[dirGames-L] Future

[Duck]

Wednesday, December 7, 2005, 3:30:41 PM, Lance wrote:

LM> I'm wondering how safe it is to build a web site on ShockWave 3D  
LM> (economically speaking, that is). Anyone have any thoughts on the  
LM> future?

"Build a web site on Shockwave 3d"...? not exactly sure what you mean by this, but if you mean building a '3d website' within a shockwave 3d movie then I would strongly advise against it for many reasons (usability, practicality, accessibility, ease of updating, etc) not to mention economically.

Or perhaps you mean using shockwave to build your 3d game or other 3d app, when compared to other web 3d technologies? If this is what you mean, then you're really in the same boat as a lot of us here, in that we can all speculate, but none of us really knows what's going to happen to Director and shockwave within the next few months, let alone years. Some developers here have already abandoned Director as 'dying', while others (such as myself) stick to it as the best and most profitable option around for web 3d at the moment.

The Adobe aquisition of Macromedia officially completed just the other day, and so the dust is still settling and speculation is rife concerning Director's future. Personally, I don't think shockwave is going to dissapear any time soon - it has a huge plug-in base compared to all the other 3d plug-ins, and there is definitely a significant upward surge in the amount of shockwave 3d content being produced. I would guess (hope!) that these two factors would help Adobe consider Director and Shockwave in a positive light, aside from the fact that Adobe has no 'competing' product - however we obviously can't know what other factors are being considered behind closed corporate doors.

One optimistic nugget of information however, is that Tom Higgins hinted yesterday at a native shockwave player for the coming new generation of Intel Macs (only hinted at, mind you - specifically he warned against assuming there won't be one), which I think bodes well. I for one though, am simply waiting on any further news from Tom. If there is any news on Director or Shockwave's future, it will most likely come from him, and he has a good rep for telling us what he can as soon as he knows or is allowed!


- Ben

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