Open discussion: What game devs need from Delphi

[WILL]

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.

[Darkhog]

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.

Somehow Borland has done this for years and stayed in business (the reason they had to sell delphi was because major f-up Turbo Delphi was).

[JimMcKeeth]

While there are some free to cheap game development tools, many of them are quite expensive. While Unity 3D offers a free version, their full price edition is $4500 if you want to reach iOS & Android. Their offering a free edition is a loss leader to get people to upgrade to the full edition. The full PRO edition offers features to game developers over the free version. A free version of Delphi for game development doesn't have an upgrade path to the full version for game developers, so it doesn't make sense from a business point of view.

You can get a 30 day free trial, and the Starter edition is really reasonably priced at $199. I used to be a big lobby for a free edition of Delphi until I realized they wouldn't be able to pay the fabulous developers who worked on it.

Delphi is a good general purpose tool that is heavily focused on line of business applications. It has always had good database access and other features that make it a good business application development tool. I've always liked it for utility application development too. A lot of people like it for game development. That is the beauty of a general purpose development tool. What I was wondering if there were some simple changes that could be made that would make it more suitable for the people who like it for game development. Reinventing Delphi to be just like FPC or Unity doesn't do anyone any good.

[User137]

I used to be a big lobby for a free edition of Delphi until I realized they wouldn't be able to pay the fabulous developers who worked on it.

Just keep in mind how much Lazarus "devs" get paid for their work. Yeah... nothing. And yet they are doing better job for pascal gaming world, even though a little indirectly. Compiler and IDE are general purpose, they don't decide that it's made specifically for games.

Borland already lost me as potential buyer. For a few reasons that have propably been mentioned:

• Open discussion with the people behind compiler and IDE development.
• Bug tracking system, and frequent software updates.
• Open source, free and unlimited.
• Crossplatform.

As far as gaming related libraries go, many of them work equally on Lazarus and Delphi. It's just that all the work for them is done by the user-base, not compiler/IDE developers. If they want to get into game industry, they would need to create a real game engine in my opinion. Graphics, Input, Sounds, Networking wrapped up easier for developers. I'm not sure if it's wise path to take for them, and how many potantial buyers there would be. That could depend entirely on quality of the engine, and it is not easy to compete with the latest commercial engines.

[phibermon]

I understand. Well trying to keep in line with cheap and easy :

Strip out all the components. the visual class designer, any documentation features, database features etc. Oh and firemonkey, we don't need that.

Just keep the 'standard' widgets, buttons and so forth. They're not going to be used, most won't even use forms, there's game ready frameworks that handle windows and we need fine grain control over that process anyway for multi-sampling and context creation. So Ideally get rid of forms and the VCL, but that's probably too much work.

Just the compiler, debugger, code window and the ability to target all supported platforms. Along with the headers for the respective platform APIs obviously.

No need to include third party stuff as people know what they're using anyway, don't need out of date stuff bundled in the install. (seriously guys update that OpenGL header, you don't seem to have a problem using third party stuff like FastMM and FPC)

--

So it doesn't have to be anything special, just an even more cut down version at some lower price that more people can afford. but multi-platform is essential, that shouldn't be cut from any version of Delphi. It's not a feature, it's a core essential part of what makes a programming language a viable tool. It should of been done long ago, I thought Kylix was the start of something special. I was wrong.

---

Please don't get me wrong, I love Delphi many happy memories of versions 2 thru 7. Avid Turbo Pascal user before that. Brilliant stuff.

[WILL]

A lot of people like it for game development. That is the beauty of a general purpose development tool. What I was wondering if there were some simple changes that could be made that would make it more suitable for the people who like it for game development. Reinventing Delphi to be just like FPC or Unity doesn't do anyone any good.

Hey Jim! Jumping into hostile waters I see! I appreciate you willing to step in and discuss the issues. That said, brace for impact.

The status of Delphi in the game development community is dwindling fast. Sad to say that Embarcadero lost a few of it's biggest supporters in recent years. Die hard Delphi users are switching over to Lazarus like bees to honey simply because it didn't offer the cross-platform capability that most indie devs are expected to put out nowadays. We don't get to play 1-OS hero anymore.

