Cool, glad to see a bit a healthy discussion...

The facts are these:
* Computer games are the most fun application of
computer programming available.
* 3D graphics do not garauntee a good game AT ALL.
Neither does 2D. A good game is something that people
enjoy playing over and over again.
* The games industry is a multi-billion dollar
industry.
* The release of the PlayStation 2 will see a major
change in the direction of home gaming, and game
revenue possibilities (through the network factor, the
deluxe graphics support...)
* Unfortunately, i think i'm turning into a venture
capitalist, and all of the the above is heavy food for
thought.

I'm not familiar with the other gaming members of the
Squeak community. My own past has included a rich
background in growing up with, playing, paying,
buying, reading, and writing video games (amoung other
traits). I want to see Smalltalk become the language
of choice for game developers, and i want to see
Squeak ported to some leading game console (maybe even
create a new one....hmmmm). It's not the console, or
the company that make the markets success - it's the
strength of the total collection of work produced for
that platform which last in peoples minds. Even if you
had the "perfect" IDE, the richest set of tools and
libraries, the "perfect" language (hang on, this
sounds good...), and you gave them to the most
technical of programmers and said "give me a game",
who says you'll get back anything interesting? Boring
Tetris? Checkers? Running around with a gun "making
their day"? Come, on - we creative developers are
longing to use the smoothest transition from idea to
result, and Smalltalk & Squeak provide that
transition. Are we talking speed issues? Obviously,
without hardware accelaration, no language can acheive
certain operations, but that's where developers become
"smart", and are forced to optimize and refine their
technological approach. Anyway, Squeak is way faster
than any other current "content" development tool
around (like Director), and can implement low level
solutions, or high level solutions - without worrying
about the hardware!!! HELLO??!! Game developers - does
this actually mean anything to you?
hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

Roughly, we'd need to do these things (sorry if i
leave some out) -
* Negotiate licensing, developing, and distribution
deals with Sony, and the market leader publishers.
* Port the Squeak VM to run on Sony's PlayStation &
PlayStation 2 hardware. (sure, easy...)
* Incorporate additional primitive layers into Squeak
to support the peripherals and devices which supply
input from the user - such as the hand held devices,
the buttons of the actual console box, hand held gun
pointers, steering wheels + pedals, and whatever.
* Incorporate additional hardware primitives to take
advantage of the native (or accelerated) graphics
abilities ( C programmer job ).
* Facilitate the launching, and event structre which
the PlayStation delivers.
* Be able to develop your title, run it, debug it,
change it on whatever platform you have, and no that
it will run "bit identical" on the PlayStation CD
burn, plus whatever platform you want to deliver to.

Imagine if Squeak & Smalltalk became the development
environment of choice for the general game developer.
This would certainly prove that Squeak is the
legendary "all-purpose" tool with the legendary
language to boot (screw the bureaucracy).

Long live the creatives!
Ali.

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