You all better listen to Richard, for he speaks the truth.

And you didn't?

I never said it was simple. I just pointed out what I see as being the problem.

I'd like to say that people that don't finish games have simply not chosen to do so. Being lazy is apparently an activity which they think is a more valuable use of their time, including me. There are of course those who do other things than being lazy, and we cannot blame them for not wanting to make games badly enough.

Of the people that do finish games I'm sure some will evolve into great programmers. They have the ability to finish projects which is a talent in itself and a great motivation to keep working. If you keep finishing game after game you will develop the skills to make better games.

I think all the bad games in the depot are like the drawings of children, because the depot is like a playground of publishing. This is where people begin. Most will probably grow out of game-making and live ordinary lives, but some will keep on trying and eventually become the shining stars of the next generation of developers.

All good developers started as newbies, and allegro.cc is a playground for new generations.

A guy I work with made the same Wii > PS3 arguments back when they were released. He bought a Wii and loved it. About 3 months afterward he got tired of the Wiimote and sold everything for $300 (he also bought an extra controller, a ton of games, and maybe other peripherals... In other words, he lost money). I think he wants a PS3 now.

In response to the lazy arguments, I'm not really a lazy person. The reason I don't get projects far is because I'm not at all motivated to do art or sound. When I start trying to make stand-in media to use in place of real art/sound I quickly get discouraged (perfectionism doesn't allow for stand-ins) and move on to other things. I'm in need to a well balanced team.

I'd be playing basketball everyday if there wasn't a tent trailer on my basketball court...

Some indie games are fun, but they'll never really stand beside games like the Grand Theft Auto series, Driver series, Final Fantasy series, US Navy Seals series, or Half-Life "trilogy". Not until a lot of people spend a lot of time making one, which is unlikely with no budget.

The points made about lack of skill / motivation / dedication / commitment etc. have alredy been made so I won't repeat them.

Allegro when compared to other contemporary game-libraries has two main strengths

• It's easy to use and is therefore attractive to beginners.

• It's one of the few recently-maintained game-libraries that runs well on old hardware.

The first point means it attracts the sort of people who lack the things mentioned above.

When faced with a skills problem and lack of a source of quality assets (gfx and sound), the obvious solution is to lower the production values of the game. In order to compensate for lower production values, the developpers may try and lower the minimum hardware-spec for their game to run on. This ends up with the games being given a more 'retro' feel to them. Allegro works well on old hardware, but even so, the programmers must then do extra work in optimising their code to run at a decent speed.

Retro games can be both good and bad, but some people are only interested in modern games so will end up thinking that all retro games are awful regardless of how good they are to retro-game fans.

Although the majority of programmers here are doing it as a hobby and lack the commitment to not just finish their game but to polish it as well, a small number of us do end up working in the games-industry. But even those programmers who made it were themselves beginners at one stage, and among the sea of awful projects are some that are the first steps in the direction of a career as a professional game-programmer. Professional programmers may get paid for writing games full time, but hobbyists do it because they luv it!!!

And yes, there really are some great games made with Allegro.

AE.

To be clear, and I wish I had gotten back earlier so there would be so many post between this post and the ones I'm refering to, I wasn't say piccolo's game is bad, just that it didn't have "everything".

And the reason I never finish games is because I think of something cooler and better partway into a project and start all over. I'm also really lazy.

This can be generalized to everything under the sun (as opposed to indie games, or even games in general). However, the usual ratio is 90%.

George W. Bush sucks (he watches too much TV, and gets ideas).

Capitalism sucks (Under capitalism, man exploits man, under communism it's exactly the opposite).

Hoover vacuums suck. I'll stop now.

I see someone's figured out Sturgeon's law.

What if you do a leet filtration for who can participate this time?

It does not matter that most Allegro games are crap. We are here to have fun, learn stuff etc. If a good game comes out of this, then fine, but if it does not, it's not very important anyway.

Well, Johan Peitz is a god, so of course anything he makes is good.