Torque for the iPhone Licensing

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James   (Aug 21, 2008 at 00:30 GMT)

MIght want to rethink the iTGE icon as it looks like a guy doing laundry or something :)
The problem is the silhouette is very confused.

Congrats on the release!

Jeremiah Fulbright   (Aug 21, 2008 at 00:36 GMT)

"We're nearing the level of documentation and ease of use where I think we'll be comfortable opening this up full bore at Indie prices soon, but for now, this is for pros / experts only. We want to ensure only those who won't be frustrated by commercial grade tools will be working with it at this stage"


So you're saying that when its available for the "Indies", that it won't be commercial grade? Because I think it would be the other way around, commercial grade being tools that are polished versus indie tools which may look like a turd and break sometimes, but still be functional...

It is also a little bit offensive to be called "non-pro/expert", just because we don't have a Commercial license... I'm sure there are more professionals/experts who have Indie licenses than Commercial licenses.

Craig Fortune   (Aug 21, 2008 at 01:04 GMT)

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$500 for the iTGE SDK and right to publish 1 title. $100 per title thereafter. No royalties, ever.

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I like. Well done ;)

edit: added quote tags
Edited on Aug 21, 2008 01:06 GMT

Guimo   (Aug 21, 2008 at 01:13 GMT)

This is great news.
So, if anybody considers this price too high or are just afraid you will end with an untransferable unusable engine license, just code your game for the appropiate resolution (i.e. 480x320) using TGE/TGB in your PC and when you have your game completely polished and ready to distribute, buy your iTorque license and go for it (in other words and to put it bluntly, put our money where your mouth is).
Its a wonderful scheme. Personally I would consider lowering the indie entry price as the indie will still have to buy an iPhone for testing and pay the annual Apple SDK, but this is completely affordable anyway.

Luck!
Guimo

Orion Elenzil   (Aug 21, 2008 at 01:14 GMT)

> Because I think it would be the other way around, commercial grade being tools that are polished versus indie tools which may look like a turd and break sometimes, but still be functional...

i think the point he's making is that, in fact, SDKs for hobbyists actually need to be *more* polished than those intended for commercial users. which makes sense. a commercial user is someone who's got the time to spend really understanding something and coming to grips w/ any rough spots it may have, while a hobbyist just doesn't have that sort of time, and so needs a more polished SDK.

Brett Seyler   (Aug 21, 2008 at 01:29 GMT)

Orion's exactly right. I know it doesn't seem to make sense on the face of it, but that's the way it works. Less experience = more polish / more testing / more work.

Josh Engebretson   (Aug 21, 2008 at 01:32 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Brett: Awesome :) That looks great!

@Orion: That's exactly right... a *lot* of work goes into making our tech as indie friendly as possible... commercial studios (that make over $250,000 year annual income) are generally used to much rougher edges... especially on emerging platforms. There isn't any slight intended and as with everything there are exceptions.

Rubes   (Aug 21, 2008 at 03:46 GMT)

Well done. I think it's great you solicited opinions from the community and really took that to heart. I doubt my project would run on that system, but it sure would be cool to try.

James Griggs   (Aug 21, 2008 at 04:06 GMT)

Well done sirs! Thanks for listening. Is the commercial license available right now?

Jeremy Alessi   (Aug 21, 2008 at 04:40 GMT)

The term "indie" used to mean something here at Garage Games ...

Anyway, great news about the tech.
Edited on Aug 21, 2008 04:41 GMT

Jake T   (Aug 21, 2008 at 04:47 GMT)

Brett - great work. It makes it afforadble for us, and we'll definitely be getting the indie version when it comes out. Hopefully we'll have our game prepped by then. Thank you yet again.

Rob Sandbach   (Aug 21, 2008 at 08:13 GMT)

Unbelievably cool news! Where do I sign!?

Nicolas Buquet   (Aug 21, 2008 at 09:02 GMT)

I think it's a well balanced pricing scheme. Thanks for listening GG.

I don't stop reading that you need to buy an iPhone to work with iTGE. But it seems to me that you can buy an iPod Touch to test on it (it's just an iPhone without phone and GPS).

