If 3D math programming is what you love, then creating your own 3D game engine is a fine way to flex those skills. A lot of beginnign graphics programmers will start off designing their own 3D engine, even if its never used in a commercial project. For some people, that's just what they enjoy doing.

If you are looking to make a game, then creating your own 3D engine probably is a waste of time. Games are not just a 3D engine. In fact, they don't even need 3D engines. And there are so many options these days for anyone wanting to use an existing engine.

If a 3D Game engine is what you want to make, then make one. If a game is what you want to make, give the engine programming a pass, and just use an existing solution.

Piracy is stealing and stealing is wrong. And abandonware is only legitimate if the actual copyright holders publicly condone it.

If you are downloading and playing games that you didn't pay for, you are a dirty, stinking thief. No ifs ands or buts.

I don't agree with this.  I've worked on a few engines, and in all of them the handling of different resolutions was done in a day or less.  Text alignment and HUD elements and everything else are all based off of percentages of screen size.  We build the game to run at the higher resolution, and then just do test passes at low res to make sure nothing breaks.

I was actually referring to performance, not the specific implementation. If you have to target extremely high-end screens with thousands of pixels to a side, you will need to scale your game's resources and logic to insure a steady framerate at that higher resolution. More pixels are always more taxing on a system. Having to target numerous resolutions usually forces developers to scale back their game's performance to insure that everyone will still be able to play them.

When you are working with a fixed hardware system that targets a single, fixed resolution, you only have one target to hit. You can optimize your game as much as possible for that one performance target. This is why a lot of console-exclusive titles end up looking better than their multi-platform counterparts.

We don't eat human corpses because there are perfectly good cows and chickens to eat. Who in their right mind would eat a human instead of steak and eggs? Steak and eggs are delicious.

Also, there's the whole problem with organ donation. You could use a human corpse for people chitlins. But someone out there would prefer to have those fresh organs inside them, keeping them alive. Do you even know how much healthy human organs are worth? A human corpse in good condition can be harvested for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Of course, the same doesn't apply to human meat. There is very little use for human muscle after death. Human steaks and filets would be a possibility.

Soylent Green is people!

GBA games (240 x 160 pixels) look fine on the DS (256 x 192), but obviously not full-screen. I don't mind black borders around the screen, as long as they're not HUGE (for example, the Gameboy emulator for DS).

That's a good point, they could go that route. Of course, if they did, they would need to re-position the rendered graphics. You couldn't have each screen rendered in the center, since that would only increase the distance between the two screens. The bottom screen would have to be rendered up a little higher, and the top screen would need to be rendered a little lower. That's hardly a technical hurdle, of course. They could handle that quite easily, especially if the 3DS has superior processing power to the original DS.

I have a question. From some of the people I've talked to, I have gotten the impression that the first thing you should do in developing your own game business is to produce a playable prototype. That seems to be job #1. If you have a playable prototype, then you have something you can present to investors in order to get venture capital for polishing that prototype up. Job #2 would be polishing your prototype into a more respectable game, and then possibly releasing a preliminary version for public consumption. This initial release might be free-to-play, and would serve as a beta test and as a marketing tool. If you are targeting the XBox 360, this release would be made in the Indie Games section.

Once you have a playable version of your game available to the public, you need to start thinking about drumming up attention and promoting it. A website specifically devoted to your game, and possibly one for your company as well, would be a good idea. If your game attracts enough attention, you might consider adding some message boards as well. Once you actually have a following of sorts, it is time to start pitching an expanded version of your title to major publishers.

Let me know if any of these proposals are off base.

I cannot head all the way out to Boston. I'm an AZ boy, that is quite a trip. I am hoping to go to PAX West though.

Okay, still no images to show. But I have actually gotten some progress done on this. Fired up Unity this week and got my hands dirty learning how to develop with it. I created a custom shader for Unity that allows me to load up multiple images and use them to construct the card in texture layers. I'm using one layer for the background texture of the card face, another layer for the character to be displayed on the card, another layer for the card's border elements, and a fourth layer for the numbers to be displayed on the card. I'd like to get that last texture layer a bit more dynamic, but I haven't figured out how to render 2D text to a Texture2D element yet.

One of the things I wanted was to be able to change out the background of each card. One player is going to need to be "Red Team" and the other will be "Blue Team." As cards are captured, their background texture will change shade. I figured out how to do this in Unity using scripting. It took a little research, but ultimately wasn't as difficult as I had feared. I've also figured how to script some basic rotation animation for flipping the card, but I would like to explore Unity's object animation capabilities instead of using pure code. I just need some basic flips and movements, after all.

