The Evolution of Video Game Programming By: Jerad Waas

An Overview Video Game History Programming Disciplines The Game Development Process The Present and the Future of Gaming

Video Game History The Origins The 1960s The 1970s The 1980s The 1990s The 2000s

History - The Origins Disputed origins 1950s, 1960s, 1970s William Higinbotham 1958 Entertain guests at Brookhaven Ntl Lab Oscilloscope & Simple Computer Tennis For Two

History - The 1960s Tech Model Railroad Club - MIT Developed Spacewar! On a PDP-1 9KB Firsts for industry: Game to be shared over a network Widely available $120,000

History - The 1960s - PDP-1 Paper tapePDP-1 replica

History - The 1960s Ralph Baer Developed a couple of games: Tag Volleyball Ping Pong Together with Bill Harrison Created the Light Gun

History - The 1960s - Light Gun How does it work? Photodiode Senses light on screen Screen blacks out Diode begins reception Portion of the screen is painted white - typically the target you are aiming for If diode senses black then white - hit!

History - The 1970s The first wave of Magnavox Odysseys were sold ~ $100 Quickly sold 100,000 Sales quickly diminished after

History - The 1970s Nolan Bushnell & Ted Dabney Turn Spacewar! Into a coin-op arcade machine They found a manufacturer in Nutting Associates  Coin-op manufacturer 1,500 machines To complex!

History - The 1970s Bushnell & Dabney Leave Nutting Start up a new company Atari Simple tennis game Pong ~ $1, First units on sale ~ 8,500 units in first year ~ 19,000 total

History - The 1970s Atari reluctantly decides to test the home market Magnavox Odyssey Atari sells the idea to Sears $100 version of Pong Sears’ biggest selling item Home version of Pong Atari “on the map” Household name

History - The 1970s 1972 Steve Jobs joins Atari Technician Exposes Steve Wozniak to Atari and Pong They later form Apple in 1976

History - The 1970s 1975 Midway Gun Fight Two firsts in the industry: First video game to utilize a microprocessor  Intel 8080  Random events First video game to be imported from Japan

History - The 1970s 1976 Apple founded Steve Wozniak Created Breakout Two firsts for the industry: Software was used to run a video game Breakout was programmed in a computer language  Previously, machine code

History - The 1970s Namco 1974 Bought the Japanese division of Atari 1979 Developed the first color video game  Galaxian  Instant success

History - The 1980s Pac-Man Shows the industry two things: Innovation is important Merchandising!  Cereals  TV-Shows  T-Shirts…etc

History s 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System Bundled with Super Mario Brothers Dominated the North American market D-pad now became standard

History - The 1990s Shareware becomes popular because of: Doom Wolfenstein 3D Demo First portion of the game Good way to show off their game Many companies mimicked id Software

History - The 1990s dfx releases the Voodoo chipset Quake was among the first to utilize standalone graphics cards Devoted 3D rendering cards Allowed CPU to handle other computations

History - The 1990s 3D era 32 bit era brings 2 major consoles to consumers Sega Saturn Sony Playstation After many delays… Nintendo bit system Revolutionary system

History - The 1990s Nintendo million units sold in three months Many critically acclaimed games Super Mario 64 Goldeneye 007 The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time

History - The 2000s Current Generation Microsoft XBOX Nintendo Gamecube Sony Playstation 2 DVD capability PS2 & XBOX Backwards compatibility PS2

Disciplines Game Physics Programmer AI Programmer Graphics Programmer Sound Programmer UI Programmer Input Programmer Network Programmer Game Tools Programmer Porting Programmer Lead Game Programmer

Disciplines - Physics Developing the physics in the game Processor cycles are at a premium Efficiency is key FPS games typically demand large teams of physics programmers

Disciplines - AI Develops the logic that the game uses Has developed into a specialized area as of late Pathfinding, strategy, and enemy tactics According to Game Developer Magazine - 60% of time Real time strategy and first person shooters

Disciplines - Graphics Programmers who specialize in developing and modifying complex 3D graphics 2D graphics abilities are still useful though Cell Phones PDAs Scarce in industry Demand high salaries

Disciplines - Sound Full musical scores - been around 3D positional sound - recent First person shooters Programmers try to include the newest technologies Games with large soundtracks or advanced audio, demand teams of sound programmers

Disciplines - User Interface Very important! Must be intuitive, useful-feature, clean, and easy to use Most user interfaces are 2D Some interfaces are developed with the same 3D technology as the rest of the game Advanced interfaces allow custom scripting

Disciplines - User Interface LUA XML World of Warcraft n!

Disciplines - Input Writes code that determines how the player will use the input devices Controller Joystick Keyboard & Mouse Wii controller Motion sensing technology

Disciplines - Input Programmers must recognize and adhere to controller standards WASD A (X) - accept // next B (triangle) - back // cancel If standards are not followed, gamers will be confused

Disciplines - Network Writes the code that allows players to play the game on a LAN and or on the internet Very important in Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) Latency control is especially important Programmers cannot assume all consumers have broadband Must be efficient Might be dial-up gamers

Disciplines - Game Tools Write code to handle tasks like scripting, converting art, batches, modifying the game and levels Half-Life 2 Source SDK Create levels (Hammer) Facial animations

Disciplines - Porting Porting is very important, especially for companies like EA Games available on almost every platform May involve the tools programmer to help convert content Some code may have to be re-written to utilize different hardware

Disciplines - Lead Keeps the programmers focused, and on track Quite often a middle man between the client and programmers Should have a general base knowledge of all aspects of the game Sound Graphics Networking Etc.

The Game Development Process Prototyping Game Design Language API & Libraries Production Crunch Time Maintenance

Process - Prototyping Very similar to normal applications Test ideas and algorithms Give the customer and early glimpse Early screenshots Good way to gain early popularity

Process - Language What language to use? Many dependencies Staff Platform Language of the game engine Most popular C++

Process - API & Libraries Which API & Libraries to use? Tons of libraries out there Sound processing Input Graphics rendering Pathfinding Also depends on target platform Libraries for PS2 may not be available for XBOX360 Graphics API? DirectX OpenGL

Process - API & Libraries A collection of APIs Direct3D The 3D graphics API Not portable Designed specifically for Microsoft products Pocket PC XBOX Windows Revised more frequently then OpenGL Utilizes the latest features of 3D graphics cards

Process - API & Libraries Portable 3D API Easily ported to and from Windows MacOS Linux Revised infrequently

Process - Production Bulk of the time Code…code…code Design documents are constantly changing Lead regularly reports status to supervisor Develop game tools

Process - Crunch Time Towards the end of the production phase Productivity is not proportional to extra hours 2x hours != 2x productivity Adding extra staff may not increase productivity Quality decreases as time increases

Process - Maintenance Console Pre-current generation - next to impossible Hard drives and online- now possible Patches and new content PC Numerous hardware / software combinations Patches are inevitable MMO Genre Extensive maintenance phase New content is always required

The Present and the Future of Gaming Multithreaded Gaming HD Gaming Next Generation

Present & Future - Threading Split up processes Games w/ multiple threads Run more efficiently on HT or multicore processesors XBOX 360 and PS3 Multiple processors

Present & Future - HD Popularity of HDTV Red - Green - Blue Instead of Yellow HD offers: Improved textures Improved character models Higher pixel count

Present & Future - “Next Gen” Microsoft XBOX 360 HD-DVD Nintendo Wii November Motion sensing technology Sony Playstation 3 November Blu-ray

References Computer and Video Games Game Programming History of Computer and Video Games Game Programmer History of Video Game Programming How does the light gun for a video game work? History of the video game industry