Technological innovations

It is emphasised in many texts on game development that, compared to other cultural products, such as films, the particular challenge in creating games is the requirement for technology development by the team. Guérin (2006) describes game development as equivalent to film production with the addition that the team creates their own cameras and microphones for each film. However, game development also differs from film production in the sense that the characters and environments appearing in games need to be created by the developers. Thus the challenge in game development is to both create the characters, stories and action and also to build technologies that capture and recreate them. In addition, the interactivity of games forces game developers to take into account and prepare for each and every contingency that the player might face.

It would be impossible to gather an exhaustive list of all technological innovations concerning game software. Here the emphasis is on innovations that affect gameplay, that are not incorporated into the devices discussed earlier and that are evident for game players.

Technological software innovations fall roughly into three types. Innovations in graphics improve the appearance of the game, usually with the objective of photorealism. Innovations in simulation improve the physical realism of the game in terms of Newtonian physics. This means that cars accelerate, decelerate and skid and balls fly and bounce as you would expect them to on the basis of

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real life experience. Innovations in gameplay allow new kinds of game experience in terms of the objective of the game and the alternatives that the player can choose from.

The development of graphics has been very much tied to the capabilities of the hardware. While many of the early games were text-based, raster graphics as well as complementary vector graphics were used early on. Pong is an example of a game with raster graphics where images are represented as an array of pixels. It does not allow zooming or variation in the viewing angle.

Vector graphics uses primitive geometric shapes such as lines, points and curves to represent objects on the screen. These are based on mathematical equations and thus zooming becomes possible by changing the multipliers in the equations. Vector graphics is still a 2-dimensional method, even though it allows pseudo-3D, also called 2.5D, representation. An early example of 2.5D graphics is Battle Zone (1978) where the 2D graphics created a 3D perspective and the gameplay was done in 2D. Such early pseudo-3D games, however, presented shapes only by their outlines. There were no surfaces, just lines. Surfaces and more detailed imagery came soon with the arcade games Zaxxon by Sega and Q*bert by Gottlieb. They were both released in 1982 in the arcades and afterwards to second generation home devices (DeMaria and Wilson 2004, p. 84-87).

An Atari arcade game I, Robot from 1983 was the first commercial game to have filled 3D polygon graphics and shading. It still took a decade before such graphics became commonplace in home game devices. Shading has subsequently gone through many developments. Gouraud shading is a computationally efficient way to achieve smooth alternations in lighting without having to calculate the lighting conditions for each pixel. An early game to benefit from this technology was Strike Commander (1993) by Origin Systems.

Another development was the use of fractal graphics. This was done, for example, in EA‘s Starflight (1986). The galaxy was different in every game session as the planets were generated from fractal graphics. This allowed the exploration of a very vast galaxy as it did not need to be created planet by planet by the game designers as the graphics logic did the work. (DeMaria and Wilson 2004, p. 164-183) In the late 1980s the games industry started to use rotoscoping technology that had been used in film animations for decades. Rotoscoping entails tracing over live- action film movement frame by frame to create a smooth and realistic animation. An early game to make use of this technology was Prince of Persia (1989) by Brøderbund. Digital rotoscoping was invented by Smoking Car Productions who commercialised it in their 1997 game The Last Express.

Another innovation in animation was the use of claymation by The Neverhood in a game of the same name from 1996. Graphics realism was also advanced with motion capture. Acclaim Entertainment developed motion capture technology for games in the early 1990s. They showcased the technology at SIGGRAPH '93 conference and Acclaim Motion Capture System was released in the public domain in 1994.

In the early 1990s graphics were still 2.5D. The best-selling Doom (1993) was dubbed a pioneer in immersive 3D graphics but technically the graphics were pseudo-3D. The environment was modelled in 3D, but gameplay and movement was limited to a 2D plane. Another important pioneer of 3D was Virtua Fighter released in 1993 in the arcades and later for Sega Saturn. It introduced a

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moving camera that showed the fighters from all angles and zoomed in. It has been defined as the first 3D-polygon fighting game. However, the actual fighting was done in 2D. (Newman and Simons 2007, p. 236-238) Even though 3D graphics have subsequently become prevalent, pseudo-3D has been used in games where the gameplay does not require free-roaming in 3D space.