I haven't started in on the game logic yet, but I am encouraged by my experience so far scripting in Unity. I found some nice tutorials that have helped explain how Unity is structured. I have a much better grasp on Unity's prefabs, and have successfully created a pre-fab for my card objects. I'd like to refine the card structure a bit more, and then I will be ready to start in on the game logic and interaction.

Really, although it all sounds terrible and bad here. Not having R18+ hardly means anything. You can buy what ever you want online, you can download what ever you want.

But isn't it also true that video games in AUS are ridiculously expensive? I was hearing that most current-gen titles in AUS are the equivalent of $100 USD? Something to do with import tariffs or something? I imagine you guys probably eBay and Amazon a lot of your games to get around such insane mark-ups.

The biggest advantage that the Wii has is that it does NOT support high definition graphics. For anyone with a shiny new 1080p LCD set, this would seem like a disadvantage. But from a developer perspective, it makes things a lot easier. The Wii doesn't have to target multiple different resolutions. If the developer even bothers to add widescreen support in their Wii game, that's considered above and beyond. Being able to target a fixed resolution is a big advantage for a game developer.

This is one of the advantages that handheld systems always enjoy. (since their screens are built in) I wonder if they will stick with the same resolution screens as were on the DS, for the 3DS? Apparently, the thing will be backwards compatible with DS titles. In order for everything to be nice and smooth, they would need to either have the same resolution, or exactly double the resolution. Using the same resolution would be the obvious choice, but I don't know if that would work with a 3D screen.

It is times like this that it actually pays to be a U.S. citizen. A lot of people criticize the U.S. for a lot of different things. And yes, we probably deserve our fair share of that angst. But I love the fact that the U.S. has free speech, and that this constitutional policy has prevented any major government censorship of our media. If I'm not mistaken, one of the only areas of media that the government has any jurisdiction over is child pornography. Everything else is censored by economic pressure, or not at all.

The Australian way of handling this issue seems a bit odd to me. But then, I'm not nearly as familiar with AUS government or politics. From what I've gathered, Micheal Atkinson isn't the only opponent of an expanded R18+ rating for games in AUS, he's just been the most outspoken on the subject. His hard-line stance on the issue insured that there would be no compromise while he was still in office. This new announcement opens the possibility for change, but is no guarantee. The best that AUS gamers can hope for is that their government will take another look at the issue.

The Gamecube and the Dreamcast were much maligned systems that both deserved more success than they acheived against Sony's lackluster PS2. Ultimately, it came down to popular opinion to define the install base, and the install base was what drove developer support. The PS2 got the lion's share of dev support, and that ended the competition.

As to the 3DS, I think too many people are thinking in terms of full 3D graphics games. Although having these with a 3D handheld system would be sweet, I am much more interested in the potential for traditional Sprite-based games. I think a simple depth implementation for these would be really freaking sweet.

I am curious how they will manage to market the 3DS. It strikes me as the kind of technology that can't be communicated effectively through video or images. It's going to be a mystery to consumers until they can get hands-on with it.

I'm a little surprised by all the PSP hate. The PSP WAS a mistake, but not because of any real failing of the system itself. It's that Sony messed up with the direction that they wanted to take the PSP in, and a lot of this was reflected in the systm's design. The PSP Go is more of what the PSP should have been initially. But thanks to the existence of the original PSP, no one is buying the PSP Go.

The primary issue with the original PSP can be summed up in one short phrase...

"UMDs were a bad idea"

I've actually enjoyed playing my PSP quite a bit. When it sticks to more traditional game types, (predominately 2D controls) it can actually be a lot of fun. As a portable media machine it is one of the better ones available. Sony's focus on pushing UMDs were what hamstrung the system. It was through that outlet that the PSP was originally hacked. And the rest is history.

What you are talking about is a straight-up art design issue. You could always just make your menu buttons incredibly large, but that is a cheap cop-out, and everyone knows it.

Personally, I've always preferred in-game graphic scenes over static art for menus. Static art is good for when the eye does not necessarily need to be drawn to it. Such as, screens where there is a lot of text. For menus, there is generally very little text, more often than not just on the main buttons. So for menus, I like to see little "scenes" from the game, possibly with animations or characters moving around.

As someone else pointed out, composition is key. How the menu screen is laid out, and how the various graphical elements balance against each other, that is what you should be paying attention to.

