Can one make real games with XNA and C#?

Question

Can XNA and C# be used to create commercially feasible PC/XBOX games?

Is it the best approach for creating 3D games with C#? If not, what would be?

Answer 1

I doubt you will create the next Gears of War with it, but XNA works fine for many types of games. Most (all?) of the Community Games on XBox Live are created using XNA.

Answer 2

A short answer to your first question would be, yes. It is entirely possible to create just about any kind of game with the XNA library. It can be used to make simple 2D platformers, or moderatily complex 3D shooters.
Depending on the game, the amount of logic you'll need to create for your game may vary.

Of course, while creating 3D games, you'll either have to create your own 3D engine, or get your hands on one pre made. XNA in and on itself does not provide an engine that would be fully usable out of the box. It does, however, provide wide variety of tool to help you in the process of making your own engine.

Answer 3

Actually you can do that but it is a little bit tricky.

You need to pass via an approval process by the "community" (XNA Creators club Online users).

You will also need to pay an Xbox live account plus an Xbox live developper licence.

According to XNA FAQ:

Do I need an XNA Creators Club premium membership to create games? You don't need a premium membership to make games for Windows or Zune. However, you must be a premium member and in a supported region to create games for the Xbox 360, to release Xbox 360 games to Community Games on Xbox LIVE, or to peer-review submitted games.

Who can peer review XNA Community Games? A member of the Creators Club whose premium (paid) account is in good standing and is a legal adult (for the countries we currently serve this means 18 years of age or older).

And: Why does my game have to be peer-reviewed? Why can't I just send it to Xbox LIVE marketplace? Peer reviewers help creators write better games, and protect game players from experiencing highly offensive or malfunctioning games. Peer reviewers will reject your game if:

• Your game contains prohibited content, which is content not allowed on Xbox LIVE services

• You misrepresent what is in the game play or in the promotional materials for the game

• The promotional content for your game ( for example, the box art, description, banner or title) is not appropriate for all ages on Xbox LIVE Marketplace

• The game crashes, it has too many bugs, or it is technically defective in some way

the faq is can be read here

If you want to do it simplier you can play with DirectX directly or even other libraries like SDL (for 2D games). Actually C# is very good for a variety of things and it gets better as the time goes.

Answer 4

C# is not that much slower than C++, however C#'s memory management is not really Game friendly (in the AAA style). Never the less rendering is basically the same, as you'll be using DirectX I guess, so there is no reason a very professional game like Gear of Wars couldn't be made with C# (As a game dev my self, I've seen the source code for Gears of War, and can tell you this first hand). But you'll need great artists.

The real roadblock, is if your source is in C#, you have just locked your self out of other Platforms that aren't from Microsoft (Say Sony or Nintendo), but then again GoW is Microsoft bound, ASFAIK.

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As for XNA, the best selling Arcade/Community Game Braid, was written in C++, but that's because the author didn't want to lock himself out of other platforms, and he had lots of experience and a large code-base that was already C++ based

Answer 5

XNA is dedicated primarily to garage games, small projects with small teams, and hobbyists. Also, it's a really good learning tool for game architecture and 3D programming. But for commercial applications, there's a clearly huge gap between the XLA and the XDK.

Using the XDK allows you to access to a much deeper level of hardware, which is definitively a must if performances are an issue. Also, most of commercial game engines are developed for use with the XDK (the Unreal Engine, for example). The debugging and profiling system of the XDK is also an amazing tool which is not available using XLA.

So yes, it is technically possible to make commercial games using XNA, but the real world tends to prefer the XDK.

Answer 6

XNA saves you a lot of the low level tedium associated with making games. This can be a huge time savings for a handful of people banging out games that don't need to push the hardware to its limit; however, most AAA games require a few people getting down and dirty with the hardware to push the limit as much as they can.

Having said that by no means does your game have to be AAA to be commercially feasible or fun - one could even argue it hurts more than it helps. Technology is rarely the bottleneck of making good games.