Ah, you'd think that. But that's not the case. Here's a quote from Warren Spector, designer of Deus Ex:
Technology forced design changes, too. It took time to become familiar with the Unreal engine. I wish I could say we uncovered all its potentials and limitations quickly, but we didn't. Months of experimentation were necessary to reveal how best to do things in Unreal and what things not to do at all. When we stopped playing with Unreal andactually started working with it (roughly six to nine months after we got our hands on it), lots of ideas we'd come up with in the abstract didn't work quite as well in reality.
Here's a case where game design was sacrificed in name of the existing game engine. Ah, but there's more...
We went into Deus Ex hoping that licensing an engine would allow us to focus on content generation and gameplay. For the most part, that proved to be the case. The Unreal Tournament code we ended up going with provided a solid foundation upon which we were able to build relatively easily. Dropping in a conversation system, skill and augmentation systems, our inventory and other 2D interface screens, major AI changes, and so on could have been far more difficult...
However, to my surprise, licensing technology didn't save us all the time I'd hoped it would. You'd think cutting a year or more of engine-creation off a schedule would result in an earlier release date. On Deus Ex, that didn't prove to be the case. Time that would have been lost creating tools was lost instead to learning the limitations and capabilities of "foreign" technology. Time that would have gone into making an engine went into focusing more on gameplay systems and tuning than normal. Unreal certainly allowed us to focus on content generation over everything else, but we spent more time doing it...
There were times when we should have ripped out certain parts of the Unreal Tournament code and started from scratch (AI, pathfinding, and sound propagation, for example). Instead, we built on the existing systems, on a base that was designed for an entirely different kind of game from what we were making. It's not that Unreal had bad AI or pathfinding or sound propagation, but those systems were designed for a straightforward shooter, which was not what we were making. (The entirety of this can be found at Gamasutra)
As I stated before, using a top-notch third party system might save you some time, but you often need to strip out a lot of the code and do some heavy modifications. Not to mention that they cost several hundred thousand dollars and a royalty percentage. Most of the time it's just better to write one yourself.
When was the last time you made a console game? Why is it then that as a console ages, the games that come out push the limit of the console to new heights? Customization on a console port is key to really making the game hum. As developers become more intimate with the hardware, they come up with new hacks and tricks to get that extra chuck of processing power or memory bank switching to achieve new effects.
As a once-and-future game developer, this is the way I see it. Developers will continue to use the best game engine available to suit their needs. If one isn't available, then they will create their own.
A game engine that allows a user modification later is just gravy. We've pretty much have seen this as a marketing tool to get our game off the shelves and into the hands of gamers. The great success of the Quake and Unreal engines prove this. At first, just to play the Counter-Strike mod, you had to purchase Half-Life.
Currently, only independent developers are using these third-party engines. The main reason is that they lack the resources ($$$, time and people) to create their own engine. These groups quickly find that their engine lacks the power or doesn't handle game functions as they would like. The best games will have the game design create the engine and not the other way around.
Let's face it. To have a AAA title, you need to have your own proprietary engine. Those that use a high-end Quake or Unreal engine will often have to strip out and insert new code to make it work. (Wasn't Half-Life 85% new code?)
I only expect to see more proprietary engines being created (as it always has been) and the ability to create user modifications as a marketing tool to increase sales.
This article really sheds very little light on the demise of 3Dfx. Most of the information is already publicly known. The problem here is that the author was never in a position to know what was really going on, not to mention his writing style is tedious to read.
Which isn't to say that the last two pages of the article aren't interesting. It's clear the author was either a board designer or working on the silcon somehow. These last two pages help me make that assumption, and the insights as to the future chips are worth reading.
But because he was stuck in the trenches, he makes these general statements as to what the "board" was doing. Just your typical rumor-mill and water cooler talk you hear at your own office. I started to have tired head after the formulaic writing that in each paragraph read, "3Dfx tech guys did good. 3Dfx managment made poor decision. NVidia catches up." My advice is to skip over the already publicly known information and get to the last two pages which feature chip specs of cards that never made it to market.
