From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_20,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9c776e3cc19d3176 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Tom Moran Subject: Re: $500 <= chump change, was Re: Port I/O Date: 1996/11/19 Message-ID: <32916D48.3A30@bix.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 197411194 references: <01BBD13B.2E702E00@idc213.rb.icl.co.uk> <56ffmj$pko@top.mitre.org> <328F5D46.7DBC@bix.com> <3291366F.17CE@bix.com> content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii organization: InterNex Information Services 1-800-595-3333 mime-version: 1.0 reply-to: tmoran@bix.com newsgroups: comp.lang.ada x-mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Win95; I) Date: 1996-11-19T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: >These days, sucessful video games cost well into 7 figures to develop >... >but the days when high school students could do interesting things in >the game market is long gone! The problem with $500 for the game SDK is not that I expect high school kids to develope Wolfenstein XXXVII, but that the real innovations, the first computer game, etc, usually do not arise from heavily funded projects. And if doing port IO on a PC requires high up-front expenditures, it greatly reduces the likelihood of any really novel thing using port IO. Of course successfull players are rarely eager to change the rules of the game, and MS in particular is probably not eager to repeat anything like their recent experience with the Web and Netscape etc so it makes eminent economic sense for them to encourage all new products to be minor variations of current ones, with MS getting a slice of the pie.