Free isn't an option. They tried it and it wasn't sustainable. Judging from the conversations I've had with David over a year ago and Jim more recently, they pretty much told me that this is not something that they can do if they want to stay in business. And frankly why not pay for something of high value like developer tools if it improves the quality. So buying a set of good developer tools, I don't have a big problem with. (Considering that a lot of free versions of dev tools, esp. those from big companies are crap.)

Lazarus is a great exception for game development. If you love to make GUI-based applications with the form designer and you love your databases and crystal reports then Delphi is all skippy, where as Lazarus (though I recall they have a really stable form designer now) is still not complete and doesn't have the components community that EMBT has. However for game dev we don't need all that fluff, as I keep saying.

Embarcadero does have a new compiler (than the one we've seen for years that only does Windows) that's where all these new cross-compiler and mobile projects are coming from. David I. and I have discussed it over a year ago when he told me that the EMBT R&D guys were working on it. Well I guess it's good enough to start releasing products with now?

Here is a link to their Mobile Roadmap: http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/42544

The question is how good is it? And how capable? Will the compiler it's self run ON Mac or Linux? Are they bringing out an IDE for either or will they allow something like Eclipse to hook into it? (I'd mention Lazarus IDE, but this would require asking them to support it as a new feature so it's not viable as a commercial solution.) And will things like the Android compiler (which is due out soon!) output into Java Byte code so that it can take advantage of native Android APIs and the environment it's self? I know a set of tools that already do this of course.

So far I've only seen demos and literature explaining the new Delphi cross-compiling roadmap as a better way to make business/GUI-based apps on mobile and across the desktop world. Which we can all give a flying monkey about. (Pun intended! ) What we want is to get into our APIs and game libraries without having to do brain surgery trying to take out crap that EMBT puts in our way. I would like to see some kind of OpenGL graphics demo running on all their targeting platforms from the same Delphi source that performs extremely well considering the target platforms. That would be a start, however I'm not sure that this can be done using their existing tools without a lot of leg work and hacking in exceptions all over the place. At least to be able to do this with 2 platforms would be great. Or at the very least among ALL the top 3 desktop platforms.

My concept of a game dev friendly bundle:


  • cross-compiler
  • debugger
  • Code Editor (IDE)
  • RTL + DOM + basic Delphi language stuff
  • maybe: some up to date OpenGL and DirectX(or whatever MS is doing) headers



That's it! That's what we need. Want more than that then by all means go get their business stuff. This is the core of game development. We don't want to avoid the code, we need the code. ("The code speaks to us and tells all."--ok I couldn't resist. ) so other than cheating to make use of the GUI stuff to make a quick and dirty editor tool for my games, why do we need so much crap stuffed into it? We don't. If they insist that it's what makes Delphi Delphi then ok fine put it in, but keep it to the base components and nothing else. But I don't feel that that's even necessary. We can make editor GUIs using our graphics APIs. Some game libraries even come with a way to make custom OpenGL-based GUIs. Or we are good game developers and we make it all ourselves!

I agree with most of you guys that Delphi isn't the best game dev tool and it's far from being geared towards game development anymore. (New markets and platforms!) However since someone from EMBT actually reached out to me and suggested that we could maybe make Delphi better for game developers (no promises) I feel that that in it's self is a rare opportunity to tell them what they need to know.

And if they don't want to listen then well there is still Lazarus, FPC (Pure) and Oxygene (and even Smart Mobile Studio for JavaScript type games) that are all great for game development and getting better.