Hey....some of you guys wanna make mega bucks??

danquixote said:

Why are there no video pool games worth a damn. This forum is perhaps the greasest assembly of pool minds in history. We have the scientific minds necessary for the programers to develop a realistic game, the pros that can critique playability, and a world full of youth whose introduction to this great game could well come from Xbox or Playstation. Gawd only knows how much that red headed snowboarder pulls down in royalties from EA sports, or Tiger for his endorsements on a signature game. Any pro want his or her name on a game package and increase their income significantly????? Whoever sells His or Her personality and convinces EA sports it is worth time and development stands to make some good cheese IMHO

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b/c there would be more programming than you can imagine to get the game to be even close to realistic....plus its just not the same, not that i don't support the idea, just to me IMOP a pool video game is silly. I'd rather see people play it in real life than a fake one. BUt as I said b/f it would just cost TOO much money and time for what they would make on the backend. It's just not a profitable idea.

just my 2.590 cents,
Grey Ghost

greyghost said:

b/c there would be more programming than you can imagine to get the game to be even close to realistic....plus its just not the same, not that i don't support the idea, just to me IMOP a pool video game is silly. I'd rather see people play it in real life than a fake one. BUt as I said b/f it would just cost TOO much money and time for what they would make on the backend. It's just not a profitable idea.

just my 2.590 cents,
Grey Ghost

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Programming a realistic pool game would be a million times easier than programming even one of todays modest games. The physics of pool are a lot easier to grasp than most video games our there. Do you think it would be easier to figure out the physics behind how much squirt happens when a cue ball is hit with english, or how a building blows up differently when using c4 or a rocket launcher?

You guys should look into Microsofts Project Natal. It uses your full body as the controller. You can also "scan" our own items into the game. There is a demo out there with a kid nammed Milo thats purely amazing.

If they could do a pool game using Natal, with my own pool cue and myself as the controller. That would be worth looking at.

danquixote said:

Why are there no video pool games worth a damn. This forum is perhaps the greasest assembly of pool minds in history. We have the scientific minds necessary for the programers to develop a realistic game, the pros that can critique playability, and a world full of youth whose introduction to this great game could well come from Xbox or Playstation. Gawd only knows how much that red headed snowboarder pulls down in royalties from EA sports, or Tiger for his endorsements on a signature game. Any pro want his or her name on a game package and increase their income significantly????? Whoever sells His or Her personality and convinces EA sports it is worth time and development stands to make some good cheese IMHO

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Have you seen Virtual Pool?Very realistic.

Virtual Pool (I forget who did it) was the most commercially successful pool video game but even it didn't sell that well.

People aren't interested in playing pool on a TV it seems. Heck, I love pool and have since I was tall enough to play but even I can't play a pool video game for more than a couple of minutes. And those that don't love pool are probably the same. BTW I'm also a fairly active gamer who plays some sort of computer game at least 10 hours a week and triple that if I'm really into something.

Duffman said:

Programming a realistic pool game would be a million times easier than programming even one of todays modest games. The physics of pool are a lot easier to grasp than most video games our there. Do you think it would be easier to figure out the physics behind how much squirt happens when a cue ball is hit with english, or how a building blows up differently when using c4 or a rocket launcher?

You guys should look into Microsofts Project Natal. It uses your full body as the controller. You can also "scan" our own items into the game. There is a demo out there with a kid nammed Milo thats purely amazing.

If they could do a pool game using Natal, with my own pool cue and myself as the controller. That would be worth looking at.

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I understand what you're saying but with war games there doesn't need to be the same level of realism. It's not like I'm going to throw a grenade at something watch it explode and say hey the damage happened all wrong. With pool we've seen the shots over and over and generally know what's going to happen.

danquixote said:

Why are there no video pool games worth a damn. This forum is perhaps the greasest assembly of pool minds in history. We have the scientific minds necessary for the programers to develop a realistic game, the pros that can critique playability, and a world full of youth whose introduction to this great game could well come from Xbox or Playstation. Gawd only knows how much that red headed snowboarder pulls down in royalties from EA sports, or Tiger for his endorsements on a signature game. Any pro want his or her name on a game package and increase their income significantly????? Whoever sells His or Her personality and convinces EA sports it is worth time and development stands to make some good cheese IMHO

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Virtual Pool is the ultimate PC game. It's also available for the Apple I phone. Virtual Pool 4 will be released pretty soon. The publisher is now Celeris entertainment. The owner of Celeris and the programmer is an "A" pool player out here in Los Angeles - "Tall Steve". Him and I have been close friends sinced he was a teenager - 30+ years now.

