March 2014 – At Game Developers Conference San Francisco, a number of the mainstream AAA and Console workflows shifted gears and started to support mobile and web based game development. A lot of this shift was due to the multi-core processing and high performance GPUs now available in mobile devices. Another aspect of the shift, was the dilution of time that is spent on consoles by the same players now using mobile and web based platforms. These users, the high end gamers, are demanding console and PC level graphics and immersion in the mobile games at a level that is an order of magnitude above the request from the casual gamers.
Companies like Gamebryo who have been providing 3D workflows for console and PC games for years have now introduced turnkey tools such as their new Reach3DX mobile crossplatform workflow and engine. The framework which is targeted for launch at E3 and in open beta since April, provides cross platform development for Windows / iOS, and Linux (Android) under a HTML5 graphics version. The model for their tool is planned to be a flar $800-$900/title as a one time fee. Initially, the platform does not have a development open asset base for designers to use, but the plan is to introduce one in the future. Their workflow is based on and supports multi-platform code developed in the HAXE programming language. This is also the code base for the engine and platform, in addition to being the supported language for development. The engine will allow for performance optimized native code blocks to be included from a library if needed.
Havok Mobile Game Challenge with new integrated workflow
Moving back to the C and C + + coding world, Unity, Frostbite, Unreal Engine and Havok have all prepared new game engines for targeting mobile. The Unity 5, Frostbite 3, Unreal 4 and Havok releases including their new turnkey mobile flow, all take AAA title and Console functionality and bring them down to the code size and power limitations of a 1080p mobile device. The new Unit5 flow supports single code base to compile to iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Windows, Window Store, Blackberry, OSx, Linux, Playstation, Xbox, WiiU and browsers (IE, Safari, Chrome, and Firefox). This is typical these high end tools. To introduce the new flow from Havok, which even includes a license to Autodesk Scaleform and Audesk Beast, they kicked off a game development competition called Project Anarchy which end May 31, 2014. For the project, the game workflow and tools are completely free to use and include reference games on an open source basis as well as some entry level game assets.
The complexity and detail required for the games and the core hardware standardization that is taking place on consoles (x86 and 1080p output with option for 4K in the future) is behind the code once – compile multi workflows. The target output resolution and look / feel of the games can be made similar for both mobile and console, so the development tools have simplified the efforts so developers can focus on story and the creativity of the visuals rather than custom target optimization.
These tools are bringing the opportunity to have games developed by smaller and more independent gaming companies and should bring a resurgence in the variety of games available on the consoles/PC to being on a par with the diversity in mobile. This will also help stabilize the big publishers who have been dealing with the result of single hardware targeted games.