Platform diversity aside, there is not a single offering that is at all that attractive to indie game developers. Delphi is a business tool for the most part. It's strengths lay there specifically. Delphi Starter at $199 sounds nice and all, but it lacks what we really want and champions what we don't need and could care less about. Toted as "what makes Delphi Delphi" by David I. about a year ago, isn't 100% what game devs want from Delphi. This is not how you make sales to a potential target market like us.

Here is my general impression of the views of an indie game dev...

What should have been in Starter:

• Cross-platform cross compiling
  
  • We choose tools that will give us the platforms that we can make games on and where people will play them. This is not a choice for us, it's the gaming world now.
  
  
• Properly updated headers
  
  • If the community is offering this to your company to bundle it and it's better than your own older implementation whats the reason not to include it?
  
  

What should NOT have been in Starter:

• Licensing restrictions based on success of projects
  
  • Who else does this? Putting such restrictions is unenforceable and makes EMBT look petty and a little greedy.
  • If you want us to spend more money on products them make more for us! Like the next version of Starter for example.
  • This one caveat has scared away the most potential customers out of this community. Sales gone for the same effort it took type it.
  
  
• FireMonkey
  
  • Useless for making games that would be played and indies don't care!
  • David I. swears that it can be used for games, but I've looked into it. Not on your life.
  
  
• Form designer and/or any components other than the most common
  
  • Easily validates the cost of a Professional Edition. And indies don't need all the components. Games are not made this way!
  • The VCL isn't going to make my 3D games look better or accelerate my physics calculations or process audio smoother.
  
  

Personally I'd love to see just how well the Starter Edition has actually done. I doubt that EMBT would be willing to tell us, but my guess is that not very many game devs have bought it. When I talked about it with David before it sounded wonderful, but then it was released and I instantly got a bad taste in my mouth.

And I would love to see the reference to this statement:

The Starter edition license is an "indie" or independent developer style license. Think indie music, indie artist, indie films, etc. The indie style Starter license allows for freeware and limited "for profit" commercial use. The license is designed specifically as a low cost solution for hobbyists, students, and independent developers to be able to get started building and distributing apps, including commercially for profit, without a significant up-front investment. It is modeled after the self-publishing music and literature models and has become popular within the game and mobile development tools market.

I'd like to know who does this in the games and mobile tools market and if these libraries or tools are actually used.

That's my big chunk of wisdom for the Delphi tool it's self. As for the rest, well Embarcadero has shown that it loves it's licenses and restrictions. All the things that game developers and indie devs in general are all well to be wary of or avoid if possible. So culturally they have dug a hole for themselves with the indies. Borland didn't build a company around dev tools doing business this way. This may be all well and good for big business where everyone farts acronyms and sneezes contracts and reports, but it doesn't go well by future devs that all start as indies.

Just keep in mind how much Lazarus "devs" get paid for their work. Yeah... nothing. And yet they are doing better job for pascal gaming world, even though a little indirectly. Compiler and IDE are general purpose, they don't decide that it's made specifically for games.

Keep in mind that it also took about a decade to get to this point. I wouldn't knock a dedicated paid developer over a volunteer when he has the free time. Yes, Free Pascal and Lazarus has become quite the wonderful tool for game development (on the desktop primarily), but it didn't happen over night. It took a long time.

Why Delphi has sunk as a game dev tool has more to do with the mentality of the company that steered it's developers and their motivations than how "good" or "talented" they were as developers. It would seem that the new company has similar motivations, as new and hip as they want to sound. It's more about their core clients than reaching out to all markets evenly. And that has been and is right now big business that need a nifty new app that can connect to a database and give them data. Not compile a hardware level graphics driven interactive entertainment experience across multiple platforms from a single code-base.


I don't care about free as much as I do affordability. I'm willing to invest into tools so long as they give me what I want.

The best things that Embarcadero can do to get indies buying products is to make them something that they want to buy. Make us want to buy the next version. It's like the whole used games thing; if you don't want people to be buying the used version of your game instead of a new copy then make games that people want to keep playing. This is honest business and it's how developer tools should be made and sold.