Chris

I think it is more of a problem selling the game than making the game. I agree with Duffman it would not be nearly as challenging as most games but the market is not there relative to say the Halo fans.

I don't find a pool video game any sillier than playing a golf, tennis, or whatever sporting game. Sure, I'm not going to enjoy it as much as playing for real but the same could be said for Golf too.

TMI, probably

TATE said:

Virtual Pool is the ultimate PC game. It's also available for the Apple I phone. Virtual Pool 4 will be released pretty soon. The publisher is now Celeris entertainment. The owner of Celeris and the programmer is an "A" pool player out here in Los Angeles - "Tall Steve". Him and I have been close friends sinced he was a teenager - 30+ years now.

Chris

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It'd be interesting to get Tall Steve's perspective on this question.

danquixote said:

Why are there no video pool games worth a damn.

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This is a good question, and it's one that has crossed my mind many times.

Tate's buddy Tall Steve might be just the person to give a nuanced answer regarding the difficulty of writing code for a commercial pool game. I haven't played Virtual Pool myself, so I can't attest to its realism.

The question interests me, so I'll throw in my opinion. It's late, so I'll ramble. For what it's worth, I'm an engineer and programmer by profession, a physics guy by education, a pool enthusiast, and an occasional gamer.

Greyghost is correct in saying programming is expensive. A million dollars revenue per year covers the total costs (salary, benefits, payroll taxes, etc.) for only a few professional programmers and testers. Whether a game is a project within a big company or the product of a small startup, significant ri$k is involved. Software projects with proven markets can still fail.

Modeling the physics isn't easy. To an engineer like me, "easy" means that the math is so familiar you can reproduce it on demand, from memory, with a pencil and paper. You're up and coding right away (assuming you've architected the software properly, can translate math into code, and so on). From what I've read of the real-world math for pool, it's not that easy. Even if you get the "right" math you still have to figure out if it models reality to a satisfactory degree. (Example question: in the real world, what's the ideal height of the cushion nose relative to the cue ball height? What does this reveal about the physics involved?)

Here's an example of mathematical modeling of squirt.
http://www.sfbilliards.com/Shepard_squirt.pdf

To me, "satisfactory" realism might mean that the virtual pool table would allow me to practice using the systems from The Beard's books on banking. Or heck, maybe I want to work through Walt Harris's systems--all of them--on a virtual heated carom table. I'd hate to have to relearn these shots in the real world. (I'm only sort of kidding here.)

If the physics were modeled correctly, the virtual game would (potentially) be as difficult as the meatworld game. This would be a barrier to entry. Simplified physics are cheaper to model, easier to program, and make for a more accessible game.

There's a lot of money in soccer ("football"). Billions. The top players make millions. Pool? Not so much. That could make it harder for some company or investor to justify the cost of developing a pool game.
http://www.economywatch.com/world-industries/football/

The real world game of pool is cheap and accessible. Alien worlds, Formula One cars, and BFGs that pulverize aliens are cheap in the gaming world but completely inaccessible otherwise. Some folks play games to do things they couldn't do otherwise. Also, winning a pool game may not be as exhilarating to some gamers as repulsing an alien invasion of earth, creating a civilization from scratch, or firing a fusion-powered BFG and blowing the head clean off some mutant zombie troll-thing.

Pool may not be high on the list of hip pastimes for young people these days. In a world of Twitter, Facebook, downloadable movies, abundant free porn, YouTube, XBox, iPhone apps, etc., etc., etc., it's hard to see pool claiming much time from the general population.


To get back to the engineering, let's say you want to model the game so closely that you'll mass produce a pool cue controller. That means more engineers, a production contract, a bigger package to ship, more shelf space at Target, etc., etc., WOW. Pricey.

There's a Wii billiards game, apparently, although I'll be one of the first to say I have little interest in playing the game with a cue that looks like a plastic ear thermometer:

Wii cue:
http://www.overstock.com/Books-Movies-Music-Games/Wii-Billiards-Cue-Sticks-Sets/3158275/product.html

Ear thermometer:
http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture97/dyvision/product1.jpg

Will that ear thermometer have the same hit as my main player? Hmm.