But C# is not a deadend. With xna you can put out games for 360, Zune, Windows, and Windows Phone.
True, but I wasn't talking about C# or XNA, but XBLIG specifically.
Hmmm, tough to separate them since you can't get on XBLIG without using xna/C#. My point was that using xna doesn't limit you to just XBLIG, since you can make games for Zune, Windows, and Windows Phone aside from 360. Being able to make games for 4 platforms trumps being able to make a game for just one in terms of market reach.
Everyone has a computer, so exporting to various OS runtimes should take precedence.
But some of these OS's are unpopular to the point of making it a complete waste of time. Making an export to be able to run our games on Linux would be a waste of development time. However, making the Construct development software compatible with Linux would be a better idea... thing is, doing that and not making the games run wouldn't make sense.If the amount of time necessary to do that would be the same or greater than making exports so our games can run on game platforms that are far more popular (and make no mistake about it, at 0.83% of the personal consumer market Linux is not popular by any stretch of the imagination), then this wouldn't be a good idea. I know the hope is that Linux programmers would jump in and make a bunch of plug-ins but I still see that as nothing more than mere speculation from Linux enthusiasts.
Doing either for Mac wouldn't be the worst idea, I'd do that before Linux, but the same question comes up again; how popular is this platform for gaming and game-making compared to the MS platforms? I think we all know the answer to that one, PC/MS platforms win that by a landslide. The market is enormous for PC/MS products. Just from a business standpoint, it would make perfect sense to address the sectors that you already know have the most users waiting for your product, start there, and then move down the list. But if money doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter if you go after tiny sectors like Linux and the rest that are all smaller than PC/MS.
And there are a lot more smart-phone owners out there than there are 360 owners
But gamer spending on console games far exceeds spending on cellphone games. It's not even close from a revenue standpoint, and you also have to consider that not every smartphone owner plays games. So you have to extract the number of people with cellphones who don't play games on it and I'd imagine that number is probably larger than believed. But with the consoles, you know they play games on them because that's what the consoles were built for.
Also, for every 360 owner that does buy an XBLIG game, there are even more who don't. People generally get a 360 in order to play triple-A titles. Phones, on the other hand, are a different animal entirely. People are more accepting of smaller, simpler games on their phone. Plus the portable nature means more opportunity to buy and play games. People are much more likely to drop $3 on Generic Stick Figure Zombie Arena Shooter on their phone when they can play it on their lunch breaks or on the toilet or whatever, but not so much when you can only play it on your couch on a system that you could be playing Halo: Reach or Red Dead Redemption on instead.
That's why I brought up the fact that xna's versatility allows you to create games for Mobile platforms as well (Zune, Windows Phone). That goes beyond XBLIG.
But as far as top priority goes, I still think Mac/Linux support is where it's at. The most common complaint I see from the indie community is "well this game looks neat but it's Windows only so I can't play it *frowny face*." More OS support would be a big draw for indie devs.
Mostly for Mac. Linux support isn't going to draw enough Linux gamers to make a difference because, well, the Linux market is a speck at 0.83% of personal computer users as quoted by a Linux source (and they were probably being generous with that number, too, lol), and the number of people playing games on Linux is obviously even smaller than that. And again, this rush of lInux devs jumping on Construct is wishful thinking and speculation.
I really don't think that's true. If you have a source on this I'd be happy to get schooled though . And anyway, as time goes on smart phones will become even more prevalent, and console owners still won't be able to carry their consoles around and play them.
You're far more likely to walk into a home and find a Wii, 360, PS3 or PS2 (PS2 especially) before you find an Android or an Iphone, and even if you did find one of the phones it's highly unlikely that person is using it as their primary gaming device which makes sense since gaming consoles and PC's are still the best option for serious gaming. There is a reason why single console games still sell in the millions of copies and phone games generally don't do anything close to that number even while being priced as low as 50x less than the average console game.