[hwnd]

Im too lazy atm too read whole topic fully, but i agree with some opinions here about free Delphi version.
Why they killed Turbo's? Im thinking about buying starter edition but many people say its a cr*p, what to do then?
I would use Lazarus, but there are too many components yet which do not work in Lazarus.
I use D7 Personal, but im lucky, since i dont mess with DB, so personal is fine for me.
I have the license for it.

But this is OT already.

[SilverWarior]

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.

I understand that they can't make Delphi compleetly free as they have to pay their employee salaries somehow.
But they could atract a lot of new developers by offering free versions for students similar as microsoft is offering free editions of Windows to be used by students. More newbies atracted means bigger chances for some of them to actually buy Delphi in the first place. Having 30 day trial is just not enough.
They could always use custom license for this free editions which would not alow pepole from making any comercial software with it.
This way they make Delphi afordable for newbies. And when someone becomes confident enough that it can actually make a comercial project with Delphi it would also be prepared to pay some money for it.
That is how I finally decided to purchase Delphi XE2. I started on Delphi 6 Personal which was available as free then, moved to Delphi 7 which I also got for free and finaly when I become confident enough in my programing skils I bought Delphi XE2. If I would have to buy Delphi from the start I would have never started programming in it.

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.)

The problem is that Delphi just isn't that high value developer tool anymore due to many bugs and poor implementations it has.
Another problem is lack of third party components and packages for Delphi. There are more and more excelent third party components developed for FPC/Lazarus but most of them doesn't support Delphi. Why? Becouse if someone wants to make their components Delphi compatible they need to purchase latest version of Delphi as trial edition time is just to short to be usefull.

[WILL]

But they could atract a lot of new developers by offering free versions for students similar as microsoft is offering free editions of Windows to be used by students. More newbies atracted means bigger chances for some of them to actually buy Delphi in the first place. Having 30 day trial is just not enough.

Microsoft's dev tools are shit. I know, I use the damn thing every day much to my begrudgery. I miss the days I coded intently in the Lazarus IDE, but it doesn't do what I need it to, so life goes on.

Free is not a viable option and I don't want a free version. I like tools that I can make games to sell. And I like software that has dedicated developers not volunteers that slowly make their way to a new version on their free time. It's that nice guarantee that tells me that I'm getting something of quality that will pay me back later for my hard earned cash.

That said, if I threw some free candy at a crowd of people you always have someone running after it. Doesn't mean there is a lot of value in cheap dollar store candy.

Another problem is lack of third party components and packages for Delphi. There are more and more excelent third party components developed for FPC/Lazarus but most of them doesn't support Delphi. Why? Becouse if someone wants to make their components Delphi compatible they need to purchase latest version of Delphi as trial edition time is just to short to be usefull.

Game developers don't need components. This is a concept for old Windows GUI applications so that any shmoe can make one with little to no code. Game programmers need to know how to program.

[SilverWarior]

I like tools that I can make games to sell. And I like software that has dedicated developers not volunteers that slowly make their way to a new version on their free time. It's that nice guarantee that tells me that I'm getting something of quality that will pay me back later for my hard earned cash.

I also like software that has dedicated developers instead of just volunteers that is why I have bought Delphi XE2 even thous many pepole advised me othervise. I'm also anually paying for "Support & Maintenance for Delphi" which gives me acces to all the latest updates for Delphi.

Now this is acceptable to me since I have a regular job and earn neough money for this.
But what about students for instance? They have no jobs to earn mone for this.

Embarcadero would say there is a Starter edition which is viable option for this. I have to strongly disagree with them on this. Why?
For the price of Starter edition they are offerin way to less:
- Only 32 bit Windows compiler
- FireMonkey components which have much worse perfomance than VCL. And since you don't have need to use FM on windows as you have on other platforms, probably only few pepole will even use them on Windows
- no code formater and and beutification for source code
- no class explorer
- no live code templates
- no symbol insight
- no code folding
- no class completion
- no resource DLL wizard
- no refactoring
- no UML modeling
- limited integrated debugging
- no database support
- and many other things stripped out
In short the starter edition even have some features stripped out even thou they were available in Borland Delphi 6 Personal edition which was in the end offered for free.

Game developers don't need components. This is a concept for old Windows GUI applications so that any shmoe can make one with little to no code. Game programmers need to know how to program.