As a game developer, I'm seeing that a lot of people are totally missing the point. The console versus computer issue has been debated for over twenty-five years. It makes me laugh to see the same statements still being used. Back in the early 80's, I recall the same arguments being made about the Atari 2600 and Colecovision against the Apple II and C64.
The difference today is that we're seeing a convergence between consoles and personal computers. The consoles have always longed to have the flexibilty of PCs, while the PCs have always wanted the simplicity of consoles. So what has happened is that the console has become more like the computer and computers have become more like consoles.
The people saying that consoles are better are forgetting that they only just have what PC's have had for years. (Ethernet, hard drives, keyboards) Computers are getting what consoles have always had. (Decent controllers, stable development environments, sound)
We as game developers just sit back and laugh at this stuff. In fact, we think it's great. Within ten years, you won't be able to tell the difference between a console and a personal computer. The fact that consoles are now modular so that you can add a hard drive or a network module is just further proof. The closer consoles and PCs come together just helps to make our job easier when we have to port games to a console. Just look at the marketing Microsoft does to developers for the XBox. "Hey, you can develop for both the PC and the XBox at the same time!"
Many of you are also missing the fact that titles exclusively developed for a platform is just based on money. A platform will pay a developer X amount of dollars just to keep their titles on one platform for a certain length of time. I guess what I'm trying to say is, from a game developer's view, it really doesn't matter to us. It might be a Sony OS vs. Microsoft OS platform war in 2010, but either way convergence is upon us.
You miss the point. The chain of events is totally backwards to what you describe. You don't buy the edited version. You buy the full version, then the edits take place. The editor doesn't get any profits from the edit. The editor instead turns a profit from selling the unedited film. The edits are done as a service, thus encouraging the customer to patronage this store, instead of Best Buy or Blockbuster down the street. Sorta like the oil change place throwing in a free air filter with an oil change.
The proper example should be the Phantom Editor saying, "Hey, you can buy Star Wars here! And after you pay for it, I'll do an edit that I think you'll like better." (No one sells Troopers because it's free and under GPL.)
We can both agree that Hollywood needs to be more consumer friendly and exploit the power of the DVD format better. Including a "TV version" on the same DVD would be great, but until they do, consumers will look for other ways around the issue.
What day of the week did Brisco Country Jr. air on? Oh, like it matters. The show was greatness and it had Bruce Campbell. Bruce Friggin' Campbell. 'Nuff said. A pox on Fox for cancelling that.
486SX? Ha! Back in my day we just had sticks and rocks for computers. Heck, each rock was a pixel and I had to get an awful lot to make a picture. You whipper-snappers don't know the meaning of screen refresh rate when you're dealing with rocks.
I didn't have any of those fancy schmancy optical mice. No! Back in my day we had to use real mice. And then they'd run away so you had to use the stick as a pointer. And you don't know the meaning of upgrade. Heck, I'd have to walk uphill in the snow to get a new stick to use. It wasn't one of them fancy Maple sticks. No, it was one of those that were green and had thorns and moss growing on it.
You young people make me sick. Give me the good ol' days I say.
[Hand-held camera centers on subject on white background. "Steven" is sporting what looks to be a new beard, wearing suspenders over a Tux shirt that almost covers his stomach that hangs over his khaki shorts. Sandals and white socks complete the look.]
Steven: Yeah, I used to tell people to buy Window based computers all the time.
[Camera pans around a bit]
Steven: Yeah, and um, down in Austin it would get like intense over those blue screens that would pop up and like, I just totally couldn't stand that freakin' paper clip. Then my comp sci professor introduced me to Star Office. Like whoa! No paper clip! And like, my buddies say I can play around with the kernal! Yeah, I think he does fried chicken and stuff.
[Camera cuts to close-up]
Steven: Uh, my name is Steven and dude, I got a Del... uh, Linux. Yeah, that's right! Linux.
Ain't It Cool has long ago transformed itself to Ain't It Crap. Far be it for me to troll on poor Harry; others do it better than I can ever do. It's just the "Local Boy Makes Town Proud" headline has faded and so has AIC.
This interview just bares this out. No interviewing skills demonstrated, meandering thought processes and the general kiss-ass attitude is just overbearing. This is hardly an endorsement for Filter Magazine. Sheesh, if this is what they call content, then I'm moving my mouse over to the X button in a hurry.
