Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Are Gaming Studios the Most Innovative Tech Companies Out There?

Posted by Soulskill on from the aside-from-the-sequels dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "Computer games are big business, with millions of players and billions of dollars in revenue every year. But that popularity puts game studios in a tough spot, especially when it comes to mobile games that need to serve their players a constant stream of updates and rewards. That pressure is leading to an interesting phenomenon: while IT companies that create more 'serious' software (i.e., productivity apps, business tools, etc.) are often viewed as cutting edge, it might be game developers actually doing the most innovative stuff when it comes to analytics, cloud and high-performance computing, and so on. Broken Bulb Studios, Hothead Games, and some other studios (along with some hosting companies) talk about how they've built their platforms to handle immense (and fluctuating) demand from gamers."

5 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Just About by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I think it is a fair statement. Unlike most business software, games actually have to be high quality in order for people to use / want to use them. Compare this to trying to pay your verizon bill online. Talk about phoning it in, hahaha.

  2. Military or university by schneidafunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I assumed the most innovative technology development, regardless of field, is in a military or university setting.

    --
    Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
    1. Re:Military or university by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Obviously this person doesn't know anything about real university research...

      -Private cell phone companies aren't working on 'mesh networks' that dynamically route packets around bad nodes or anything like this.
      -Cell Carriers aren't looking into new software defined radio algorithms that automatically change frequencies to avoid interference
      -Private companies aren't looking into producing new security models, encryption algorithms, and crypto systems (that aren't meant as DRM to stop people from doing what they think should be allowed, like ripping DVDs, etc)

      -Show me what "private" company is looking to design ACTUAL secure Cyber Physical Systems (buzz word, but still) There is lots of univ. all working on this....
      -Leap Motion: https://www.leapmotion.com/ result of univ. research
      -Occulus Rift :Direct result of Stanford research http://www.oculusvr.com/
      -Google: Direct result of Univ. (Stanford?) research and 250,000$ government grant into search technology (which they published their results, elliptic curve search techniques... or some such name like that )
      -MIT and all of its robotics& media lab results...
      -Vanderbilt Medical school is doing amazing research into electronic healthcare records, and 'actually' trying to make them useful/secure

      And thats just some of the biggest private schools, for public schools....ohh wait... they are having their money cut because people like 'parent' don't realize what good 'that silly university research' funding

      Video game companies such and the resulting ATI/Nvidia/etc GPU hardware, Leap Motion, Occulus Rift, and i'm sure many many more that I'm skipping over right now, exist because of the drive for better video games/video game tech. Games implement the newest "shader technique" or "physics algorithm" that was developed ANYWHERE, and those "anywhere" are usually Univ.

      So "big government" doesn't implement anything anymore(almost, i think the IRS still has some cobol coders) unfortunately we've outsourced most 'government' jobs to contractors such as boeing, lockeed martin, etc.

  3. Re:Ummm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm pretty sure the main innovation by gaming companies is treating high-skilled, high-demand employees like crap.

  4. No, and also no by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Some game companies do innovate, I don't want to take that away from them. But they're not coming up with new technologies most of the time. Stuff tends to appear in a technical paper before it ever appears in a game these days, maybe gets presented at siggraph or something even before anyone can put it into a commercial product.

    "Tech" also covers a lot of ground. When you consider the complexity of what's going on in biotech, video games are a footnote.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"