Who Should Read This Book?

The most common question I'm asked is why anyone would want to write a game using the .NET framework. Other questions include, "Isn't that just for web server applications?" "Isn't it slow?" These are naturally important questions to the game developer (or prospective game developer, as the case may be), but they come from misconceptions about what the .NET framework is.

The .NET framework is not the latest version of the web server, nor is it an extension of any of the server components. It is certainly true that you can create powerful web server applications using the .NET framework; however, there is so much more. It includes a capable client-side Application Programming Interface (API), and with the release of Managed DirectX, virtually the entire DirectX API is now exposed to the .NET developers. It opens up an entirely new array of applications that can be written, including games. To think the .NET framework limits you to server applications is somewhat naïve. It can produce complex client-side applications as well.

The lingering question of performance still remains, and it's not one that I can simply write off. Anytime a "new" language or runtime is introduced, developers are naturally hesitant to adopt it. It wasn't long ago that many games were still written in Assembly because the game developers didn't believe that the C or C++ language was fast enough to do the things they needed to do. The .NET framework is no exception to this rule. Until someone actually proves the performance of the .NET framework, the game developers will look at it with a suspicious eye. Throughout this book are a number of games developed using the .NET runtime exclusively. It's been said that actions speak louder than words, so rather than speak at length about how the performance of the .NET runtime compares to the native world, I let the real-world games in this book make the point.