Is it worth continuing with XNA? Thread

Hi all!

Just a questions regarding XNA. I have been reading about XNA and how Microsoft apparently have said that they will no longer be supporting it, i.e. XNA has had its last update, etc. Also people suggest using MonoDevelop instead but even if you use this, would it really be worth carrying on with XNA, so would you be able to publish games on the xbox marketplace, windows 8 (i've read it wont be working on windows 8 though ...)?

Also what other ways or languages would it be worth learning for someone trying to get into game development, in terms of i suppose more indie based dev iniitally, (so unity or something else maybe, java related, etc)?

Thanks everyone.

(btw if anyone else is interested in doing game dev that have or were going to use XNA, regardless of your work you do, e.g. programmer, artist, etc please feel free to send me a msg or even better still send me a message on skype, my name is jayward_2011.... as it would be grweat and alot more productive to learn or be making games with someone interested in the doing something similar to what i've been talking about.... thanks)

The thing is with monogame you don't have to make that choice. XNA games will run on monogame and vice versa with next to no modification at all.

Cool, thanks for the reply.

So would you say its worth considering carrying on with learning about this framework, etc so i could eventually publish a game for windows and other platforms (i hear that monogame are working on the aility for devs to publish their app/game on other platforms, such as android, iOS, etc).

According to their website you can already deploy to android and iphone. The issue is that you most likely have to get a license for monotouch. That comes at a price (IIRC 200$). There is an open source alternative for publishing c# to android but honestly I think it's worth the money to get a monotouch license.

I wouldnt worry too much about platform independence at this point though. The issues with overall design differences between desktop and mobile outweigh porting issues.

Hmm ... that sounds ok and i suppose there is no way to publish a game without paying a fee.

I am looking more towards unity now and even using LWJGL but im not too sure, i would just want to be able to release a game on a platform or marketplace thats well known, regardless of competition, so at least it may be downloaded or seen.

Thanks

I use unity cause you can switch platforms in a couple clicks, and the editor saves me a lot of time. I grabbed the mobile licenses during a giveaway a year ago. I started with xna I found as a download from a dreamspark site I get access to as a student, then checked out html5 for a while then back to unity when they gave away the mobile licenses.

I dunno how the compression works on the mobiles, I can have an fbx model that's 12+mb on a web build be only a couple(1 - 2.5) mb impact on the build size of the .apk, and it's lovely to have click a couple buttons and be working on a different platform(android to iOS to web browser), and stuff like easy culling and the editor just save a ton of time to spend on gameplay, design or modeling.

They were just having a poll by unity to consider giving the mobile basic licenses for free so that may be in the near future. If they do you should check it out at least. And you can grab free models, textures, etc in their asset store to use in commercial games, free. Plus a wiki sight and great documentation.

Sounds awesome! Thanks for the message shindig .

Yea atm i think i will just learn unity and when it comes to publishing, i will then think about what platforms but it's definately great to know about freebies are or were available. I think i may consider publishing to the mobile platforms, however that depends on how things are going at the time, i.e. if there are free licences available, demand levels, etc.

Thanks very much everyone for the replies so far!

Oh.... also btw im going to be using a book to learn unity called 'Unity 3.x game development essentials'. I don't know if there are any other books that people recommend but i may also look on websites to learn other stuff .

Raxta, I've heard some of the books are shitty. I'd get a C# book or something generalized that will help you as a programmer.

For a rundown of learning Unity, here's what I'd do:
1) Download sample games released by Unity Technologies that are in line with your interests. There's a racing one, a FPS one, and others. The FPS one gives you the basics of a mob spawner, shooting projectiles, damage and health, etc. You're allowed to use the models and scripts, you can even make a build of the demo and upload it to the app stores, lol

2) Scout out and download all the free resources in their asset store. There are free animated skeletons, npcs, etc and other models, textures, shaders, scipts etc

3) Check out the burgzerg's hacknslash rpg tutorials: Burgzergarcade.com

4) Don't start with a multiplayer game unless you're very experienced, you'll burn a lot of time and likely become frustrated. Walk before running

If you break down the elements of your game, you can likely find an example of how to do it in the docs, they have good documentation and if you get stuck the forum is active.

If you have any questions feel free to pm me. I could talk about games forever

Edited by: shindig