1 - Adding a new rendering backend to a games engine is a trivial task, when compared to the pile of features a game engine needs to support. I did not said it was a trivial task by itself alone.
2 - Check how many in the industry actually care about your 3D API freedom goals. Even Carmack now rather likes DX, in spite of his earlier opinions.
3 - Every big fish and major indie studios are using Unreal, Unity, CryEngine, Xenko, Ogre3D, Cocos2d-X, or whatever else rocks their boat.
If you are happy playing D. Quixote, by all means keep doing it.
Game studios won't change their culture just because of some guys having HN and Reddit 3D API flamewars.
All you said, doesn't change the fact that it's a substantial effort. Whether it's easier than other features is irrelevant to the point above. It's hard overall.
So it's an extra cost for developers who need to spend time on it, and it's exactly the cost MS and other lock-in freaks are benefiting from, since it's increasing the difficulty of releasing cross platform games (one more difficult thing to address). The higher is the difficulty, the more is the likelihood of some games remaining exclusives, which is exactly what lock-in freaks want.
And if you claim that this difficulty is offloaded from most game developers to third party engine developers, it's still a problem. Longer development periods, more bugs, harder support all that contributes to some not making cross platform releases as well.
There are no two ways about it, lock-in is evil, and your justification of it is very fishy (you must be working for one of the lock-in pushers).
> Experience about reality, how people in the industry think, what those people actually consider as project costs.
I trust more the experience of those who actually work on games porting, and explain relevant difficulties they encounter. And no one says it's trivial. On the contrary, they say that rendering is the hardest part, and the most costly one to port. So it's very clear, that lock-in proponents who are against cross platform gaming (MS and Co) are benefiting from this hurdle and strengthen it by pushing their APIs.
Ryan Gordon, which makes a living porting AAA games to Linux since Loki Games days.
Someone that would actually loose this source of income if you had what you wish for, thus be forced to search for other kind of consulting services in the games industry.
Again, not understanding the industry works, plain demagogy.
When a games developer sees a 3D API manual for the first time, their first thought is "What cool games can I achieve with it?" not "Is it portable?".
> Someone that would actually loose this source of income
He can find what to do, working in engine development directly.
So far you were engaging in demagoguery about how trivial porting is and justification of lock-in, even when facts to the contrary were shown to you directly. I see no point in taking your word on it, against those who are actually known to be working in this field.
> When a games developer sees a 3D API manual for the first time, their first thought is "What cool games can I achieve with it?"
Until their publisher or shareholder knocks on their heads and stops their cross platform releases because of costs of using more APIs. Goal (of lock-in supporters) achieved.
2 - Check how many in the industry actually care about your 3D API freedom goals. Even Carmack now rather likes DX, in spite of his earlier opinions.
3 - Every big fish and major indie studios are using Unreal, Unity, CryEngine, Xenko, Ogre3D, Cocos2d-X, or whatever else rocks their boat.
If you are happy playing D. Quixote, by all means keep doing it.
Game studios won't change their culture just because of some guys having HN and Reddit 3D API flamewars.