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What would be better for PC (Windows, Linux, Mac) games?

I know Java is more mature/older and has a giant user base, but I see C# (Mono) slowly rising and showing that it has a growing user base as well.

I've seen lots of games written in Java like Minecraft, Runescape etc. (Haven't really seen any popular C# games!)

But what would be better?

More Info(Ideas for games I'm going to make): 3D games (FPS, Racer, TPS?) and maybe 2D games (Platformer?)

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Terraria is a popular C# game. And Java would probably be a bit better for cross platform, simply because it's designed for it (Mono might have occasional problems on some platforms) – thedaian Jul 28 '11 at 13:18
@thedaian while I agree with you, I must say the C# tooling is much nicer to work with, imo. – Nate Jul 28 '11 at 13:59
5  
Too vague, too general, too subjective. Given that the 2 languages are very similar anyway it's almost a religious question. – Kylotan Jul 28 '11 at 14:16
agreed@kylotan. -1 – TravisG Jul 28 '11 at 14:19

closed as not constructive by Joe Wreschnig, Kylotan, Josh Petrie, Noctrine♦ Jul 28 '11 at 15:12

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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

I personally prefer Java.

Because:

  • Java have applets for web-based games (sliverlight is not already installed by default). Applets are very good for demos.
  • Java is already installed on Mac OS and on most Linux distributions.
  • You can run Java in mono or even compiling Java Code to x86 Code "http://www.mono-project.com/Java" and there is gcj also.
  • More and more people started to use java for games because of android today has the biggest market share in the mobile OS market.
  • I like to use Eclipse

This is just my point of view. Use whatever works best for you.

You can look at some compaction between java and c#:

http://www.javacamp.org/javavscsharp/

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blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2010/09/30/… as a test I checked that sites 'new' page so do be careful with it. Lots looks right though – Rangoric Jul 28 '11 at 14:40
I do love the idea of Android for Java, but I found out Mono could work on Android which made me happy until I found out I need to pay over $300 before I can do so. – LizardGamer Jul 28 '11 at 23:55
I really wouldn't use mono for android if you want to make games. From what I understand, it's running the mono runtime in the background, which in combination with also running the dalvikvm, on a device which is already fairly constrained, just sounds like a recipe for slow. I mean, it's probably fast enough for regular apps, and the occasional number crunch, but not so much for games. – Leif Andersen Jul 31 '11 at 1:22

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