When your product is near completion, you can buy your iPhone and the right to distribute via the appStore to be sure iPod Touch and iPhone's owners can get and enjoy your product.

Nicolas Buquet
www.buquet-net.com/cv/

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 21, 2008 at 09:15 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Interesting, although I think the price seems a little apple'ish akin to the apple hardware etc in that (although not un-affordable) it's expensive itself.

Quote:

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It is also a little bit offensive to be called "non-pro/expert", just because we don't have a Commercial license... I'm sure there are more professionals/experts who have Indie licenses than Commercial licenses.

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Yeah, I thought the statement/excuse read a little like that too, I'm sure theres a few peeps without a 250k turnover that can handle the product in it's current state.

Considering both of the above, it makes the whole "amateur hobbyist developers" statement seem somewhat irrelevant as the price to entry is pretty high for a average hobbyist in my opinion. Seems more expensive then the xbox live com option.

Nonetheless, having the opportunity is respected / welcomed despite my concerns :)
Edited on Aug 21, 2008 14:15 GMT

Jacobin   (Aug 21, 2008 at 10:17 GMT)

Unity3D is a far better option for indies wanting their games on the iPhone than Torque.

Marc Schaerer   (Aug 21, 2008 at 13:23 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

Not sure on that Jacobin
Unity Pro on its own is already $1500 and the iPhone Support is an addon to that, at least it seems so.
The rest of the licensing is not even known (royality, per title fee, ...)

We are currently evaluating both.
The main benefit we would see in unity is the possibility to deploy to standalone + iPhone + web. The later would be a nice extension to the concept as it extends the "its with you, whereever you are" factor.
But its not elemental and if it was we could do it with Torque as well from what we have researched so far.
The main benefit of the torque side is that you have access to the source (don't know about iTorque but for sure its base technology) which gives the possibility to integrate 3rd party libraries like Medialytics which is something I seriously want to include if possible.

Ian Omroth Hardingham   (Aug 21, 2008 at 13:23 GMT)

Er... have you seen how much crap GG gets every day for the state of it's (in my opinion, high quality and polished) existing engines? Do I understand their desire not to have a thousand idiot kids who've never coded a game before asking for their money back?

Yes, I do. This is being responsible, not being patronising.

Dale Cannon   (Aug 21, 2008 at 15:21 GMT)

Well done GG. I like these licensing models all though I think you could have gotten away with a lower annual turnover of say $50k.
Anyway not sure if this has been asked, but what if you release a game/app for free? Do you still have to pay a per title fee?

Raphael Salgado   (Aug 21, 2008 at 16:15 GMT)

You're welcome, Brett! Just don't forget the TM symbol and put my name right alongside "GarageGames."

Excellent pricing models, I'll be sure to grab one very shortly and get to work!

eb   (Aug 21, 2008 at 16:22 GMT)

Cheers Brett.

James Griggs   (Aug 21, 2008 at 17:02 GMT)

Is the Commercial license available right now? (as in not in a few weeks, etc.)

And does this mean if you only have an indy license you must first purchase regular commercial license then the iPhone license? For example TGB $495 + iPhone License $1000 = $1495

Again, good job and thanks for listening. No royalties is great!

Jacobin   (Aug 21, 2008 at 17:13 GMT)

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nity Pro on its own is already $1500 and the iPhone Support is an addon to that, at least it seems so.
The rest of the licensing is not even known (royality, per title fee, ...)

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Considering that unity pro allows one button cross-platform deployment, a ginormous amount of features along with things that torque is horribly missing such as a real physics engine, it's well worth the $1500. However you can do a lot with indie on it's own. With indie however you're restricted to platform independent web publishing (similar to instant action) or mac only standalone.

Unity also is very generous in terms of it licensing. I doubt there will be any surprises.

Quote:

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We are currently evaluating both.
The main benefit we would see in unity is the possibility to deploy to standalone + iPhone + web. The later would be a nice extension to the concept as it extends the "its with you, whereever you are" factor.

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Give the unity pro trial a spin. You'll be amazed at how seamless it is, how it just works.

