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Wolfire Games
Company blog · blog.wolfire.comgamesprogrammingbusiness
Wolfire Games is the company blog at blog.wolfire.com, writing about games, programming and business. Since 2008, 89 different Hacker News readers have linked it 124 times, most often “Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 8 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Wolfire Games' blog for its linear algebra for game developers series, OpenGL vs Direct3D posts, piracy statistics and game-dev technical write-ups, often as support for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Development updates, design experiments, and behind-the-scenes stories from Wolfire Games, creators of Overgrowth, Receiver 2, and Lugaru.
Most-linked posts?
- Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2010-01-08
- Linear algebra for game developers – Part 1 (2009)9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2011-08-30
- Another view of game piracy7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2010-05-06
- Lugaru Goes Open-Source6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2010-05-11
- Class action suit against Valve Corporation4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-05-06
- Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-04-22
- Counterfeit Lugaru on Apple's App Store (developing)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-02-04
- Linear algebra for game developers ~ part 43 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2010-08-02
- Libertarian paternalism and tool design2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-08-23
- Why you should support Mac OS X and Linux2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2008-12-28
What Hacker News says?
I think this can be explained by the fact that Microsoft has a long history of trying to kill OSS software and alternatives to it's virtual monopoly in the desktop OS market, killing innovation across many technology sectors in the process. Being cross-platform was the opposite of their goals. They specifically created their own version of open technologies and promoted them as the best/only way of doing things on w…
Comment linking /2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
on “PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linux”Submitted Why you should use OpenGL and not DirectX as a story · 408 points
HN discussionThe pirated copies aren't all lossed sales. If you want some more statistics form the creator of the Humble Bundle I suggest you a small read about the topic: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy
Comment linking /2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy
on “World of Goo Update, 10 Years Later”Submitted Overgrowth: Open-Source Announcement as a story · 209 points
HN discussionWhile I also hate that happened, it is not clear he had to do with it and it is not the moment to bring this up. The parent refers to is: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-an... See FUD part.
Comment linking /2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
on “Eric Engstrom, co-creator of DirectX, has died”Submitted Why you should do OpenGL and not DirectX as a story · 192 points
HN discussionYeah, it looks like ODE doesn't use SIMD or anything, and hence performs poorly compared to more modern engines: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/03/Comparing-ODE-and-Bullet
Comment linking /2010/03/Comparing-ODE-and-Bullet
on ““CPUs are optimized for video games””Submitted Linear algebra for game developers – Part 1 (2009) as a story · 177 points
HN discussionMicrosoft is the reason the Linux desktop is still not a thing in 2022. At every step of the way for many years Microsoft has always done some psychotic ill-intentioned thing to monopolize the PC. Even in 2022. - OpenGL is crossplatform, we could have crossplatform games... but no. Microsoft didn't like that. So they made sure nobody used OpenGL so that Windows became the de-facto platform for PC games: http://blog.…
Comment linking /2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
on “Everyone seems to forget why GNOME and GNOME 3 and Unity happened”Submitted Linear algebra for game developers as a story · 143 points
HN discussionThere have been various efforts to estimate the effect piracy has on revenue like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15319476 or http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy So depending on product category it might be a large drop (EU study finds -38% displacement rate for books) but it might also be a boost (EU study finds +24% for video games), and it is hard to say in general, since even a 90% p…
Comment linking /2010/05/Another-view-of-game-piracy
on “Apple must open iPadOS to sideloading within 6 months, EU says”Submitted Counterfeit Game Sold on Apple's App Store as a story · 143 points
HN discussionI've always been partial to this: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-deve...
Comment linking /2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-1/
on “An Intuitive Guide to Linear Algebra”Submitted Thoughts on OnLive as a story · 94 points
HN discussionNot the only reason: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice... Linux users seem (or seemed in 2010) to have money to burn on games (and charity).
Comment linking /2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice-as-much-as-Windows-users
on “Valve is developing Steam for Linux, says Michael Larabel of Phoronix”Submitted Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users as a story · 70 points
HN discussionI love the Voxel Quest posts because they're demonstrating some seriously cool tech. However, they feel a lot like the Wolfire development blogs [0] - great tech demos without a cohesive vision for a game. From an engineering point of view, the end goal doesn't matter, but I would also love a 'bigger picture' roadmap of where it is and where it's going. Why would I use this engine? What do I 'get' over the competiti…
Comment linking /
on “Voxel Quest January 2016 Update”Submitted Lugaru Goes Open-Source as a story · 62 points
HN discussionSuch as http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~ritschel/Papers/TemporalGlare.pdf as seen in http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/01/lens-flares/
Comment linking /2009/01/lens-flares/
on “WebGL Terrain Flyover Demo”Submitted Another view of game piracy as a story · 62 points
HN discussion2007 has you covered: http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-deve...
Comment linking /2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-1/
on “Gamedev Tutorial: Trigonometry Basics – Sine and Cosine”Submitted The state of Mac and Linux gaming as a story · 60 points
HN discussionI know a bit about and highly respect the indie scene. They are, in my opinion, the future of game development in general. I paid for the second bundle, and was highly entertained for quite a while. It's a very cool project. Slightly offtopic, but Wolfire has also written one of my favorite articles/blog posts as of recent, as well - http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-deve...
Comment linking /2009/07/linear-algebra-for-game-developers-part-1
on “Valve: Piracy Is More About Convenience Than Price ”Submitted Creating the Illusion of Accomplishment as a story · 57 points
HN discussionAlso worth reading: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-an...
Comment linking /2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
on “The Tale of OpenGL vs. Direct3D”Submitted Why you should support Mac OS X and Linux as a story · 54 points
HN discussionIn OpenGL you can use CoreGraphics to render into a context and convert that data to a texture. This could be done for each string, but doing so you loose the power of the underlying implementation. If there are libraries that make this easier I am yet to come across them. Wolfire have written a very good blog post about the issues with text rendering and OpenGL. http://blog.wolfire.com/2013/03/High-quality-text-ren…
Comment linking /2013/03/High-quality-text-rendering
on “Why I Develop For The Mac”Submitted An Introduction to AI in Games as a story · 53 points
HN discussionSomeone else replied pointing out that what you're referring to are called imposters. I would also like to add they're a very very common technique, and something Wolfire Games added to their indie game Overgrowth in 2010, with a complete explanation: http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/10/Imposters Yes, you can expect modern games to use any and all tricks available to squeeze performance. Imposters are an example of a LO…
Comment linking /2010/10/Imposters
on “Metal Gear Solid V – Graphics Study”Submitted How Google should have acquired EtherPad as a story · 50 points
HN discussion
