Uni-Verse & the Online Gaming Market
Background
The video game industry is one of the newest and most immature areas of the software industry. The first games were released in the beginning of the 70s, but the industry was not really established until about ten years later with the introduction of home computers. In the year of 1998 the global video game industry passed the global movie industry in terms of turnover.
Due to the immaturity and unwillingness of the major hardware vendors, the industry is lacking standards. Depending of what console a game is made for, different tools and file formats must be used, especially for tasks concerning the specific console.
At this point there is no system for content creation like Uni-Verse on the market. There are a few different reasons for this. The major companies like Alias and Newtek are not interested in developing such an open system for their own products, they want their products to be unique and the choice of the customers. Existing commercial plug-in developers have no interest either. If the Uni-Verse system became industry standard there would be no reason to port/sell the same plug-in to different software.
A system like Uni-Verse can be the next step in improving software development processes by introducing a new and unique system for tool integration.
Use Cases
By using Uni-Verse game developers will get new possibilities to heavily improve their content creation pipe-lines and development methods by facilitating direct real-time collaboration:
1. Multi cultural tool usage
When using Uni-Verse the game developer faces the possibility to “connect” different tools with each other. Quality wise this will be a huge advantage in the sense that the developer can always choose to use the most suitable tool for any given task. This also means that new employees do not need to be re-educated for any company specific tool which will save both time and money.
2. Multi user of same object
An important improvement of the development process is multi user of same object. A lot of times workers are standing in queue to access a specific item that has been locked. By using Uni-Verse access to ALL items are granted at any given time. This enables a speeded up process with less bottlenecks.
3. Portable content
A major problem the game developer faces during development for more then one console is the fact that the content might differ. It can be different file formats or suitable file sizes. Usually this means that the same item must be made in different versions. By using Uni-Verse most of this problems can be avoided. Due to the fact that Uni-Verse is not using any predefined file format, items can be exported to any given format supported by the exporter. This will lower the amount of resources and time needed to port a product from one console to another.
4. Real-time manipulation
Another major contribution when using Uni-Verse is the possibility of real-time manipulation. Different tools can be used at the same time to manipulate the same item. The advantage is that the item does not need to be transferred between different tools for different kinds of manipulation. Due to the fact that the item is visible at any given time in any tool the user will be able to control the effects and quality of the manipulation.
Uni-Verse contribution and potential in the execution of games
When Uni-Verse technology is heavily used in the production process of games it will also be natural to use Uni-Verse for execution of the game. For example the real-time manipulation of Uni-Verse could be integrated into game engines. Items such as level meshes could be manipulated and tested in real-time. Usually this is an extremely time consuming task during the last iteration of the production of a product. When using real-time manipulation in-game a developer will be able to speed up the quality assurance process and lower the resources needed.
The current games engines and massively multi-players on-line games are however highly optimized but not as dynamic and general as a Verse solution would be. High execution speed is more important today than generality and easy testing. For on-line gaming the higher network capacity demand of a Uni-Verse solution is also a problem with today’s network technology where a big part of the end costumers only have access to modem connection. Making games today demanding broadband connection would decrease the market potential for the product.
