I think with the coming of jdk 1.4, or heaven forfend 1.5, java will come into its own as a gaming language. I doubt it will ever will ever be the language of choice for framerate dependant games for the next couple years. Once everone has the 1.5 ghz machine that will push 80 fps even with java, then maybe we will see a java quake. You can use OpenGL with java but you can''t get the same fps that you get with C. I prefer Magician, even though it was discontinued because the documentation is miles better than GL4Java. I still hold out hope that Sun will bit the bullet and standardize on some opengl interface. But I am almost a hardcore java fanatic, so take it with a heap of garlic, I don''t like salt.

The fanatic is incorruptible: if he kills for an idea, he can just as well get himself killed for one; in either case, tyrant or martyr, he is a monster.
--EM Cioran

Opere Citato

1)
I''ve thought about Java game programming ever since I saw the first JDK 1.0 betas flying around the web. And I''ve been developing my own game platform for couple of years now.

The good things in Java are:
+ Much easier to handle than C++ with all its hairballs
+ More productive (you get the game done faster)
+ Internally more secure, which means you''re less likely to crash your computer when testing your programs.
+ Can be included on webpages as applets
+ Supports and enforces object orientation unlike e.g. Basic
+ Cross platform

The bad things in Java are:
- Performance is still lower than with C/C++
- Garbage collection makes you think that you don''t need to worry about object creation and their life cycles, which is total rubbish. You just don''t have the level of control that you have in C/C++.
- JDK versioning is becoming a problem as some systems still have only 1.1 or 1.2 JDK level runtimes while Sun is already beta testing 1.4.