Quote:

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The main benefit of the torque side is that you have access to the source (don't know about iTorque but for sure its base technology) which gives the possibility to integrate 3rd party libraries like Medialytics which is something I seriously want to include if possible.

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I wouldn't call access to the source of torque a benefit, if you've actually worked with it. It's a bloated piece of obfuscated spaghetti code written for a 10 year old fps. Unity is a true game engine, torque is a game. It's much easier to start with something you don't have to butcher and rip apart before you can even begin. When you get deep into the bowels of torque's source and find these uncommented functions with one letter variable names you just scratch your head and say, "well I got what I paid for." Torque-2 is supposed to fix all that, but yeah I lost all faith in GG once TGEA was declared 'finished' and we didn't hear a peep for a year. Not going to hold my breath.

In terms of your external library, there is a C++ plugin interface to Unity but you do need pro for that. So $1500 year, but just like torque's $99 you really get what you paid for.

There is also the iphone emulator that comes with the apple SDK. So unity will be 1-button and you're testing your app on a virtual iphone machine. Will make small iterative steps quite easy to test. Those little things will be a PITA when developing on torque, having to push your app back to an iphone/ipod for testing a simple change to a font positioning say.

Brett Seyler   (Aug 21, 2008 at 18:09 GMT)

@James:

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Is the Commercial license available right now? (as in not in a few weeks, etc.)

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Yes.

Quote:

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And does this mean if you only have an indy license you must first purchase regular commercial license then the iPhone license? For example TGB $495 + iPhone License $1000 = $1495

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Yes. But if you wait for us to finish it for the Indie license, there's no need. I don't expect it will be long.

@Jacobin: Would you like a refund? It would be worth it to me (and likely many other who read gg.com blogs) to not have you spewing unhelpful crap about Torque here. Sorry you feel burnt, but it sounds like you haven't been paying attention. Torque *does* have an abstracted physics layer and you *can* use PhysX or any other 3rd party solution you wish. In addition, ask most developers about having access to source code and they'll tell you it's essential. Not having it can create enormous headaches and cause you slip weeks or even months in a project. Hundreds of developers have used Torque to actually ship games. Unity tools are great, but there do seem to a few Unity users who post on GG only to bitch. Ship your game. See how kind people are to a product you create. It might change your perspective some.

@everyone else: Thanks for the comments guys. I'm glad most of you are happy with the model. That's what I was shooting for. Now it's on all of us to make some kickass games for the iPhone!

Love Dahlgren   (Aug 21, 2008 at 18:21 GMT)

I really like the iTGB icon. Now I need to learn TGB better and wait for the indie license. Thanks!

Marc Schaerer   (Aug 21, 2008 at 19:41 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

Jacobin: Both technologies have their pro and con, I own TGB, TGE and TGEA as well as Unity Indie (and had a Unity Pro Trial on Unity 2.0.2)

You are right that TGE and TGEA have pretty FPS centric engine design.
But for my purpose this isn't that counter productive. Not that it will be an FPS or even near. But some of the stuff needed for are very common in FPS especially.


As for the physics part: Unity is clearly not in the position to claim itself to be better.
Yes it has PhysX implement. No, its not even half of what physx can do and I've not the least bit of an idea of how old the version is.
Clearly no PhysX 8.x for sure.
So its not that much better.

My benefit: I don't need and want real physics. Its not needed. What I need are mainly ray cast against other objects and the terrain as well as projectors (where Unity clearly misses it pretty badly)

Both are great in their own aspects, for what I need both have more or less whats asked for. Unity has the 1 click deploy, TGB / TGE have the deploy to windows and osx without paying $1300 extra for it.
I've as well more experience with Torque (started with TGB EA 0.7 or the like. TGB Source is a great start to learn torque technology or has at least been back then, now its more complex as well, went then to TGE and over to TGEA and back to TGE) than with Unity.

