Hi Charles, Well, there is a fundamental problem with the way you are looking at this though. You are treating audio game developers, who are usually one to three man shops, the same way you would treat a huge mainstream company like Microsoft or Sony, and sometimes what you want is not practical or even possible from the developer's point of view. So no I don't believe the customer is always right.
To begin with there is very little money to be made from creating audio games. Only a few thousand at best. As a result most of the audio game developers out here who are making games for the blind probably do so out of some personal enjoyment and personal gratification rather than out of any sense of making a living off of it. Seen from that perspective the developer is much as a user of his/her games as the people who buy it. So his/her opinion holds a lot of weight on what platforms it supports, what features the game has, and so on. It is like a work of art and people should be able to respect it as such. However, because of this opinion that the customer is always right, can never be wrong, they often don't respect the developer's opinions in such matters. So let's use your own example for a moment. Let's say a blind developer has a Droid Phone, knows Java, and writes a cool game for his Google Nexus. Well, it probably won't sell well,since there aren't many blind people using Droid Phones, but if the developer is happy that is all that counts. Customers can request that developer ports it to iOS all they want, but unless the developer owns a Mac, has an iPhone, and knows Objective-C, etc it isn't going to happen. Why should the developer spend all that money just to port the game if he is happy with it the way it is? I see a similar situation happening with this debate over XP verses Windows 8. Now, I believe you use XP so naturally you are in favor of XP support. Well, since I don't use XP and have not done so regularly since 2007 or so I don't really have any personal stake in maintaining XP support in my products. I'll do it for the games I already took preorders for simply because doing so would be really unfair to those customers who paid for said games in good faith, but I can't promise anything else after that. The reason is like the fictional Droid Phone developer I have a newer machine running Windows 8 and I'm happy with it for the most part. If I decide at some point to build my games using SAPI 5.5, XAudio2, and a few other updated libraries that is just tough luck. XP users will have to upgrade or forget it. I'm tired of what people want, and its time I get some personal satisfaction out of my games. As it happens I think a lot of blind customers have been spoiled to a certain point. I have been willing to bend over backwards to do this and that for them, and I don't feel like people really appreciated it. A lot of audio game developers of course use XP, write their games in VB 6, so XP compatability up until now has not been a big issue. However, from where I stand it is a big issue because some things like DirectSound really do not work well on Windows 8, and the only way to fix it is to change libraries. As it happens some of those newer libraries may or may not work well on XP. So in order to maintain XP support I have to do more work maintaining backwards compatibility for those users who won't upgrade to Windows 8. I think as a developer it is my right to decide if it is worth it to do the extra work to support XP or not. At any rate I believe after tomb Hunter and Raceway are finished I really might not continue writing any more commercial games. Its too much of a hassle with too little pay. Were I giving away free games like Jim Kitchen I can write the games I want, for the platform I want, using the libraries I want, and if someone doesn't like it don't download it. No pay no say. Cheers! On 9/11/13, Charles Rivard <[email protected]> wrote: > I would have developers develop for what their customers use. Should it be > > the customer?, or the developer, who determines what will sell? The iPhone > > is still very popular with blind people. Should developers develop for the > > Android if they think the Android is the most current device? If they do, > their goods won't be purchased by users of the iPhone, which are the > majority of their potential customers. Same idea. Potential customers > won't buy software that won't work on XP if they, by their choices that are > > based on available funds and, in some cases, due to a lack of willingness to > > change because what they are using meets their needs. If software only > works with Windows 7 and above, blind people won't buy it, and the developer > > loses due to the fact that he or she feels that the customers should change. > > What ever happened to the adage that "The customer is always right."? It > just makes sense for me, as a developer, to develop what my customers will > be able to use rather than what they will use if they upgrade to the > hardware and software that I think they should. Even if there are good > sound reasons to upgrade, if my customers cannot do so, or if they won't do > > so, I, as a developer, should produce what they can and will buy. > > --- > Shepherds are the best beasts, but Labs are a close second. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