What I love about the article the most is the picture of the outside of the house. Too bad there isn't anything of the inside of the house and the streaming video is only for paid subscribers. Otherwise, the article is a total fluff piece. No real substance to it at all. It's like a short "House of the Future" blurb right out of the 1957 issue of Popular Mechanics. Changing the world indeed...
For all my sensitive information, I just use my wife. She keeps all my appointments, scheduling and list of chores for me to do in her head. She already has built-in encryption because as everyone already knows, there is just no comprehending women.
It's too bad that the reporter didn't really get in depth with any of the designers. I had the wonderful pleasure of working with Sandy at Ensemble Studios for just over a year. The guy is just pure genius. I could talk with him for hours because he had always something interesting to say on just about any subject.
One thing that isn't covered is his voracious knowledge of history. I remember taking my dad up to work (he has a degree in Ancient History) and just watching he and Sandy just go back and forth on the effects that the chariot had on ancient civilations. In fact, he and Tim Deen basically were the Rise of Rome expansion pack.
But not only that, Sandy would get into all sorts of things. Every day at lunch he would drag out either a new board game or card game to play. I blame him for my Lunch Money addiction. He was always patient and took time to explain game design or a decision he had made about game balance. He was truly a designer in every sense of the word.
He's one of the people I miss most at Ensemble. (No, he *doesn't* wear sunglasses all the time. Suspenders and shorts is another story.) He's a great guy, has a wonderful family and takes time for his kids. In fact, one urban legend about Sandy is that when every one at iD was buying their fast cars after Doom came out, Sandy went out and bought a mini-van.
DR. TARKIN: Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the cavity, I have chosen to test this dentist's chair new laser...
on your bicuspid.
LEIA: No! My bicuspid is fine. It has no cavities. You can't possibly...
DR. TARKIN: You would prefer another target? Some plaque perhaps? Then name the tooth!
Dr. Tarkin waves menacingly toward Leia.
DR. TARKIN: I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where is the cavity?
LEIA: (softly) Left back molar.
Leia lowers her head.
LEIA: It's on my left back molar.
DR. TARKIN: There. You see Darth Dentist, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
LEIA: What?
DR. TARKIN: You're far too trusting. Your back molar is too remote to make an
effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your cavity soon enough.
It's about time companies catered to the programming crowd and provided cups that adequately provide for our caffeinated needs. Whoever is complaining about this obviously has never had an all-night programming session with a deadline the next day, bladder be damned.
But in everyday life, we edit what we consume. I order a hamburger, no onions. I buy a car with a sunroof. I build an addition onto my house. I install Microsoft Word without that annoying animated help wizard. My TIVO skips commercials. I make a mix tape of my CD collection only chosing the songs I want to listen to. I skip the Metro section of the newspaper to read the Business section. I use an ad-filter on my computer to stop those pop-up ads. And so on and so on and so on.
As long as the people make the movies get their money for the full product, this will not hold up in court. If a rental company purchases the movie at full price from the film distributors and then performs an edit, the movie director can't do a damn thing about it.
The problem is that there is a market for this sort of thing and instead of catering to this market, the producers and directors are claiming their art and is being maimed. However, people still have a choice to see the original film. Not everyone sees art the same way, nor should they. That is one of the things that makes art special. Eveyone sees a little something different. If that something different happens to be the deletion of some nude scenes or some foul language, who is to say that doesn't become some new art in and of itself?
Ahhh, but you'd be wrong. There are currently two companies selling devices (or software) here in Dallas that do this type of filtering. I know of five families that use this type of filtering on their DVDs to tone down a PG-13 movie to that of a PG.
The argument is the same with any appliance, music, movie or other media that I buy. Once it's in my grubby hands and I remove the shrinkwrap, I should be able to do whatever I want to it for my own personal use.
What I've seen a lot of people do for movies is to buy it as is, and then either have someone personally edit out portions they don't like or just have some sort of electronic filter that has a set of edit points stored in memory. I frankly don't see how content providers are going to be able to stop this.
