To 3D or not 3D

We can read every day in all kind of media about the "3D revolution" and that "gamers will be pioneers on 3D consumption". Really?

 As a CEO & coder at a small start-up that has just released our first 3D game, I have some serious doubts.

 Our game, a really simple (but funny!) one, has been developed in about 2 weeks. 2 weeks that I have been wearing those old anaglyph cyan-red glasses... and yes, I already hate them. Sure that anaglyph glasses are the worst of all 3D standards. We have just doing some research on other techniques, and we have implemented right now a bunch of standards... 

 Standards... isn't supposed that "standard" means "a rule all must follow"? Why are so many "standards"? Moreover, most of this standards use some kind of glasses. And people hates to wear glasses. I myself wear glasses, so I have to put another set above the others... just too much!

 Also, 3D TVs are just too expensive right now and of course, remember you have to wear the glasses.

 I think that 3D without glasses is the right path. There are some 3D TVs without glasses right now, but they are very expensive, so maybe it's just matter of time, but we will have to wait 2-3 years to let this technology arrive to the mass market.

 And what about development costs? Well... implementing those techniques isn't really expensive or complicated. It's all about rendering, baby! Depending on the technique, you have to render your scene at least 2 times (one for each eye) so... yes! Rendering twice, FPS down!

So if you are planning to incorporate stereo capabilities to your brand new game, make sure to take into account your poly-count & shader madness to keep your FPS into decent numbers. Remember you can fool your eyes with the stereo effect, but you can't fool them with a 12 FPS game! :) 

In case you want to take a look at our game, it's available on the Xbox LIVE Indie Games: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258550597/

Eloy Ribera

Ninja CEO at Ninja Fever

http://www.ninjafever.com