My core concern here is what the target market will be for the 3D engine/library Mark discussed, in regards to the hardware compatibility level of that engine. In the same sentence he uses the terms 'get back to my roots' and 'next-gen 3d engine/library', which leaves me a bit unclear on which market the engine will be targetting.
There are basically two markets to consider. One is the developers who purchase and use the engine. The other is the people who buy and use the end products produced by those developers.
With around eleven thousand registered Blitz product accounts, the main developer market for the engine will be indies and hobbyists (the vast majority will be hobbyists). Those eleven thousand account holders are a good indicator of the target market for the engine, as those people have already bought Blitz products in the past. Most of these people will have mid to low end hardware, bearing in mind that the people who post their system specs on this forum are the vocal minority, and probably tend to have higher end systems than the average user. The majority of these developers will also be the end user of the products they produce, as most people who buy a Blitz product would buy it to putter around with, rather than to produce a released product (irregardless of their original intent when they bought the product).
The main market for the people who buy and use the end products produced by those developers, will be the shareware market. Very few of the developers developing products with Blitz will have the skills or funding to produce a product that would appeal to the cutting edge gamer market. For the vast majority of Blitz developers, trying to compete in that market would be like dropping a guppy into a shark tank. Shareware customers tend to have mid to low end hardware.
Admittedly, next gen technology this year, will be current gen in a few years time. Many of us may have jumped ship to other products by then, however. I think it's important to concentrate on the markets that are willing to buy the product when it becomes available, rather than at some arbitrary point in the distant future when the average users hardware may have caught up with the requirements of the engine. Obviously though, graphics tech has undergone a paradigm shift in the last few years (from the fixed-function pipeline, to shader based rendering) so there's a point of diminishing returns in providing support for hardware below a particular level of compatibility with modern tech.
So basically I think it would be useful for Mark to clearly define (and tell us) what level of hardware compatibility the proposed engine will be targetted at. Mark has talked about producing a cutting edge 3D engine in the past, which I think would be a mistake.
There are basically two markets to consider. One is the developers who purchase and use the engine. The other is the people who buy and use the end products produced by those developers.
With around eleven thousand registered Blitz product accounts, the main developer market for the engine will be indies and hobbyists (the vast majority will be hobbyists). Those eleven thousand account holders are a good indicator of the target market for the engine, as those people have already bought Blitz products in the past. Most of these people will have mid to low end hardware, bearing in mind that the people who post their system specs on this forum are the vocal minority, and probably tend to have higher end systems than the average user. The majority of these developers will also be the end user of the products they produce, as most people who buy a Blitz product would buy it to putter around with, rather than to produce a released product (irregardless of their original intent when they bought the product).
The main market for the people who buy and use the end products produced by those developers, will be the shareware market. Very few of the developers developing products with Blitz will have the skills or funding to produce a product that would appeal to the cutting edge gamer market. For the vast majority of Blitz developers, trying to compete in that market would be like dropping a guppy into a shark tank. Shareware customers tend to have mid to low end hardware.
Admittedly, next gen technology this year, will be current gen in a few years time. Many of us may have jumped ship to other products by then, however. I think it's important to concentrate on the markets that are willing to buy the product when it becomes available, rather than at some arbitrary point in the distant future when the average users hardware may have caught up with the requirements of the engine. Obviously though, graphics tech has undergone a paradigm shift in the last few years (from the fixed-function pipeline, to shader based rendering) so there's a point of diminishing returns in providing support for hardware below a particular level of compatibility with modern tech.
So basically I think it would be useful for Mark to clearly define (and tell us) what level of hardware compatibility the proposed engine will be targetted at. Mark has talked about producing a cutting edge 3D engine in the past, which I think would be a mistake.