EDIT: It just occurred to me that someone might take the above statement more seriously than intended.  To those people: take a deep breath and relax.  Okay now let me have it! 

If by "let me have it" you are referring to capital investment, then you just might get it. Cheesy romance novels are big business, and make their publishers and writers some nice return on investment. If you told a major publisher that you were going to make "romance" games targeted directly at middle-age women, they'd probably shower you with cash money. The biggest obstacle is that the best platform for that would be either the Wii or DS. A Steam version would also be a good idea.

"Romance" games targeted at females? Who else thinks that this is potentially lucrative idea?

What would be an example of female power fantasy?

I'm thinking it would be something along the lines of a Bioware RPG starring a female protagonist. It would have numerous conversation trees and permit you to affect how other characters in the game relate to you, based on the way you respond to them. The player would ultimately be able to rule the country/planet/galaxy based on their ability to handle their relationships with the game's NPCs.

Of course, that is just one idea. And since I'm not female, we are running into the same issue that the game industry already has. I can't come at this problem from a female perspective, so the only solution I can offer is based on my own jaded and cynical observation of female preferences. You would need an actual women's insight to really define a female power fantasy.

A large factor here is the number of women developing games.

Power fantasies are always going to be a part of gaming, whether they be male or female. Interactive entertainment is a good fit for power fantasies. They allow the player to indulge some of their more primal tendencies in a largely consequence-free environment. This results in a cathartic experience, which a very broad demographic find appealing. So strumming that basic chord for humanity is something gaming will never give up.

The real issue is how predominantly male-centric these fantasies tend to be. And the real culprit there is not the end-user demographic, but the developers themselves. As recent trends in gaming have proven, women like playing games just as much as men. So the potential audience for female power fantasies is just as large. The real obstacle is how many women develop games.

Even though more women are playing games than ever before, the number producing them has not increased. Women account for a small percentage of game developers. You can't expect your average man to be able to effectively develop a female power fantasy. If the female gaming public wants more female power fantasies, they need to put more women into game development.

The amount of information released so far is miniscule. I think this could be a nice new iteration of the DS. But I'm reserving judgement until we see some more tangible details. With this announcement coming at this point in the year, it is easy to imagine that the 3DS will be Nintendo's big push at E3.

There is plenty of potential with this kind of product. I own a Virtual Boy, and I can tell you that 3D-powered games can acutally be a lot of fun. Nintendo has probably had this idea on the back burner for a long time, just waiting until the proper technology came along to implement it at an affordable price. The technology just wasn't ready when the Virtual Boy was produced. A hand-held system that does proper 3D without glasses would be huge.

@Paul Eres

How are the side effects of drugs affected either positively or negatively by the socialization of the Healthcare industry? Moreover, how does alleged "bribery" by major pharmaceutical companies affect this in any way? Pharmaceutical companies are usually separate from insurance companies. The recently passed Health Care Bill isn't going to be able to dictate much to pharmaceutical companies. They fall under the oversight of the FDA.

I read that article you linked to. Most of the activities it labels as "bribery" are just standard industry practices. A lot of that consultant and research work by MDs is required in order for pharmaceutical companies to get FDA approval. None of that is illegal. And don't even bother bringing nice meals at fancy restaurants up. That's one of the oldest tricks in the book for any sales representative in any industry. You can call that underhanded if you like, but there's no point in singling out the pharmaceutical industry for that.

@ richard kain - they aren't paid directly for those drugs, but they are often informally paid "bribes" by drug companies for prescribing certain drugs, as someone mentioned earlier.

This is not true. Any medical practioner who accepted a bribe to recommend one drug over another, would be exposing themselves to malpractice suits, and could quite easily have their liscence suspended, or even revoked. The hypocratic oath requires that medical personel presecribe the drug most suited to a given patient's treatment. The laws of the U.S. provide severe penalties for any doctor who deviates from this.

Also, my father started his career as a pharmaceutical salesman. Were such "informal bribes" a common occurence, I am certain I would have heard something about them in the numerous stories he has told of the old days. I'm not saying doctors are above corruption. But pharmaceutical companies could never provide enough compensation to MDs to make such a practice worthwhile. And as I already pointed out, a doctor's prescription can be easily circumvented by purchasing generic alternatives. If a doctor prescribes 800mg Advil, the patient can just purchase 800mg generic Ibuprofen instead. The drug company that produces Advil would never see a dime.