Flexibility wise, Torque is the winner.
Simplicity wise and streamlined pipeline and workflow, unity wins.
Beeing able to develop on my main dev machine: unity gets 0 of X points due to beeing OSX only, clear winner is Torque as my main dev is Vista64, 8GB RAM, 8800GTS 640MB SuperClocked, 4 Disk RAID5 (cost me $2500, comparable mac machines don't exist, Apple does not see the need for acceptable performant graphics solution in their overpriced towers, only trash and massively over the top superscale CAD)

Thats why I have to carefully evaluate. I don't want to redo the stuff again so I implement the basics, check how much extra work I've to put in to work around issues, how simple it is to reach my desired targets etc.
Edited on Aug 21, 2008 20:16 GMT

Scott Warren   (Aug 21, 2008 at 20:58 GMT)

@Brett simply put.. Thank you. =)

Greg Tedder   (Aug 21, 2008 at 21:11 GMT)

These prices are great news. Appreciate it.

Ross Pawley   (Aug 22, 2008 at 01:34 GMT)

@Brett, awesome plan you guys laid out there :)

@Jacobin, I speak from experience, PhysX is pretty useless without the source to your engine. Also a hearty dose of the LULZ to the rest of your post.

Will Zettler   (Aug 22, 2008 at 02:35 GMT)

Great news guys, congrats. Me being a sound and Ambient designer of music and more spacey tunes, what, if anything, will my new Ambient sounds have to consider now? memory? and does this mean iTGE will support the general ogg format as usual too? Just wondering if I would have to adjust my packs to make iAmbient packs on a smaller scale or something as usual run times on my sounds run about 1 minute to 3 minutes each and that could really hurt someone using my sound packs on this platform. Would love the specs about it so I know how to plan around this prob if it's really one to begin with... I figure just use smaller files when releasing to the target platform... <?> Thanks for any info...

Will

Kevin Keathley   (Aug 22, 2008 at 04:05 GMT)

I noticed that this is (unless I missed something) the first GG Engine Indie License that is going to be costing on a per-title basis. Also, it seems odd that the Indie upgrades (assuming you already own the Indie appropriate license) are more expensive than the underlying engine license itself. I think i'm missing part of the picture.

Assuming we're an iPhone Developer (access to the store/sdk through apple, which I'm guessing is required), what is making the upgrades (Indie-wise) more expensive? I'm guessing I'm just clueless about possible licensing issues that GG has to deal with when providing Apple SDK tools? Maybe it's that much work that had to be done to the engine to make it iPhone compatible (more work than the original engines required cost-wise with the cost difference)? I'm hoping its not purely related to the popularity of the apple store (maybe being seen as a cash cow to milk), as that would make me think that may be the future of products such as TorqueX as well if the community games turns out to be a hit.

Also, Indie-wise, why the move to a per-title fee as opposed to previous one-time fees? Again, is it due to licensing requirements from Apple? Don't get me wrong, it sounds pretty good that this is being released. I am just querying for some insight into this change and hoping that it isn't a possible sign of changes coming to the other engines or in any way just a cash cow for other projects (such as in-house games or InstantAction as opposed to further dev on the engines)?

I've been pretty happy with GarageGames so far and even this seems pretty cool. I'm just curious (plus the RTS kit messages - and clarification - got me worried the engine area would become a cash cow for inhouse projects and games).

The cost of getting TGE/TGB plus the 500 dollars for the first title (on top of Apple's 99 dollar fee) seems to be pushing the Indie starting requirements up some.

Anyways, good job on stuff and remember, I'm just throwing stuff out to get a better idea of the way things are working and any insight into the future. As far as the Unity3D comments go, until they make a Windows client (without requiring me to build a hackintosh or buy a mac), it doesn't matter to me that it's cross-platform. I've got bills to pay and do this stuff as a hobby (which I'm sure many on the apple store and xna community do as well - nothing wrong with making 99 cents or two for your hobby) so Unity3D is out of the question for me (well for now anywhow).