Sure, *we* know the sky isn't falling, but the average AOLer who leaves their computer on all day without any type of security or firewall installed could use a wake-up call. If the hype causes people to decide to implement better security and patch their operating systems, why fight it?
It may have been invented in Buffalo, but it was invented by a Texan. Air conditioning is the only thing that makes living in Houston or Dallas bearable in summer.
I know that I'm stupid for saying this, but after the past few years, a benchmark isn't sexy unless it has scenes of flying dragons or a copied scene from the Matrix on the screen. I must have sold my soul to the devil for saying that.
Note: Only illustrated history, not definitive
on
High Score
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I was talking to John Romero about this book last week (turns out that he provided a lot of the pictures) and we both agree this is a fantastic book to get your hands on. While High Score provides lots of glossy pictures, including five or six covers of Akalabeth (minus the ziplock bag), High Score doesn't cover the entire history of gaming. It's a great starting point for researching a fantastic industry.
I highly recommend looking also at Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of Video Games which covers the history of console games more completely. There's also Game Over which details the history of Nintendo from a playing card company to the giant it became in the early 90's. There are others, but more are needed.
The history of video games is sorely underreported and under appreciated. Already many electronic games are disappearing as hardware and platforms become unavailable. The Abandonware scene is alive and well, but quietly our gaming history is disappearing. I encourage all Slashdot readers to read up on your gaming history and try to preserve a great and thriving culture.
Slashdot Mirror
Technology forced design changes, too. It took time to become familiar with the Unreal engine. I wish I could say we uncovered all its potentials and limitations quickly, but we didn't. Months of experimentation were necessary to reveal how best to do things in Unreal and what things not to do at all. When we stopped playing with Unreal andactually started working with it (roughly six to nine months after we got our hands on it), lots of ideas we'd come up with in the abstract didn't work quite as well in reality.
Here's a case where game design was sacrificed in name of the existing game engine. Ah, but there's more...
We went into Deus Ex hoping that licensing an engine would allow us to focus on content generation and gameplay. For the most part, that proved to be the case. The Unreal Tournament code we ended up going with provided a solid foundation upon which we were able to build relatively easily. Dropping in a conversation system, skill and augmentation systems, our inventory and other 2D interface screens, major AI changes, and so on could have been far more difficult...
However, to my surprise, licensing technology didn't save us all the time I'd hoped it would. You'd think cutting a year or more of engine-creation off a schedule would result in an earlier release date. On Deus Ex, that didn't prove to be the case. Time that would have been lost creating tools was lost instead to learning the limitations and capabilities of "foreign" technology. Time that would have gone into making an engine went into focusing more on gameplay systems and tuning than normal. Unreal certainly allowed us to focus on content generation over everything else, but we spent more time doing it...
There were times when we should have ripped out certain parts of the Unreal Tournament code and started from scratch (AI, pathfinding, and sound propagation, for example). Instead, we built on the existing systems, on a base that was designed for an entirely different kind of game from what we were making. It's not that Unreal had bad AI or pathfinding or sound propagation, but those systems were designed for a straightforward shooter, which was not what we were making. (The entirety of this can be found at Gamasutra)
As I stated before, using a top-notch third party system might save you some time, but you often need to strip out a lot of the code and do some heavy modifications. Not to mention that they cost several hundred thousand dollars and a royalty percentage. Most of the time it's just better to write one yourself.
When was the last time you made a console game? Why is it then that as a console ages, the games that come out push the limit of the console to new heights? Customization on a console port is key to really making the game hum. As developers become more intimate with the hardware, they come up with new hacks and tricks to get that extra chuck of processing power or memory bank switching to achieve new effects.
A game engine that allows a user modification later is just gravy. We've pretty much have seen this as a marketing tool to get our game off the shelves and into the hands of gamers. The great success of the Quake and Unreal engines prove this. At first, just to play the Counter-Strike mod, you had to purchase Half-Life.
Currently, only independent developers are using these third-party engines. The main reason is that they lack the resources ($$$, time and people) to create their own engine. These groups quickly find that their engine lacks the power or doesn't handle game functions as they would like. The best games will have the game design create the engine and not the other way around.
