One of the challenges faced by both worlds is to be able to prototype and iterate on ideas pretty fast. This requires to adapt to new techniques and new tools.
- On the one hand, video game developers are able to build amazing interactive 3D games on consumer devices. You look at some of these games and think: wow, these guys are super sharp in building both technologies (if they use middleware, they’ll usually say they re-wrote everything anyway) and beautiful art and gameplay. Yet, they widely suffer during the production process, spend millions of dollars to get to the level they targeted, and usually struggle to generate new intellectual properties and kill game projects before it’s too late.
- On the other hand, PLM actors master designing products virtually and create “interactive reviews”, with a whole bunch of software technologies with high-class, real-time rendering features like RTT and Opticore, or sometimes 3DVIA Virtools. These industrials have for the most part clearly understood the value of creating virtual design first. However, only a few other them, as far as I know, have moved to the next wave: making a much more interactive review, involving many kind of experiences. They clearly have to move forward in order to extend the research field.
Using the same techniques and/or technologies?
You got my point, now please take a look at what my friend Martijn Steinrucken, concept designer at Electronic Arts said a few months ago at the Dassault Systemes Developer Conference (DevCon).
Part 1 is about the history of video games and where we are now. For those who are already familiar with this industry, I suggest to fast forward to the end segment or directly to the second video;
Part 2 is about a key pain chain of the video game industry: how to convince people about your ideas and projects.
So, does this ring a bell? If you get rid of the fancy looks of the characters involved in the presentation, I guess this translates well to PLM issues.
P.S. If you missed the beginning of my Gaming-PLM series, here are my previous posts:
From Building Products to Experiences: Can Gaming Technologies Help? Part 1