EDIT: As an after-thought I just released that free games are going to cost money for each project. Is there going to be an option for games that are released for free on the apple store (there are quite a few free apps on the store from hobbyists like us already)? Everyone already understands even releasing free stuff with XNA or any Torque/Unity/Neo engine is going to cost a small fee, but we usually consider that fee to be the price of having a fun hobby, like buying miniatures or books or something :-) Is it safe to say that releasing free games on the apple app store is going to cost 100 bucks a pop after the initial setup fee? Again, i'm just curious, or prehaps maybe this may spur some thought on the subject, which is always good :-)

ANOTHER EDIT: I had a complete brainfart. Forget the whole crap about not having a MAC. I don't know what I was thinking, as you can't develop anything without a mac in the first place, torque or otherwise for the phone.. brainfart :-) The mac mini would be a good choice except I've read on various forms that the bottleneck is the integrated gfx on those systems. The other stuff is valid food for thought though. Having realized that, I'm guessing it's easy pickens as people with a Mac will be willing to pay more :-)
Edited on Aug 22, 2008 04:19 GMT

Eyal Erez   (Aug 22, 2008 at 18:26 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Great plan Brett,
I like the $100 per game. this will allow us to put experimental games out there without the financial risk.
A true indie experience minus the pain of developing your own engine.

Andy Hawkins   (Aug 22, 2008 at 23:16 GMT)

Woah that's expensive. So because it's a lot for an indie license will there be a ticketed support system? Or are we relying on the community and not the company to support issues? I was told there was no direct ticketting system for the other products, TGB, TGEA etc because the revenue was so low. These new prices seems to warrant a better form of support.

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 23, 2008 at 03:30 GMT)

I'd be happy with these prices. If I had a passable product that sells well, the $500 wouldn't be too much money. No royalties is great. So if I understand this right, I just rework my graphics for the iPhone resolutions and switch controls to touch input, then the rest of the scripts remain the same?

As for development costs, you shouldn't need to buy the Apple subscription (300 bucks to be able to sell a product) just to test on your own device. An iPod Touch is also 100% compatible in the graphics/sound/input features, but lacking fancy things like networking. There's no need to own an actual iPhone to develop for it, unless the developers I've talked to are full of lies :)

Marc Schaerer   (Aug 23, 2008 at 12:09 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

The iPod touch has networking, where does this massive amount of missinformation on the iPhone come from?

The iPod touch only lacks 3 things: Phone related stuff (3g, edge etc + proximity sensor, vibra alarm), Camera, Microphone

all the rest is present, including 802.11g networking

Also you don't need the $299 subscription to sell applications. You only need the $99
$299 is for in-house distribution if you do development of applications for your business for example. Then the other company members don't have to buy it but can download it for free.
Edited on Aug 24, 2008 17:57 GMT

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 23, 2008 at 13:21 GMT)

Ah, I must have read Apple's pages wrong. That IS really easy, though ;)

Raphael Salgado   (Aug 23, 2008 at 14:10 GMT)

The iPod touch also lacks the vibrating feature. I know I'm going to want to use that feature in my games.

Kevin Keathley   (Aug 23, 2008 at 17:09 GMT)

Quote:

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I like the $100 per game. this will allow us to put experimental games out there without the financial risk.
A true indie experience minus the pain of developing your own engine.

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I would think the TGB/TorqueX/TGE and even TGEA would be the indie experience to base it on (low upfront cost for the engine, nothing per game, no royalties).?? I agree that the apple product here is really useful for indies and doesn't cost a fortune, but I wouldn't go so far as saying its a true indie experience when we're at the home of TGE/TGB :-) - again, unless they are going to a similar pricing model in the future.

EDIT: TorqueX would probably be the closest to something for the iPhone since you would probably want the 99 dollar Microsoft Creator's Club subscription.
Edited on Aug 23, 2008 17:10 GMT

Mike Rowley   (Aug 23, 2008 at 22:09 GMT)

Brett,
I am shocked that no one has given you the seal of awesomeness. All throughout the thread in the forum you started, people blasted, thru grenades, and made suggestions, and you, somehow, thru it all kept your head and even pulled out the information you were looking for. I just want to say that you are one of the greatest employees GG and IAC could ask for. Thankyou.

Deborah Marshall   (Aug 24, 2008 at 04:18 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Stamped and delivered:



I'd also encourage a Photoshop war, but I really can't afford to lose my job right now.
Edited on Sep 10, 2008 22:13 GMT

Mike Rowley   (Aug 24, 2008 at 20:23 GMT)

I'm eather going to have to steal that image, or ask for it. :-D It's awesome in itself.