True we don't need components we need libraries. These two concepts are quite similar.
So tell me how many Pascal based Graphical engines do we have available and how many of them have full support for the Delphi?
How many Pascal based Sound libraries do we have available and how many of them have full support for Delphi?
How many Pascal based Network libraries do we have and how many of them have full support for Delphi?
How many other Pascal based gaming libraries are available and how many of them have full support for Delphi?

So as you take a look closely you will see that most of them doesn't support Delphi or have verry limited support for Delphi. I know since I'm having dificulty finding suitable gaming libraries for Delphi since I'm using Delphi for game development.
Now why is that? Most of them are being developed by FPC/Lazarus and their developers just don't have enough money to go and buy Delphi for making them Delphi compatible.
Now you might say 200€ for starter edition isn't much but when you take into acount that Starter edition only supports 32 bit compiler you realize that you need athleast Proffesional edition if you wan't your library to have 64 bit support. But that means you will have to pay 1000€ for it. And nowadays you will definitly want 64 bit support if you want to do any serious game so you can make use of more than 3GB of ram.
This results in the fact that more and more pepole are literally abandoning Delphi support for their libraries.
And without Delphi compatible gaming libraries noone will use it for game development.


Another thing that bothers me greatly is how Embarcadero is "evolving" the Delphy syntax by implementing features present in other programming languages.
Now don't get me wrong I'm not against the implementation of theese features, but I'm mostly against the way they are implemented. I don't like when some feature gets implemented almost the same way it is implemented in some other programming language.
The reason why Objective Pascal or Delphi was so popular in the past and the reason why it is still poplar as it is is becouse it always have certain feature implemented differently than other programming languages (better implementation in many times). That is what has been atracting pepole to use of Objective Pascal.
But what Embarcadero is doing now is simply copy-cating features from other programming languages and therefore turning Delphi into crosbreed of other programming languages. ANd this by my opinion is not caled "maturing" of programming language.
What they need to do is learn how theese features work in other programming language and then implement them in new uniqe way, preferably better way.
But I'm afraid that guys at Embarcadero might not be capable of doing this. Why? As some computer scientist once sad:
"Most of the greatest discoveries are not discovered by scientists, but instead they are being discovered by stuedents, hobbyist. Why? Expirienced scientist already learned some path of how things are being discovered and they usually keeps folowing that path. But students, becouse they still didn't learned any particular path, still expiriment in serching of good path and have therefore better cahnce of finding compleetly different path which can lead to great discoveries. Same goes for software development. When you program long enough you develop some patern you folow when developing your application. And the more you stick to your pattern and less you expiriment, the less cahnce you have to discover something new and uniqe."

So that is why most of my suggestions are biased to atracting as many new pepole to Pascal development as posible becouse I hardly belive that only by new blod we have chance for something new to be discovered.
Take a look at big software companies like Microsoft, Google, Aple, etc. All of them are reagulary organizing varous "taletn sercing" events like "Imagine cup" where pepole are given some task and they must find best solution for it. Most often the winners are students and not some expirienced programmers.

So if Embarcadero truely wants to evolve the Delphi as programming language and prevent Delphi comunity to simply fade away they need to start atracting new pascal programmers fast. And yes making Delphi game development friendly is good choice since gaming development is far more popular than buisnies application development and gaming industry is making much more money. So it is no wonder that about 70% of all new programers wants do develop a game first.

Also Embarcadero mist not forget about keeping existing developers in using Delphi. Why? If they lose existing developers from the comunity, there will be noone to teach the very basics to newbies, there will be noone to encourage newbies to reach their boundaries.
And here the Embarcadero isn't doing verry good. Lately I have seen many Delphi developers switching to other programming languages. And main reason doesn't seem the lack of features of the Delphi programming language itsef but the lack of atention of Embarcadero to listen to complaints and suggestions of theese pepole.
Now the rumor for this is that on top of Embarcadero sits Marketing guys and not programmers so they don't view thigs the same.
If that is the truce could someone please remind theese marketing guys of this cruicail marketing saying: Customer is always right!
And yes we developers are your customers, so why are you refusing to listen to us?


I'm sorry if my post has turned into rant.
What I want is best for Delphi wich in turn would be best for me.