Up until a few years ago, the common train of thought for a
developer was this: If we are doing a new game, we need to make a new engine. In many
cases before an actual game could be developed, programmers had to spend years creating
the core technology to run the game, and then the designers and artists were let loose in
the environment to make the actual interactive experience. When you think about it, what
happens in the game industry is unlike any other form of media – When a filmmaker
wants to make a new movie, he doesn’t have to go out and develop a new type of film
to capture his images. However, most game companies believe that developing their own
technology allows them to have an edge over the competiton – whether it be a new
feature, faster processing, or in many cases, simply an engine that is custom-made to
their game’s specifications. At this year’s E3 show, developers who promised
their 3D engines were the "next big thing" inundated me. "Our technology is
miles ahead of Unreal!" said on 3D game designer. "Could you do this kind of
detailed architecture in Unreal? Absolutely not!" Maybe we should talk about how
their engine was only running at 10 frames per second…
Without question, there has been a lot of cannibalization of technology in this
industry because of so many developers fighting to keep their 3D engines competitive.
Sure, one engine may offer a key feature over another, but the bottom line is that most 3D
engines are relatively similar these days. This is, in part, due to the manifestation of
hardware-only engines, which allows most of the graphic processing to be transferred to
the 3D card, thus making it a lot easier for programmers to create a visually stunning
engine with little effort. However, with elements such as artificial intelligence,
character models, and even multiplayer support, there is such a huge overlap in
development that it is positively ludicrous – Does every game developer really need
to start from square one when developing the artificial intelligence for their game? No
wonder there are few really incredible strides made in AI, because developers have to
waste 6 months of their time just re-creating what someone else has done.
I should note that there is something to be said for developers sharing their
technology with each other which sometimes leads to less "from the gate"
development, but these friendly exchanges are few and far between. In many cases game
engines are reverse engineered (meaning a programmer will take it apart and figure out how
things are done) in order to create their own technology. It was widely rumored that
LucasArts reversed engineered the Doom engine in 1994 in order to create their engine for
Dark Forces.
Nevertheless, will the game industry dwindle itself down to a few key developers of
technology; the Kodak and Fuji’s of the game business? Perhaps for specific types of
games, yes, but at the same time I don’t know if there will ever be an
across-the-board game engine or tool that will allow you to create a puzzle game just as
easily as a 3D action game. New tools such as the Motivate animation engine from the
Motion Factory allow developers to easily create character animation in their games, and I
think the real future trend for development is in malleable toolsets. Up until this point,
the tools most developers have had are very non-game centric: Photoshop and 3D Studio are
great tools for many different outputs (from flyers for a raffle to 3D game models), but
there are few game specific tools in existence today. In many cases, developers create
tools for their games and then throw them out after finishing the project.
After 3D Realms announced that they were switching to the Unreal engine for Duke Nukem
Forever, I was amazed at the online reaction. The bottom line is that Unreal has a rich
set of tools for the developer, and as such, 3D Realms doesn’t have to spend months
creating their own tools. This will save time at the end of the day. In many cases, most
games are delayed because game designers are working with an unstable piece of technology.
With finished technology such as Unreal, a game’s development cycle can be much more
stable because of the locked technology. Although Unreal is far from a complete set of
dream tools to create a game, it’s definitely a step in the right direction and a
step up from Quake, which one could argue was never really developed for anything but what
id did with it in Quake and Quake 2.
It’s obvious that Unreal was developed with the Unreal game in mind as well as the
idea of extensibility for other products. As such, copious developers have signed up to
use the technology for their games. However, one executive at a software publisher said to
me last week, "We’re really concerned with all these Unreal engine games coming
out. Aren’t they all going to look the same?" The ‘nothing new at a
glance’ syndrome was indeed the original reason companies started developing their
own game technology. However, Unreal’s modular design should allow developers to
build their own unique environments. For instance, maybe a developer will decide to
re-write some elements of the engine yet maintain other parts, at least saving a
significant amount of time on certain elements of the game engine. Of course, the onus is
also on the developers to actually take the time to change the engine and not just shovel
out a game with the existing technology and no modifications. If the engine is as robust
as Epic promises and if all the developers tailor the engine to their needs, I think we
will see a lot of very different looking games on the market down the road. Unfortunately,
since Unreal has been released, I fear a lot of developers have looked it at and said
"Ok, we know what this engine can do, so let’s change the graphics, weapons and
enemies and we have a new game." This isn’t how to look at the engine – It
should be looked at as a clean slate just like a piece of undeveloped film. Will the
engine restrict creativity? It’s impossible to say at this point, but all technology
is, by its very nature, somewhat restrictive. The question is whether the time saved in
development will outweigh the possible creative freedom a developer might have with an
all-new piece of technology.
If anything, this technology licensing could be a good thing for gamers – The
battle for your gaming dollar will now be waged based on new gameplay features and not
technology. If everyone is starting to use the same engine as a foundation, most of the
innovation in future game will come in terms of gameplay – How developers can add
more immersive elements to the environment. No one can be sure of exactly how well Unreal
will adapt to new gameplay elements, but this will be where its viability as a licensed
technology is tested. If the engine proves to be just made for games very similar Unreal,
its life will be short. But if developers are able to add and subtract elements from the
engine and craft their own unique gameplay experiences with Unreal as a basis, it could
easily develop into a very important milestone in the development of games. Finally,
developers might not have to re-invent the wheel with every product (Although undoubtedly
many will continue to attempt just that).
