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Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

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Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#61

Post by creata »

adamnemecek wrote: post #32
Pfhreak wrote: post #16

The future of Game Development is about democratization of tools. With tools like Unity, GameMaker, and RPG maker it has become easier and easier for anyone to make a game. While Rust might be a good foundation for some performance critical code, I'd hardly say it's the "Future of Game Development". Already, games use tools like Blueprints in Unreal to make games with limited to no coding experience, and I expect tho…

It is the future of game development. I think that Rust makes it easier to build your own engine from public crates. In some sense blueprints are necessary because using CPP sucks. I can imagine that instead of Blueprints, Rust based engines will use some DSLs.

But Pfhreak's point is that most people don't want to "build their own engine", they just want something that lets them make a game, and Unity and GameMaker are very good at giving you that running start, even if you know very little programming. The Rust gamedev community, so far, hasn't even tried to create that experience.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#62

Post by FartyMcFarter »

macspoofing wrote: post #28

Is it though? I feel like most people compare Rust to C++98 and if you do that, certainly Rust looks really good. The benefits of Rust compared to, say, C++17 are not as pronounced.

It's still quite easy to shoot oneself in the foot with modern C++:

  #include 
  #include 
  #include 

  int main()
  {
      std::string_view v = std::string("xyz");
    
      std::cout

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#63

Post by adamnemecek »

creata wrote: post #61
adamnemecek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the future of game development. I think that Rust makes it easier to build your own engine from public crates. In some sense blueprints are necessary because using CPP sucks. I can imagine that instead of Blueprints, Rust based engines will use some DSLs.

But Pfhreak's point is that most people don't want to "build their own engine", they just want something that lets them make a game, and Unity and GameMaker are very good at giving you that running start, even if you know very little programming. The Rust gamedev community, so far, hasn't even tried to create that experience.

Most people don't want to build their engines since it's hard in cpp. If building an engine consists of selecting a couple of crates, people might have a different opinion.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#64

Post by axegon_ »

Full disclosure: game development beyond the cli-based games and some simple asteroids-like games are the most I've ever done with games. I find them incredibly boring, both to make and play(kind of ironic considering up untilrecently I was working as a developer for a company that made games and I worked there for 8 and a half years). But 3 weeks ago I switched jobs and I am using rust in my current workplace, again, not for gaming but for data processing. I have no idea if rust will ever go deep inside the game development business but if it does, I feel like it will be in the very distant future. The main problem being the limited ecosystem compared to the big players. I do however believe it has the potential to give C++ a run for it's money should the ecosystem ever catch up. For starters it sits on top of llvm, so out of the box you have windows, linux, mac, ios and android covered and the tooling is the most batteries-included beast I've ever seen(namely cargo). I guess only time will tell but my bet is it won't happen in the next 5-10 years.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#65

Post by bluedino »

_lbaq wrote: post #13

For 95% of all game developer the future is a engine like Unreal or Unity and your scripting language of choice. The rest, triple A titles and engine developers may chose something else, but the inertia of C/C++ will make that a very long process.

The future - the next big game engine, being planned out or written right now, might be done in rust.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#66

Post by gameswithgo »

dimes wrote: post #47

Having tried writing a game engine in Rust, I can't imagine that Rust would become the future of game development. Lack of safety is a feature in game development, because the optimizations required are typically unorthodox and a super strict language slows development down. Additionally, object ownership can be unclear in a game development setting, which typically makes use of global variables for state. The benefi…

Rust over C++ for single player games is definitely of questionable benefit right now. For multiplayer games I think a much more compelling case can be made, certainly on the server if not both server and client.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#67

Post by gtaylor »

dimes wrote: post #47

Having tried writing a game engine in Rust, I can't imagine that Rust would become the future of game development. Lack of safety is a feature in game development, because the optimizations required are typically unorthodox and a super strict language slows development down. Additionally, object ownership can be unclear in a game development setting, which typically makes use of global variables for state. The benefi…

What makes games more likely to lean on global state than other kinds of applications?

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#68

Post by gameswithgo »

gtaylor wrote: post #67
dimes wrote: post #47

Having tried writing a game engine in Rust, I can't imagine that Rust would become the future of game development. Lack of safety is a feature in game development, because the optimizations required are typically unorthodox and a super strict language slows development down. Additionally, object ownership can be unclear in a game development setting, which typically makes use of global variables for state. The benefi…

What makes games more likely to lean on global state than other kinds of applications?

Maybe games are more likely to lean on global in memory state, instead of the global state being in a database.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#69

Post by boogies »

0xCMP wrote: post #55
St_Alfonzo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft is a good example where people talk about the programming language. The portability of Java was a benefit for both Server and Client. But it was also critized because of the inefficiency of Java. I dont know if all this would have been better in Rust or other languages.

Eventually Microsoft rewrote it in C++ so they could run it effectively on things like iOS and Android. It took them a while to reach feature parity and some level of compatibility between them. The C++ one didn't have all the same features as the Java one for a while, but it ran fine on weaker hardware than the Java version needed.

IIUC the C++ Bedrock Edition evolved from the Pocket Edition, which was announced in 2011, ~3 years before the MS acquisition in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft#Bedrock_Edition.

Re: Why Rust Is the Future of Game Development

#70

Post by young_unixer »

St_Alfonzo wrote: post #26
lstodd wrote: post #9

Let me tell you that the future of game development is in developing games, and any particular language has nothing to do with it. Does anyone care what language were any particular games that keep being replayed or remembered fondly? No. Never.

Minecraft is a good example where people talk about the programming language. The portability of Java was a benefit for both Server and Client. But it was also critized because of the inefficiency of Java. I dont know if all this would have been better in Rust or other languages.

Java was the language that Notch felt comfortable in.

If he had started to second guess the programming language, Minecraft probably wouldn't exist as we know it.

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