how powerful is java in this area ?

Good day everyone

im researching about making games in java, im absolutely new on this and i want to know which games (famous games) are developed in java so i can realize the power of this tecnolgy in this area

if someone already know how to make games in java, please share your experience so i can know where am i getting into.

hope anyone can help me with this and if anyone can share a book to start on this will be great

thanks in advance

The biggest barrier to Java in terms of high performance games is the garbage collector. You never know when it will start[*] and it can eat several tenths of a second every time it does... at which point you can kiss your frame rate goodbye.

As far as examples goes, the only one that springs to mind is Puzzle Pirates. It's a 2D puzzle-based MMO. Quite a bit of fun, though not exactly cutting edge technology.

[*] The GC can start every time an object is created. You have to pre-allocate pretty much everything, then work hard to avoid all the cases where you might allocate something without realizing it.

There's a pretty good video intro to the topic published under the Google IO series (from their Android Development conference):

http://developer.android.com/videos/index.html#v=U4Bk5rmIpic

And the 2010 edition:

http://developer.android.com/videos/index.html#v=7-62tRHLcHk

The game engine he developed is available in source at, and is built around OpenGL-ES (their embedded version, the one you'll find on Androids and similar devices).

Another famous game made in Java is Runescape.

Some links to a few engines realized in Java:
http://www.jmonkeyengine.com/showcase/games/
http://bytonic.de/html/screenshots.html
http://ardor3d.com/

If you are completly new to game-development then Java is powerful enough for you.