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I'd also encourage a Photoshop war,

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hehe, cruel...funny tho. :-D I'd give up an image to "the cause" but I'm no good at photoshop.

Dale Best   (Aug 25, 2008 at 16:04 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

This is great news!

I cant wait to start playing around with this. Hand held console development for everybody!

Interesting article, a couple of weeks old, but definitely worth the read:

www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=212436


Nice :-)

James Griggs   (Aug 26, 2008 at 18:34 GMT)

Is there any word yet on the indy license?

Raphael Salgado   (Aug 27, 2008 at 10:10 GMT)

I've emailed them twice before the licensing prices were announced, and once more as soon as this posted.

I haven't heard one peep from them yet. Would be nice for a response by now. I've already started working with the TGB timed demo to lay out my game, and already have the payment for the Indie license on standby... hint hint.

Brett Seyler   (Aug 27, 2008 at 18:08 GMT)

Thanks for your patience thus far guys. We've got PAX this weekend, so I'm pretty swamped getting ready for that, but I'm trying to get ecommerce for the options outlined in this blog up on the site ASAP. The Indie licenses will be available for pre-order if you're so inclined. More details on the page once it's updated.

That should relieve the absolute mountain of emails in my inbox for lots of you =) As a general heads up, TGB is further along than TGE. Both compile and render without errors on the device, but we haven't gotten to deep into optimization territory yet, so framerates for our standard demos like Behavior Shooter on TGB or starter.racing on TGE are not fast. However, with the graphics work done, the inputs mapped, and the other basics finished or nearly so, we're already seeing lots of cool stuff. From here we'll be focused on optimizations to get that stock framerate up and documentation. There are lots of ways to speed things up, mostly optimizing Torquescript for embedded devices, so in not too long, you should see TGE or TGB games coming over with only resizing the assets and running at good framerates.

Britton LaRoche   (Aug 27, 2008 at 19:02 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Show me the money!

Ah, yes. And now it begins! Here is what we'd all like to know. What are the sales like on the iPhone for video games? Answer: Top selling crossword puzzle game earns the developer who wrote it $2,000.00 a day.

Wow. Like, awesome! Gimme a piece o that!

Feast your eyes on the sales numbers, me buckos...
www.taptaptap.com/blog/final-numbers-for-july/
9to5mac.com/iphone-apps-developers-rich

I dont know about you guys, but $2,000 a day would really help me pay the bills. Gas would be cheap by comparison to what I earn now.
Edited on Aug 27, 2008 19:07 GMT

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 27, 2008 at 20:35 GMT)

I'm not greedy. I'd settle for $500 a day :)

It's encouraging to see even a niche app can make some decent money.

Ross Pawley   (Aug 27, 2008 at 20:39 GMT)

@Britton, I think the more interesting question is, what do the less popular crossword puzzlers make per day? $0? :P

Britton LaRoche   (Aug 28, 2008 at 05:13 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Ross, no they lose big money... atleast $100.00 dollars or more for the iPhone sdk purchased from apple. Plus all the time they spent developing the game. The TGB cuts the development time way down...

To be honest I think we indies are looking at a total investment of $600.00 and some personal time with the TGB. The downside you dont sell anything, and lose 600 bucks. The upside is $2,000 a day. Even if its just one month its $60k. As Thomas Buscaglia says "that's a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye."

I wonder what the life span of the game sales would be. From what I've read retail is about 90 days.... . After 90 days in Retail Stores its a sharp decline. Online sales last a lot longer. (the Gararge Games model is much better than retail) The real question is what is the "shelf life" of a game on the iPhone? If this lasts a whole year Eliza will make about 720k off her crossword puzzle.
Edited on Aug 28, 2008 07:01 GMT

Ross Pawley   (Aug 28, 2008 at 17:05 GMT)

@Britton, well, $600 is a little low. You didn't factor in an iPhone (or iPod Touch), a Mac, the Apple fees...etc.

I seriously doubt she'll be making the $2k/day for a whole year...it will probably ramp way down to next to nothing inside a month or two....

