>increased Monetization of Product Derivatives" >- a.k.a. make gamers pay for mods.
My point was that at some point modders will be released from having to give their work away for free. The result is there will be some monetization of this and that could result in more mods and people supporting teams who produce good ones. It doesn't mean much of it won't remain free otherwise or by choice of the developer. Already some developers have done this in the form of boxing and distributing various mods like CounterStrike.
>"Complete Toolset Integration & Standardization" >Ah yes, the glorious uber-prize that all >people want to see. One toolset for all >genres of games
Actually I didn't advocate what you are talking about. The "toolset" I'm referring too are more generic things like Bink, Renderware Studio, Havok, 3D Studio, Alienbrain, etc. Not a one-size-fits-all kit. I think I even said that there will be specific engines for specific genres. Also if you haven't played morrowind, EQ, or Asherons call, why couldn't you use an FPS engine to do a kick but RPG?
>"Development Teams Become More Transient" - >In other words, we don't want to pay for a >full-time team of professionals.
Again, misinterpretation. I'm talking about professionals who are hired in a different manner. In fact, the fmr. Xbox manager for MS recently wrote about this issue in Wired. Teams today are not very transient. They are hired in-house, and stay together as a unit for multiple projects at the same publisher. Instead if tools make it easier to manage the process I see publishers moving back to a time where they outsourced lots of development. It doesn't mean they will seek cheap unprofessional labor. It means that you're brought aboard a project, you do your job, and when you're done you leave and hook up immediately on another production elsewhere.
>Except for the cell-phone part. Hard-core >gamers wouldn't have the guts to actually >talk to another person from the game.
Actually the technology inherent in a number of cellphones and thus cellphone games makes it impossible to talk to someone during the game. Doing that requires you to drop out of the network and lose state. Overtime this will get fixed. However, in the article I didn't necessarily make this point vis-a-vis cellphone games. I pointed out that they, and PDAs, would at times offer supplemental access to PC and console titles, e.g. helping arrange a trade in madden2024 so when you got home the trade was done. Or corresponding with your characters allies in a wargame or game like EQ.
Actually the article does say it could happen but not until there is a way to author content on the PC and then send it to a console using the Internet. Already we have one system with built in harddrive, and now two systems with online gaming (3 if you count the defunct Dreamcast). Once you have broadband out there and can effect network storage (a service Gamespy offers developers via an API) you could create a symbiotic relationship between PC based level design and modification and consoles.
No doubt it's a ways off. The level design might happen sooner than later, but complete mods might take longer given some of the problems inherent in console controls by the publisher. Still it's not out of the realm of thought or engineering possibility, you just have to start looking a generation or two down-the-line.
Well I apologize for not reaching back to games like Miner2049er or Mr. Robot which did have a level editor (loved that game) but I did mention pinball construction set. I also remember a modded version of Pole Position for the Atari 800 where you could build your own tracks and the sector editors for Ultima to make your own maps there too (or to cheat). I could have also mentioned EA's Adventure Construction Set or a similar kiddie title that was from Spinnaker. I could have slipped these in but it seemed superflous to add that level of detail.
I learned to program on a Commodore Pet in 3rd Grade. I wrote my first text adventure on a Vic 20.
However, the fact is that the FPS genre - especially under the guise of Doom and Half-Life have shown more and more where the future of development may be heading. Thus the focus does start there in terms of the piece.
This is flawed thinking though. I agree that we are in a transition phase where story like Warrens are still more of the rule. However, overtime it is nearly inevitable that these problems will be mitagated more and more over time and it won't be true that "most of the time it's just better to write one yourself."
As for triple AAA titles. GTA3 uses Renderware. So did Tony Hawk in some cases I believe.
I think many people don't realize how many titles are being developed with less and less proprietary technology. Even then so much of the market doesn't care. Big Fat Greek Wedding didn't make 137 million to date because of ILM special effects or THX soundtrack. As the parent buying Tony Hawk for their 10 year old if they know how much of it was built using an off the shelf engine. Do you think they'll shreak and stick it back on the shelf?
I find it odd you decide to attack me personally? You don't even know me... oh well. Here is my reply to some of this...
Yes you are right - I didn't create tons of new thought. However, I never claimed to be inventing all of this. What I did was try to pull together a bunch of disparate thoughts a lot of people have and put some organization to it, which is a key part of any piece of writing. It allows people like you to see it all together so you can then attack me.
As for the standardization comments. You're point was the same as mine in the article at some point standardization will increase. I think we're disagreeing on how fast but arguments of degree are never winnable on either side without until time passes. Also the point about speed and edge are hogwash now. GTA3 was never state of the art and it outsold lots of other SOA games. Yes SOA games will do well - we all like the latest and greatest but I think GTA represents the fact that if a huge hit game both with hardcore and casual gamers can be built using products like Renderware then it's going to get increasingly harder for every team at every publisher to justify building an engine from scratch.
