Abstract
The hardest part of making a game has always been the engineering. In times past, game engineering was mainly about low-level optimization—writing code that would run quickly on the target computer, leveraging clever little tricks whenever possible. But in the past ten years, games have ballooned in complexity. Now the primary technical challenge is simply getting the code to work to produce an end result that bears some semblance to the desired functionality. To the extent that we optimize, we are usually concerned with high-level algorithmic choices. There’s such a wide variety of algorithms to know about, so much experience required to implement them in a useful way, and so much work overall that just needs to be done, that we have a perpetual shortage of qualified people in the industry.
- 1. Fristrom, J. Manager in a Strange Land: Turn-around Time. Gamasutra (Nov. 28, 2003); http: //www.gamasutra.com/features/20031128/fristrom_ 01.shtml (free account and password required).Google Scholar
- 2. Fristrom, J. Manager in a Strange Land: Content Turnaround. Gamasutra (Dec. 5, 2003); http:// www.gamasutra.com/features/20031205/fristrom_ 01.shtml (free account and password required).Google Scholar
- 3. Gamasutra (Web portal for game developers free account and password required): see http:// www.gamasutra.com/.Google Scholar
- 4. Sheldon, A. Linear Algebra Done Right, 2nd ed. Springer Verlag, New York: NY, 1997.Google Scholar
- 5. Hamming, R.W. Digital Filters. Dover, Garden City: NY, 1998.Google Scholar
- 6. Eberly, D. Quaternion Algebra and Calculus, 1999 (updated 2002); http://www.magic-software.com/ Documentation/Quaternions.pdf.Google Scholar
- 7. Green, R. Spherical Harmonic Lighting: The Gritty Details. Proceedings of the Game Developers Conference (Jan. 16, 2003), 1-47; http:// www.research.scea.com/gdc2003/spherical-harmonic-lighting.pdf.Google Scholar
- 8. Blow, J. Interactive Profiling 1-3. Game Developer Magazine (Dec. 2002-Feb. 2003).Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Game Development: Harder Than You Think: Ten or twenty years ago it was all fun and games. Now it’s blood, sweat, and code.
Comments