Why is C++ favored, given more attention, over C in game development?

Question

I'm looking at game dev., primarily for *nix and thought I'd go through learning C before I go through learning C++. When I go look up info on game development on youtube and google a lot of the results are C++ game development tutorials.

I've found that most/all(?) game consoles use C++ for development and know that C# probably helps for windows game development, and even MS pushes C++ for that anyway. But why isn't C given as much attention in regards to game development as C++?

Why is C++ favored, given more attention, over C in game development?

Answer 1

Several features of C++ made it popular for game programming.

• Strong language level support for OOP. Object oriented programming maps itself really well to most game logic.
• Good interop with C and external libraries. Most external libraries are written as C/C++ good (legacy, graphics, many APIs) and it's easier to link to them with C++.
• Speed, much of the game programming business started before C# was a realistic choice for high speed programming. C++ properly coded can provide very high speed along with nice abstractions.

C++ has many downsides as a game programming language, see Tim Sweeneys article on the subject and many games are written in higher level languages embedded into a C++ engine, Unreal Engine being a great example of this, and pretty much any complex RPG contains a scripting language embedded in the game.

Answer 2

C++ is object-orintated, C is not. Object orientation is important for 3D games.

Answer 3

There's next to no reason to use C on a platform that has C++ available. The latter has almost all the functionality of the former plus more besides. It has little to do with games and more to do with using a more expressive language with a better standard library.