[This article originally appeared at Edge-online.com. To see the original, click here.]
written by Geoff Selzer, CEO Emergent Game Technologies
In the near future, the game industry has the potential to enter a time of turmoil or to embark on a creative evolution that will greatly empower games, education and industry for generations to come. The question is whether we’ve learned from our past. Will the hardware and software companies work together to develop a powerful development environment or will chaos become the rule?
We stand on the precipice. We must create hardware and software that seamlessly work together, empowering studios of all sizes to harness this technology for its intended purpose – to facilitate creative expression and further the development of amazing games.
Intel’s CPU/GPU many-core chip announcement, Larrabee, was responded to quickly by AMD. Combined with the success of the GPU (led by NVIDIA), this firmly establishes that complex multi-threaded computing will be fundamental to the future of complex computing tasks. Since the videogame industry is on the forefront of visual computing, driving the sales of personal computers and consoles, it is safe to say that games will lead the next generation by exploiting many-core technologies.
We are now presented with a choice: either evolve consciously and design our future rationally or get bloodied in a battle without winners.
The opportunities for our industry are tremendous. We can bring a level of visual realism beyond anything available today. Combining real story-driven games using visual realism, sophisticated physics and behavioral simulation will make the worlds we create truly breathtaking.
However, as exciting as the implications of this increase in processing power are to our industry, the risks are also massive. It’s simple. True multi-threaded game development is really hard. In spite of the promises to the contrary, we can safely assume that the additional complexity imposed on developers will be significant and costly. We must level the playing field.
The risks of not adequately preparing for the next generation of chips were illustrated by the near disastrous launch of Sony’s PlayStation 3. This extraordinary piece of technology nearly failed due to the increased requirements forced on developers.
Sony is now recovering from its previous mistakes. The new leadership is doing a tremendous job selling the PlayStation 3’s unique features. Nevertheless, the costs were significant. We can do better.
With many-core CPUs, visual computing as language will come closer to reality. Our ability to light up education through the worlds we create will captivate future generations. Visually based social environments and virtual worlds will immerse users on a much deeper level, increasingly impacting commercial, military and security industries. It will even have an effect on the film world, both creatively and financially, as the ability to make animation in a real-time environment revolutionizes the creative process.
None of this is particularly visionary anymore, but what is exciting is that we are getting within reach of these visions that many of us have held for 15 to 20 years. For the game industry there is a simple solution – conceptually, at least. The next generation will require deep integration with software development tools and runtimes. I don’t just mean multi-thread interactions, but truly optimized tools that allow for the complete integration of rendering, physics, AI, simulation and sound.
The industry needs to think of the next generation of consoles and PCs from a holistic point of view. The harder it is to harness the technology, the less resources are dedicated to make new and compelling content. Chips, consoles, software development environments and runtime technologies have to work seamlessly to ensure success for next generation gaming. The complexity must disappear into the background so developers can focus on what they do best, which is to create great games.
The good news is that some of the 600-pound gorillas are starting to recognize the challenges ahead and are taking steps to tackle the problem. The growing battle for middleware and tools is the clearest indication we have. Chip companies have figured out what they need to give developers a holistic package of hardware and software. Intel’s acquired Havok and Project Offset, NVIDIA swallowed up Ageia for PhysX and followed that with a powerful outreach to the middleware industry as a whole. Autodesk is involved with Kynogon and their Human IK on the software side – and it’s no secret that Autodesk and Intel have shared board seats before. Microsoft and Sony are increasingly demonstrating their awareness of how critical the seamless integration of development environments with console runtime environments really is.
The next evolution of games and game development will be profoundly impacted by Intel, NVIDIA, many-core chips and multi-threaded development as a whole. Whether through partnership, acquisition or internal development, chip companies are going to have to ensure that developers are prepared for multi-threaded development. The raw power available needs to be accessible by a wide audience and not just the few studios with the resources to dig deeply.
This will lead to the blossoming of games and all kinds of software. Computer animation didn’t really bloom until tools matured and techniques to produce leading edge visuals were available to artists and producers on a broad scale. Max, Maya, LightWave, Softimage and the community of users and plug-in developers made the industry. They empowered a generation of animators. The same will happen in the game industry when we recognize that games represent the most complex integration of technology and art of any medium we have seen to date.
There is a lot at stake, but the rewards are also enormous. What is required is a level of abstraction, tools and middleware designed to work seamlessly, targeted towards exploiting the vast power being served up, designed to ease development and enhance creativity. A well-integrated execution will liberate developers to do what developers do best – build great experiences.
We must all now work together to create a level playing-field for all who want to play. The result will be more fun – and more money – for everyone in the industry. The real beneficiary, however, will be the consumer who will get better games and see the power of visual computing in their everyday lives.