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 28, 2008 at 17:13 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

You need a mac as well? Even via tgb/tge? :-O

Eyal Erez   (Aug 28, 2008 at 17:27 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

In the pc casual space (online portals) a top game (top 1-3 on the list) stays in the top 10 list for an avarage of 30 days. This is offcourse a very gross estimate, some games (very few) seats in the top 10 for 6 months or more. As soon as you are leaving the top 10 list it's "game over". Not sure how it works in the appStore since they have top 50 but I can't imagine it's much different. You either make it or you make another game. Preferebly both.
BTW Should we take this discussion to another post? I feel like we are all standing in line outside the GGStore waiting for new iTorque to come out :)

Ross Pawley   (Aug 28, 2008 at 17:57 GMT)

@Leroy, well you need one to use the Apple SDK, from what I understand (the simulator and what have you).
Edited on Aug 28, 2008 17:58 GMT

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 28, 2008 at 18:31 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Ross: Thanks for the feedback. Is a mac needed even when developing via iTorque? Or can it be done on windows and/optionally a iPhone/iPod Touch?

David Montgomery-Blake   (Aug 28, 2008 at 18:52 GMT)

Not sure how exporting projects works, but it is safe to assume for now that it requires both the Apple SDK (to allow publishing in the store) and a Mac. There are some industrious people who have been jumping through hoops to getting the SDK to compile on Windows, but I'm not sure I would go that route unless you are already a whiz at makefiles, cross-compiling, etc. Somehwhat similar to many of the convoluted processes for creating homebrew console titles...but actually using the official SDK. I haven't seen anything on using the iPhone emulator on anything but a Mac, though. Others may have.

But until we hear more, it would be safest to assume Mac + iPhone SDK, Objective-C and an iPhone/iPod Touch.

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 28, 2008 at 19:00 GMT)

There is a possible bright light at the end of the tunnel (or it could be a dragon): Apple have already ported Cocoa and other components to get Safari over to Windows, and XCode is very modular already, plus porting the ARM variant of GCC isn't an impossible task for their programmers.

Wishful thinking, probably, but it could happen. They'll sell more hardware if they do the port.

Marc Schaerer   (Aug 28, 2008 at 20:15 GMT)   Resource Rating: 4

And lose more Apple system sells (which is their main income beside itunes store).
Stop dreaming, get an iBook or iMac

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 28, 2008 at 20:18 GMT)

Already got one :)
(No beret, though)

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 29, 2008 at 01:43 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Thanks for clearing that up for me guys, I didn't realise you needed a mac too, although I should of, apple is a smart bunch of apples after all, boy they must be getting some serious increase in mac sells with the introduction of this sdk and off the back of the success of iPhone/iPod and the app store. You can't really knock their business acumen ;)

James Griggs   (Aug 29, 2008 at 02:09 GMT)

Remember you don't have to get a NEW mac there are really good deals on refurbished, old model macs that are only a generation old. Some as much as half off, and would work fine. Also the Mac mini is only $599 and is plenty of power for developing for iPhone.

Britton LaRoche   (Aug 29, 2008 at 05:52 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Roney, Marc, Leroy, James and Ross, I think you do have to have a mac. I have heard "rumors" of an iPhone emulator for windows. But the straight skinny from apple seems to indicate that... yeah you need a mac.

developer.apple.com/iphone/program/
developer.apple.com/iphone/

Now I will mention... this is for the pure iphone sdk. Who knows what the genius minds that produced the iTorque sdk have come up with. In my dreams, I build my simple mouse trap game on windows (with the TGB) then I plug in my iPhone to my pc, run the iTorque sdk compiler and install the game on my iPhone.

But, this is just in my dreams. I'm not sure how close to reality my vision is. I guess I do have to figure in the $200 for the iPhone. (I already bought one) But if my dream is correct then the total cost for entry (sans mac) is $800 for the indie.

Almost forgot (in my dream) the iTorque compiler runs on windows but produces an output file that iTunes or the Appstore can use to install the game on my iPhone.

So (in my dreams) with the iTorque SDK you can take anything you develop on windows and port it direct to the iPhone with no mac involved.