Yes technology does force changes but the thought that game developers after 20 years can't start to create standardized files with some level of backwards compatibility is crazy. The performance vs. function curve is rapidly dwindling and as it does standardization will grow. If you spent some time talking to Mike King at Criterion as I did at last years GDC you'd see that a lot of people are talking about this stuff and some are doing it even now. Talk to the guys at RAD Game Tools as well. Bink Video is becoming a defacto standard for game video. Talk to Jack Moffit the creator of vorbis and see how quickly that's become a standardize file format (royalty free to boot and open source) for a lot of game audio.
Over the last 20 years mostly propreitary processes, tools and engines where the rule. Over the next 20 years they will increasingly become the exception. The macro-economics of the game industry and moores law will nearly dictate it. As I said in the article there will always be room for innovators and the Carmacks of the world but it will be far more standardized.
This problem should have been solved... I'm checking on it. Run the Vu.exe from the root directory you installed it too and see if that solves it... it's a problem in a desktop shortcut that shouldn't be there. We might have some latent downloads still out there which weren't updated. I have my admin looking into it.
Sorry.
- Ben Sawyer
This is funny because the software was designed by a previous CFO of Stanford...William Massy. Also a big request of some larger universities is do we model a med school. Evidently they are notoriously ornery situations to deal with.
- Ben Sawyer
I don't think anything was posted given that I'm involved with the project and do the postings and grassroots reachout.
We've been around for a while but until 2.0 was complete we hadn't done a ton of aggressive posting about the project. I did submit a note about a paper on public policy games of which Virtual U was mentioned but that was a general discussion of games in general not Virtual U specifically. Perhaps someone else might have posted something about it? In any case the only other thing I would submit is when the source becomes available later next month...
I doubt that Maxis is interested as a publisher but Will Wright has seen the game and generally was supportive of our efforts. He is freinds with the program officer at the foundation that backed it. In general Will supports all sorts of stuff like this. I think he's happy to see games and game design approaches being applied to other needs. Even if we pale by comparison to some of his works it's nice to be seen as an outgrowth of his work.
Ben Sawyer
No we don't let you switch to an open source IT infrastructure. As your point says, it's hard in a game to provide the same level of penultimate decision making that real-life allows.
This can be dealt with in a few ways:
1. Build a framework that lets you add over time ever more detail and realism
2. Build a game where many areas are conceptual and abstract so that people can explore core issues and imagine the details that make up their more general decisions (i.e. fill in your own backstory as you cut the IT budget because you're moving to open source IT tools).
3. Build some that has immense detail in it. (aka never finish.)
With Virtual U we went with a bit of the first 2 ideas. Ideally overtime with support we hope to continue progressing things toward ideas like more detail to the IT decisions given feedback and such however the original goal is to focus on the big issues and general decisions.
One other issue with the IT stuff that is important is to understand what the real impact is. Is there detailed analysis available saying what switching to an open-source infrastructure does to a universities IT budget? Does it really work? While we've undoubtably put some bias in our product, as we go forward and begin to add more detail like this we're inevitably going to add more bias to the model.
Also I think it can be safely assumed that in Virtual U some % of your overall IT budget is going to open source tools and infrastructure. It would be interesting to know what % of universities IT budgets are spent on such tools and services. Maybe the guys at Educause would know. I'll ask them.
This isn't necessarily true. We also released the source for 1.0 although for many reasons we couldn't make it truly open source (yet). We are committed to releasing the 2.0 source code soon. One thing you fail to realize about graphics APIs and frameworks is you need developers who were familiar with them and a management staff who was familiar with them as well. We didn't have that so we went with what was known. The point was to develop the model not make the ultimate piece of open source code.
We also have published a lot of our design notes, pushed the product to free status, and will be publishing more about the model and source soon. Slashdot just posted stuff about Neverwinter Nights for that matter and we're a heck of a lot more open that that product.
We plan on having the source for 2.0 soon. We're working out a few kinks first to get a 2.01 then we'll be releasing the source for this as well.
We are encouraing people to want to port it to other platforms as well. It will run on Macs that have Virtual PC we tested it as such and confirmed it works acceptably if your Mac is fast enough. The development approach, and budget for VU didn't allow us the ability to do multiplatform although we wish we'd done it.
Ben Sawyer
Virtual U project team
Slashdot Mirror
Let me reply to this point-by-point.
>increased Monetization of Product Derivatives"
>- a.k.a. make gamers pay for mods.
