Standards and Interoperability A Game Developer s Perspective
Get off the computer, Peter! - Mum, circa 1995 Flight Simulator 95 worked for me because: It was affordable It was customisable It enabled training transfer
Remember Simulation Games? The 1990 s were a great time to be a geek!
VBS1
Welcome to the Game Industry!... a global industry estimated to be worth $100 billion by 2017! 155 million Americans play video games FOUR OUT OF FIVE U.S. Households own a device used to play video games 42% of Americans play video games regularly (3 hours or more per week) The average game player is 35 years old, and 44% of game players are women 56% of most frequent gamers play with other gamers
Game Engines The majority of AAA games are made using a handful of engines.
Game Middleware Middleware provides off-the-shelf functionality for game engines. Physical simulation Artificial intelligence Animation Lighting and clouds RakNet networking engine Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) back-ends
A healthy market... Competition drives game engine and middleware technology Technology is readily accessible and affordable Developers have direct access to consumers, e.g. Steam
A healthy market... Competition drives game engine and middleware technology Technology is readily accessible and affordable Developers have accessible routes to market and direct access to consumers, e.g. Steam
Gaming vs M&S Purpose: Games are typically designed to entertain and awesome gameplay is the primary desired outcome M&S technology exists for all sorts of very good reasons e.g. Imparting training and stimulating learning Conducting research Mission planning Operational support etc etc
Gaming vs M&S Market Size: U.S. games revenue was $15bil+ in 2014 This is expected to grow to $20bil by 2019 U.S. M&S opportunities (virtual / constructive / gaming) could be valued at $1bil+ Gaming could address 10% of the U.S. M&S market ($150mil) but a typical AAA title will have a development cost of ~$50mil, and a marketing budget of 3x this!
Gaming vs M&S Route To Market: Steam provides direct access to consumers, with a 30% to 50% commission to Valve, the publisher Game reviews provide excellent Quality Assurance (e.g. peer reviews) M&S is dominated by large system integrators, who deliver expensive proprietary systems for very good reasons
Gaming vs M&S Standards and Interoperability: In the gaming space, standards are driven by the business need to increase efficiency and enable re-use In M&S, standards are driven by end-user desire to connect systems together (and to enable re-use)
Standards in Gaming Interchange File Formats are formats that can be opened in multiple applications, e.g. OBJ - holds only geometry FBX - stores geometry, textures, animation information etc Collada - intended as a universal format IFFs are typically supported by industry standard toolsets Adobe 3ds Max Maya Motionbuilder Standard libraries Peripherals DirectX Re-usable code SDKs
Interoperability in Gaming In the M&S space interoperability is the notion of communicating between applications In the gaming space this almost never happens! Not even for the same game on different platforms! Some notable exceptions, e.g. Eve Online and MS Flight Sim
Gaming vs M&S Standards and Interoperability: Games almost never use M&S standards Lack of awareness Performance concerns Security (cheating) concerns Over-use of standards may discourage innovation!
Case Study: CIGI Designed for air, ground support is limited Custom IG defined packets required, e.g. Populate vehicle Damage entity Lifeform stance Lifeform weapon attachment Vehicle lighting controls Custom packets break the standard! But at least CIGI implementation is relatively easy hosted on SourceForge with test applications
Case Study: CDB CDB (Common Database) is an open synthetic environment database specification. CDB is a fantastic initiative to solve correlation issues across different simulation systems. It is unique because it has a runtime specification: CDB pages 3D data to a simulation in real time, across a network. No more correlation issues. Yay! However, there are some limitations. For example, developers can t innovate without changing or extending the CDB format. For example: run-time procedural generation of terrain.
Case Study: CDB but, what if I want to simulate realistic snow?
Case Study: CDB but, what if I want to simulate realistic snow? Biotope switching Snow on 3D objects Snow cutting
A Game Developer s Opinion If you want multiple visual systems to use the one runtime DB format, you might as well use one visual system ;) There is already a trend toward reducing the number of virtual simulation systems UK MoD Defence Virtual Simulation (DVS) US Army Synthetic Training Environment (STE)
A Game Developer s Opinion Standards are generally good. But innovation is critical. Standards are by definition a limitation. Implementing support for protocols and new file formats is quick and easy. Implementing a new run-time terrain representation is super hard (and expensive).
The Standards Complexity Matrix
Military Middleware There is already a range of middleware designed for the M&S market For example, Pitch Developer Studio for plug-in HLA/DIS capability Flexible pricing Easy to integrate Features include: Native HLA Evolved support, any RTI NATO NETN compliant FOM flexible
The Next Wave Of Interoperability? You cannot afford to ignore game technology, because it leads the market in terms of graphics, physics, AI Game technology is already disrupting the M&S market Havok on CFFT VBS3 on CCTT CryEngine and VBS3 on EST VBS is the most widely used simulation in the US Army today "On-demand M&S is already here It s not a technology problem anymore: any game can be an MMOG bandwidth and policy are the biggest roadblocks for M&S You are leveraging game tech and game engines, so talk to game companies Consider standard M&S middleware? Develop a market!
Questions? Presented by Peter Morrison, Co-CEO of BISim, at the SISO 2015 Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop. Please contact BISim at sales@bisimulations.com with any questions.