Let's face it. To have a AAA title, you need to have your own proprietary engine. Those that use a high-end Quake or Unreal engine will often have to strip out and insert new code to make it work. (Wasn't Half-Life 85% new code?)
I only expect to see more proprietary engines being created (as it always has been) and the ability to create user modifications as a marketing tool to increase sales.
Which isn't to say that the last two pages of the article aren't interesting. It's clear the author was either a board designer or working on the silcon somehow. These last two pages help me make that assumption, and the insights as to the future chips are worth reading.
But because he was stuck in the trenches, he makes these general statements as to what the "board" was doing. Just your typical rumor-mill and water cooler talk you hear at your own office. I started to have tired head after the formulaic writing that in each paragraph read, "3Dfx tech guys did good. 3Dfx managment made poor decision. NVidia catches up." My advice is to skip over the already publicly known information and get to the last two pages which feature chip specs of cards that never made it to market.
The difference today is that we're seeing a convergence between consoles and personal computers. The consoles have always longed to have the flexibilty of PCs, while the PCs have always wanted the simplicity of consoles. So what has happened is that the console has become more like the computer and computers have become more like consoles.
The people saying that consoles are better are forgetting that they only just have what PC's have had for years. (Ethernet, hard drives, keyboards) Computers are getting what consoles have always had. (Decent controllers, stable development environments, sound)
We as game developers just sit back and laugh at this stuff. In fact, we think it's great. Within ten years, you won't be able to tell the difference between a console and a personal computer. The fact that consoles are now modular so that you can add a hard drive or a network module is just further proof. The closer consoles and PCs come together just helps to make our job easier when we have to port games to a console. Just look at the marketing Microsoft does to developers for the XBox. "Hey, you can develop for both the PC and the XBox at the same time!"
Many of you are also missing the fact that titles exclusively developed for a platform is just based on money. A platform will pay a developer X amount of dollars just to keep their titles on one platform for a certain length of time. I guess what I'm trying to say is, from a game developer's view, it really doesn't matter to us. It might be a Sony OS vs. Microsoft OS platform war in 2010, but either way convergence is upon us.
The proper example should be the Phantom Editor saying, "Hey, you can buy Star Wars here! And after you pay for it, I'll do an edit that I think you'll like better." (No one sells Troopers because it's free and under GPL.)
We can both agree that Hollywood needs to be more consumer friendly and exploit the power of the DVD format better. Including a "TV version" on the same DVD would be great, but until they do, consumers will look for other ways around the issue.
What day of the week did Brisco Country Jr. air on? Oh, like it matters. The show was greatness and it had Bruce Campbell. Bruce Friggin' Campbell. 'Nuff said. A pox on Fox for cancelling that.
Curses! Strunk & White have failed me once again. (Or rather, I failed to use Strunk & White.)
Unless of course the editors meant premiere which is the first public performance of something. Nahhh.
No no no no! Everyone knows that you should use yEnc. Get with the times! That'll cut your posts down to only 6,421 parts!
I didn't have any of those fancy schmancy optical mice. No! Back in my day we had to use real mice. And then they'd run away so you had to use the stick as a pointer. And you don't know the meaning of upgrade. Heck, I'd have to walk uphill in the snow to get a new stick to use. It wasn't one of them fancy Maple sticks. No, it was one of those that were green and had thorns and moss growing on it.
You young people make me sick. Give me the good ol' days I say.
Steven: Yeah, I used to tell people to buy Window based computers all the time.
[Camera pans around a bit]
Steven: Yeah, and um, down in Austin it would get like intense over those blue screens that would pop up and like, I just totally couldn't stand that freakin' paper clip. Then my comp sci professor introduced me to Star Office. Like whoa! No paper clip! And like, my buddies say I can play around with the kernal! Yeah, I think he does fried chicken and stuff.
[Camera cuts to close-up]
Steven: Uh, my name is Steven and dude, I got a Del... uh, Linux. Yeah, that's right! Linux.
This interview just bares this out. No interviewing skills demonstrated, meandering thought processes and the general kiss-ass attitude is just overbearing. This is hardly an endorsement for Filter Magazine. Sheesh, if this is what they call content, then I'm moving my mouse over to the X button in a hurry.
