In summary, OpenGL is an abstraction of 3D concepts with many vendor-specific extensions to enable performance. Direct3D is an abstraction of the most common implementation of real world 3D hardware. Game developers did, and continue to, unambiguously ask Microsoft to produce the latter.
I understand the graphics pipeline pretty deeply if anyone needs some clarification.
Comments
I wrote a big comment about OpenGL vs Direct3D with a bit of a historical as well as future looking perspective here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=593801
In summary, OpenGL is an abstraction of 3D concepts with many vendor-specific extensions to enable performance. Direct3D is an abstraction of the most common implementation of real world 3D hardware. Game developers did, and continue to, unambiguously ask Microsoft to produce the latter.
I understand the graphics pipeline pretty deeply if anyone needs some clarification.