My point was that at some point modders will be released from having to give their work away for free. The result is there will be some monetization of this and that could result in more mods and people supporting teams who produce good ones. It doesn't mean much of it won't remain free otherwise or by choice of the developer. Already some developers have done this in the form of boxing and distributing various mods like CounterStrike.
>"Complete Toolset Integration & Standardization"
>Ah yes, the glorious uber-prize that all
>people want to see. One toolset for all
>genres of games
Actually I didn't advocate what you are talking about. The "toolset" I'm referring too are more generic things like Bink, Renderware Studio, Havok, 3D Studio, Alienbrain, etc. Not a one-size-fits-all kit. I think I even said that there will be specific engines for specific genres. Also if you haven't played morrowind, EQ, or Asherons call, why couldn't you use an FPS engine to do a kick but RPG?
>"Development Teams Become More Transient" -
>In other words, we don't want to pay for a
>full-time team of professionals.
Again, misinterpretation. I'm talking about professionals who are hired in a different manner. In fact, the fmr. Xbox manager for MS recently wrote about this issue in Wired. Teams today are not very transient. They are hired in-house, and stay together as a unit for multiple projects at the same publisher. Instead if tools make it easier to manage the process I see publishers moving back to a time where they outsourced lots of development. It doesn't mean they will seek cheap unprofessional labor. It means that you're brought aboard a project, you do your job, and when you're done you leave and hook up immediately on another production elsewhere.
>Except for the cell-phone part. Hard-core
>gamers wouldn't have the guts to actually
>talk to another person from the game.
Actually the technology inherent in a number of cellphones and thus cellphone games makes it impossible to talk to someone during the game. Doing that requires you to drop out of the network and lose state. Overtime this will get fixed. However, in the article I didn't necessarily make this point vis-a-vis cellphone games. I pointed out that they, and PDAs, would at times offer supplemental access to PC and console titles, e.g. helping arrange a trade in madden2024 so when you got home the trade was done. Or corresponding with your characters allies in a wargame or game like EQ.
Actually the article does say it could happen but not until there is a way to author content on the PC and then send it to a console using the Internet. Already we have one system with built in harddrive, and now two systems with online gaming (3 if you count the defunct Dreamcast). Once you have broadband out there and can effect network storage (a service Gamespy offers developers via an API) you could create a symbiotic relationship between PC based level design and modification and consoles.
No doubt it's a ways off. The level design might happen sooner than later, but complete mods might take longer given some of the problems inherent in console controls by the publisher. Still it's not out of the realm of thought or engineering possibility, you just have to start looking a generation or two down-the-line.
- Ben
Well I apologize for not reaching back to games like Miner2049er or Mr. Robot which did have a level editor (loved that game) but I did mention pinball construction set. I also remember a modded version of Pole Position for the Atari 800 where you could build your own tracks and the sector editors for Ultima to make your own maps there too (or to cheat). I could have also mentioned EA's Adventure Construction Set or a similar kiddie title that was from Spinnaker. I could have slipped these in but it seemed superflous to add that level of detail.
I learned to program on a Commodore Pet in 3rd Grade. I wrote my first text adventure on a Vic 20. However, the fact is that the FPS genre - especially under the guise of Doom and Half-Life have shown more and more where the future of development may be heading. Thus the focus does start there in terms of the piece.
This is flawed thinking though. I agree that we are in a transition phase where story like Warrens are still more of the rule. However, overtime it is nearly inevitable that these problems will be mitagated more and more over time and it won't be true that "most of the time it's just better to write one yourself." As for triple AAA titles. GTA3 uses Renderware. So did Tony Hawk in some cases I believe. I think many people don't realize how many titles are being developed with less and less proprietary technology. Even then so much of the market doesn't care. Big Fat Greek Wedding didn't make 137 million to date because of ILM special effects or THX soundtrack. As the parent buying Tony Hawk for their 10 year old if they know how much of it was built using an off the shelf engine. Do you think they'll shreak and stick it back on the shelf?