Since I'm dreaming... I'll go ahead and share the dream... my mouse trap game is a top seller. You can play online with your friends, they try to get your cheese. Its a super hit and I check the sales figures and I'm making $3,000 a day. Its so cool that everyone has to have it. The words "super cheese" is on everyone's lips. I make add ons where people can share their mouse traps. I host world tournaments and every add on sells for $2,000 a day. After 5 add ons I'm making 10,000 a day, and thats before its goes to the European market. Sales snow ball and before the year is up I've made 2 million dollars. I quit my day job, and start game programming full time. I hire a staff, and buy a new dodge viper... then well .... then I wake up .... its just a dream.... or is it?

I'd really like to see how the iTorque sdk works with the TGB. Its perfectly feasible that this is where torque triumphs over the apple sdk. It might just be true that with TGB and iTorque its now possible develop games on windows for the iPhone.

.
Edited on Aug 29, 2008 06:13 GMT

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 29, 2008 at 10:44 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@James: true :)
@Britton: Nice dream (on both counts), would be a sweet reality, but like Marc said, it seems unlikely, this is apple were talking about after all, and I'm sure they want more mac sells/adoption :-P

I still think apple should bite the bullet and add a right-click button on their mice, all this control click stuff is long (although I've heard you can buy a mac compatible mouse that does that right?) :)

Ronny Bangsund   (Aug 29, 2008 at 13:06 GMT)

Macs can use any USB mouse. I've never once in my life control-clicked! No worries there :)

The iPod range is Apple's main income, or so I've read on the Internet (source of most lies, but also a little truth). They did stoop to releasing iTunes on Windows, so you never know what they might do next. I hear it even forces Safari on Windows users now.

If there is one app which sells a Mac, though, for me it's really Scrivener. For the rest of you, this iTorque family of products could at least be a reason to buy a Mac Mini. Wait a little, though, as both the Mini and the Macbook range are due for an upgrade anytime soon.

Leroy Frederick   (Aug 29, 2008 at 13:54 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Cool, thanks for the tip too :)

James Griggs   (Aug 29, 2008 at 15:19 GMT)

I have a mac book pro, iTouch, iPhone, and am already an authorized iPhone Apps Store Developer. :)

You have to use the sdk to "sign" your application before posting to the App Store.
Edited on Aug 29, 2008 15:21 GMT

Ed   (Aug 31, 2008 at 18:28 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Leroy, they're not only getting lots of Mac sales but also a lot of Leopard sales. Greedy bastards, I was forced to upgrade because you cannot install the SDK on anything below it. Been making progress on my engine until I saw this, now I'm dumping my engine like a slut and polishing my game design :). I Can't wait for Sep. 31, I hope they won't get delayed.

Also why are you guys worried about how much more money you can make? C'mon where's the passion in making games? Just don't quit your day job (yet) and churn out awesome simple but fun titles for new audiences.
Edited on Aug 31, 2008 19:12 GMT

Leroy Frederick   (Sep 01, 2008 at 10:49 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Edrian: Ah, I didn't realise that either, sucks about you having to dump your engine though. So not only do they sell more macs but they keep old users current, boy these guys don't miss a trick. I don't think theres really anything in vista (other then directx 10) thats a necessity to be able to use any software/sdk (yet).

Anyhow, thanks all for bringing me up to speed on some aspects/facts of the world of mac dev, it's been very useful information. I feel all the more positive about it in future just to know I can have a 2+ button mouse (all the tutorials videos I've watch always say control click for mac, so I assumed it wasn't normal/possible to have right-click without using control key) Thanks again :)

Ed   (Sep 01, 2008 at 16:32 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

@Leroy, the engine that I have is in its early stages (2 weeks of part-time dev) so it's not really a big loss, Torque will save me a lot of time to focus on the essentials especially in the long run. Regarding on the mac mouse control+click, it's either they are die hard mac fanboys or severely uninformed, because by default secondary button (right click) is off, you gotta go to system preferences > keyboard and mouse to enable it.
Edited on Sep 01, 2008 16:35 GMT

Leroy Frederick   (Sep 02, 2008 at 00:42 GMT)   Resource Rating: 5

Glad to hear it :). Thanks for the information too, seems sensible to have right-click as an option by default without having to buy an another mouse!

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