Viability of C#/.NET as the new standard game dev platform?

Question

For a long time now C++ has been the dominate game development language. Many AAA quality 3D engines are available to fit any budget.

My question is, with the rise of X

Answer 1

I think C++ will go out of fashion in the next 10 years just the same way as assembly did. I'm a professional game programmer for more the 15 years. In early 90's lot of people said that C is not efficient enough for games. In the late 90's same people said that C is OK but C++ is just way too slow for performance critical applications such as games. Now C++ is the standard high performance language and people argue that other languages would be too slow. In the meantime today's games use script languages like Lua, Python or Unrealscript for game logic which are ten times slower than C# or Java.

C++ is much faster when you do math in your game. Doing linear algebra is painfully slow in C# or Java. However, this is only a part (10 - 25%) of the game. When it comes to the game logic bottleneck is memory access so using an other language does not reduce the performance significantly. The tool side of the game, which use to be the 50-80% of the code, really does not require any C++. It happily runs in C# which is fast enough for almost any tool.

One also should not forget that C++ is derived from C, which is made in the early 70's. So C++ is obsolete in many ways. The most annoying thing is probably the pre-processor which kills transparency and causes insanely long compile times. An average state of art C++ game engine compiles in 30-60 minutes. In such time you could compile every C# and Java project ever made by humans. Lack of self reflection and dynamic code creation is also a drawback. It often costs a lot of development time to overcome on these shortcomings.

Nevertheless C++ development costs a lot it would cost even more for a game studio to risk a failure by switching to a new technology which is not yet proven in game development. It is also an important factor that majority of experienced game programmers use only C/C++ and they do not have experience with other languages which would definitely increase the risk of switching. Because of these, you probably will not see game studios in the next couple of years switching to C#. However, it is likely that a Microsoft owned studio will make a big hit with a C# game in the next 5 years which will convince other studios that it is feasible to make AAA titles in C# and then you will see more and more studios switching to C#.

For now, my advice is: If you want to make an AAA multi-platform title you have no other choice than C++ for the runtime part of the game. Consider using C# for the tool side. It's a little bit tricky to efficiently connect managed and unmanaged code but on long run it worth the effort you spend on it. If you do a hobby project or a B title where performance is less important than development cost/time then forget C++ and just use C# for everything and spend some extra time to optimize the math.