I find it odd you decide to attack me personally? You don't even know me... oh well. Here is my reply to some of this... Yes you are right - I didn't create tons of new thought. However, I never claimed to be inventing all of this. What I did was try to pull together a bunch of disparate thoughts a lot of people have and put some organization to it, which is a key part of any piece of writing. It allows people like you to see it all together so you can then attack me. As for the standardization comments. You're point was the same as mine in the article at some point standardization will increase. I think we're disagreeing on how fast but arguments of degree are never winnable on either side without until time passes. Also the point about speed and edge are hogwash now. GTA3 was never state of the art and it outsold lots of other SOA games. Yes SOA games will do well - we all like the latest and greatest but I think GTA represents the fact that if a huge hit game both with hardcore and casual gamers can be built using products like Renderware then it's going to get increasingly harder for every team at every publisher to justify building an engine from scratch. Yes technology does force changes but the thought that game developers after 20 years can't start to create standardized files with some level of backwards compatibility is crazy. The performance vs. function curve is rapidly dwindling and as it does standardization will grow. If you spent some time talking to Mike King at Criterion as I did at last years GDC you'd see that a lot of people are talking about this stuff and some are doing it even now. Talk to the guys at RAD Game Tools as well. Bink Video is becoming a defacto standard for game video. Talk to Jack Moffit the creator of vorbis and see how quickly that's become a standardize file format (royalty free to boot and open source) for a lot of game audio. Over the last 20 years mostly propreitary processes, tools and engines where the rule. Over the next 20 years they will increasingly become the exception. The macro-economics of the game industry and moores law will nearly dictate it. As I said in the article there will always be room for innovators and the Carmacks of the world but it will be far more standardized.
This problem should have been solved... I'm checking on it. Run the Vu.exe from the root directory you installed it too and see if that solves it... it's a problem in a desktop shortcut that shouldn't be there. We might have some latent downloads still out there which weren't updated. I have my admin looking into it. Sorry. - Ben Sawyer
This is funny because the software was designed by a previous CFO of Stanford...William Massy. Also a big request of some larger universities is do we model a med school. Evidently they are notoriously ornery situations to deal with. - Ben Sawyer
"Eric Stratton, Rush Chairman, Damn Glad to Meet Ya."
Hi,
I don't think anything was posted given that I'm involved with the project and do the postings and grassroots reachout.
We've been around for a while but until 2.0 was complete we hadn't done a ton of aggressive posting about the project. I did submit a note about a paper on public policy games of which Virtual U was mentioned but that was a general discussion of games in general not Virtual U specifically. Perhaps someone else might have posted something about it? In any case the only other thing I would submit is when the source becomes available later next month...
Ben Sawyer
I doubt that Maxis is interested as a publisher but Will Wright has seen the game and generally was supportive of our efforts. He is freinds with the program officer at the foundation that backed it. In general Will supports all sorts of stuff like this. I think he's happy to see games and game design approaches being applied to other needs. Even if we pale by comparison to some of his works it's nice to be seen as an outgrowth of his work. Ben Sawyer
No we don't let you switch to an open source IT infrastructure. As your point says, it's hard in a game to provide the same level of penultimate decision making that real-life allows.
This can be dealt with in a few ways:
1. Build a framework that lets you add over time ever more detail and realism
2. Build a game where many areas are conceptual and abstract so that people can explore core issues and imagine the details that make up their more general decisions (i.e. fill in your own backstory as you cut the IT budget because you're moving to open source IT tools).
3. Build some that has immense detail in it. (aka never finish.)
With Virtual U we went with a bit of the first 2 ideas. Ideally overtime with support we hope to continue progressing things toward ideas like more detail to the IT decisions given feedback and such however the original goal is to focus on the big issues and general decisions.
One other issue with the IT stuff that is important is to understand what the real impact is. Is there detailed analysis available saying what switching to an open-source infrastructure does to a universities IT budget? Does it really work? While we've undoubtably put some bias in our product, as we go forward and begin to add more detail like this we're inevitably going to add more bias to the model.
Also I think it can be safely assumed that in Virtual U some % of your overall IT budget is going to open source tools and infrastructure. It would be interesting to know what % of universities IT budgets are spent on such tools and services. Maybe the guys at Educause would know. I'll ask them.
Ben Sawyer
This isn't necessarily true. We also released the source for 1.0 although for many reasons we couldn't make it truly open source (yet). We are committed to releasing the 2.0 source code soon. One thing you fail to realize about graphics APIs and frameworks is you need developers who were familiar with them and a management staff who was familiar with them as well. We didn't have that so we went with what was known. The point was to develop the model not make the ultimate piece of open source code.
We also have published a lot of our design notes, pushed the product to free status, and will be publishing more about the model and source soon. Slashdot just posted stuff about Neverwinter Nights for that matter and we're a heck of a lot more open that that product.
Ben Sawyer
We plan on having the source for 2.0 soon. We're working out a few kinks first to get a 2.01 then we'll be releasing the source for this as well. We are encouraing people to want to port it to other platforms as well. It will run on Macs that have Virtual PC we tested it as such and confirmed it works acceptably if your Mac is fast enough. The development approach, and budget for VU didn't allow us the ability to do multiplatform although we wish we'd done it. Ben Sawyer Virtual U project team