For example, side-scrolling platform games do not need 3D graphics. An example of these is New Super Mario Bros. (2006), which included a beautiful 3D environment, but the player could move only in 2D.

The evolution of the graphics capabilities came together with the use of CDs as the storage medium for games. CDs have a large storage capacity and thus allow more intricate graphics. The first huge CD-ROM hit game was The 7^th Guest (1990) by Trilobyte Software (DeMaria and Wilson 2004, p. 257). In 1993 CD-ROM drive was becoming a standard in home computers and The 7th Guest and Myst (1993) were important games for showing and using the potential of the new medium (p. 259). However, the first game on CD was already released in 1986 when Cinemaware published Defender of the Crown in that format.

Full 3D graphics have been used since the mid-1990s. Examples of early games with full 3D include Descent (1995) and Quake (1996). They allowed free-roaming in 3D space and made any viewpoint possible. However, this was not the end of the evolution of graphics as innovations such as ragdoll physics in the early 2000s and developments in lighting and shadowing in mid-2000s have allowed the representation of increasingly photorealistic worlds. The development of graphics engines has also allowed incrementally increasing detail in 3D models. Ragdoll physics refers to the modelling of non-rigid bodies, such as dead opponents, whose falling and tumbling needs to differ from rigid body objects that bounce. Ragdoll physics algorithms are supported, for example, by the Unreal Engine 2 used in the Unreal Tournament (2003). ―Next-generation effects‖, such as volumetric lighting and bump mapping, have been used in games like Half-Life 2 (2004) and Peter Jackson‟s King Kong (2005) (Newman and Simons 2007, p. 148-149).

As graphics have become more and more advanced, graphics engines have come to be sold by game development studios to other developers. An example of a popular product is the Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. It was first introduced in the 1998 first-person shooter Unreal. It has been licensed to many developers since then and new versions have been introduced. The first Unreal Engine from 1998 included collision detection which handles situations where solid objects intersect. This ensures that people do not walk through walls or each other. The second version, Unreal Engine 2, was launched in 2002 and included ragdoll physics. Unreal Engine 3 released in 2007 had improvements in lighting and shadowing, such as high-dynamic range rendering, per- pixel lighting and dynamic shadows. Unreal Engine 4 is under development.

Attention should not, however, be directed solely to the development of graphics. Prior to graphics engines striving for photorealistic worlds and accurate representations of Newtonian physics, other important aspects or realism have been developed. Earl Weaver Baseball (1987) by Electronic Arts was the first game to simulate wind conditions, fielders‘ and runners‘ speeds and ball velocity. Prior to this randomness was used to determine where the ball lands and who is able to reach it. (DeMaria

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and Wilson 2004, p. 164-183) Another EA game Indianapolis 500: The Simulation (1989) set a new standard for realism in racing games. The car could spin and drive in the wrong direction on the track which was not possible in earlier games. (p. 164-183) Another development in racing realism was Grand Prix Legends (1998) by Papyrus Design Group which was the first game to simulate a proper clutch (pp. 298-9).

Even though all the above mentioned innovations affect gameplay, more specific gameplay innovations are also discernible in the history of games. A very important one is non-linear gameplay. Early games had straightforward missions, such as killing the enemy, landing on the moon, catching the competitor or hitting the ball with the paddle. Linear games have a predetermined order in which challenges are confronted. For example, the mission in Donkey Kong is to pass through four phases by avoiding obstacles in order to save the princess.