What I love about the article the most is the picture of the outside of the house. Too bad there isn't anything of the inside of the house and the streaming video is only for paid subscribers. Otherwise, the article is a total fluff piece. No real substance to it at all. It's like a short "House of the Future" blurb right out of the 1957 issue of Popular Mechanics. Changing the world indeed...
For all my sensitive information, I just use my wife. She keeps all my appointments, scheduling and list of chores for me to do in her head. She already has built-in encryption because as everyone already knows, there is just no comprehending women.
One thing that isn't covered is his voracious knowledge of history. I remember taking my dad up to work (he has a degree in Ancient History) and just watching he and Sandy just go back and forth on the effects that the chariot had on ancient civilations. In fact, he and Tim Deen basically were the Rise of Rome expansion pack.
But not only that, Sandy would get into all sorts of things. Every day at lunch he would drag out either a new board game or card game to play. I blame him for my Lunch Money addiction. He was always patient and took time to explain game design or a decision he had made about game balance. He was truly a designer in every sense of the word.
He's one of the people I miss most at Ensemble. (No, he *doesn't* wear sunglasses all the time. Suspenders and shorts is another story.) He's a great guy, has a wonderful family and takes time for his kids. In fact, one urban legend about Sandy is that when every one at iD was buying their fast cars after Doom came out, Sandy went out and bought a mini-van.
I hope I get to work with you again Sandy!
LEIA: No! My bicuspid is fine. It has no cavities. You can't possibly...
DR. TARKIN: You would prefer another target? Some plaque perhaps? Then name the tooth!
Dr. Tarkin waves menacingly toward Leia.
DR. TARKIN: I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where is the cavity?
LEIA: (softly) Left back molar.
Leia lowers her head.
LEIA: It's on my left back molar.
DR. TARKIN: There. You see Darth Dentist, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
LEIA: What?
DR. TARKIN: You're far too trusting. Your back molar is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your cavity soon enough.
It's about time companies catered to the programming crowd and provided cups that adequately provide for our caffeinated needs. Whoever is complaining about this obviously has never had an all-night programming session with a deadline the next day, bladder be damned.
As long as the people make the movies get their money for the full product, this will not hold up in court. If a rental company purchases the movie at full price from the film distributors and then performs an edit, the movie director can't do a damn thing about it.
The problem is that there is a market for this sort of thing and instead of catering to this market, the producers and directors are claiming their art and is being maimed. However, people still have a choice to see the original film. Not everyone sees art the same way, nor should they. That is one of the things that makes art special. Eveyone sees a little something different. If that something different happens to be the deletion of some nude scenes or some foul language, who is to say that doesn't become some new art in and of itself?
Ahhh, but you'd be wrong. There are currently two companies selling devices (or software) here in Dallas that do this type of filtering. I know of five families that use this type of filtering on their DVDs to tone down a PG-13 movie to that of a PG.
What I've seen a lot of people do for movies is to buy it as is, and then either have someone personally edit out portions they don't like or just have some sort of electronic filter that has a set of edit points stored in memory. I frankly don't see how content providers are going to be able to stop this.
Sure, *we* know the sky isn't falling, but the average AOLer who leaves their computer on all day without any type of security or firewall installed could use a wake-up call. If the hype causes people to decide to implement better security and patch their operating systems, why fight it?
It may have been invented in Buffalo, but it was invented by a Texan. Air conditioning is the only thing that makes living in Houston or Dallas bearable in summer.
I know that I'm stupid for saying this, but after the past few years, a benchmark isn't sexy unless it has scenes of flying dragons or a copied scene from the Matrix on the screen. I must have sold my soul to the devil for saying that.
I highly recommend looking also at Phoenix: The Rise and Fall of Video Games which covers the history of console games more completely. There's also Game Over which details the history of Nintendo from a playing card company to the giant it became in the early 90's. There are others, but more are needed.
The history of video games is sorely underreported and under appreciated. Already many electronic games are disappearing as hardware and platforms become unavailable. The Abandonware scene is alive and well, but quietly our gaming history is disappearing. I encourage all Slashdot readers to read up on your gaming history and try to preserve a great and thriving culture.