
> fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
> I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
> go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.
>
> Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
> is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
> decision is not mine to make.
>
> --- Colin
>
>
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on all orders of $35
> or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires April 30th!
> http://www.thinkgeek.com/freeshipping/?cpg=12297
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
> http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
>
>

[GD-General] OT: Checking if any chars available on stdin under Windows

[Colin F. <cp...@ea...>]

2004 April 22nd
Friday

Off-Topic question here...but I just spent an hour doing Google
searching and reading other online documentation, and I'm not
finding any answers to the following:

QUESTION:  How can I check if stdin (standard input) has any 
characters available for reading under WINDOWS (not Linux)?

I thought (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) would be the cool hacked
solution -- but even after doing Sleep(1000), cin.sync_with_stdio(),
and wackier and wackier things to try to make "cin" up-to-date,
so to speak, the expression above ALWAYS yields zero, whether or
not there are characters available on the input stream.
(Compiled using Visual C++ 6.0 under Windows 2000)

If I have a command line like the following:

        testapp

then the following code blocks indefinitely:

        int c = cin.peek();

but if the command line is as follows:

        more textfile.txt | testapp

then the application does not block.  But in both
cases (cin.rdbuf()->in_avail()) is zero.

How can "testapp" in the two command line examples
above DETECT which scenario (piped input or not) is
involved?  That, I guess, is my real goal.  I want to
know if the command line lacks the piping from 
another app, since this means I shouldn't wait 
forever for stdin data.

I'd be willing to use a Win32 function to solve this
problem, but if it is really tricky, like creating a
thread, or something nutty, then it's probably not
worth it.  Bleah, under Linux one can actually use
fnctl() to change stdin to non-blocking mode (but,
I assume, still buffered), which makes this problem
go away -- but no fnctl() under Windows.

Anyhow, probably avoiding piping data through stdin
is the REAL solution to all of this mess, but that
decision is not mine to make.

--- Colin

RE: [GD-General] I just don't get it (Was: Scripting Systems)

[<e_a...@ya...>]

The script didn't need any optimisation, most of the
script's work is setting states for the game engine.

So the code was just buggy and unreadable.

 --- tweety <mi...@sy...> a écrit : >  so...
Did it work? I mean the "optimised" code...
> 
> ----------------------------------
> Peace and love,
> Tweety
> mi...@sy... -
> twe...@us...
> YahooID: tweety_04_01
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> gam...@li...
>
[mailto:gam...@li...]
> On Behalf Of
> Emmanuel Astier
> Sent: April 22, 2004 1:54 PM
> To: gam...@li...
> Subject: RE: [GD-General] I just don't get it (Was:
> Scripting Systems)
> 
> I once heard a designer telling how his code ( high
> level )was optimised (what for ? ), and it scared
> me...
> 
> Emmanuel
> 
> 
> 	
> 
> 	
> 		
> Yahoo! Mail : votre e-mail personnel et gratuit qui
> vous suit partout ! 
> Créez votre Yahoo! Mail sur
> http://fr.benefits.yahoo.com/
> 
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> 
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------
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> Tutorials
> Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins,
> President and CEO of
> GenToo technologies. Learn everything from
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>
administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click
> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
>
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
> Archives:
>
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_id=557
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
-------------------------------------------------------
> This SF.net email is sponsored by: The Robotic
> Monkeys at ThinkGeek
> For a limited time only, get FREE Ground shipping on
> all orders of $35
> or more. Hurry up and shop folks, this offer expires
> April 30th!
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> _______________________________________________
> Gamedevlists-general mailing list
> Gam...@li...
>
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gamedevlists-general
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http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_idU7 


	

	
		
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RE: [GD-General] I just don't get it (Was: Scripting Systems)

[tweety <mi...@sy...>]

 so... Did it work? I mean the "optimised" code...

----------------------------------
Peace and love,
Tweety
mi...@sy... - twe...@us...
YahooID: tweety_04_01



-----Original Message-----
From: gam...@li...
[mailto:gam...@li...] On Behalf Of
Emmanuel Astier
Sent: April 22, 2004 1:54 PM
To: gam...@li...
Subject: RE: [GD-General] I just don't get it (Was: Scripting Systems)

I once heard a designer telling how his code ( high
level )was optimised (what for ? ), and it scared
me...

Emmanuel


=09

=09
	=09
Yahoo! Mail : votre e-mail personnel et gratuit qui vous suit partout !=20
Cr=E9ez votre Yahoo! Mail sur http://fr.benefits.yahoo.com/

Dialoguez en direct avec vos amis gr=E2ce =E0 Yahoo! Messenger =
!T=E9l=E9chargez
Yahoo! Messenger sur http://fr.messenger.yahoo.com


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Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of
GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system
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ck
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RE: [GD-General] I just don't get it (Was: Scripting Systems)

[<e_a...@ya...>]

 --- tweety <mi...@sy...> a écrit : > There's a
flaw in your message. Having a low-level
> language that can
> pre-process lines (i.e. #define), you can write
> macros to help designers do
> what they want. BUT (and that's a big but) the
> people who DO know to use c++
> have the possibility to use its flexibility, as
> well. It's all about not
> actively cutting the designer's hands if they can
> use the language's
> subtleties.
> 

I disagree...
The langage you give to the designers should not give
them any more control that what they need.
Else they _will_ start trying to do some low level
things, and more than often they will fail. And you
found yourself debugging _their_ code, just before a
demo...
I once heard a designer telling how his code ( high
level )was optimised (what for ? ), and it scared
me...

Emmanuel


	

	
		
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