Almost four years ago, fourteen video game companies gathered together to discuss the JavaTM platform and game development. Since that time, the specification for the Java Game Profile or JSR-134 was created and then moved into the open source community, which has embraced its APIs and continues to develop the technology.

Sun's Chief Gaming Officer Chris Melissinos recently discussed the role of Java technology in game development with Janice J. Heiss. According to Melissinos, the Game Technologies Group at Sun is attempting to satisfy game developers by providing APIs that offer a high-performance game experience.

"With the release of the Java bindings for OpenGLR, the Java bindings for Open AL and a wholly-created API by Sun called JInput, we provide the core foundation for high-performance, cross-platform games," Melissinos said. "Developers can get C++ equivalent performance, and take advantage of all the programming features that the Java language provides, such as garbage collection and the avoidance of memory leaks that you get with C++."

Melissinos identified Sun's massive, multiplayer game server prototype as "the cornerstone of the compute utility model for network and online games." Ultimately, this type of technology will alleviate the need for game companies to require an infrastructure to provision a game online.

"Game companies should be looking at ISPs, ASPs, and carriers that implement solutions, to enable them to put their games on a network," he advised. "They would then receive a monthly bill for the processor power, bandwidth, services, etc. that they consume."

The advantage with this approach is that it's cost-effective. Game companies do not have to purchase in-house infrastructure or maintain a hardware and software environment. "You put your game on a network that is designed to deliver massively-multiplayer, highly-scalable game environments," he explained.

Noting that game-related devices and activities are a hot commodity these days, Melissinos pointed out that Sun's focus is having Java technology continue to assist game developers in developing more compelling games on multiple devices.

When asked about the possibility of Sun producing a game box, Melissinos responded, "When it comes to building a Java technology box, we don't need to because Java technology already runs on dozens of consumer devices, with many more to come," he said. "Why run on one box when we can run on all of them?"

To read Heiss's interview with Melissinos, visit:

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Interviews/games2

To read the latest on Java games, visit:

http://community.java.net/games [...read more...]

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