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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."

15 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm... by jaymz666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No. At least not the big boys. Unless you call invasive DRM, sequel after sequel and shooter after shooter innovative.

    1. 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.

    2. Re:Ummm... by ArhcAngel · · Score: 2

      You forgot about hiding a subscription model inside micro-transactions and day one paid DLC.

      --
      "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
  2. The Big Question by TechieRefugee · · Score: 2

    So what? How does this really help us? I realize that the same question could be posed for quite a few of these articles, but I really don't see the point. It's just self-applauding, if you ask me. *expects plenty of -1 Flamebaits and -1 Trolls* Oh well; I tried getting my idea across.

  3. 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 MozeeToby · · Score: 2

      About 1% of military is 10 years ahead of civilian tech, the remaining 99% is a cobbled together mess of decades old systems, "tried and true" designs, and things that are just too expensive to update.

    2. 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:Military or university by dAzED1 · · Score: 2

      odd - I work for a company that makes "integrated operating rooms" - cameras everywhere that feed to secure locations, store for training, etc - where via touch or motion-sensing, those participating in the surgery can change the lighting hue(different colors are known to be better for particular surgeries) or brightness, change what camera feeds are on what screens, change the temperature in the room, change the audio feed for the music they're rockin out to - including integrating with itunes, pandora, etc to select channels...all while not compromising the surgical field. And it's for the military - something they're rolling out to practically every MTF in the US. What's the OR look like in your local hospical?

  4. Only the game engine developers... by David_Hart · · Score: 2

    I would consider companies like ID and Crytek to be innovative as they build the underlying game engine. Most other game developers then license the game engine on which their games are developed.

    1. Re:Only the game engine developers... by admdrew · · Score: 2

      Agreed. Carmack is oft considered one of the most innovative devs (games or otherwise) ever, based on the incredible work he did on their various engines, as well as his foresight to what console and PC gaming would become.

      I'd also give a big nod to Valve, who has been tied with highly technical work (building the Source engine out of q1/quakeworld), general gaming innovation (scripted scenes and impressive NPC AI), and business innovation (Steam!).

      --
      LegendMUD
  5. 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.'"
  6. MMO development may be by Shalian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've always said that an MMO is literally the most complicated piece of software one can make. Take every single problem that exists in software engineering, and you have it in an MMO.

    A) Every problem from a normal game.
    1) Resource streaming for an open world.
    2) Particle system running on 5 year old commodity hardware
    3) Physics system to handle projectiles (Even if it's not havok you still need something for the characters falling from the sky.)

    B) Every problem that a business app would have.
    4) High availability clusters
    5) Billing systems
    6) Massive databases
    7) Customer Support back end
    8) Call center support

    C) Every problem that 'internet companies' have
    9) Latency kills
    10) World wide datacenters mapping 1:1 and 1:many architecture pieces

    D) Some nice unique problems for MMOs only
    11) Cross server object replication
    12) More hackers targeting it than they would some banks.

    1. Re:MMO development may be by Rogerborg · · Score: 2

      You're quite right. Having been both a pro and a hobbyist games and games engine developer, I have lost track of the number of times that I have explained to people, sadface engaged, that their MMO goals are unrealistic. Even MO goals. Or O. Or M.

      Finishing a game to completion, any game, is a massive undertaking, and the vast majority of those who try it fail. You have to be delusional to even attempt it, which is why the ledger of successful games developers is replete with visionaries who refused to believe in what can't be done.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    2. Re:MMO development may be by Shalian · · Score: 2

      To be clear, you believe that if the credit card numbers of 11 million subscribers of World of Warcraft was leaked it wouldn't be on the front page of NY Times? What percentage of the banks and utilities you are talking about there have on the order of 11 million subscribers?

      And I described software complexity, not software importance.

  7. Impossible to tell, impossible to measure by dkleinsc · · Score: 2

    There's no obvious measure of "innovation", so there's no way to say which tech companies are the most "innovative". All the word "most" is is totally pointless speculation.

    There are ways in which hardware OEMs are innovative. There are ways that OS vendors are innovative. There are ways that databases are innovative. There are ways that financial software are innovative. There are ways that game companies are innovative. I could keep going with every sector in "tech".

    But it doesn't really matter, because "innovation" isn't really what helps users. What helps users is solving their problem, which is sometimes innovative and sometimes mind-numbingly dull. It isn't even what helps tech companies: What helps tech companies is enough hype to get the market's attention combined with solving their users' problems enough to keep the revenue flowing.

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/