http://gojko.net/2006/09/29/joys-and-perils-of-mass-market-java-games
Pretty much covers it well.
I got this link from the Java.net front page.
Funny, since it explains THE major issue with make a Java game. I hope the JDK peeps read it!
Have you had problems with deployment & Java Web Start too?
I have read that Mustang mostly fixes the problems & has simplified the dialog presented to the user.
http://java.sys-con.com/read/260074.htm:
[quote]One of the big, possibly only, reasons why users today must suffer the poor usability of “dumb” browsers is because distributing and maintaining proper client apps is difficult. HTML makes this ridiculously easy and is a good engineering solution, but one that offers very poor end usability. JWS was always the promised savior to allow desktop distribution over HTTP but never really lived up to its expectations in previous releases. With the Mustang work now it looks very, very good, though with many of the dialogs simplified; better looking; and it seems like it’s finally going to allow first class, easy and polished large-scale distribution of Java clients to help rejuvenate Java on the desktop
[/quote]
Mustang should be released to the public this January.
Keith
That still assumes the user has that version, I suspect there are alot of home users still runing 1.4, because something at some point, downloaded it for them. They didn’t know what Java was or is, they just know that such and such a website installed something. It’s that activex component again. Which only works on windows.
I suspect, that most linux users, know how to download and install a JVM, so i’m not too worried about them, most linux users are computer literate. Those casino type games are not aimed at specifcally at computer literate people, they don’t know about this Java thing, they don’t care, why should they either?.
On a normal page, if I go click on a JNLP without java, i’ll either get some xml stream, or a ‘I don’t know what this is, would you like to save this’ dialog I suspect. With flash, I seem to recall a ‘click here to install flash’ being present on pages where it was missing. That is what we need for java.
Endolf