Non-linear games, on the other hand, allow the completion of tasks in alternative order and the exploration of side-quests and subplots that are not mandatory in terms of winning the game. Early non-linear games include the space trading game Elite (1984), the action game Metroid (1986) and the city building simulation SimCity (1989). In Metroid the purpose is to complete the game. There are, however, different kinds of endings depending on how the game has been played. Elite and SimCity are different in that the game never ends. In Elite the player aims at more and more spaceship upgrades whereas in SimCity the building of the city does not reach any ultimate goal.

These are thus sandbox games meaning that the player can keep on upgrading and building without ever winning the game. The full exploration of 3D space that came in the mid-1990s coined the term ‗free-roaming‘ which also refers to non-linear gameplay.

Other games notable for technical gameplay innovations include Maniac Mansion (1987) by Lucas Arts, Doom (1993) by id Software and Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (1994) by Blizzard. Maniac Mansion introduced multiple user-selectable characters with significantly different abilities and critical clues contained in numerous cut-scenes (DeMaria and Wilson 2004, p. 198-205). The player could choose with which character she played the game and this selection had an effect on the outcome. Cut-scenes as a method of storytelling allowed the development of more intricate stories as the game graphics of 1980s were somewhat underdeveloped. Animation could offer more detail and more immersive experiences.

Doom is a landmark game in that it offered several technical gameplay innovations. The Doom engine was capable of recording player action and this turned games into a spectator sport (Mäyrä 2008, p. 105). Doom also introduced the Deathmatch mode, which was a new kind of multiplayer experience. Previously multiplayer gaming had been turn-based or split-screen. Thus players could only play one at a time and take turns in competing on who scores the highest or alternatively play simultaneously by splitting the screen into two. Now players could shoot their friends and foes by setting up a Local Area Network. (ibid. p. 110) Deathmatch type play was popularised further in Quake (id Software, 1996) and Unreal Tournament (Epic, 1999). Doom also contributed by popularising modding, i.e. the creation of game modifications by players (ibid.).

However, the first game to allow user-created levels was Lode Runner (1983) by Brøderbund.

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Warcraft: Orcs and Humans greatly contributed to the creation of the real-time strategy genre. Prior to this strategy games had been turn-based, which meant that players had to wait for their turns to make a move. In 1997 Blizzard launched Battle.net together with the real-time strategy game Diablo. This allowed multiplayer gaming over the Internet (DeMaria and Wilson 2004, p. 268-271).

Figure 15 maps the technological innovations in software in relation to hardware generations. The division of innovations into minor and major is a subjective judgement as these innovations do not contribute to advances in easily measurable performance criteria. Many of the innovations introduce a new function, such as high score (1978), free movement (1980) or angles and zoom (1993). Many of the innovations improve the graphics and physical realism of the game, such as pseudo-3D graphics (1978), motion capture (1993), ragdoll physics (2002) or volumetric lighting (2004). All of the included innovations are major in that they stand out in an environment where most games come with something technologically unique in them but naturally not each and every game is included.

The innovations introducing new functions are classified based on whether they are technologically trivial, such as high score, or technologically ambitious, such as angles and zoom, to implement.

The trivial ones are deemed minor and demanding ones major innovations. Innovations relating to graphics and visual realism are major when they introduce a new process into game development, such as motion capture. Minor innovations are refined versions of doing something that has also been done before as well. Volumetric lighting, for example, fits into this category.

Figure 15. Major and minor technological innovations in software in relation to the introduction of new hardware generations.

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The introduction of the first, third and fifth hardware generation coincides with several major innovations in software, whereas the introduction of the fourth and sixth hardware generation coincides with several minor software innovations. The second and the sixth hardware generation were not accompanied by software innovations. Of the 51 technological software innovations appearing in the Figure, 19 took place simultaneously with the introduction of a new hardware generation and 31 at other times. If we include the years 1972-2007 we have 46 innovations. Of those 19 coincided with the introduction of new hardware generations and 27 did not. An average of 2.7 technological software innovations took place in new hardware generation introduction years and an average of 0.75 per year at other times. Thus technological innovations in software coincided to a considerable extent with the emergence of new hardware generations.